The City of Suffering

It is the City of Suffering, the City of Pain. No-one likes it, and it's universally (though never publicly) acknowledged to be a bad idea. Or a collection of them.

The streets are dark, the night an unheard-of yellow. A pinkly uncomforting light glows in the high windows. The wild festivals of other nations are unknown here--there are laws, but far more, there is decorum. Joy, or rather, exercises that point to joy, takes one form: display of expensive accessories for pets and children. Occasionally business connections or academic achievements are flaunted so long as they imply a responsibility to some institution or generation the citizen will not live to access but this behavior is more indulged than celebrated..

It is above all serious, but to no serious end: its jokes shoot for zany, flights of impotent, unrevolutionary fancy--like a man attempting to delight his daughter by pointing to a bicycle with preposterously large wheels and a bright yellow frame he would never himself dare to ride--or else they attempt to recruit laughter into a sort of stentorian combat on the side of a conventional wisdom embodying the nuclear hive of unapproached incompatibilities that power the city's dissatisfactions and enrages other citys' Distaffist Factions. They are traded in market tents of burgundy and dark gold.

Although the dissatisfactions are by no means unreasonable, the ultimate and secret source of the City of Suffering's greatest suffering is itself the agonizing closeness of its apathetically intertwined and competing anhedonias. The density of lonely but domiciled souls has inexorably resulted in a city, but they have no respect for what cities are for. They have no pleasures in common and are unified only by a devotion to pain, the performance of pain, the advertisement of pain, the creation of pain, all unacknowledged. An accosted citizen (and they hate to be accosted, they trust no-one clever enough to notice a stranger) would describe themselves as very happy and working for a better world: an aspirational one, obviously (but never admittedly) beyond the experiential reach of any mortal, given the rate of progress one has to admit is typical for sentient species. The only judgment Suffering citizens make is: How much of the distance between your reality and the ideal can you incarnate in the form of pain? How much of the misery of the world can you re-enact? Symbolism and art are permitted but not valued, as they generally turn pain into something that might be mistaken for something other than pain.

The representatives on the ruling Council of Elephantines seeks nothing--its function is to issue decrees implicating or at least juxtaposing anything interesting occurring elsewhere in- or with- (respectively)  the worst atrocities they can describe. The Council is a living commentary on the Councils of all other cities. The very concept of interestingness is suspect--it implies axes of improvement other than from irresponsible to responsible, and canvases smaller than The Planet. 

The City's shame is its lack of endgame: even if at some conceivable point all suffering might end, (practical discussions toward that end are considered vulgar and divisive luxuries of the underburdened) its citizens would be no less dreary--for in truth their citizenship is a lifestyle choice, an admission of a belief that lives worth living are more exhausting than living in constant exhibitionistic exhaustion, and risk is a vice of the overambitious. They have chosen a humble, snailing path across a plain presumed to be wholly flat, toward an undescribed and receding horizon, and despise inventions.

They hate adventurers, of course, and mock them from walled pavillions, and devise excuses to refuse water to their horses. "Poor horse" they say, while masturbating into soggy cheeses that they then name and raise as their own. 

If party members should come to trial they will be placed before a tribunal who will hold forth on the difficulties faced by its own members. Then the trial will end and the party will be executed for having had fun. They will be fed to Misericordiam, the Jackal Queen.

The wind across the city hisses like a serpent god slowly scheming off-screen, yet the daytime clouds coming in white waves present a guileless sky. The city is just a natural consequence of the gravity the dutiful but uncreative exert on one another, and like a lesser planet on the rim of a solar system it can only hurt you if you come close. 

There is no treasure here, and no magic to speak of.

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Basically yeah the devil makes work for idle hands

Assumption 1:

Online communities produce good stuff when a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise meet can trade ideas with a minimum of noise and abuse. 

(Note that abuse and criticism aren't the same thing, criticism can be constructive. Abuse: lying, trolling, etc, can't.)

