Some Player Characters I found in the news, this morning
My morning internet ritual is pretty well set. I check my social networking accounts (Google+ and Facebook), see how my products are doing at RPGNow.com, then hit the AOL website for my e-mail and to catch up with the news. Surprisingly enough, this seems to keep me fairly well informed – the people I know on G+ and FB are a diverse and well-informed lot.
I like to keep up with current events and such for a couple of reasons. One, I like to be well-informed, no matter how depressing the world seems to be getting. Two, I write things. Between being an author, an RPG designer, and a blogger, I need a constant stream of things which inspire me to write, both positive and negative. One of the best exercises I can recommend to a writer is to read the news, find something that sparks your imagination, and use it as the inspiration for a short story. Elementary stuff, but it really does the trick. For the last two years of its publication, I religiously collected issues of “The Weekly World News.” I could run a Mage: The Awakening game for weeks by throwing down an issue and saying “find the story that’s true.”
Sometimes, a news story hits me so hard that it brings me to tears, either of anger, frustration, or joy. Stories like, oh, say, this one, right here.
The gist of the story; after a man loses control of his car, three children are trapped inside as the car sinks in a frozen river. As many as ten (10!) bystanders jumped into the river to rescue the children, successfully bringing all three out, and successfull resuscitating the youngest who was not breathing when removed from the car. That story should be front page news everywhere. People who don’t usually read the news should be contacted by people who do, just so that story can get out. No movie I am going to see, no story I am going to write, no game I am going to run is going to be anywhere near as awesome as that news story.
It did get me to start thinking about RPGs, though… because, as anyone who knows Roleplaying games might tell you, those were Player Characters at work.
When you’re running a game (or writing one, for that matter), there’s often an inclination to add action to the story line. People like action in games. It keeps the pace going, gives folks something to roll dice for. We’re emulating our popular culture(s) when we play an RPG, and gamers (for the most part) like them some action. Gun fights, car chases, kung-fu; the kind of stuff that makes you jump and shout when you’re all hopped-up on soda and dice rolling. When I’m running a game, if I don’t get people out of their seats at least once a session, I think I’m doing something wrong.
Seeing a situation like this, though, reminds me that not all action comes in the form of combat or conflict. Sometimes, nothing gets the blood pumping like a rescue. For all the emulation of fictional events that an RPG player likes to indulge in, sometimes, the real world provides inspiration far in excess of what we see in fantasy literature or action movies. Sometimes, you want to drive to Utah to give real people experience points. Heroics come in all forms, after all. Having a character that can survive multiple swords to the face is one thing; having a character with the presence of mind to shoot the window out of a sinking car is something else entirely.
RPGs have taught me a lot. I had undiagnosed learning disabilities at the time I first started playing D&D in earnest. After a few weeks with rulebooks and charts and random number generators, my reading and math skills started to improve. I did a lot of research into asian culture while (and after!) I was involved in an AD&D “Oriental Adventures” campaign. Heck, that’s why I picked up “Sengoku.” I sought out the literature that my favorite games were based on, my problem solving skills improved; hell, I’m dyscalculic (like being dyslexic, but with numbers and equations rather than letters and sentences), and now I can do statistical analysis in my head. I’ve seen a number of people start down some interesting and deep paths of learning based on their RPG hobby.
Maybe it would be a good thing to focus on a certain amount of rescue scenarios in a game where they would fit in. It might just inspire someone to see what it would take to get a CPR or First Aid certification, or learn some lifesaving techniques at the local pool.
Looking at the bravery and complete selflessness that it would take to jump into a frozen-over river to save children in a sinking car, I can’t think it’d be a bad thing to use as a positive model in fiction and/or gaming. I wouldn’t want to encourage someone to take risks that they’re not prepared to take, or to act impulsively where rational thought is required… but that’s what simulations are for, aren’t they? For learning what do to, and what not to do?
In any case, I’m going to see about re-certifying in CPR, myself. If that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, this place right here would be an excellent place to start.
Where I explain my problems with organized religion
For a while there, I was a youth minister. More accurately, I was a DCE, or Director of Christian Education; that’s what it says on the degree and certificate. This was the culmination of a life in the Church as a Missouri-Synod Lutheran, following my grandparents and my parents. My family had always been very devoted to the church, serving on church boards, singing in choirs, and doing any number of other tasks within the faith. My father served as the president of several congregations. My mother did the professional page layout for church bulletins, and crafted the large seasonal banners that hung from the rafters of at least one church we attended. It seemed very natural that I not only go into church service myself, but that I take the step of making it my career.
As you may be able to guess by all the past-tense, that didn’t go well. For my own part, I was a bad match for church work. Don’t get me wrong… at the time I was doing it, I was quite devoted. I loved working with the kids, I was strong in my faith, and I threw myself into it. I’d been teaching Sunday School and directing puppet ministries for years before doing this, and I did my best to perform the duties laid out in my call. There were just some additional duties, not quite so clearly laid out, that were just as important that I wasn’t as suited to. A lot of the day-to-day ministry was difficult for me, and I had a hard time taking myself out to the homes of strangers; absolutely necessary in the position I was in.
