One name for this place is “The Land the Gods Refuse to See.”
October 7, 2014 2:09 PM Subscribe
The Best Monster: Playing Dungeons and Dragons with Zak Smith "Once below the lake, things go south. There are multiple floors of ogres, 50-foot-tall colorless rooks with swimming pool heads full of floating vampires, chanting evil clerics — the phantasms of Zak’s mind. Each time we need to go down a level or into a room, Tyler, least likely to survive, goes in first. We get attacked by giant green boars, throw fireballs, and now have flaming giant angry wild boars. Laney manages to charm one. She likes pigs, she tells me, and shows me a tattoo she has of a flying pig on her back."
Dude's got a serious temper problem when it comes to the internet and being disagreed with.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:53 PM on October 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:53 PM on October 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Vanessa Veselka previously on Metafilter and elsewhere.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 3:00 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 3:00 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
If I had to think of a writer who impressed me more than Vanessa Veselka, I'm not entirely sure I could come up with anyone else who is still working.
posted by brennen at 3:14 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by brennen at 3:14 PM on October 7, 2014
zak's passionate, he's certainly rude, he doesn't suffer fools, i don't know that i'd call it a temper. but, i'm biased - love him, love mandy.
watching her deal with eds is really amazing. her instagram is a good place to follow her (but, you know, she's a porn star, so expect some porny stuff. and she's dealing with eds, so there's also some feeding tube, hospital stuff). any time i read anything from him where she comes up (which is most of it) his love and care for her shines through. that's the one detail missing from this (excellent) write up - the d&d game started because mandy was getting less and less mobile and was lonely. he solved this by starting a campaign - low impact enough that it could be catered to her limitations (unlike video gaming which she doesn't get to play as much as she'd like anymore) but also robust enough that it keeps her imagination running.
posted by nadawi at 3:18 PM on October 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
watching her deal with eds is really amazing. her instagram is a good place to follow her (but, you know, she's a porn star, so expect some porny stuff. and she's dealing with eds, so there's also some feeding tube, hospital stuff). any time i read anything from him where she comes up (which is most of it) his love and care for her shines through. that's the one detail missing from this (excellent) write up - the d&d game started because mandy was getting less and less mobile and was lonely. he solved this by starting a campaign - low impact enough that it could be catered to her limitations (unlike video gaming which she doesn't get to play as much as she'd like anymore) but also robust enough that it keeps her imagination running.
posted by nadawi at 3:18 PM on October 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
Since he started, Zak (as Zak S.) has authored two books on D&D: A Red & Pleasant Land (out this month) and its predecessor, Vornheim: The Complete City Kit, which is considered by many to be one of the best third-party D&D supplements created.Oh. I am not sure who these people are, then: I have been a fan of city adventures in D&D for decades, so I picked up Vornheim a year or two back. I found it to be... energetic, which is not the same thing as good. It is enthusiastic and messy and unconcerned with anything other than the balls-out "I kick down the door and slice whatever is inside to ribbons" approach to D&D that many players leave behind around age 14. As far as third-party supplements goes, it seems way behind, say the Mongoose books (The Slayer's Guides) or all kinds of stuff from Green Ronin, or Citizen Games, or Bastion Press, or Penumbra, or Archangel Studios, or... well, almost anyone, really. As far as fantasy city stuff goes, it is definitely in my top twenty.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:22 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Even if you aren't interested in D&D, I strongly recommend reading Zak's essay on the Philosophers, which I encountered for the first time recently. It was a revelation to me on what the psychology of telepathic and telekinetic creatures might be. Which, I admit, may just be a failure of imagination on my part, but even so.
Though I confess I don't find Vornheim particularly useful as a DM.
posted by Caduceus at 3:25 PM on October 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Though I confess I don't find Vornheim particularly useful as a DM.
posted by Caduceus at 3:25 PM on October 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Great article.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:27 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:27 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
One of the things I love most about the game is the near malaise that comes— not bored, not wound up, just the knowledge that there won’t be a center or a peak, no three-act organizing structure to make meaning out of monsters. Congratulations, you’re alive: That’s what it feels like in a campaign to me.
God I hate campaigns like this. They're easy to run, but the reward for being involved is pretty minimal. I'm pretty much the opposite of OSR, however, and I have been since the mid-80s. People can play how they like, of course, but I'm not sure there's anything particularly "old" about the old school. It's just one strand that has always existed among many.
posted by howfar at 3:39 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
God I hate campaigns like this. They're easy to run, but the reward for being involved is pretty minimal. I'm pretty much the opposite of OSR, however, and I have been since the mid-80s. People can play how they like, of course, but I'm not sure there's anything particularly "old" about the old school. It's just one strand that has always existed among many.
posted by howfar at 3:39 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
I loved 4e and think it was a vital enema for the claggy intestines of D&D, but I have to say running an oldschool tournament module is just ridiculously fun.
I d/l'd The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan for a few bucks and it's just gloriously entertaining. The module designers got to be such dicks, back then (e.g. the huge mass of green algae over a door, early on - it's slimey, and it's green, but completely harmless).
posted by Sebmojo at 3:50 PM on October 7, 2014
I d/l'd The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan for a few bucks and it's just gloriously entertaining. The module designers got to be such dicks, back then (e.g. the huge mass of green algae over a door, early on - it's slimey, and it's green, but completely harmless).
posted by Sebmojo at 3:50 PM on October 7, 2014
As a 13-year-old girl, I was made to sit on the edge of the player’s circle and watch for endless sessions as eighth-grade boys acted like they were wizard librarians in the hall of Akashic Records. When crisis came, he consulted the stacks of manuals, running their fingers down tables of numbers. It was hermetic. No one explained anything. My first shots at playing came when it was someone’s turn and they had to go to the bathroom.also, THIS! yes. this is exactly how being around d&d felt when i was 12 or 13. it was one of those moments when i realized that to be interested in "boy" things meant to be shunted to the side (and in my group, only allowed to join in if i played the whore, complete with them drawing sketches of what i'd look like in garter and stockings in their minds). whatever else you think of his particular style (a style again created specifically for the needs of mandy) i love that his game seems to focus so much on the creative side and that he'll let shit get off the rails because it's fun. also, all the shots of their table remind me that my husband and i are supposed to start up a space hulk game - he says i can use my carebear minis.
posted by nadawi at 3:52 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
all the shots of their table remind me that my husband and i are supposed to start up a space hulk game - he says i can use my carebear minis.
A space hulk invaded by carebears sounds completely terrifying.
posted by lumpenprole at 4:14 PM on October 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
A space hulk invaded by carebears sounds completely terrifying.
posted by lumpenprole at 4:14 PM on October 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
The module designers got to be such dicks, back then
Child, please. Let me show you what being an absolute dick look like.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:15 PM on October 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
Child, please. Let me show you what being an absolute dick look like.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:15 PM on October 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
I have recently DMd The Tomb of Horrors, sir, up to the false demi-lich, and may therefore affirm and aver that it is of similar dickosity.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:23 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 4:23 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
You would think the readers of this had attention spans of gnats the number of times the author had to mention that he was involved with porn. What kind was it again? Just read the next sentence. Zak does alt porn. I said porn several times in this comment, just to make sure that the readers of this comment know that it has something to do with porn.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:45 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:45 PM on October 7, 2014
"Child, please. Let me show you what being an absolute dick look like."
Actually no, allow me.
posted by mobunited at 4:47 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Actually no, allow me.
posted by mobunited at 4:47 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Tucker's kobolds my friends... Tucker's kobolds from one of the greatest Dragon magazine articles ever. These weren't awesome 5e NPC hero kobolds, these were just really mean 4HP 1st edition AD&D kobolds. When a party opts to fight their way out through the gates of hell rather than face the kobolds on the return journey, the DM has constructed a dickishly evil dungeon.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:51 PM on October 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:51 PM on October 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
Hey, nothing says cool dude like encouraging your fans to harass people through their employer!
posted by mobunited at 4:51 PM on October 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by mobunited at 4:51 PM on October 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
anyone interested in the kerfuffle surrounding zak/harassment/etc should read that previously thread, not just the links, but the whole thread - a lot of the charges against him are debunked many times over. there's no there there.
posted by nadawi at 4:56 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 4:56 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Oh, wow, yes, Tucker's kobolds. /shudder
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:56 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:56 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Except, nawadi, that was my experience as well, as a twelve year old boy. It was pretty clear that I was not going to get to play. I did get to fetch sodas if I didn't make a lot of noise.