You get enough people talking with a low enough cost to talking and some statistically inevitable fraction of them will be smart and talented and learn from each other, becoming a whole greater than the parts. I consider that inevitable.

Assumption 2:

Abuse and noise come from dickheads.

Conclusion 1:

You get a good community producing good stuff by making a big community and excluding or rehabilitating dickheads.

Assumption 3:

Communities have a hard time agreeing who is a dickhead, or doing anything about it even when people clearly break rules the community espouses. This is familiar territory.

Any list of things not to do (guidelines, codes of conduct, strident Twitter hashtags about not being racist or sexist) falls by the wayside when contemplating members of that community who can claim to have some other value--they're productive,  they're powerful, they're entertaining, they're friendly, etc. Practically speaking, everyone can claim to have some other value--there's no douchebag so douchey that nobody in the community can't at least make an argument that some good outweighs the bad they do.

In the end most communities end up judging people more on whether they fit that community's genre of behavior than on whether the person did something to violate the community's explicit standards. Which just makes them into abusive, harassy echo-chambers.

Conclusion 2:

Communities need better ways to determine who is a dickhead.

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Gaming's most dickhead-rich subcommunities can give a helpful negative example. You can look at places where there's lots of participants, but so noisy or intolerant that no useful ideas ever get generated: When the desperately low level of discussion at Story-Games.com was criticized, the founder--Andy Kitkowski--defended it by going "Hey man, this is just a place for people to hang out and talk, people don't necessarily want to be challenged" when RPGnet's bigoted mods and sexism are brought up, Shannon Appelcline defends it by saying "The rules there create a pleasant community", Something Awful's purpose is, allegedly, to tell jokes--but the RPG threads aren't jokes, they're fairly earnest contests over who can most effectively smear people who don't play their preferred games, theRPGsite and Gaming Den have no rules or statement of purpose beyond "talk about games" and the same goes for many of the more hostile old-school forums.

What these places all have in common is describing no explicit reason to be beyond continuing their own existence.

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Think for a second about the difference between two different definitions of the purpose of a community:

-To talk about games

-To learn about games

These both seem kindergarten-level innocuous but the first one suggests that members should be censured, excluded, avoided, rehabilitated or removed (practically speaking people are usually just avoided) if they interfere with talking about games--which is an almost impossibly high standard. Even the most douchey members of the game community are fully capable of harassment or abuse while still talking about games.

If we assume the point of a community is to learn about games however, we suddenly have a guideline with teeth, that can be used to judge behavior:

Somebody a sizable chunk of the community considers a charming rogue keeps shitposting? That doesn't help anyone learn about games.

Somebody is very earnest and well-intentioned and accuses a game of being broken yet can't provide any proof?  That doesn't help anyone learn about games.

Somebody's kinda funny while lying about someone's game? That doesn't help anyone learn about games.

Someone asks questions about how games work that make some members stressed out because they don't have the presence of mind to realize there's no penalty for answering "wrong"? That's fine: it helps people learn about games.

Obviously that doesn't solve all problems, and I don't think "learn about games" should be the one-size-fits-all purpose of game communities, but the point is...

Assumption 4:

The more specific and explicit a community is about goals their ongoing conversation is pursuing beyond "to have a conversation", the easier it is to collectively and fairly identify people who are acting against that goal and being dickheads.

Conclusion 3:

In order to be healthy and worthwhile and not abusive, communities need to focus as much or more effort on describing why they are talking at all as they do on what kind of behavior they consider shitty.

(Assumption 5:

For some people this conclusion is anathema because talking about games is itself the main entertainment, and it serves no purpose being pursued out in the real world. These people are too boring to care about and should get lives.)

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At this point you might be wondering what I think the reason I write on this here blog is. It's been the same since the beginning: the purpose of this blog and any activity connected to it is to improve my game at my house. I write my ideas here so people can read them and maybe give me new ideas, I write books so that I can use them and so that other people will steal the ideas and write better books that I can use for my game, I talk about what a game community should be so that I can benefit from the ideas a good community produces. My goal is practical and selfish in that regard.