I will not detail the process by which I left the church, save to say that it was far more the result of interpersonal church politics than any failing I had in service. It was painful, and those involved spared no effort to make it more painful. I did my best to endure the process with grace… I didn’t want to cause undue distress to those I had been ministering to, so the greater burden of taking responsibility for my leaving was placed on my shoulders. Apparently, I “took it like a churchman.” Yeah, that’s a quote. How painful was it?
I haven’t been back in a church since then. It’s not that I didn’t like churches, per se. It’s that I no longer believed in their authority. My parents, who had changed their membership to the church where I was serving, left when I did. My father had been elected president of the congregation, but against the bylaws of the congregation, he was removed from any part in considering or enacting my removal. That was the painful part… for them, and for me. They separated me from any comfort or assistance, you see. They figured it would make things easier. You know, for them.
My parents have visited a church, here and there, since that happened. They did not find a new church home, did not find a place to be members again.
My father passed away a strong and devout Christian, but with no church home.
(Pausing for a moment. This stings).
That started an interesting path of thought, for me. You see, the Bible lays out some very specific ways in which people are to be treated, particularly people who are serving with you in service to the Lord. In the course of my education, I served a Practicum (service to a church while finishing my last year of classes), and an Internship (a year of service after graduation). Interestingly enough, the people who I interacted with during both of those services, with a couple of exceptions, weren’t really following the Biblical models of treating people. The Internship was particularly hard… sort of a “Dread Pirate Roberts” approach to leading someone into a lifetime of service. “Good morning Scott, you’re most likely going to fail, here’s why you suck, now get out there and do Church things!”
There’s something that I have heard many, many times; both while I was a member and servant of the church, and afterward. When I would talk to people who had been members of the church, and were no longer members, they would all say some version of the same thing.
“It wasn’t the church. It was the people.”
Funny, but that was my experience too. I had no problems with the teachings or dogma or rituals. It was the people who turned the church life into a political exercise that gave me problems in the church. Well-to-do members of the congregation, people on boards, even the church leadership. They paid a certain amount of service to the teachings of the church, but there were always “certain realities.” People with their own agendas would find their way into positions where they were in charge of decisions. “Well, if we cut YOUR program, then we can give more money to the programs that my children are in.” Not said with thoughtfulness or concern, but with a smile, followed by sticking out their tongue. Yeah, literally.
Yes, I know that people are fallible. We are all imperfect beings living in sin; that which we must not do we do, and that which we must do we do not. The world is not perfect, but we must forgive and continue on, praying for the strength and patience to persevere.
I’ve noticed something even bigger, now that I’ve been out of the church for a while. Some may say that I’ve fallen (and, by their standards, I have). Others might call it “perspective.” What I’ve seen, from this perspective, is that a large majority of very vocal Christians aren’t acting in a terribly Christian manner. Oh, it may be what they were TAUGHT is a Christian manner, but here’s my issue. It’s sizable.
As Christians, people have a single, perfect example of how to treat people. One, just one. A Christian treats people in a Christian manner when, and only when, they are modeling Christ. It honestly is that simple. Yes, that seems to boil it down to WWJD, or What Would Jesus Do, but that really is one of the core tenets of Christianity.
Christ was constantly active, he was inclusive, he was quiet, and he reserved his strongest reactions for only the strongest infractions. He was firm with those who served under him, but he never hesitated to teach them, uplift them, and help them to improve and overcome.
He did not reserve his most pious moments for a two-hour period on the Sabbath. That’s what he was all the time. In my opinion, the measure of a Christian should be taken at two thirty-seven on a Thursday afternoon, not 8:30 or 10:15 on a Sunday morning. A Christian should be displaying their highest ideal of behavior while stuck behind a sl0w-moving car during rush hour. If your car has an icthus (fish symbol) on the back, you should be held to the highest of standards for courtesy and patience while you are in that car.
He did not put his time into cultivating the proper “social network.” When he went to a new place, he wasn’t with the wealthy and influential. He was with the hated and despised. He gave his attention to the outcasts, the prostitutes and tax collectors. There are some wonderful churches out there that see the outcasts come in their doors – those who are not liked in their community. Those of a different race or orientation than the majority of those in the church body, those with sullied or hateful reputations, even those with diseases that make them social pariahs. Those churches are not the majority – EVERY church of every Christian faith should open their doors to those people, and every member of those churches should fall over themselves to be the first person to offer the “outcast” a cup of coffee. Those people should not only be welcome in every church, but in the home of every Christian.
There seems to be this mainstream Christian culture out there that believes that, because they are Christian, they are automatically considered to be of a higher standard. Their motives are pure, their actions are righteous, their opinions to be taken more into consideration because they are Christians. They wear the cloak of Christ and wish themselves to be viewed through that lens.
Metaphysically speaking, that’s not a robe. A lot of Christians forget, or are never taught, that when they take up Christ, they take up his cross. It was never meant to make a single thing easier; not on this side of Heaven.
Being a Christian means that one is held up to a much, much higher standard; a standard for behavior and for personal interaction that is somewhat difficult.
I’ve known some Christians who measured up to this standard, and who strove to always do so. Not many were in church leadership.
I have had friends who were not Christians pretty much all my life. I know quite a few atheists and pagans, and purely on the measurements of behavior and social interaction, they have a LOT of Christians beat at the whole “modeling Christ” thing, hands down.