After weeks, someone finally had mercy on me (or perhaps was sick of having me shift around, peering at character sheets and DM screens) and lent me a spare Monster Manual over the weekend. "Read it," he said. "But it's not the player's guide!" I said. "Read it. Tell me what you think. I'm going to ask you questions." Then he let me have a baggie of dice. "Roll up a few."
I got grilled, but I did alright. I was surprised at how many monsters were intelligent, how many were humanoid, and how many I recognized from mythology. I loved the aberrations.
Then I was allowed to borrow a Player's Handbook. After that, a Dungeon Master's Guide and a module (B2, I think). More grilling, this time from other people in the group. I felt bewildered, but I had, in fact, looked up words like "dipsomania" and generally plowed through it.
I think I did alright, but I found all of the rules in AD&D a little overwhelming at first and began gaming with the Basic and Expert sets to get my feet wet and because it was easier to teach people those rulesets than the full, painful, often outright foolish complexity of 1e.
I dunno, it might have more to do with being an unproven runty twelve year old with only adim 9-12 INT grasp of the math behind probability, a head for rules, and skill with roleplay than gender.
posted by adipocere at 5:05 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
After weeks, someone finally had mercy on me (or perhaps was sick of having me shift around, peering at character sheets and DM screens) and lent me a spare Monster Manual over the weekend. "Read it," he said. "But it's not the player's guide!" I said. "Read it. Tell me what you think. I'm going to ask you questions." Then he let me have a baggie of dice. "Roll up a few."
I got grilled, but I did alright. I was surprised at how many monsters were intelligent, how many were humanoid, and how many I recognized from mythology. I loved the aberrations.
Then I was allowed to borrow a Player's Handbook. After that, a Dungeon Master's Guide and a module (B2, I think). More grilling, this time from other people in the group. I felt bewildered, but I had, in fact, looked up words like "dipsomania" and generally plowed through it.
I think I did alright, but I found all of the rules in AD&D a little overwhelming at first and began gaming with the Basic and Expert sets to get my feet wet and because it was easier to teach people those rulesets than the full, painful, often outright foolish complexity of 1e.
I dunno, it might have more to do with being an unproven runty twelve year old with only a
posted by adipocere at 5:05 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
anyone interested in the kerfuffle surrounding zak/harassment/etc should read that previously thread, not just the links, but the whole thread - a lot of the charges against him are debunked many times over. there's no there there.
I find it amazing that you can post this directly below a link where Zak is shown encouraging people to attack a woman's ability to hold a day job.
posted by mobunited at 5:10 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
I find it amazing that you can post this directly below a link where Zak is shown encouraging people to attack a woman's ability to hold a day job.
posted by mobunited at 5:10 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Yeah, the outcome of that thread to me was "the kerfuffle over the 5th Edition credits to RPGPundit and Zak is a tempest in the teapot, but still: christ, what assholes."
posted by murphy slaw at 5:12 PM on October 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by murphy slaw at 5:12 PM on October 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
A space hulk invaded by carebears sounds completely terrifying.
The chaos-spawned power of thier stares is a heresy, of course. But out here in the void, surrounded by uncountable megatons of haunted steel, buried in a fathomless darkness, there is no Inquisition. There is no God Emperor. There is no hope.
Only horror knows you here.
posted by clarknova at 5:12 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
The chaos-spawned power of thier stares is a heresy, of course. But out here in the void, surrounded by uncountable megatons of haunted steel, buried in a fathomless darkness, there is no Inquisition. There is no God Emperor. There is no hope.
Only horror knows you here.
posted by clarknova at 5:12 PM on October 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Actually no, allow me.
Yeah, I saw the previously when it was posted, and after reading all the comments over a number of days and spending a lot of time following around links, seems mostly like a hatchet job to me. I don't know fuck all about the other guy, he can go jump in a lake, he's clearly terrible based on what he himself writes, but the stuff about Zak seems to have no basis.
I like this and this as far as voices in the community at large go.
Hey, nothing says cool dude like encouraging your fans to harass people through their employer!
I find it amazing that you can post this directly below a link where Zak is shown encouraging people to attack a woman's ability to hold a day job.
Well, here's the thread he links to in that image. I have not read the whole thing yet.
posted by Caduceus at 5:18 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I saw the previously when it was posted, and after reading all the comments over a number of days and spending a lot of time following around links, seems mostly like a hatchet job to me. I don't know fuck all about the other guy, he can go jump in a lake, he's clearly terrible based on what he himself writes, but the stuff about Zak seems to have no basis.
I like this and this as far as voices in the community at large go.
Hey, nothing says cool dude like encouraging your fans to harass people through their employer!
I find it amazing that you can post this directly below a link where Zak is shown encouraging people to attack a woman's ability to hold a day job.
Well, here's the thread he links to in that image. I have not read the whole thing yet.
posted by Caduceus at 5:18 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I was kind of jazzed about Vornheim because I've been going through these slow-motion throes of wrestling with "what's wrong with D&D?" which has curiously led me to the idea of world-building — in an automatable fashion — being critically important to an overall solution. It's quite difficult to make decent cities, villages, and dungeons that are more than just facades which would drive a casual interloper into permanent paranoia from their sheer shallow artificiality. However, if it seems to not be particularly good, I guess I will pass.
posted by adipocere at 5:18 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by adipocere at 5:18 PM on October 7, 2014
I was kind of jazzed about Vornheim because I've been going through these slow-motion throes of wrestling with "what's wrong with D&D?" which has curiously led me to the idea of world-building — in an automatable fashion — being critically important to an overall solution. It's quite difficult to make decent cities, villages, and dungeons that are more than just facades which would drive a casual interloper into permanent paranoia from their sheer shallow artificiality. However, if it seems to not be particularly good, I guess I will pass.
My problems with it are as much tone as anything. He has a unique style for his game worlds, a lot of which doesn't mesh with my own style. It may be something you could work with. I don't know.
You may find Raging Swan press useful as far as world building goes. I do. But then again you may not. Might not be your style.
posted by Caduceus at 5:21 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
My problems with it are as much tone as anything. He has a unique style for his game worlds, a lot of which doesn't mesh with my own style. It may be something you could work with. I don't know.
You may find Raging Swan press useful as far as world building goes. I do. But then again you may not. Might not be your style.
posted by Caduceus at 5:21 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I dunno, it might have more to do with being an unproven runty twelve year old with only a dim 9-12 INT grasp of the math behind probability, a head for rules, and skill with roleplay than gender.
except everyone i was playing with was my exact same age, in my class, and my friends. you'll just have to trust me, as the person who was there, that it was deeply gendered.
posted by nadawi at 5:44 PM on October 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
except everyone i was playing with was my exact same age, in my class, and my friends. you'll just have to trust me, as the person who was there, that it was deeply gendered.
posted by nadawi at 5:44 PM on October 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
Whatever else might or might not be true about Zak S, he would be banned for derailing within six hours if he ever joined MetaFilter.
posted by silby at 5:44 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by silby at 5:44 PM on October 7, 2014
Probably not, I think derailing gets at most an exasperated note from the mods. But I doubt Zak would join anyway.
posted by um at 5:55 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by um at 5:55 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
....all the shots of their table remind me that my husband and i are supposed to start up a space hulk game - he says i can use my carebear minis.
posted by nadawi at 6:52 PM on October 7
nadawi, you might want to check out Fuzzy Heroes.
posted by magstheaxe at 6:05 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 6:52 PM on October 7
nadawi, you might want to check out Fuzzy Heroes.
posted by magstheaxe at 6:05 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
That sounds kind of interesting, Caudceus, in the dressing/flavor sense*, promising to fill things out, but I have been driving myself mad thinking about things like structure, history, and trophic levels.