You don't have to have that same goal, but I do think you're better off if you know why you're writing and so is everyone else. Like once I remember Joethelawyer said he wrote his blog so everyone would know how smart he was--that definitely helped me know what kind of conversations I do or don't want to have with Joe.

I think a lot of people, consciously or unconsciously, do have this same goal as me in DIY D&D though: they have a game, they have ideas, they want to trade so they can have a richer and more fun game. Once you've explicitly said "this is why we're talking" a lot of bullshit can be cut through very quickly. For example: we collectively produced The Hexenbracken very quickly by describing a problem we needed solved--we want an easy-to-use hexcrawl--and then creating a thread that only allowed for behavior directed toward that goal.

The thing is: after a while you get what you need. You learn how to run the kind of game you want to run. When you need less, you give less, and the community tumbles past you. So just as the tree of liberty needs to be fed with the blood of tyrants, DIY D&D needs to be fed with problems to solve. When people have no real problem to solve they either don't show up or just show up out of loneliness, and you haven't got any decent reason to cut the good from the bad--after all you're just there to pass the time and shittiness passes time as well as niceness. This is why people tend to post better stuff when they're actually playing.

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In the past few years, the DIY RPG scene has had a lot more success than anyone might've expected. It rescued lots of good ideas from the trash and invented lots of new ones that keep getting used, it introduced a new diversity to gaming, it produced publishing companies that actually turn a profit, it influenced a new edition of D&D that's proved to be popular, it put out products and web widgets that will probably be sought after for as long as tabletop RPGs are a thing, it exposed the pretensions of many of the worst elements in the game scene, and, more than all of that but less tangibly, it got information and new ideas into the hands of thousands of people who are using the ideas at tables that they might not have been inspired to play at before. It does, broadly, what it set out to do. But in order to keep doing it, it needs challenges.

So I guess the point is: cherish and share your problems. Tell people what you're trying to do right now and why it's hard to do it. Make it difficult. We're at our best when we have something to think at.
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Get one here.

Be Good.

The picture that sticks with me I heard about second hand--the rescue workers in Orlando going in to the club to pick up the bodies, many fallen where they stood, and all the victims' cell phones still ringing--their friends and loved ones calling to see if they're ok.

The image hits because it's about how things ripple out.

Matt Finch, "the Swords & Wizardry guy" is in a same-sex marriage and was more eloquent than I could ever be about the shooting and about how lives touch other lives--"Except for an accident of geography, Ian and I could have hit the point of "Death Do Us Part.""

Locally, on the same day LA Pride just barely escaped being bombed by some nutjob--and every woman here at D&D w/Porn Stars is L, B or T. This blog wouldn't exist if I wasn't playing games and without them I wouldn't be playing because I'd never have had a game group. My books would have no covers, for lack of models, and no playtesters, and no reason to exist.

An OSR and a DIY RPG scene without the inspiration of like Jennel Jacquays' Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia, without Scrap Princess or Brendan or without many of the other L and G and B and T fans and creators who make this place fun would be much different and suckier.

I haven't got anything smart to say about it that will in any way contribute to one less person getting shot because (yet again) some asshole saw a sexy thing that wasn't their sexy thing and got offended. Just: be a good friend to your friends. Friends are all a community is and friends are all you really have.

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Four Projects, Three Castles

Project One:

Remember Red & Pleasant Land? Winner of 2 gold and 2 silver Ennies the Indiecade judges' award and an Indie Rpg Award?

Well that went ahead and won another award: the Three Castles Award. This one is very special to me personally not just because it has a nifty trophy...

...but also because the judge panel is fucking amazing this year and consists of names I've known ever since I was a wee lad and first started thinking about going into dungeons to kill dragons:

Dennis Sustare--as in Chariot of Sustarre, the most badass druid spell in AD&D--who invented the class
James M Ward--who did Metamorphosis Alpha--the first sci-fi RPG. And who I've heard from multiple sources is literally the best GM in game history.
Zeb Cook--Whose name I know best from the cover of the Oriental Adventures book I read over and over and over and over and over as a child.
Steve Winter--Who did a lot on FASERIP, including the best superhero sandbox ever.
and Steve Perrin--As in fucking RuneQuest.