I’m digressing a little bit, but it does lead up to a point.
When someone enters service to the church (in the theology that I am most acquainted with), it is as the result of a “call.” They feel a call to service, the touch of the Holy Spirit that they are to serve the church. I felt the call myself. In the faith in which I was raised, this leads to a dedicated education process, and eventually, a person who has felt the call of the Spirit is ready to be called by a church.
A church (again according to the faith in which I was raised) in need of someone to serve will prayerfully consider this need, examine available lists of those who are in a position to be called, and issue a call to that person, all with the guidance and aid of the Spirit. If that person, after prayerful Spirit-guided consideration, feels that the calling church is where they were meant to be, they go, visit, interview, and consider the call with the congregation. Again, guided by the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, third portion of the Holy Trinity, is often under-rated but amazingly important. (This whole thing is Lutheran theology, but it forms the basis for my thought process on the matter). Where the Father creates and the Son redeems, the Spirit sanctifies. It is by the will and the act of the Holy Spirit that sinful man can come to know Christ and follow him. It is from the Spirit that the church receives authority.
One guided by the Spirit, therefore, would be one who is empowered to bring people to Christ.
(Departing theology, rocky waters ahead).
So, if someone claims to be a Christian, and yet acts in a way that repels people, they can not be empowered by the Spirit.
If a member of church leadership acts in such a way as that they drive people away from the church, or worse, away from Christ, they can not be empowered by the Spirit.
If a church body(no matter how large) routinely engages in practices and behaviors that drives people from the church, or worse, away from Christ, then that church body has no true divine authority, because it can not be empowered by the Spirit.
There is a sentiment that I have heard more than once… heck, a lot, really. When a particularly heavy-handed, smug, overconfident Christian has laid down their pile of rote condemnation, and the response is “if people like you are going to be in Heaven, I’d rather go to Hell.”
There are doctrines to explain how this doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t there. “It’s the failing of the person, not the Spirit.” “Some people aren’t chosen, so they aren’t going to be convinced no matter what.” I prefer to think that a Christian has a duty to be the absolutely best possible conduit for the work of the Spirit that they can be.
I don’t believe in standing on street corners and telling people they’re going to Hell. That very rarely works, you know. These days, less than ever. I don’t particularly believe in walking door to door spreading the word of Christ. I don’t think that evangelism should be a verbal process at all; at least, not at first.
In my opinion, a Christian displays their Christianity best by behaving properly, treating people well, always doing their very best at their every endeavor, and doing so with joy and a peace that passes understanding. It isn’t by having a fish on the back of their car or by telling people that they need to repent. A Christian shouldn’t even identify themselves as a Christian except by modeling Christ in their behavior and demeanor.
How does that bring people to Christ? Because when someone witnesses that peace and dedication, when someone’s life is falling apart and they’re looking for someone who seems to “get it,” they’re going to look to the properly behaving Christian and ask “what do you have? How are you doing that?” That is when the process becomes verbal. That’s when you share the name of Christ, and the lessons of his love. You build that lesson on the strongest possible foundation; a Christ-like life.
I’ve seen church leaders who could do that… my life is richer for having known them. They’re in the minority, in my experience.
What passes for Christianity today upsets me greatly. It was never, not ever, supposed to be easy. It was never supposed to be a political power; Christ told us that it would make us unpopular if we espoused it. Like love, it should not be proud, it should not boast. Even Christ didn’t usually pray in public – when he had to pray his most earnest prayer ever (“…let this cup pass…”), he did it quietly in a garden, away from everyone.
It should be something that non-Christians look at, just from the behavior and demeanor of those who practice it, and say “you know, I think I want that in my life, whatever it is.” What it seems to be, however, is something that repels by its arrogance, exclusivity, and the hatred practiced by some of its more vocal “proponents.” It’s driving people away.
It drove me away.
The Obligatory Battlestar Galactica Post
Woke up, made myself an Espresso, helped my son acquire his membership to an age-appropriate MMORPG, and had to decide which subject to blog about first. The choices in front of me… another Christianity post, or complaining about the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. I think I can let the Christianity post sit on the back burner for a while.
Now, I almost put up my “ranty” icon for this post, because my intitial reactions to the Battlestar reboot were… less than well-reasoned, shall we say. However, a good friend of mine has listened to me rant (almost continuously), and helped me to build a more reasoned opinion. (Many thanks, Joe!) Not a more positive one, mind you, but a more reasoned one.
Also, please realize, I’m not going to try to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t like. If you enjoyed the Battlestar reboot, then you had more fun than I did. That’s perfectly fine, different people enjoy different things. This isn’t a blog post about why other people shouldn’t like something. It’s about why I, personally, didn’t like something. This is entirely my opinion.
Before anyone thinks that they need to set me straight on what a great television show the Battlestar reboot was, let me make a couple of things perfectly clear. The recent reboot of Battlestar Galactica was, without a doubt, some truly excellent television. It was a great military science fiction show. The production values, acting, and writing were superb. I have nothing bad to say about the special effects whatsoever. It arguably had some of the best moments of space combat yet committed to media. It was not a bad show, and I’m not trying to say it was a bad show. Aside from the heavy-handedness of the last episode (forgivable), it was, in fact, an excellent television show.
It just wasn’t Battlestar Galactica.