I started thrashing around this in between looking at some maze algorithms (I actually found some ones that created quasi-realistic dungeons for once), scrolling through the Dungeon Dozen, looking up different cave species in Wikipedia, and checking out some tables compounded from French land ownership (how many people do you get per square mile? How many people in a village to need their own blacksmith?)
It's damned hard to create a dungeon which is at least semi-natural and isn't some monster hotel, filled with traps which would of course mostly be sprung at this point and an ecosystem that wouldn't collapse in about a week left to its own devices. Until WotC comes out with some arcane ritual by which you create a construct whose only job is wandering around the dungeon, painting fresh poison onto recessed needles, renewing minor spells, leading a very confused owlbear back to its portion of the second level, carefully rewinding the springs on traps, and fertilizing the fungus fields (which are busy converting ambient magic into calories), dungeons (and cities, for a lesser extend) are going to have this terrible sense of being a peeling veneer.
* I wish my players were more attentive. If you spy a tavern called The Slaughtered Lamb, for fuck's sake, check the phase of the moon. I've pulled that one twice now.
posted by adipocere at 6:06 PM on October 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
I started thrashing around this in between looking at some maze algorithms (I actually found some ones that created quasi-realistic dungeons for once), scrolling through the Dungeon Dozen, looking up different cave species in Wikipedia, and checking out some tables compounded from French land ownership (how many people do you get per square mile? How many people in a village to need their own blacksmith?)
It's damned hard to create a dungeon which is at least semi-natural and isn't some monster hotel, filled with traps which would of course mostly be sprung at this point and an ecosystem that wouldn't collapse in about a week left to its own devices. Until WotC comes out with some arcane ritual by which you create a construct whose only job is wandering around the dungeon, painting fresh poison onto recessed needles, renewing minor spells, leading a very confused owlbear back to its portion of the second level, carefully rewinding the springs on traps, and fertilizing the fungus fields (which are busy converting ambient magic into calories), dungeons (and cities, for a lesser extend) are going to have this terrible sense of being a peeling veneer.
* I wish my players were more attentive. If you spy a tavern called The Slaughtered Lamb, for fuck's sake, check the phase of the moon. I've pulled that one twice now.
posted by adipocere at 6:06 PM on October 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
magstheaxe - thanks! this brings back the memories of the only rpg i really got into was gurps, and it was because my bff at the time, who could only be described as a sparkling ginger (sadly straight) ren-faire fairy in a 10 year old body, taught it to me and it was the most fun i've ever had with an rpg.
posted by nadawi at 6:18 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by nadawi at 6:18 PM on October 7, 2014
adipocere, that's when you throw in the dungeon super. A growing field of employment in dungeon-strewn environments, one which tends to attract the anti-social - after all, if your friends are likely to die if they come to where you work or live, you're going to be very low on friends. Well-paying, too, by all but the most insane of dungeon owners, because plumbing the eldritch depths leaves no time for the actual plumbing.
posted by gadge emeritus at 7:00 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by gadge emeritus at 7:00 PM on October 7, 2014
Excellent article. And oh, god, this thread is makes me want to DM SO HARD right now.
posted by KingEdRa at 7:19 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by KingEdRa at 7:19 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Adipocere, I'd love some links to the maze algorithms you mentioned, and those land ownership tables too. I love hardcore worldbuilding and gritty-realistic play.
Not gonna knock Zak's style, though. It's wildly different from how I like to play, but the only thing that matters about playstyle is whether your group enjoys it.
posted by Zimboe Metamonkey at 7:37 PM on October 7, 2014
Not gonna knock Zak's style, though. It's wildly different from how I like to play, but the only thing that matters about playstyle is whether your group enjoys it.
posted by Zimboe Metamonkey at 7:37 PM on October 7, 2014
Okay, adipocere, do you know about ACKS? Dungeons are, at least partially, built by high level wizards looking to harvest magical research ingredients from the monsters that take up residence there, and the whole economic system is based on pretty thorough research on actual medieval economics. At least they claim. I have my doubts about armor prices.
Every time I've tried to use it to create a campaign setting, I've been overwhelmed by the amount of bookkeeping it would require, but if that's okay with you it might might help you achieve the levels of realism you sound like you want.
posted by Caduceus at 7:53 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Every time I've tried to use it to create a campaign setting, I've been overwhelmed by the amount of bookkeeping it would require, but if that's okay with you it might might help you achieve the levels of realism you sound like you want.
posted by Caduceus at 7:53 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Vornheim is as good as its general reputation -- a great flavourful tool for doing certain things in a D&D city, with vastly-better-than-RPG-average art by Zak himself. That said, the 'considered by many to be one of the best third-party D&D supplements created' thing seems to come from a recent contest -- I think there was an online vote for 'best RPG supplement of the decade' or something, and Vornheim won.
posted by waxbanks at 8:34 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by waxbanks at 8:34 PM on October 7, 2014
I was kind of jazzed about Vornheim because I've been going through these slow-motion throes of wrestling with "what's wrong with D&D?" which has curiously led me to the idea of world-building — in an automatable fashion — being critically important to an overall solution. It's quite difficult to make decent cities, villages, and dungeons that are more than just facades which would drive a casual interloper into permanent paranoia from their sheer shallow artificiality. However, if it seems to not be particularly good, I guess I will pass.
Vornheim is excellent, and is likely to provide at least a few amazing ideas no matter what sort of game you like, but it's definitely idiosyncratic.
Specifically it has a bunch of lists of neat ideas, which may be too particular to Zak's Weird Gygax sensibility for you to use; but it also has a swag of neat quasi-aleatoric content generation ideas that are universally useful, even if only to expand your sense of what you're 'allowed' to do as a GM.
posted by Sebmojo at 8:37 PM on October 7, 2014
Vornheim is excellent, and is likely to provide at least a few amazing ideas no matter what sort of game you like, but it's definitely idiosyncratic.
Specifically it has a bunch of lists of neat ideas, which may be too particular to Zak's Weird Gygax sensibility for you to use; but it also has a swag of neat quasi-aleatoric content generation ideas that are universally useful, even if only to expand your sense of what you're 'allowed' to do as a GM.
posted by Sebmojo at 8:37 PM on October 7, 2014
That ended up being quite a strong article. The accounting of internal debates among D&D fans/obsessives/armchair-theorists/wankers was its weakest element. I imagine most readers won't fixate on those details as I do, though -- nor should they, since those 'debates' are mostly horrible bullshit.
posted by waxbanks at 8:45 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by waxbanks at 8:45 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
This touches me deeply, primarily because my roommate has EDS and he has been my best friend for 25 years. I knew about Zak and Mandy through him, but the D&D thing hits very close to home because of our first connection, playing D&D and early teenagers. Fuck, now I'm crying at a bar.
posted by daq at 9:20 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by daq at 9:20 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'll keep looking, Caduceus, but I failed to bookmark the one I liked best, for reasons unknow— who am I kidding? Lazy, Firefox probably got all crashy and sometimes it does not properly restore a session.
I started looking in
posted by adipocere at 9:49 PM on October 7, 2014
I started looking in
places.sqlite in my Firefox profile with a:
SELECT datetime(last_visit_date/1000000, 'unixepoch', 'localtime') AS timestamp, * FROM moz_places WHERE (title LIKE '%dungeo%') OR (title LIKE '%maze%') OR (title LIKE '%algor%') OR (title LIKE '%programmat%') ORDER BY last_visit_datebut I didn't see anything too good, so I picked a decent date from where I found algorithms I remember not being too thrilled with and am trawling over my web history, week by week, after that time period. I'll see if I turn anything up.
posted by adipocere at 9:49 PM on October 7, 2014
And here we go:
I liked this alright, but it felt a little tightly packed to me. This seemed better but had something of a meandering earthworm feel to it. One that continues to undergo revision is this, which does some multi-level stuff; I liked earlier versions better.
