You Suffer--But Why?

My Weird, Dark, Twisted Habit

Seventeen years ago. (Seventeen years ago?) When I started this blog, that is, when I decided to take on another thing in addition to taking care of a spouse with chronic illness, making art to sell in galleries, being in porn movies, playing games, and doing all the other chores a person does to stay around and sane, I had a simple idea about doing stuff on the Internet.

In fact, I'd had this idea since I started doing anything on the Internet, much earlier, near the beginning of my art career. Arguably even since I started doing pretty much anything as an adult: 

If I was going to do something--especially something time-consuming--I should know why I was doing it. And, as a corollary, whatever that reason was, I should feel good about that reason, like that was a good reason.

If I was going to hang out on a website I was going to have it for a reason I knew and I felt good about, if I was leaving a comment I was doing it for a reason I knew and felt good about, if I was disagreeing with someone I was doing it for a reason I knew and felt good about, if I was telling everyone someone else should fucking go to jail I was doing it for a reason that I knew and felt good about, if I was telling literally anyone literally anything on here I was doing it for a reason that I knew and felt good about.

A vital caveat here is "because I was bored" is, for me, not a good reason. Because I have about a hundred other more fun or productive things I could be doing if that's the best reason I can come up with. If I'm bored I could read a book

The reason I started writing this blog, for instance, is because I run games at home with my friends and those games are fun and have all kinds of benefits and when I write about games on here I sometimes get ideas from people who I interact with or who build on the ideas I have here about how to make those games more fun. Benefit.

Many People Do Not Have Reasons

One thing it took me a really long time to learn is that most people do not think this way. They just do stuff and are not conscious of reasons.

For many people, they were either born into-, or quickly adapted to-, a world where writing your thoughts and feelings online in a comment section or even a whole blog entry is either:

• As instinctive as breathing
• Literally because they were bored and had nothing else to do, or
• Actually something they're lowkey embarrassed about

Person with very strong takes on what is Problematic in Gaming:
"I love arguing about petty shit and calling people idiots"

I've had this lack of intention rammed home to me in a million ways. In public conversations with people just bragging about how they don't have or need reasons (free speech!), in private conversations with people who repented their poorly-thought-out decisions, in Dr Weisman's article and the interviews she taped, and in perfectly friendly conversations with all kinds of people when just asking them about their lives and why they made the decisions in them.

A lot of people, all over, just never think much about why they're jabbering.

Who Cares?

This seems pretty abstract until you have into a conversation where someone's intentions for typing something and shooting it out into the universe come up.

You ask a guy why they raised a controversial issue, why they decided to get mad about James Maliszewski's specific Kickstarter, that specific niche game's art choice, or the casting of that specific Marvel movie and they act like you just asked for their credit card number and a full survey of their mother's sex life, itemized by year and position.

That is: they act like its offensive to ask them for their goals, or a lot of work for them to figure out their goals, or both. 

Of course, a statement of goals is preliminary to any conversation about whether any given instance of screaming about things on the Internet is going to get you to them or whether those goals are even worth it.  That is: to fix anything or make any of it worthwhile.

A lot of people just haven't thought that hard about it. They're suffering from a terminal case of Heideggerian thrown-ness, just showing up in the world doing things because that seems unreflectively like the thing to do.

Anyway, so...don't be like that? Or at least not when there's stakes to what you're saying.

A Review of Those Magnetic Dungeon-Block Things (& some other tabletop toys)

So you may have noticed, on Facebook and wherever else, ads for Click-Blocks those little magnetic dungeon blocks...

Somebody got them for me for my birthday and my review is: they rule.

Yes, that's a real frog. 1$ on Ebay plus shipping from Guatemala.

Each one is a little cube, scaled for a D&D-scale 5' square, apparently filled with bits of magnetic sand or ball-bearings, so they stick to whichever other block or blocks is/are next to them.

The pack I got had both those grey stone-looking boxes and the wooden-crate looking ones. If you want to get all magical-girl their website has all kinds of Disney-colored blocks for actual children as well which I might pick up.

In addition to all the obvious uses, I also just like:

-Being able to grab a short stack to indicate a character is levitating or whatever

-Quickly snapping-together a little pencil-holder or dice corral or something on my desk

-Using the different-colored blocks or the different pattern-sides to subtly indicate that one block is where a trap or hidden feature is, even though it just looks like I threw a thing together.

The only non-obvious limitation on them is that if you have a block not supported directly from below, it's not strong enough to support a metal miniature--though it might hold a plastic or paper one.

As long as we're here I also want to give a shout-out to just like blocks. Like regular block-blocks. I Ebayed a pack of A-to-Z for like twelve bucks and they're infinitely useful.

I like neat dungeon scenery as much as the next guy--including all the cool walls and stairs and stuff that Dwarven Forge or whatever makes--but the thing is they can be a struggle to keep adapting to situations that come up and crucially, they usually don't stack well. 

Regular old kids' building blocks are at least kind of useful for nearly any situation. Plus they're strong, durable, cheap, less fiddly than Legos, and can be used to teach your players basic shapes and common animals.

In most dungeons I like to use the blocks themselves to indicate a corridor rather than the more model-builder way of using the blocks to build walls and indicate the corridor using the space in-between. It's easier to see them and saves time and blocks.

Also, here's a review of using a real dead giant isopod to represent a giant isopod: freaks players out and works every time.

Also recommended: this wooden prison, sold as a D&D "dice jail" that I picked up at the Ren Faire. The doors slide up and down, so its very serviceable as a dungeon cell---like twenty-five bucks.

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