If they had changed only the title, I’d have been fine. If the new title had included the words “Battlestar” and/or “Galactica” in any other configuration than calling it, simply, “Battlestar Galactica,” that would have been acceptable. I’d have watched religiously.
No, my problems with the Galactica reboot have nothing, whatsoever, to do with its content or quality. It had to do with hijacking a familiar and beloved brand.
I was one of the millions of Americans tuned into the pilot movie of the original Battlestar Galactica in 1978… I was ten at the time. I was not, at the time, a happy child. I was still not adjusting to the fact that my family had moved from southern California to Missouri in ’76, I had very few friends, the majority of my learning disabilities were undiagnosed and I was constantly chastised for academic under-performance.
The only common ground I had with my over-worked father and my few friends was Star Wars; its premier in ’77 had actually improved my life.
I watched the original Battlestar Galactica movie like I was reaching for a life-preserver. It did something that was hard to do at that point in my life. It made me happy. At the time, I didn’t really see the flaws; there were space fights and blasters and a monkey in a robot dog suit, and it was a whole new world that I could visit in my imagination. Even better, it was a series – the world would grow and live, and I wouldn’t be the only person in it. I could talk about it with my dad, and with the kids at school. I had the toys… I owned the same model of Colonial Viper toy that made the news when a boy choked to death on one of the missiles.
In my unhappiest times, I could live there, in my mind, for a little while. I honed my imagination on missions with Apollo and Starbuck, listened to the wise counsel of Commander Adama, and I knew that Colonel Tigh had my back when push came to shove. It wasn’t science fiction, really… it was science fantasy, the special brand of space opera that only the ’70’s could produce.
Just as I understand how excellent the reboot really was, I can now see the flaws in the original. I don’t really care, when it comes right down to it. Sure, there were teams of writers trying to crank out material fast enough to keep a weekly series going, with a barely-adequate series bible. Yes, they “borrowed” their storylines from sources as wide and varied as “Shane” and “The Guns of Navarone.” I’m fully aware that they only had a very limited number of special effects shots that they shoehorned into every episode. The acting was often stilted. The dialogue was often forced. The Cylons had a dedicated gunner in each and every cockpit, and they still had lower accuracy than the single-pilot Colonials. Lorne Greene’s line delivery almost put me to sleep more than once. It was a product of ’70’s television, with all of the flaws and foibles that such products were oft cursed with, and I loved it.
I had a few hopes for the reboot, but not a lot. From the previews, I could tell that they were going for a darker, grittier, more hard-edge Sci Fi approach. That’s all well and good… dark and gritty Sci Fi can be pretty awesome. I like a lot of dark and gritty Sci Fi. A dark and gritty show called “Lone Battlestar” or “Galactica Renegade” or simply “Galactica” would have been GREAT. But, they called it one thing, when it was, quite clearly, not that thing.
You know who else did this to me? Coca Cola did this to me.
In 1985, the Coca Cola company decided that they were going to change Coca Cola, introducing a new formula which was, simply, “New Coke.” “Hey,” Bill Cosby said, “It’s what Coca Cola is now! It’s good, and you’re going to love it.”
It wasn’t, and I didn’t. The first time I ever had it, I was at a restaurant called Casa Gallardo with my mother, and I’d ordered a coke with my lunch. I took one sip, and nearly spit it out. Flagging a waitress, I told her that there was something wrong with their soda fountain, because this coke was off. She rolled her eyes, sighed, then looked at me apologetically and said “no… it’s the New Coke.”
Now, if they’d marketed the new formula alongside the existing, familiar one, it might have worked. Some people might have liked the sweeter, less fizzy, vaguely more “Pepsi”-like coke. It wasn’t so much that it was a bad soda, really. It’s that it wasn’t Coke. They had their spokesperson, one of the more trusted at the time (mind you, this was before “Leonard Part 6”), tell me that “it’s just like Coke, but better!'” I was 17 at the time… I’d been drinking coke for over a decade. Coke was familiar to me, I preferred it to most other beverages. They took what was familiar and enjoyable, gave its name to something qualitatively different, and handed it to me expecting me to buy it.
I’ve been told that the Battlestar reboot was never meant to be a replacement for the original… that it was a “re-imagining” of the original Battlestar Galactica. That’s well and good… “West Side Story” is a re-imagining of “Romeo and Juliet.” You know what they didn’t do? They didn’t bleeding well call it “Romeo and Juliet.”
I’m an RPG player… have been for a very long time. When I spend time in a universe, whether it’s one of my own creation or one based on a shared concept, such at the original Battlestar, I get a certain sense of ownership. I’ve flown those fighters, I’ve kicked those chrome robots. If you’re going to try to sell me a television show that’s named after something that was that much a part of my life… something that made me happy and helped to save me from depression and solitude… you’re going to have to try to make that television show in such a way that it invokes not only the names and plotlines of the original, but the spirit and “feeling” of it. If you want to give it a different spirit and “feeling” (such as turning a space opera into a “dark and gritty” hard-edged military sci fi show), that’s perfectly fine. Just give it a different name… even a slightly different name.
Names are important.
All right… got a LITTLE ranty there…
Civility: Lost Art, or Martial Art?