I wanted to tie these algorithms to criteria like Creating Measurably Fun Maps and a basic framework like this to enhance a story, but start off with something historical, like an actual cave system such as what can be done with cellular automata as a basis before it gets modified by greedy dwarves, hungry xorn, dragons undergoing puberty, and the odd lich looking to expand her retirement home.
posted by adipocere at 10:13 PM on October 7, 2014 [9 favorites]
I liked this alright, but it felt a little tightly packed to me. This seemed better but had something of a meandering earthworm feel to it. One that continues to undergo revision is this, which does some multi-level stuff; I liked earlier versions better.
I wanted to tie these algorithms to criteria like Creating Measurably Fun Maps and a basic framework like this to enhance a story, but start off with something historical, like an actual cave system such as what can be done with cellular automata as a basis before it gets modified by greedy dwarves, hungry xorn, dragons undergoing puberty, and the odd lich looking to expand her retirement home.
posted by adipocere at 10:13 PM on October 7, 2014 [9 favorites]
That article contains a pretty good definition of OSR. At least one that explains why I can't stand the movement...
posted by pseudocode at 4:05 AM on October 8, 2014
posted by pseudocode at 4:05 AM on October 8, 2014
Can someone explain the part in the article about the baby Orcs and Zak saying that killing them makes the author "Old School Renaissance." What does that mean and what does it have to do with old-school games? Is that these games expected/rewarded this kind of role-playing behavior?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:57 AM on October 8, 2014
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:57 AM on October 8, 2014
Cool Papa Bell:
Part of the OSR ethos is that Alignment is part of the physics of the world, as handed down from Saints Gary and Dave, and therefore baby orcs are inherently Evil and slaying them is a moral act for a Good character. The OSR folks take a strong stand against moral relativism in gaming.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:10 AM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
Part of the OSR ethos is that Alignment is part of the physics of the world, as handed down from Saints Gary and Dave, and therefore baby orcs are inherently Evil and slaying them is a moral act for a Good character. The OSR folks take a strong stand against moral relativism in gaming.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:10 AM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
That explanation from murphy slaw is as concise as -- or really, more concise than -- I could have made it, so I can only add this.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:24 AM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:24 AM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
The weird thing about Alignment in D&D was that Gary took something that made perfect sense as a descriptor of an individual's moral compass and then applied it as a descriptor of entire races/species. The conflation of individual psychology and nasty Victorian-era racial essentialism is what led many post-D&D games to abandon alignment systems.
To the OSR crowd, though, Alignment is just a game mechanic. My sword does extra damage to Evil monsters. I can tell that there are Orcs in the next room because Detect Evil is going off like a fire alarm. I know without a doubt that the dozens of sentient beings whose home I invaded and whom I killed and looted were Evil, and therefore I am a crusading hero and not a murderhobo.
This is why they lash out so strongly against people outside the movement questioning the underlying assumptions of their playstyle. When you tell them that you find racial alignment problematic, they hear "You are having Wrong Fun and must be stopped."
posted by murphy slaw at 10:38 AM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
To the OSR crowd, though, Alignment is just a game mechanic. My sword does extra damage to Evil monsters. I can tell that there are Orcs in the next room because Detect Evil is going off like a fire alarm. I know without a doubt that the dozens of sentient beings whose home I invaded and whom I killed and looted were Evil, and therefore I am a crusading hero and not a murderhobo.
This is why they lash out so strongly against people outside the movement questioning the underlying assumptions of their playstyle. When you tell them that you find racial alignment problematic, they hear "You are having Wrong Fun and must be stopped."
posted by murphy slaw at 10:38 AM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Because you are having Wrong Fun. Or, rather, you want people who are not particularly interested to have what you believe is to be the "correct" form of fun.
The conscience-striken adventurer no longer adventures. Must I kill that gelatinous cube? It keeps the dungeon clean. Is that gold really mine? I mean, someone put it there for a reason. Sure, the kobolds are mean, but for the most part they're just trying to get by. I don't know if I should help this rebel alliance; this country has had its governmental system for a while and I am not sure if destabilizing it is the right thing to do. The dragon isn't actually evil, it's just an apex predator and I'm part of the food web under it. The undead don't have an alignment because they are incapable of making moral choices since they tend to be walking skeletons held together only by dark magic. Any right-thinking society would have imprisoned Conan the Barbarian long ago while Talon is forced to wear a crown he no longer wants as his triple-bladed sword rusts in disuse. (Okay, nobody is going to trust Hawk the Slayer with much of anything)
Games are simplified models of various forms of conflict and (a balanced) simplification makes it fun. Once you start worrying about orc orphans, Dungeons & Dragons turns into Charities & Causes. How will the electrum be equitably distributed? You're free to write that one yourself but don't be surprised if you don't get a lot of takers.
We are rapscallions and rogues, murderhoboes to be sure. If you don't like it, don't play that way, but don't begrudge us our morally-dubious mythologies.
posted by adipocere at 11:02 AM on October 8, 2014 [7 favorites]
The conscience-striken adventurer no longer adventures. Must I kill that gelatinous cube? It keeps the dungeon clean. Is that gold really mine? I mean, someone put it there for a reason. Sure, the kobolds are mean, but for the most part they're just trying to get by. I don't know if I should help this rebel alliance; this country has had its governmental system for a while and I am not sure if destabilizing it is the right thing to do. The dragon isn't actually evil, it's just an apex predator and I'm part of the food web under it. The undead don't have an alignment because they are incapable of making moral choices since they tend to be walking skeletons held together only by dark magic. Any right-thinking society would have imprisoned Conan the Barbarian long ago while Talon is forced to wear a crown he no longer wants as his triple-bladed sword rusts in disuse. (Okay, nobody is going to trust Hawk the Slayer with much of anything)
Games are simplified models of various forms of conflict and (a balanced) simplification makes it fun. Once you start worrying about orc orphans, Dungeons & Dragons turns into Charities & Causes. How will the electrum be equitably distributed? You're free to write that one yourself but don't be surprised if you don't get a lot of takers.
We are rapscallions and rogues, murderhoboes to be sure. If you don't like it, don't play that way, but don't begrudge us our morally-dubious mythologies.
posted by adipocere at 11:02 AM on October 8, 2014 [7 favorites]
The nice thing about pen and paper RPGs is that we never have to marry ourselves to any particular form.
Either way, I have no idea why we'd blame Gygax (or the Victorians) for the idea of evil monsters, humanoid and otherwise. Evil monsters have existed for as long as storytelling has ever existed.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:10 AM on October 8, 2014
Either way, I have no idea why we'd blame Gygax (or the Victorians) for the idea of evil monsters, humanoid and otherwise. Evil monsters have existed for as long as storytelling has ever existed.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:10 AM on October 8, 2014
murderhobo
♫ Soooomebody found his Halloweeeeen costuuuuume. ♫
posted by echocollate at 11:11 AM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
♫ Soooomebody found his Halloweeeeen costuuuuume. ♫
posted by echocollate at 11:11 AM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Or, rather, you want people who are not particularly interested to have what you believe is to be the "correct" form of fun.
Yeah, absolutely. The reason it turns into a screaming match is because it's two groups of people arguing who don't accept each other's premises.
I enjoy murderhobo play as much as the next guy (though these days I find video games scratch that itch better than tabletop). I also enjoy games with murkier morality.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:21 AM on October 8, 2014
Yeah, absolutely. The reason it turns into a screaming match is because it's two groups of people arguing who don't accept each other's premises.
