The Blog of Roon

I wouldn’t have suggested a WISH topic I didn’t have an answer for. So let me tell you about how I found Juskinah.

Juskinah is the central character of the Al-Qadim campaign I play with my husband. She is a Northerner who found her way into Zakhara and was adopted into a major nomad tribe.

One Saturday afternoon in late spring the weather was looking a mite threatening, so I turned on the TV to see if there were any alerts up. I flipped to a tennis match and was trying to sort out the tiny type on the crawler across the screen when—Good heavens, who is that on the court?

A woman of medium height: heavy-shouldered, sturdy and muscular. A tanned, androgynous oval face with broad forehead, dark heavy eyebrows, and strong jaw. Big hands. Brown hair worn long and loose. And—no, it can’t be—yes, it is—green eyes. Green eyes! She is Juskinah.

Figured out who I mean, anyone? It took me a few minutes’ watching before I found out who she was. I would have picked out the name faster if I hadn’t been calling excitedly for my husband to come out from the office and see Juskinah. Her name is Amélie Mauresmo. All the good pictures I can find of her are copyrighted, but here is a good closeup from Altosport (beware popups), which has the best photos of Ms. Mauresmo I can find just now. (Ms. Mauresmo’s official site doesn’t have many good pictures at all, unfortunately.)

This is the only time I’ve ever had such a strong reaction to a person. I not infrequently see people who have individual physical characteristics that I think of in my characters; I saw someone on the bus once who has Afletana’s white-blonde hair. I didn’t know that hair that color turned honey-dark when in shadow, but now I do.

I think it’s partly that Juskinah is the most physical of all the characters I’ve ever played. I tend away from the warrior-types and toward the priestesses and magic-slingers. When I saw someone with the right kind of androgyny (Juskinah has passed for a man at times; I first saw Ms. Mauresmo in closeup, and I wasn’t sure for a moment if this was a men’s or women’s match) and physicality, I was just hooked. Wow.

I don’t follow tennis, but I will stop whatever I’m doing if there’s a Mauresmo match on TV. I think she’s at the US Open at the moment. I should check to see if she’s still in play.

Oh, and while I’m at it—am I the only person in creation who took one look at ice-dancer Marina Anissina and cried, “Hey! That’s Jirel of Joiry!”

Game WISH asks: “What’s the most fun you ever had creating something in a game that changed the game-world?”

Kind of a GM-oriented question. We lowly player-types don’t often get to change the world.

I think the most fun I have had doing world-changing stuff was having Juskinah break her back scaring up allies for the Battle of Flame. She had just returned home from an extended journey. Her adopted father, sheikh of the largest and most influential tribe in the area, had lost his eye and fingers to a rival tribe’s attack while she was gone. Worse, word had it that a nasty enemy, the fire-mage Jamal al-Yindannim, was shortly to come after us with a rather large army (including our rival tribe) paid for by a wealthy, unfriendly city in the vicinity.

Her father was all for besieging Jamal’s castle. She talked him down; siegecraft is not a desert specialty, and a siege in waterless country is bloody well suicide. Then she talked him into sending messengers to the rival tribe and to the center of the empire, asking for support.

Both appeals were successful. The rival tribe turned on Jamal, and the capital sent us troops. Without both of these, the battle probably would have been lost. (Not that it was fun in any case; it was in fact excruciatingly nasty. Even so, losing it would have been worse.)

No one has ever said so, but Juskinah knows she won that battle—not with arms, but with diplomacy. The effort continues; the erstwhile rival tribe has taken sides in a fight Juskinah’s tribe is trying hard to stay out of. Still, whoever said that changing worlds was easy?

Steve Himmer spoke yesterday of his childhood dreams of epic. The tone of his post is half-wistful, half self-deprecating. What a silly child I was to believe in the beauty of the past, he hints. What a brain-fried dope I have to be to read fantasy these days, When I Know Better.

An excellent lead-in to a book I read a bit ago and have been meaning to blog since: Gerard Jones’s Killing Monsters. Jones works hard to inject a little Valium into the kids-and-media hysteria.

The central message of the book is remarkably simple: before condemning what the kids are up to, find out why they’re up to it. Sounds like a real “duh” thing, but Jones makes a pretty impressive case that the research into media and kids so far has resoundingly failed to do that. (His comments about research design are right on.)

I must say he changed some of my thoughts about violent media and kids. Not many of my thoughts, though. I remember quite well, reading the Odyssey as a youngster, how much I got into the moment when Odysseus draws that big bow of his and lets the first arrogant suitor have it in the neck. Oh, yeah. Nice bit. Blood everywhere. I can’t have been older than eight.