Every so often, I’m surfing the internet and I come across a meltdown. Someone oversteps themselves in communicating via e-mail or a forum post; they bust out with anger and vitriol where none is called for, and before you know it (literally, sometimes), “nerd rage” kicks in, and the armies of internet outrage produce horrific results for the individual in question. It’s a terrible thing to watch – most often, it results in the offender losing any hope of a good reputation, losing business, and being driven from the public eye. From time to time, it goes so far as to result in threats of physical violence. I’m not here to weigh in on the relative morality of invoking the internet’s anger upon uncivil individuals. I’m more interested in looking at this phenomenon as a symptom of a well-known and quantified difficulty with communications on the internet. This isn’t going to be news, really… I’m not talking about anything fresh. I DO think it’s relevant, and bears investigation.
(If I’ve been too obscure, which I tend to do, I’ll name two names as examples of the kind of events that I’ve referred to as “meltdowns.” I’m not putting these here for any reason other than to give context; these individuals have had “enough,” by anyone’s measure. You may remember the Cook’s Source scandal that caused Judith Griggs to become the definition of how to not treat intellectual property; much more recently, a one Paul Christoforo defined how not to conduct customer service).
Completely Obvious Point: Civility seems to be in short supply on the internet. Personally, I blame the impersonal nature of internet communications and the ability to engage in anonymity. There’s often very little consequence for being uncivil on the internet, and to some people, it appears to have risen as an art form. The act of “trolling,” or “griefing” seems to have a particular attraction. There are those who seem to think that the more people they aggravate with a post, the more internets they win. To some, this act may seem pointless. In reality, it’s anything but.
There’s a certain amount of satisfaction from having power over someone, after all. When you can type some words on a screen and make someone angry, you’ve got a certain amount of power over them. If that person goes so far as to put time and energy into typing words back, spending hours or days upset about what you’ve typed, then you have even more power over them. It’s an odd concept, and not everyone enjoys this form of power exchange, but it’s apparently quite the rush. I don’t think I can explain it better than Brendon Small explained it in his show “Metalocaplypse.”
“You notice how I’m not mad, he gets mad. That’s being a dick.” –William Murdeface Murderface Murderface Murderface
This kind of behavior isn’t limited to the internet, of course; people have been engaging in this form of power exchange for as long as there’s been spoken language. Of course, back in “less civilized” times, people who put time into this form of uncivility could legally be challenged to a duel, or dragged into the street and beaten with a stick no thicker than your thumb. Nowadays, we’re required to answer verbally, if at all, or simply walk away. People who are very good at this form of power exchange can even seem to be engaging in perfectly civil discourse; it’s only when you walk away feeling somehow cheated in that conversation, knowing that you were correct but being unable to get anything like a point across (apparently) that you know someone has gone out of their way to piss you off, simply because they could.
A key sign of this behavior is visible if you get mad, or call them on the behavior. The universal response is for them to respond “hey, it was all in fun, right?”
These conversations, on the internet or in person, usually revolve around a subject that you find dear to your heart, upon which you have strong feelings. Religion, politics, a particular branch of philosophy; if you get that feeling that someone is contradicting you for the sake of upsetting you, you’re probably being baited. Most often, the person who is baiting you has little or no actual feeling on the subject, but has a set of seemingly well-reasoned contradictions handy. Their point of view will also tend to shift, when you make well-reasoned statements, to keep themselves at the maximum of frustrating antithesis to your point.
It may seem like civil discourse; it isn’t. It’s an attempt to make you sound less intelligent, like you have a poor grasp on a beloved subject. It’s an attempt to make you feel belittled, bested, and like something close to your heart has been devalued. It’s an attempt to make you feel like a failure.
It’s an attack, targeting your sense of worth.
I’ve been on the receiving end of this a lot… I’ll admit, I’m a soft touch. If I catch myself in time, I’ll step away from the conversation and cut contact with the offender. More often than not, I’m drawn into the conversation more than I ought to be; when someone is adept at this form of attack, you may not realize you’re in the middle of it until it’s too late. By this time, I’ve lost a night or two of sleep and hours of time that I could have spent writing constructively, rather than pointlessly trying to compose a reasoned argument to make a point with someone who will never allow you the satisfaction of making your point.
I’ve found a technique that seems to help, though. It’s pretty effective. Thought I’d share it.
Step One: Maintain a friendly and civil tone, even when you are not met with one.
When it comes right down to it, there’s no actual reason to be anything other than friendly and civil, unless you want people angry at you. Oh, sure, you might get more votes, you might draw more attention, but you probably don’t want that kind of attention. A friendly and civil tone has the advantage of coming across as professional. The more you use a friendly and civil tone, the less likely it is that you’ll get pulled into something negative… it doesn’t give a troll anything to work with. More, after all is said and done, those witnessing the conversation will certainly remember that you always kept it friendly and civil.
Step Two: You don’t have to convince anyone of anything.
You know what your opinion is. One would hope that your opinion has been built out of careful research and/or introspection, so that it stands up to a little shaking. Still, it’s nice to stay open to alternate opinions, considering them with a grain of salt and an eye towards a solid grasp on subject matter. If you find yourself forced to defend your opinion, however, there’s no reason not to walk away. It’s your opinion, and if someone can’t deal with the fact that you feel that way, that’s not your problem. It’s theirs.