I enjoy murderhobo play as much as the next guy (though these days I find video games scratch that itch better than tabletop). I also enjoy games with murkier morality.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:21 AM on October 8, 2014
I personally prefer a complex mix of worldviews in my D&D games, but handwringing over the darker, more morally stark modes of gameplay smack to me of the Satanism panic of the 80s. It's a game. We are making pretend. We are not our characters any more than we're the villains of our favorite novels. Our imaginary avatars are not barely disguised projections of our truest selves. Arguments that availed against the religious panic mongering of the first editions are just as effective, in my view, against the weird literalism of modern killjoys.
posted by echocollate at 11:30 AM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by echocollate at 11:30 AM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
If you don't like it, don't play that way, but don't begrudge us our morally-dubious mythologies.
Hm. There is a middle point between thinking things that other people do are problematic and thinking that they must stop. Racial alignment is difficult, for specific historical reasons. The DNA of roleplaying games, in particular D&D, is partly in Wagner and 19th century romanticism; Tolkein didn't write a book about magic rings without reference to that of the Nibelung.
D&D shares a part of its heritage with Nazism. The Nazis didn't know they were monsters, they thought they were mythic heroes. The comparisons are, for me, too compelling to entirely wave away, despite my love of epic fantasy, and epic fantasy gaming. I feel the need to be wary of that kind of fun, even when I take part in it.
You may be happy that your play avoids problematic and uncomfortable evocation of these comparisons. You may be sure that you are sufficiently free from prejudice to play with the tropes in an unproblematic way. If so, then good, play as you wish. It is not reasonable, however, to expect me to necessarily share your opinion of your play, or your knowledge of your motives. Racial alignment and ethical absolutism in D&D trouble me, and that's not going to change simply because they don't trouble you.
posted by howfar at 11:33 AM on October 8, 2014
Hm. There is a middle point between thinking things that other people do are problematic and thinking that they must stop. Racial alignment is difficult, for specific historical reasons. The DNA of roleplaying games, in particular D&D, is partly in Wagner and 19th century romanticism; Tolkein didn't write a book about magic rings without reference to that of the Nibelung.
D&D shares a part of its heritage with Nazism. The Nazis didn't know they were monsters, they thought they were mythic heroes. The comparisons are, for me, too compelling to entirely wave away, despite my love of epic fantasy, and epic fantasy gaming. I feel the need to be wary of that kind of fun, even when I take part in it.
You may be happy that your play avoids problematic and uncomfortable evocation of these comparisons. You may be sure that you are sufficiently free from prejudice to play with the tropes in an unproblematic way. If so, then good, play as you wish. It is not reasonable, however, to expect me to necessarily share your opinion of your play, or your knowledge of your motives. Racial alignment and ethical absolutism in D&D trouble me, and that's not going to change simply because they don't trouble you.
posted by howfar at 11:33 AM on October 8, 2014
Either way, I have no idea why we'd blame Gygax (or the Victorians) for the idea of evil monsters
My point is just that the further you get away from epic fantasy play, the closer "all Orcs are evil" gets to "all Italians are criminals".
People have been noticing this since the dawn of roleplaying, and the fact that there are fantasy games without alignment systems is in part a reaction to this.
I think you can play D&D and have fun and still understand that there are moral concerns with the systems (and the source material).
posted by murphy slaw at 11:38 AM on October 8, 2014
My point is just that the further you get away from epic fantasy play, the closer "all Orcs are evil" gets to "all Italians are criminals".
People have been noticing this since the dawn of roleplaying, and the fact that there are fantasy games without alignment systems is in part a reaction to this.
I think you can play D&D and have fun and still understand that there are moral concerns with the systems (and the source material).
posted by murphy slaw at 11:38 AM on October 8, 2014
Good. Be troubled.
But you're going to have to live with the fact that some folks are not troubled, do not want to be troubled, and might push back if you tell them they ought to be troubled because you've gone Godwin on the whole thing.
I'll give someone a polite "That's nice that you think that" a few times but after that, it's no different than the continual pleas of the Jehovah's Witnesses who just want to save me. For Jesus.
We're going to to get our hilts hot and our scabbards slippery with bile gushing from the freshly-opened guts of an orc and if someone says, "Won't somebody think of the children?" our party is liable to say, "Oh, right, them" then pull out a few flasks of oil and make a Molotov cocktail, only to lament about how marshmallows would be an anachronism.
Some people just ... don't want to sit around and problematize everything, all the time, and refuse to be shamed for it.
posted by adipocere at 11:54 AM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
But you're going to have to live with the fact that some folks are not troubled, do not want to be troubled, and might push back if you tell them they ought to be troubled because you've gone Godwin on the whole thing.
I'll give someone a polite "That's nice that you think that" a few times but after that, it's no different than the continual pleas of the Jehovah's Witnesses who just want to save me. For Jesus.
We're going to to get our hilts hot and our scabbards slippery with bile gushing from the freshly-opened guts of an orc and if someone says, "Won't somebody think of the children?" our party is liable to say, "Oh, right, them" then pull out a few flasks of oil and make a Molotov cocktail, only to lament about how marshmallows would be an anachronism.
Some people just ... don't want to sit around and problematize everything, all the time, and refuse to be shamed for it.
posted by adipocere at 11:54 AM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
My point is just that the further you get away from epic fantasy play, the closer "all Orcs are evil" gets to "all Italians are criminals".
To say nothing of "Italians are like orcs", apparently. I'm not sure if this argument is any more compelling than "D&D leads to sorcery" - it seems speculative at best to say that gamers with evil goblins are advancing racism in any significant way. In my experience, they understand that orcs are not like people. Then again, Varg Vikernes does have his own homebrew RPG system...
I mean, I'm not married to alignment-bound races myself, but it seems like a weaksauce complaint.
I always found Redwall's species-bound morality to be many times more disturbing. All the creatures in Redwall were beasts, and yet some species of beast were inherently evil. Seems much more analogous to racism.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:59 AM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
To say nothing of "Italians are like orcs", apparently. I'm not sure if this argument is any more compelling than "D&D leads to sorcery" - it seems speculative at best to say that gamers with evil goblins are advancing racism in any significant way. In my experience, they understand that orcs are not like people. Then again, Varg Vikernes does have his own homebrew RPG system...
I mean, I'm not married to alignment-bound races myself, but it seems like a weaksauce complaint.
I always found Redwall's species-bound morality to be many times more disturbing. All the creatures in Redwall were beasts, and yet some species of beast were inherently evil. Seems much more analogous to racism.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:59 AM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's a game. We are making pretend.
Exactly. When someone says "Isn't it racist to think that all orcs are evil?" the correct response is "Um... You do know orcs aren't real, right?"
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 12:00 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Exactly. When someone says "Isn't it racist to think that all orcs are evil?" the correct response is "Um... You do know orcs aren't real, right?"
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 12:00 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I always found Redwall's species-bound morality to be many times more disturbing. All the creatures in Redwall were beasts, and yet some species of beast were inherently evil. Seems much more analogous to racism.
I don't follow. Surely Orcs (who in AD&D rules are interfertile with humans) have more in common humans than a mouse and a crow in Redwall.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:06 PM on October 8, 2014
I don't follow. Surely Orcs (who in AD&D rules are interfertile with humans) have more in common humans than a mouse and a crow in Redwall.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:06 PM on October 8, 2014
gone Godwin on the whole thing
That's not what "Godwin" means. The notion that we can never point out connections with Nazism when they actually exist is somewhat insidious, I'd suggest.
Other than that, of course, yes, play as you wish. Feel as you do. Your conscience is your own. But perhaps dial back the venom a little? It doesn't seem particularly helpful.
posted by howfar at 12:08 PM on October 8, 2014
That's not what "Godwin" means. The notion that we can never point out connections with Nazism when they actually exist is somewhat insidious, I'd suggest.
Other than that, of course, yes, play as you wish. Feel as you do. Your conscience is your own. But perhaps dial back the venom a little? It doesn't seem particularly helpful.
posted by howfar at 12:08 PM on October 8, 2014
Mice and crows share the same degree of not-people-ness. They're all beasts in Redwall, locked in late-medieval warfare and intrigue, except arbitrarily assigned various inflexible degrees of morality. That's weird.