That's an amazing slate and I'm honored that the people who added druids, laserguns, ninjas, rebel superheroes and die mechanics that actually make sense to RPGs even read Red & Pleasant Land much less decided to give it an award--especially considering the other nominees this year were hella impressive.

Let's hope in a couple decades she writes a game and I get to be on a panel giving her an award.

PS if you don't have one and are going to Gen Con, LotFP, the publisher will be there. Though copies do go fast.

Project Two:

Those of you wondering about Black Metal Amazons of the Devoured Land or Amazons of the Metal North or whatever we're calling it--we're working on it:

The girls modeled as the amazons for the paintings I'm doing, here are some pics from the shoot:

Project Three:

Maze of the Blue Medusa (Yes, I plan to do a book for every color in the goddamn rainbow) is now physically manifest and I am pleased to breathe a sigh of relief and note that neither man nor machine has ever devised a finer-looking megadungeon. Not empty boasting, check it:

Also, if you want to play it at GenCon, hurry up and sign up. The games are being run by Ken Baumann,  Satyr Press' publisher and actual real-life tv actor and he's been hilarious and clever in every game I've ever played with him and cracks everyone up.

Here's an actual-play report. And a thorough review.

There will be copies at GenCon but like they will probably be gone in seconds because they're heavy so each vendor can't really carry that many so you might best just order one.

There might be a few expensive signed copies available, too, maybe. If you're into that sort of thing. And if you get an early flight. Stay tuned to this blog for details.

Project Four:

Some stuff about Project Four:

-Project Four is secret, because it will be the subject of a major and official announcement by a big game company.

-Project Four is going to make all the right people incredibly upset when it's announced. Before they even read it.

-Project Four is taking up all my time right now which is why I haven't been posting much.

-Project Four has two main creative people on it, both doing writing and art: me and a woman whose work I've admired for years.

-The necrophilia was her idea.

-Project Four is weird and experimental.

-While writing Project Four I checked into a hotel. Next to the bed was a bible and a copy of Keith Richards' autobiography. I consulted both a great deal.

-"Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased"

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And now,  a word from our sponsor:

Here

The Lacuna: Winners Advance to Thought Eater Round Three

The winners of the second round of the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Contest are in...

source

Ferris Bueller as RPG beats Lovecraft Was A Bad Shrink

Tolkien Was A Bad GM beats The German Illustrator

Annotated Tomb of Horrors beats Revelation in Lovecraft

RIFTS Psionics beats The Hobbit Movie Is Bad Adventure Design

Strahd is Cooler Than Dracula beats Elven Snowflakes

Casablanca As Adventure Design beat the average

Melville, Freud, Lovecraft beat the average

If any of the authors (winner or loser) would like to out themselves in the comments, feel free to do so now.

Ok, rules for the third round:

-This round is inspired by a line at the beginning of Houllebecq's essay on Lovecraft:

"If one defines a writer not by reference to the themes that they treat, but by reference to those
they repudiate, then one agrees that Lovecraft occupies a place totally apart."

...this is the essay where Houllebecq goes on to point out that Lovecraft studiously avoids sex and money in his fiction.

The crucial point here is: this is a lacuna that Houllebecq had to discover, it was not explicitly on top. Lovecraft's stories are not advertised as "Tales of cosmic horror that don't have typical human relationships or class in them".

So for this round I'd like the winners to take some subject and tell us what is avoided in it--and what this tells us and why it's interesting. It should preferably be something the authors may not even have been conscious of avoiding, and should definitely be something the rest of us are not yet conscious that they avoid.