Then, my favorite part…
Step Three: Remember the phrase “It’s interesting that you think that.”
It’s a great way of saying “I’ve listened to what you have to say, and I find it has the value of excrement.” It’s a friendly little statement, almost completely neutral. It neither gives nor takes in a conversation. If you find yourself locked in combat with someone who absolutely insists on attempting to devalue your statements or opinions, this is a nice little blocking maneuver. Whether a Christian is trying to tell you that your Athiest views have no value, or an Athiest is trying to tell you that your Christian views have no value, (subsitute Conservative, Liberal, Right, Left, Clone, Droid, Cat, Dog, or any other diametrically opposed set of viewpoints as you wish), nothing takes the ammunition out of the fight like “it’s interesting that you think that.”
Please Do Note: I’m not talking about reasoned conversations meant to genuinely exchange opinions and ideas. Sometimes, it’s good to talk to people who don’t share your views in an effort to increase your understanding. Some of the best conversations I’ve had have been with people who don’t share my views. Those conversations were also marked by a free exchange of information; someone who is as willing to listen to me and my views as I am to listen to them and theirs.
No, I’m talking about when someone is only there to cause grief and strife, under the guise of “only having fun.” Of course, those people may think that it’s their duty to shatter my world views in order to “save” me, somehow, and discount and discredit my years of knowledge and experience in favor of their own firmly held beliefs.
Of course, it’s interesting that they think that.
Christianity needs a brand manager.
I was raised Lutheran (Missouri Synod), which is a variety of Christian. It has some very definitive values assigned to the personage of Jesus Christ, for whom Christianity is apparently named. These values are partially shared by other Christian faiths, meaning that they are partially not shared, as well. Personally, I find this problematic. The core of a Christian faith, after all, really ought to be its Christology, or its study of the nature of Christ.
A lot of things are claimed about Christ, after all. Even if we just confine our musings to those things that are said by those who purport to believe in his divinity, the wide variation of information is confusing, at best, and misleading at worst. Now, I’m not going to claim to be telepathic or anything, so I’m not going to say what people’s motivations for using these highly varied sets of qualities for Christ are. I will, however, say what it seems like they are. It would seem, to one who has a reasonable grasp on psychology and the systems that people use for persuasion, that the invocation of the name of Christ is being used quite often to attempt to use the authority of Christ to back one’s personal claims.
If this was confined to religious ceremonies and church bodies, that would be one thing. It would still be a damnable offense (by the sets of theological laws that these same church bodies purport to follow), but it wouldn’t be the worst possible thing. The real problem, as I see it from a limited perspective, is that these claims seem to establish that Christ’s qualities are in alignment with Earthly individuals or organizations, and not the other way around.
Yes, I’m beating around the bush, because according to Luther, I’m not following the eighth commandment unless I put the best construction on everything, which means that I need to give people the benefit of the doubt. Still, here’s where my metaphysical butt gets burned.
In recent times, I have heard people say some things about Jesus Christ that are patently false. Conservatives claim that Jesus was conservative. Liberals claim that Jesus was liberal. Hate mongers claim that Jesus hates whatever group it is that the hate mongers themselves hate. Many of these statements are contradictory to one another. It isn’t possible that Jesus is all of these things; even if Lutheran Christology teaches that he is omniscient and omnipresent, he most certainly has a definitive alignment.
“But Scott,” some might say. “Where does one go to for information on the nature of Christ if not from a church group that claims to have the definitive source of this information?”
I’m going to rip some theology up, now. I’m no longer the member of any church, much less the church body that trained me in biblical theology. Time away from the church may have lent some perspective. I need to make something perfectly clear.
I am NOT going to purport to have the definitive answers to what is, and isn’t, pure theological truth. There is no “this is what I believe, you should follow this” here. I’m not saying that anyone needs to believe in Christ or his divinity. I’m saying that there are people who DO believe in it, and a good number of these people are misusing Christ’s name. It’s none of my business what or who you do or don’t believe in, theologically speaking. It isn’t necessary to believe in Christ in order to believe in Christians.
We have a number of books, in a handy collected form, that have the primary qualities of Christ given to us by literary demonstration. These qualities aren’t, exactly, listed, but in the actions of Christ within these works, we can get a pretty good grip on his qualities. I am speaking of the Bible… but not the entire Bible.
Here, I depart vastly from the church body that trained me in biblical theology. I’m suggesting that we search through three books of the New Testament for the qualities of Christ, those being the gospel books of Matthew, Mark, and John. Why am I removing the gospel of Luke from consideration?
I’m removing the gospel of Luke from consideration for the same reason that I’m removing the Pauline epistles from consideration – mostly, I’m not buying the “road to Damascus” conversion of the “apostle” Paul. Luke was written by “Paul’s physician,” and the epistles of the other apostles were written after Paul met with them and convinced him that he was truly trained by Christ. Yeah… no, not buying that.
I’m not even buying the entire book of Mark. Last chapter – gone. It appeared in only about half of the original manuscripts that have been found, and at that, only the later manuscripts. The post Pauline manuscripts. This is important not because the last chapter of Mark contains one of the resurrection accounts, but because it also contains the “great commission,” which gave the early Christian church leave to convert without let or hindrance. No, doesn’t fit. Doesn’t get included.