In D&D-style fantasy, however, there are myriad humanoid creatures, including all races of humans. Orcs are obviously not humans. In-universe interfertility with humans does not confuse real world people into thinking that they're humans.
I mean, if you still find it problematic, then that's fair, but that's as far as the argument goes, apparently.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:17 PM on October 8, 2014
In D&D-style fantasy, however, there are myriad humanoid creatures, including all races of humans. Orcs are obviously not humans. In-universe interfertility with humans does not confuse real world people into thinking that they're humans.
I mean, if you still find it problematic, then that's fair, but that's as far as the argument goes, apparently.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:17 PM on October 8, 2014
I suspect that the issue partly arises from D&D having such a lumpy melange of source material and supporting so many styles of play. The alignment system makes total sense in Tolkien-style fantasy, less in Leiber-style swords and skullduggery, and almost none in Vance's Dying Earth, where the entire world is a recursive tangle of utter bastardry.
The good thing about RPGs is that more than any other game style, house rules and house style always win out over what's in the book. If your group finds alignment problematic (or just an impediment to the kinds of adventures they want to have), you ignore it or drop it completely. D&D only needs the most minor adjustments to work fine with no alignment system at all (save certain settings like Planescape).
The bad thing about talking to other RPG players on the Internet is that you can say "I like to play D&D" and they assume that you either play the game exactly as specified in the rulebook, or that their particular set of house rules and house style is how everyone else plays the game.
Thus much time is wasted by people yelling at each other about having Wrong Fun.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:21 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
The good thing about RPGs is that more than any other game style, house rules and house style always win out over what's in the book. If your group finds alignment problematic (or just an impediment to the kinds of adventures they want to have), you ignore it or drop it completely. D&D only needs the most minor adjustments to work fine with no alignment system at all (save certain settings like Planescape).
The bad thing about talking to other RPG players on the Internet is that you can say "I like to play D&D" and they assume that you either play the game exactly as specified in the rulebook, or that their particular set of house rules and house style is how everyone else plays the game.
Thus much time is wasted by people yelling at each other about having Wrong Fun.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:21 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
That's not what "Godwin" means.
Baloney. That's exactly what it means. And it's not appreciated.
Godwin's law (or Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"[2][3]— that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:21 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Baloney. That's exactly what it means. And it's not appreciated.
Godwin's law (or Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"[2][3]— that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:21 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Racial alignment is difficult, for specific historical reasons.
"Races" in Dungeons and Dragons are really different species. Some of those species are essentially evil, the same way vampires are essentially evil, or wewewolves. What these have in common is that they are completely made up. They are not a fantasy-world referent to real-world analog.
D&D shares a part of its heritage with Nazism. The Nazis didn't know they were monsters, they thought they were mythic heroes. The comparisons are, for me, too compelling to entirely wave away, despite my love of epic fantasy, and epic fantasy gaming. I feel the need to be wary of that kind of fun, even when I take part in it.
I feel compelled to say it again. Nazis were real. Orcs are not. You're projecting an awful lot of baggage onto a pen and dice game.
You may be happy that your play avoids problematic and uncomfortable evocation of these comparisons. You may be sure that you are sufficiently free from prejudice to play with the tropes in an unproblematic way. If so, then good, play as you wish. It is not reasonable, however, to expect me to necessarily share your opinion of your play, or your knowledge of your motives. Racial alignment and ethical absolutism in D&D trouble me, and that's not going to change simply because they don't trouble you.
I'm happy that I can easily distinguish between what's real and what isn't.
posted by echocollate at 12:23 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
"Races" in Dungeons and Dragons are really different species. Some of those species are essentially evil, the same way vampires are essentially evil, or wewewolves. What these have in common is that they are completely made up. They are not a fantasy-world referent to real-world analog.
D&D shares a part of its heritage with Nazism. The Nazis didn't know they were monsters, they thought they were mythic heroes. The comparisons are, for me, too compelling to entirely wave away, despite my love of epic fantasy, and epic fantasy gaming. I feel the need to be wary of that kind of fun, even when I take part in it.
I feel compelled to say it again. Nazis were real. Orcs are not. You're projecting an awful lot of baggage onto a pen and dice game.
You may be happy that your play avoids problematic and uncomfortable evocation of these comparisons. You may be sure that you are sufficiently free from prejudice to play with the tropes in an unproblematic way. If so, then good, play as you wish. It is not reasonable, however, to expect me to necessarily share your opinion of your play, or your knowledge of your motives. Racial alignment and ethical absolutism in D&D trouble me, and that's not going to change simply because they don't trouble you.
I'm happy that I can easily distinguish between what's real and what isn't.
posted by echocollate at 12:23 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
What is also not helpful is the continual, relentless hammering about how I ought to feel a certain way, or, you know, Nazis. I mean, really. Nazis. Some kind of moral anti-polestar. If the Nazis did it, you can be sure it was wrong. Better stop breathing, because the Nazis did it. Just wave the goose-stepping specter around and I'll fall in line, because gosh, I certainly don't want to be like them. Gasp!
You get the venom because "thanks but no thanks" has been ineffective in turning away the hammering. This is very importantl for you to understand that, after a certain point, people can and will become irritated. They come with critical faculties of their own, ones with which you might not even agree, and they aren't just these gray blobs to be converted into what you would like them to think. I don't have an empty skull into which you can pour your wisdom. I don't have wrong-thinking bits that need to be fixed. After a certain amount of disrespect to that, people can and will turn on you and take out a few bloody bites. And you don't get to be surprised when it happens.
At some point what I thought was merely a one-off whacko manifesto has become "critical insight."
posted by adipocere at 12:28 PM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
You get the venom because "thanks but no thanks" has been ineffective in turning away the hammering. This is very importantl for you to understand that, after a certain point, people can and will become irritated. They come with critical faculties of their own, ones with which you might not even agree, and they aren't just these gray blobs to be converted into what you would like them to think. I don't have an empty skull into which you can pour your wisdom. I don't have wrong-thinking bits that need to be fixed. After a certain amount of disrespect to that, people can and will turn on you and take out a few bloody bites. And you don't get to be surprised when it happens.
At some point what I thought was merely a one-off whacko manifesto has become "critical insight."
posted by adipocere at 12:28 PM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
YOU KNOW WHO ELSE WAS AGAINST THE NAZIS?
THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GUESSED IT
ENVER HOXHA, THE FUTURE DICTATOR OF ALBANIA
YOU ARE EXACTLY LIKE ENVER HOXHA
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:36 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GUESSED IT
ENVER HOXHA, THE FUTURE DICTATOR OF ALBANIA
YOU ARE EXACTLY LIKE ENVER HOXHA
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:36 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
You get the venom because "thanks but no thanks" has been ineffective in turning away the hammering.
You must be confusing me with a couple other guys. I've never talked to you about this before. I'm only talking to you about this now because you started talking about it. It's reasonable if you want to use Metafilter to share your views on this point, but it seems somewhat unreasonable to respond with quite such bile to having them even gently challenged.
posted by howfar at 12:40 PM on October 8, 2014
You must be confusing me with a couple other guys. I've never talked to you about this before. I'm only talking to you about this now because you started talking about it. It's reasonable if you want to use Metafilter to share your views on this point, but it seems somewhat unreasonable to respond with quite such bile to having them even gently challenged.
posted by howfar at 12:40 PM on October 8, 2014
Honestly, howfar, your comment very much reads as, 'I'm not saying you're a bigot if you like playing a game with moral absolutism, I'm just going to say that it's like the Nazis and sniff about how if you're sure you have no prejudice in your soul that will be corrupted by D&D into Nazism, then go for it. I'll be over here, judging you for your bigot leanings.'