So, for example, writing about how some iteration of D&D lacks noncombat task resolution is immediately out. Whereas if you discover that nobody laughs during the entire Morte D'Arthur or that no-one ever ever eats in a Clark Ashton Smith story or that agriculture never appears in any RIFTS module or that nothing from Green Ronin publishing ever has the word "pig" in it, that's fair.

As this is a fairly difficult and demanding remit probably requiring a little research, the range of topics is relatively unrestricted other than "it should be an RPG or obviously RPG-adjacent" and that it can't be Lovecraft or Tolkien as we've beat those two to death recently. I would definitely be interested in thoughts on RPGs outside the OSR usual.

-This is different than the previous rounds because I will exercise a veto/editorial power over these. If I get one that has a lazy line like "I don't know why this is, but I think it it's true, or at least interesting" about its central premise, I will be like "This needs to be better, try harder, rewrite". 

-If you are one of the winners named above, then email me your new essay by July 1st--zakzsmith AT hawtmayle with the all-caps subject THOUGHT EATER 3.

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Kill A Church

"the only Christianity they defeated was the last piece of Christianity within themselves. Which is a very good beginning, of course"

--Erik Danielsson in Black Metal Satanica, 2008

Short Preamble

Today's controversy. Remarkable for 3 reasons:

1-Most self-defeating moral outrage in human history.
2-RPG people are still signing onto it. Morally outraged that a comic book has a cliffhanger.

3-Some of the people reading this still pay attention to those RPG people when they talk about games and will keep doing it even after today.

I've long since accepted that 3 will always be true--there is no level of insane that an Indie game designer can be that people won't be like "Maybe I will give Crazy some attention and money?".

So let's not dwell. These conservatives are crazy, Some of you are still reading them, funding them, inviting them into the larger conversation about RPGs. You will never stop. It makes the world worse for fans online and creators, you don't care. Ok.

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But when the world is dumb: let's at least learn something...

Now fucktheory, who not only is very smart but comes at this--helpfully--from a wider philosophical and radical queer background (non-gaming, non-geek) is addressing the issue of cultural appropriation, but this pretty much applies to all the controversies of online psychoculture. Let's Read:

But this...

RPG examples abound. You must consult ninjas, the dumbest thing ever said about RPGs, etc.

This is an important point. The Drama Club never has a concrete checklist of what "doing the thing right" requires--whether that's use of violence, sexuality, cultural appropriation or diversity. At most they point to examples--which devolves to unbelievable vagueness ("be respectful") or, "Well I know it when I see it". In other words: they the critic get to decide what's morally suspect on a case-by-case basis rather than outlining a set of principles that their own work can be judged by.

Also: outlining principles or definitions (of, say "respectful") would invite discussion and Discussion Is Bad.

The obsession with whether a Cap storyline hurts me as a Jew and descendant of Holocaust survivors and all similar controversies where the Drama Club share a Concern on behalf of numb, objectified marginalized people whom they aren't which is inextricably linked to unacknowledged Contempt for the voices of equally marginalized artists they aren't isn't a condition arrived at through thought. It's just their own anxiety and desire for universal concession to concessions they themselves have made long ago made (there's a reason so many are religious or parents--conservatism is the fear someone else is having fun somewhere), writ large and pointed at anyone who points that out.

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So, ok. Maybe you aren't invested enough in the world being good to click the Unfollow button when faced with The Bad. But at least know how it got that way. At least learn something while you're here at D&D With Porn Stars, even if you never ever ever ever ever do anything with what you learned.

Seeya.

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David Foster Wallace Correlating The Mind's Contents

David Foster Wallace talking about an early bout of suicidal depression--as quoted in David Lipsky's Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself...

...it may be what in the old days was called a spiritual crisis or whatever. It’s just the feeling as though the entire, every axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion. And that you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you couldn’t function.

 What's interesting for RPG fans here is: that is exactly how the Cthulhu Mythos stat in Call of Cthulhu works. The more useful things you know about the Cthulhu stuff--the real engine of the universe--the lower your max Sanity.