Don’t even get me started on the Revelation of St. John. Suffice it to say that I don’t think that a political rant disguised behind mythical allegory should really be canon.
Anyway, back to the nature of Christ, based on the three non-Pauline gospels.
The Christ depicted in these gospels didn’t particularly care about politics. “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” after all. He wasn’t on earth to affect political change, but metaphysical change. Offered the opportunity to get involved in politics by taking over the world, he refused because he had spiritual things to do. Biblical Christ had other, better things to do than become involved in politics, or care that much about them. Governments come and go, rise and fall. Christ’s kingdom is eternal.
Christ constantly espoused charity, and taught that the wealthy should eschew their wealth. Want to go to heaven? Follow all of God’s laws perfectly, AND give away everything that you have to the poor.
Christ never turned his back on anyone who society thought should be cast out. He spent his time with prostitutes and tax collectors (who were thought of even less well than we tend to think of them now. Think about that). He had conversations with lepers, and people with other horrible and infectious diseases. He gave his time and his attention to people regardless of their social standing, political orientation, nationality, or even their faith. The only people that he had NO time for were those who believed that they were better than other people because of their position in religious organizations.
Do Not Take My Word For This. There’s a Bible within a few hundred feet of you, if you’re in the United States, and there are plenty online for you to look at no matter where you are. Read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John. Compare what Jesus says and does with what is being said about him, now.
All of which is to say that Christianity needs a brand manager. There are a lot of people out there claiming that they are right about one thing or another because Jesus agrees with them; these people can not all be right. There needs to be some authority for Christianity, that monitors communications and looks for the claims of people who claim to be Christian.
“Hello, this is Christianity’s brand manager. You mentioned that Jesus hates people of a sexual orientation different from yours? Well, that’s contrary to the brand guidelines. You can continue to claim that YOU hate these people, but if you claim that Jesus shares your hate, or if you even continue to claim to be Christian, we’re going to have no choice but to serve you with a cease and desist letter. Have a nice day!”
“Hi there; were you claiming that Jesus doesn’t want you to share your wealth with the poor? This is the Christianity brand manager, we’re going to have to ask you to stop making these fraudulent claims, or our next step is to have our lawyers contact you. Have a nice day!”
I’m not saying I want the job… I just want to have access to the inter-0ffice memos. I have a strong suspicion that if anyone actually started to enforce Christian values and behaviors on those who claim to be Christian, there would be a vast amount of unhappy unleashed on the “faithful.” I don’t think I’m a bad Christian because I want to see people using the name of Christ held up to a strict legal standard for doing so… I think I’m a bad Christian because of the warm, happy feeling that I get when I imagine the suffering involved.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single blog post.
And so, on the twenty-seventh day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven, it did happen: Scott Corum started a blog.
I’ve wanted to do this for some time, actually. I’ve been active on a few social networking sights, but I find myself editing my thoughts and language for brevity and audience. I figured that I’d secure myself a stage where I could “let it all hang out,” more or less. There’s a lot to talk about, these days, and I’m probably going to get disagreed with a lot. I mean, a lot. I’m going to dig into my big bag of “subjects Scott usually stays the hell away from” and talk about things that are universally bothering me, such as politics and religion. Yeah, the big two.
I’m also going to talk about a lot of things which, in my humble opinion, suck. I’ve found that one of the best ways to study excellence in any given endeavor is to find prime negative examples of that endeavor. I’ve learned good web design by studying bad web design, and so forth. This goes well with my taste in movies, which is admittedly execrable (there is a copy of “Leonard Part Six” sitting within arm’s reach of me, right now). So, I will be sharing the lessons I’ve learned from some prime negative examples in a number of areas, but most likely they will be in RPG design.
My professional tribulations and accomplishments will appear here, as well; heck, a number of negative examples that I intend to talk about come from my own work.
And that’s it… a beginning. Everything has to start somewhere; welcome to my first step.
Lessons I learned from publishing Hot Chicks: The Roleplaying Game
In 2007, I’d finished my novel and was looking for something else to write. I’d done a few art pieces for DrivethroughRPG.com, mostly a line of miniature standees. There were three lines of these standees… “Hot Chicks,” “Hot Dudes,” and “Stuff to Beat Up.” I’d been doing the Poser art for about ten years at that point in time, and I figured I’d see if I could actually make the hobby pay off. Turns out, it didn’t work out too badly. “Hot Dudes” and “Stuff to Beat Up” had pretty small sales, but every “Hot Chicks” product was a good earner.
I published some art books that had more detailed copies of the images, and through the process, a game world in which these standees were the primary moving force of the storyline suggested itself. It was not a standard game world, nor was it “family friendly.” It incorporated elements from some of the seedier sides of literature, and a lot of the sensationalist elements from the cinema of the 1980’s. I teamed up with my long time friend Victor Gipson, who shared my vision of this game world, and we started a “joke project.” We would write a silly little game that would let us put pictures in it, built around this world.
That’s when I learned that I really didn’t want to write a “silly little game.” Years upon years of working with game mechanics and probabilities and design, and more, suffering through a mounting market of games of descending quality (and increasing price!) had instilled in me a deep desire to write a good game. One with mechanics that allowed for my unique style of storytelling, and that encouraged the Role Playing Game as a cooperative, rather than a competitive, activity. It turned into a “kitchen sink” game with a nearly unlimited variety of villains and special abilities. Of course, we still intended to ride on the success of the existing product line, and so “Hot Chicks: The Roleplaying Game” was born.