It is distinctly possible to be able to grasp that the real world works in shades of grey while embracing a fictional world where things are more starkly drawn. Probable, even. But when you imply that people who enjoy such things, well, you're not saying they're Nazis, but there's clearly parallels there... that's not having views "gently challenged". That's wanting to suggest bigotry without saying it, and that's a toxic way of engaging with other users.
posted by gadge emeritus at 12:45 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
It is distinctly possible to be able to grasp that the real world works in shades of grey while embracing a fictional world where things are more starkly drawn. Probable, even. But when you imply that people who enjoy such things, well, you're not saying they're Nazis, but there's clearly parallels there... that's not having views "gently challenged". That's wanting to suggest bigotry without saying it, and that's a toxic way of engaging with other users.
posted by gadge emeritus at 12:45 PM on October 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
(I'd like to continue this conversation under the caveat that I know that Orcs aren't real and that having evil races makes sense as both a fictional mechanic and a game mechanic. I still think there is something to discuss here.)
Some of those species are essentially evil, the same way vampires are essentially evil, or werewolves.
Where it starts to get weird is when monsters start crossing the uncanny valley into people-ness.
You start on one end of the spectrum with things like the evil dragon burninating the countryside. It's a big angry predator and you can understand it by analogy as a man-eating tiger. It's Evil because it wants to eat the peasants and burninate their thatch-roofed cottages. Simple.
Then you have stuff like Vampires and Werewolves and Liches, who are INDIVIDUALS who are beset by an evil curse, or have engaged in dark magic. They did something bad, or had something bad done to them, and now they have become predators on the rest of humanity. Still pretty simple.
Then you come to the Orcs. Orcs in Tolkien are pretty much cannon fodder for the armies of Mordor. They don't have a culture, they don't have cities, they spew out of the Black Gate like army ants. They're an abstract for the concept of the enemy army. You never see a female orc or a baby orc or an orc village. They're monsters en masse, but still monsters.
But somewhere along the line, that changed. In the module Keep On The Borderlands, suddenly the cave complexes of the humanoids are basically underground villages, and there are references to "orc whelps" and the like. Orcs have changed from an abstract Mongol Horde that is sweeping down on civilization, to a society whose homes the players are invading. They have become more people-like.
Racial alignment started to get weird the moment that "what's it like to live in an orc village?" became a reasonable question to ask.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:46 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Some of those species are essentially evil, the same way vampires are essentially evil, or werewolves.
Where it starts to get weird is when monsters start crossing the uncanny valley into people-ness.
You start on one end of the spectrum with things like the evil dragon burninating the countryside. It's a big angry predator and you can understand it by analogy as a man-eating tiger. It's Evil because it wants to eat the peasants and burninate their thatch-roofed cottages. Simple.
Then you have stuff like Vampires and Werewolves and Liches, who are INDIVIDUALS who are beset by an evil curse, or have engaged in dark magic. They did something bad, or had something bad done to them, and now they have become predators on the rest of humanity. Still pretty simple.
Then you come to the Orcs. Orcs in Tolkien are pretty much cannon fodder for the armies of Mordor. They don't have a culture, they don't have cities, they spew out of the Black Gate like army ants. They're an abstract for the concept of the enemy army. You never see a female orc or a baby orc or an orc village. They're monsters en masse, but still monsters.
But somewhere along the line, that changed. In the module Keep On The Borderlands, suddenly the cave complexes of the humanoids are basically underground villages, and there are references to "orc whelps" and the like. Orcs have changed from an abstract Mongol Horde that is sweeping down on civilization, to a society whose homes the players are invading. They have become more people-like.
Racial alignment started to get weird the moment that "what's it like to live in an orc village?" became a reasonable question to ask.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:46 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Where it starts to get weird is when monsters start crossing the uncanny valley into people-ness.
For most players, orcs lack a critical mass of people-ness, despite some superficial humanoid resemblance.
Racial alignment started to get weird the moment that "what's it like to live in an orc village?" became a reasonable question to ask.
Sure, and that weirdness is an opportunity for everybody playing the game. You can have orcs be whatever you want them to be: you could go the OSR route and say that they really are generally malefic, or you could go the Tolkien route and say that they are basically cannon fodder, or you could treat them as creatures with a generally (and genuinely) nasty culture (like, hell, the Nazis), or you could do something else entirely.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:56 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
For most players, orcs lack a critical mass of people-ness, despite some superficial humanoid resemblance.
Racial alignment started to get weird the moment that "what's it like to live in an orc village?" became a reasonable question to ask.
Sure, and that weirdness is an opportunity for everybody playing the game. You can have orcs be whatever you want them to be: you could go the OSR route and say that they really are generally malefic, or you could go the Tolkien route and say that they are basically cannon fodder, or you could treat them as creatures with a generally (and genuinely) nasty culture (like, hell, the Nazis), or you could do something else entirely.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:56 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Racial alignment started to get weird the moment that "what's it like to live in an orc village?" became a reasonable question to ask.
It really doesn't as I see it. Being social creatures with a hierarchy doesn't complicate the issue of alignment-as-mechanic, and the question of whether to kill a baby orc never, ever boils down to "What would I, the teenager role-player in his mom's garage personally do in this situation?" but rather "What would the fictional character I have created do in this particular situation?" Just as I feel no personal moral queasiness about my assassin character targeting an innocent for a fat commission, I feel no personal moral queasiness about my lawful good paladin killing an orc baby because evil.
posted by echocollate at 1:01 PM on October 8, 2014
It really doesn't as I see it. Being social creatures with a hierarchy doesn't complicate the issue of alignment-as-mechanic, and the question of whether to kill a baby orc never, ever boils down to "What would I, the teenager role-player in his mom's garage personally do in this situation?" but rather "What would the fictional character I have created do in this particular situation?" Just as I feel no personal moral queasiness about my assassin character targeting an innocent for a fat commission, I feel no personal moral queasiness about my lawful good paladin killing an orc baby because evil.
posted by echocollate at 1:01 PM on October 8, 2014
Because you're hardly the first person to gently challenge them. Or the hundredth. You might be the thousandth.
You know the somewhat frowned-upon game, Pass the Cat? A bunch of people get in a circle and pass the cat around the circle, clockwise or counter-clockwise. At some point, the cat gets pissed off and claws the crap out of someone. Now, that person has only passed the cat along once, but she gets clawed anyway. It's because the cat is tired of the collective act of getting passed around. Not by the first person or the fifth person, but perhaps by the tenth.
To avoid this, you either pass the cat verrrrry carefully or you don't pass the cat at all.
You don't get a fresh start, like I was born yesterday and just came out of the wrapper. I have existed before my interactions with you and I shall exist after them. I am a real person. Part of recognizing that means that you may wish to consider that you are not the first person to gently challenge and that I may have reached an overall level of gentle-challenges-per-month I find annoying because they are more than a tiny bit condescending, taken as a whole. The expectation that I will clap my hands to my cheeks and exclaim, "Why golly gee, I never thought of that before! This game was racist all along!" suggests that I have the self-reflective capabilities of a grape.
If you want to be a missionary, you may want to sit down and come to grips with the idea that you weren't the first one ever to walk down a block and that the door you want to knock at may have received a dozen irritating visitors already today. If you aren't ready for that, I don't know what to tell you.
If I had to guess, I would hazard that Zak, too, has probably dealt with this kind of "wow, dude, have you ever considered ...?" a bunch as well and has grown quite weary of it, hence why he might get sick of discussing it. After a while, yes, a little hostility might serve to dissuade. The idea that a game featuring, well, an awful lot of killing and looting might have ethically questionable elements hasn't not occurred to, umm, anyone who spares a second to think about it. When you act like this is some thunderbolt of insight you just have to share with poor, unenlightened me, I can only imagine that you believe that I might have, well, no inner life at all, that I might not remember the Satanic scares and the Jack Chick tract and the Rona Jaffe novel.
Essentially, these gentle challenges are also passive-aggressive insults which only saints or the braindead could withstand forever without complaint. Get down with that and boogie, because some folks want to fling some dice, heat some pizza bites, and have fun. Games, and especially a fantasy game, are an escape, one which this sort of thing explicitly harshes the buzz of.