I have two quarrels with the book, though. Jones is utterly laissez-faire with regard to what kids watch and read and play. Though I agree with him that forbidding certain types of entertainment often does more harm than good, I cannot help wishing he had spilled a little ink on the question of how to attract kids to material we might prefer that they get into. Is it possible to distract ordinary kids (not weirdos like me) from Power Rangers (bleagh!) long enough to give them Homer, or at least Bulfinch? How do you extract JK Rowling from their sticky little hands long enough to interest them in the far superior Philip Pullman?

More seriously, one rhetorical habit of Jones’s really grated on my nerves. Again and again, he reminds us that what he’s talking about is just kid stuff. They’ll grow out of it, and go on to Important Adult Things. They won’t play games any more, or read fantasy or science fiction, or watch cartoons.

Excuse me, Dr. Jones? Why the heck not? And where’s the bloody harm if they do?

I don’t have to write this rant. Ursula K. LeGuin did it for me. The essay “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” is collected in The Language of the Night. Get out of here and go read the essay. Please. Go on, scram.

The real kicker in Jones’s case is that many of the useful functions he claims violent fantasy play serves for children—behavior modeling and testing, development of an individual sense of ethics, working out of toxic emotions—are equally necessary for adults. Fantasy literature and imaginative play can serve those needs just as well in adulthood as in childhood. (I make no claim that fantasy is the only way to serve those needs, mind you; just that it is one way.)

Even more irksome, though, is the thick black line drawn between Childhood and Adulthood. Those be Childish Things, and any Adult who Playeth therewith is to be Carefully Watched. Especially, mind you, if that adult has no children; clear sign that said adult just never grew up, never became the deadly grim humorless reality-drenched drone that is the Adult par excellence.

I haven’t words for the disgust and scorn I feel at the notion that I ought to have left play and imagination behind twelve years ago. Not to mention pity for anyone who actually buys this crap. Yes, Steve, that includes you. Go and read your Tolkien, joyfully and proudly. Why hide it? Why feel guilty about it?

I’ll put my adulthood cred up against anyone’s. Own my own home, pay taxes regularly (and prepare my own returns), vote, hold down job, pay husband’s tuition (no student loans, hear me?), manage my own money, even find time to write my congresscritters now and again.

Exactly how does any of this change because I spend some of my time playing? Well, duh. It doesn’t.

Oh, and AKMA? Yeah, “nazgul” is plural. It is also singular, apparently; go figure. The word is Black Speech; the element “nazg-” means “ring” (think the Ring Verse: “ash nazg durbatulûk…”). Black Speech is quite sparsely attested in Tolkien’s published writings; the Ring Verse, some curses, and a bunch of Orc names are about all we’ve got.

The best resource anywhere, print or not, on Tolkien’s languages is Ardalambion, by the way. Shame about the site colors, but oh well. (Disclosure: Site proprietor Helge Fauskanger is a friend of ours.)

Inevitably, the WISH series has asked about introducing a significant other to gaming. Once again, I have avoided reading other thoughts before spouting my own.

I am in a gaming marriage, no question about it. David’s and my private Al-Qadim campaign has lasted, what, five or six years, real-world time? And we gamed together when I was in college. Moreover, both of us had gamed before we met.

The numero uno, sine qua non thing to remember is that introducing a significant other to gaming also means introducing gaming, in the person of your gaming buddies, to your significant other. If you aren’t careful, as I do not doubt others have already pointed out, you can end up without a significant other. I merely wish to add that if you aren’t careful, you can end up without gaming buddies.

To that end, let me make a few suggestions. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, etc.

• Do not force things, either way. If your SO isn’t interested in your hobby, let it be. If your long-time gaming group doesn’t really have room for another person, don’t pressure them to let your SO in. Do I really need to explain why?

• Start slow. Don’t let your SO’s first gaming experience be as the interloper in a years-long campaign just hitting a crucial point. Your SO will be left out. Nor do you want to introduce your SO to gaming via a GenCon tournament.

  I suggest a one-off to start with, so that your SO’s character (if not your SO) is on equal footing with everyone else’s. Or take your SO through a module or two privately.

• Please explain the rules first. Not all the rules. Just enough for your SO to get by without slowing down the game for everybody else. By the same token, guide your SO toward simpler, less rule-intensive characters. In Ars Magica, for example, you want your SO’s first character to be a companion or grog, not a mage.
• Please also explain the difference between in-game character relationships and out-of-game player relationships. This can be scary and disorienting if you don’t know the score: two players screaming at each other in character (yes, happens) are pretty bloody intimidating for a newbie.
• Don’t snog during game sessions. Highly declassé.
• Don’t argue during game sessions either. If things are going sour in the relationship, your gaming buddies should not have their game ruined because of it. One or both of you needs to bow out as gracefully as possible. (Been there, game was ruined, nasty for all, especially the couple.)
• GMing your SO is dangerous, for obvious reasons. Avoid it (except in private campaigns), at least until both of you are experienced gamers and your relationship has weathered a few tests (in-game and out).