First lesson learned: If you put the effort into writing a game of quality, give it a title of quality. We lost sales on “Hot Chicks” before it was ever published from the title alone. “I don’t think I could convince my gaming group to play something called ‘Hot Chicks,’ but good luck with that!”
The title invited comparisons to other games in similar-sounding genres. Of course, there really was only one. “This game is, essentially, Macho Women with Guns for a new era, right?”
Next lesson learned: You simply can not please everyone. Hot Chicks has a very dedicated fan base; we’ve produced almost a hundred supplements for it since its release in August of 2008, and all of the supplements have seen decent sales. However, some of the first comments we received on the core book, publicly, were that we didn’t go “far enough.” We’d produced a game with mature overtones, but an insufficient amount of detail for some people’s tastes. That was, of course, deliberate. We decided that we didn’t mind a little attention due to our subject matter, but we tried to keep everything in good taste. When we produced a supplement that “filled in the blanks” for those who wanted more mature details (Inner Darkness), people STILL wanted more. There are some lines that I really just won’t cross in my writing. Mind you, my lines probably go out a little further than many peoples’, but they’re quite firm.
Still, we tried to do everything in good taste. We were ready for a certain amount of backlash – heck, we even invited it, to some degree. We included copious warnings and notes in our books cautioning about the mis-use of the material within them, where we felt it was even vaguely necessary. There were a couple of lengthy internet forum discussions, but they quickly disintegrated into off-topic musings that had little or nothing to do with our game or its content.
We were ready for torches and pitchforks; what we got was “meh.”
Oh, and another important lesson: You have not done enough proofreading. I still smack myself upside the head for any number of basic, simple errors in the layout of the core book. There are a lot of people who have volunteered themselves as proofreaders if we ever do another product line, mostly because of the errors in Hot Chicks. They’re relatively few in number, but man, they glare. Oh yes, I will be calling those markers in.
Next Lesson: Stand up for your brand. Hot Chicks uses a system we called “The Inverted 20 System.” Simple enough, low rolls on a d20 are preferable, the inverse of the d20 System. Turns out, though, that strictly through parallel development, another company was on the verge of releasing their “inverted 20 system” a couple of months after we released ours. The creator of that system and I discussed this at some length, and I agreed that there was no real reason that we couldn’t both simply have “the inverted 20 system.” Well, I was incorrect. If you’re trying to build a brand name, you really need to be the only one who has it. Well, we live and learn.
There are any number of other lessons; Hot Chicks was our first baby. A very, very big baby. You know, if you’re simply e-publishing a title, then a four hundred and fifty page book isn’t really a problem. When you go to Print on Demand for that book, though… well, another lesson: Don’t write a 454 page book that you intend to use through Print on Demand. That started another little discussion on some internet forums… which degenerated even faster.
I intend to write a “silly little game” one of these days; a one-shot with brutally simplistic rules and a high degree of head explosions. That’s not where my head is at these days, though.
All in all, I’m proud of Hot Chicks, and what we’ve managed to accomplish with it. I’d have done a number of things differently, if I were to do it again. Mostly, it wouldn’t be “Hot Chicks,” but something with a bit of seriousness to it. For all that, though, it has some bad flaws, not the least of which is its title.
The graphics need updating badly, and my Photoshop skills needed work. I think the images in the book convey the meaning they were meant to – they could be better. Note: I’m not apologizing for doing the majority of the art in Poser. I happen to like the digital art feel of Poser, and it allows me to produce quality, consistent graphics in a fairly short amount of time. I’m just saying that my skills in 2008 weren’t where they could have been; my skills in 2011 are more like where I need them to be.
The pricing of most items, including magic spells and cyberware, is inconsistent and poorly balanced. When generating that much material, a set of guidelines better than “I don’t know, what do YOU think it should cost?” is really needed.
The rules are inconsistent; we referenced things towards the front of the rules that never got covered towards the back of them. Most folks figured out what we meant, but it still irks me that there’s that disconnect.
The sample adventure is juvenile, and completely fails to address the scope of what is possible in the game; likewise, the sample characters lack the depth that I would have liked to have seen.
I guess the biggest lesson, then, is that you need to put at least as much enthusiasm into the last page of text as you put into the first page of text, if not more. Another reason not to write a 450 page tome… it’s hard to maintain that level of excitement about your product when you’ve had to slog through hundreds of pages of it.
As we draw close to the production of a new core book for a new product line, I’m trying to keep these lessons, and the lessons of others, in mind. There are a number of other products that gave me negative examples, but I really had to take my own apart before I moved on to anyone else’s. I’m sure I missed a few things about Hot Chicks… but then again, I’m STILL ready for torches and pitchforks.
(Oh, as a side note: My absolute favorite comment to appear on the internet [so far] about Hot Chicks was a negative comment left in a flurry of people talking about what a horrible game it was and what a horrible person I was for writing it. The comment was “well I, for one, would never touch ANYTHING called Hot Chicks!” I have to wonder if the poster thought about what he was saying, at the time).
Matters of deCorum 