I like my gaming marriage. It’s made for good gaming as well as a good marriage. I’m all for more gaming marriages; I just think that some of the hardball tactics I’ve seen gamers use to try to hook non-gaming SOs are liable to backfire.

See this. Believe it. Tales of the Plush Cthulhu. (Boing Boing found It first.)

Lots of plush Cthulhus at Gen Con. I almost got myself one. After all, if you sleep with Cthulhu, what else can possibly dare to harm you?

Even better than plush Cthulhu, though (and sorry, John, better than Pokecthulhu, too), was a grinning-Cthulhu T-shirt with “KFC” at the top and “Kids For Cthulhu: Tentacle-Lickin’ Good!” at the bottom.

As I told my husband last night, I think the T-shirt guys missed an obvious sell on that one. Put it on onesies, say I. But then, I’m an evil childfree wench, I am.

Update: My husband noted that he was reader number 5351 to start reading Tales of the Plush Cthulhu, but only number 4085 to finish. “So, thirteen hundred readers—”

“Were eaten by Cthulhu,” I finished.

“Oh, my,” he said. And lost a Sanity point or two.

This week’s WISH asks that we comment on what other people wrote for last week’s WISH. (What did I write? This.)

I have to say I was amused by the number of “Plan B people.” Michael, for instance, or Arref . I don’t doubt there were more, either. Excellent advice, of course. And being the good gamers they are, the most important bit about Plan Bs escaped them, since they wouldn’t think of committing the sin involved: Never, ever blame the GM for the failure of Plan A. Don’t whine. Don’t get mad, and don’t try to get even. Just go to Plan B.

(Which is likely to work better anyway, since the GM won’t have heard about it beforehand. *evil grin*)

I think I’m going to take my other two from Michael also, not because other people didn’t write good stuff, but because Michael hit my still-tired-from-Gen-Con eye.

“You’re not heros, you’re assholes!”

I am disturbed sometimes by the minor role reputation plays in most gaming—reputation other than the Nodwickian “you guys are duh adventurers, right? well, lemme tell yuh ’bout dis problem we got…” sort of reputation. If characters who are supposed to be heroes stop being heroes, there ought to be in-game repercussions.

D&D used to handle this with alignment limitations, but gamers whined about this so much that 3e largely dispensed with them. Ars Magica’s Reputations system is a little better, since it allows for negative as well as positive reputations, but it frankly feels tacked-on to the mechanics (as does the Personality Traits bit).

I just think the GM is in a better place to enforce ατη appropriately than is the gaming system. A GM who does not do so is falling down on the job, I think. How is a party supposed to integrate with its society if its actions have zero impact on the way that society reacts to it?

And finally, “Gaming is like sex. It’s only fun if you trust your partners.” Must confess I’ve never done multiply-partnered sex, but I do see what Michael’s getting at, and I agree with it. Good campaigning often gets (in)tense. Not a few gamers project themselves onto their characters, just as I do; working stuff out in the game realm can be scary, revealing, ugly, or all three at once.

I am very lucky to have found a gaming group that accepts my quirks as well as my characters’, and is willing to forgive me and welcome me back when I go over the edge (which I do now and then). They are all excellent friends as well as excellent gamers. I hope I’ve given back a bit.

I don’t think I will do too many more big cons, but I’m glad I tried one on for size.

Gen Con is freakin’ huge. I had no idea there was such an industry built up around RPGs. (Yeah, sure, there was computer gaming and CCGs and such, but the lion’s share of the loot was RPG-related.) And even on a Friday, when most civilized people had to take a day off from work to attend, it was packed. To the gills. I don’t even want to think what it’s like today.

We spent the morning getting acclimated (including signing up for a game in the afternoon) and wandering in the vendor cavern, er, room. I was nearly talked into a Piffany pin, in honor of my straitlaced Afletana. Brought some loot back for the unlucky souls amongst our friends who couldn’t make it to Gen Con with us. Played a cutthroat game of Apples to Apples (which is a really terrific game that I highly recommend). Saw unbelievable amounts of really cool stuff.

The afternoon’s game turned out to be an RPGA tournament adventure. We are (obviously) skipping out on the rounds of the tournament yet to come… but that’s all right, as we don’t think we did particularly well anyway. None of us had ever played in a tournament before.

I don’t know if it’s a tournament-play thing or what, but we landed a DM who had serious problems deviating from the module. As in, he wouldn’t. Clearly, the module offered Right Ways to solve the problems presented. Equally clearly, we typically didn’t choose the Right Ways. That doesn’t mean we were dumb or uninventive, I don’t think.

Worse, the DM stomped on or ignored PC interactions with NPCs if he didn’t have a canned answer in the module. My besetting sin as a gamer is interrupting the DM; I know it. Still, my character (who turned out not to be shy about opening her mouth, except of course about the really important stuff) got stomped several times, rather unfairly. So did other players’ PCs. Didn’t feel good.

Nevertheless, we did have a marvelous time. One wouldn’t think my husband capable of a decent Elvis imitation… I thought the module itself was pretty well-constructed, with some genuinely creepy bits. I do think it’s a bad idea to introduce a love story into a tournament module, though. No way to give it the roleplaying attention it deserves. Playing one of the characters involved, I underplayed that aspect of the character history significantly and intentionally.

Then we rustled up some dinner (pizza, what else?) and went home. A good day, even if I had to sleep sixteen hours or so today to make up for it. Again, I think I’m better off at smaller cons. Doesn’t hurt to try a big one once, though.

On the bus home yesterday I suddenly discovered why my Ars Magica character Annia is the way she is.

(Both bus brainstorms and sudden insights into the subconscious aspects of character creation happen to me with impressive frequency.)

Ars Magica is designed to create intense characters à la those I discussed yesterday. Magi are supposed to be dedicated to the pursuit of magic above almost all else save survival—and survival is iffy when stacked against a truly intriguing problem.

Annia ex Bjornaer isn’t like that. Annia likes magic, but Annia also likes talking and animals and dancing and sex and the outdoors (especially the ocean) and children and good food. She is living proof that the Gift doesn’t always fall on people prepared to dedicate themselves wholly to it.

Part of Annia is just me subverting the game system again, deliberately creating a character the game system doesn’t point at creating. It isn’t that I don’t create intense characters; I do. D&D priestess Afletana is so driven she freaks out some of the other players.

Still, of course, part of Annia is me reacting to all the intense people I know. I’m not sure I would have created Annia if the other mages in the campaign weren’t largely according to type: driven, moody, in one case thoroughly insane.

Annia will never be the world’s most powerful mage, but I’m betting she’ll be as valuable to her covenant as her powerful sodales. This notion that you have to be singlemindedly intense to contribute meaningfully to the world is one I dumped many years ago.

I have trouble playing Annia, to tell the truth. I designed her to be truly happy-go-lucky. No dark past, no clouds looming, no personality problems. A genuine heart of gold. Turns out to be wickedly hard to play, for this heart of brass.

I’m now wondering what I can do by way of Storytelling to push the other characters on the intensity question. Annia is laid up just now, poor thing, so I ought to take over a story next time we play Ars. (It’s back to DnD; our regular GM is back from Greece.)

This week’s WISH asks for three bits of gaming profundity. Apparently there will be a sequel next week.

Well, I tell you what. I tried and tried and tried to come up with three suitable soundbites. I came up emptier than a bag of holding dropped into a portable hole. (Non-game-geeks: Implosion. Big one. Rift-torn-in-universe kind of thing.)

So I’ll do what all stuck gamers do: get goofy.

Soundbite number one: “Chaotic neutral means never having to say you’re sorry.” This one’s not true; very CN Latiel once had to apologize before a higher-level wizard did something truly nasty to her. She is currently helping said wizard cope with a totally unexpected gender transformation—which reminds me of something that bugs me in most portrayals I have seen of CN characters. Chaotic neutral is not chaotic evil! If your CN character isn’t doing at least as many pointlessly nice things as pointlessly nasty things, you are not playing that character properly.

Alignment is a tricky thing at the best of times. I rather wish 3e D&D had got rid of it, actually. Still. It’s there; use it as a way to play against type.

Soundbite number two: “Don’t call me a thief. I’m an entrepreneur.” Sometimes the best way to deal with hackneyed game elements is to subvert them. I probably need to quit playing D&D one of these days; most of my current characters subvert the paradigm one way or another. (No, I’ll switch to another gaming system! You thought I was renouncing gaming? Never!)

Soundbite number three: “Life’s a die and then you bitch.” Two morals. If you GM, don’t throw away a character’s life on a pointless roll of the dice. (Not often, anyway. Sometimes life just isn’t fair, and that’s okay.) If you play, and your character dies, don’t whine. There’s another good character waiting.

And bonus soundbite number four: “With my Diamondlight Sunhammer I shall smash the evil carpet!” Uh… you had to be there.

Say, is anybody going to be at Gen Con? Specifically next Friday?

David, a few of my gaming buddies, and I will be wandering the halls that day. You see us, say hi. I’m the tall chunky one with glasses and nearly waist-length brown hair. I’ll be wearing an ankle-length green dress and offensively sensible shoes. David is the tall skinny one with short brown hair and glasses.