Fun is not "correct." Echocollate's paladin will intone "little orcs become big orcs" and then perhaps stick to merciful, quick thrusts with his overly-shiny sword — that's how we roll.
posted by adipocere at 1:09 PM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
You know the somewhat frowned-upon game, Pass the Cat? A bunch of people get in a circle and pass the cat around the circle, clockwise or counter-clockwise. At some point, the cat gets pissed off and claws the crap out of someone. Now, that person has only passed the cat along once, but she gets clawed anyway. It's because the cat is tired of the collective act of getting passed around. Not by the first person or the fifth person, but perhaps by the tenth.
To avoid this, you either pass the cat verrrrry carefully or you don't pass the cat at all.
You don't get a fresh start, like I was born yesterday and just came out of the wrapper. I have existed before my interactions with you and I shall exist after them. I am a real person. Part of recognizing that means that you may wish to consider that you are not the first person to gently challenge and that I may have reached an overall level of gentle-challenges-per-month I find annoying because they are more than a tiny bit condescending, taken as a whole. The expectation that I will clap my hands to my cheeks and exclaim, "Why golly gee, I never thought of that before! This game was racist all along!" suggests that I have the self-reflective capabilities of a grape.
If you want to be a missionary, you may want to sit down and come to grips with the idea that you weren't the first one ever to walk down a block and that the door you want to knock at may have received a dozen irritating visitors already today. If you aren't ready for that, I don't know what to tell you.
If I had to guess, I would hazard that Zak, too, has probably dealt with this kind of "wow, dude, have you ever considered ...?" a bunch as well and has grown quite weary of it, hence why he might get sick of discussing it. After a while, yes, a little hostility might serve to dissuade. The idea that a game featuring, well, an awful lot of killing and looting might have ethically questionable elements hasn't not occurred to, umm, anyone who spares a second to think about it. When you act like this is some thunderbolt of insight you just have to share with poor, unenlightened me, I can only imagine that you believe that I might have, well, no inner life at all, that I might not remember the Satanic scares and the Jack Chick tract and the Rona Jaffe novel.
Essentially, these gentle challenges are also passive-aggressive insults which only saints or the braindead could withstand forever without complaint. Get down with that and boogie, because some folks want to fling some dice, heat some pizza bites, and have fun. Games, and especially a fantasy game, are an escape, one which this sort of thing explicitly harshes the buzz of.
Fun is not "correct." Echocollate's paladin will intone "little orcs become big orcs" and then perhaps stick to merciful, quick thrusts with his overly-shiny sword — that's how we roll.
posted by adipocere at 1:09 PM on October 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
For the record, I'm pro playing the game however one chooses to play, including moral relativity. I'm anti criticizing how others choose to play the game, as if it portends real world consequences.
posted by echocollate at 1:10 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by echocollate at 1:10 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
echocollate:
posted by charred husk at 1:15 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm anti criticizing how others choose to play the game, as if it portends real world consequences.Unless you're unironically playing FATAL. A kitten is killed every time someone does that - a real world consequence.
posted by charred husk at 1:15 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
or you could do something else entirely
Or even "there are no baby orcs because orcs are people who have been submerged in the Mauve Cauldron of Saskatoon by the dark wizard Ontario and are now slaves to his will".
posted by murphy slaw at 1:16 PM on October 8, 2014
Or even "there are no baby orcs because orcs are people who have been submerged in the Mauve Cauldron of Saskatoon by the dark wizard Ontario and are now slaves to his will".
posted by murphy slaw at 1:16 PM on October 8, 2014
Honestly, howfar, your comment very much reads as, 'I'm not saying you're a bigot if you like playing a game with moral absolutism, I'm just going to say that it's like the Nazis and sniff about how if you're sure you have no prejudice in your soul that will be corrupted by D&D into Nazism, then go for it. I'll be over here, judging you for your bigot leanings.'
I can see how it might reasonably be read that way, which is unfortunate, and something I must take responsibility for, being the person who wrote it, but I think my intention (at least consciously) was more along the lines of suggesting that there are reasonable concerns that reasonable people might have about how we interact with fictional and fantastical worlds. And that there are historical reasons why one might have specific concerns when thinking about high fantasy in particular.
I don't think that people who play with absolute alignment systems (myself included, quite frequently through my own design) are bigots. However, I think I maintain the boundary between fantasy and reality most effectively by being aware of the fact that the fantasy is not necessarily unproblematic simply by virtue of being fantasy. I don't think there's any slippery slope to bigotry that starts with not doing that, but given the amount of conscious prejudice I notice in myself, and unconscious prejudice I suspect I carry around completely unaware, it doesn't seem to me to be an unreasonable practice.
posted by howfar at 1:17 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I can see how it might reasonably be read that way, which is unfortunate, and something I must take responsibility for, being the person who wrote it, but I think my intention (at least consciously) was more along the lines of suggesting that there are reasonable concerns that reasonable people might have about how we interact with fictional and fantastical worlds. And that there are historical reasons why one might have specific concerns when thinking about high fantasy in particular.
I don't think that people who play with absolute alignment systems (myself included, quite frequently through my own design) are bigots. However, I think I maintain the boundary between fantasy and reality most effectively by being aware of the fact that the fantasy is not necessarily unproblematic simply by virtue of being fantasy. I don't think there's any slippery slope to bigotry that starts with not doing that, but given the amount of conscious prejudice I notice in myself, and unconscious prejudice I suspect I carry around completely unaware, it doesn't seem to me to be an unreasonable practice.
posted by howfar at 1:17 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
brb planning a new campaign where everything is named after locations in canada
posted by murphy slaw at 1:26 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by murphy slaw at 1:26 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Or even "there are no baby orcs because orcs are people who have been submerged in the Mauve Cauldron of Saskatoon by the dark wizard Ontario and are now slaves to his will".
But of course! If you're the DM, and you think baby orcs cause problems, then just write them out entirely. And if you're the player encountering baby orcs, then maybe your character your should wrestle with this moral conundrum. A good DM would pick up on this "yes, and..." and work with you to find a way to deal with baby orcs. Maybe with a happy ending. Or, perhaps with a nasty sense of irony...what if the now-orphaned baby orcs grow up to eventually resent your character's sanctimony? Raised in a monastery, they do not grow up to be brutish marauders, but rather steely revolutionaries...
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:26 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
But of course! If you're the DM, and you think baby orcs cause problems, then just write them out entirely. And if you're the player encountering baby orcs, then maybe your character your should wrestle with this moral conundrum. A good DM would pick up on this "yes, and..." and work with you to find a way to deal with baby orcs. Maybe with a happy ending. Or, perhaps with a nasty sense of irony...what if the now-orphaned baby orcs grow up to eventually resent your character's sanctimony? Raised in a monastery, they do not grow up to be brutish marauders, but rather steely revolutionaries...
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:26 PM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I want a plush baby orc now.
posted by echocollate at 1:30 PM on October 8, 2014
posted by echocollate at 1:30 PM on October 8, 2014
I want a plush baby orc now.
...that doubles as a knife block.
posted by murphy slaw at 1:32 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
...that doubles as a knife block.
posted by murphy slaw at 1:32 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't think there's any slippery slope to bigotry that starts with not doing that, but given the amount of conscious prejudice I notice in myself, and unconscious prejudice I suspect I carry around completely unaware, it doesn't seem to me to be an unreasonable practice.
Perhaps to you. And it's a fair thought to have. But as adipocere puts it above, you're yet another voice of sanctimony about a fictional world, joining evangelicals and the demon worship fear of the 80s through to criticisms like the one Zak mentions in the article,
“I have literally typed in ‘I believe in non-unified dice mechanics,’” he says, “and basically gotten back, ‘You’re a rape apologist.’”
Your position contains some reasonableness, but it definitely wasn't phrased that way, and still comes with the condescension inherent in suggesting that the other users haven't considered moral ramifications in the way you have and need to be informed that you find their morality lacking because of it. Empathy towards others should also apply to commenters, not just to fictional constructs.
posted by gadge emeritus at 1:54 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Perhaps to you. And it's a fair thought to have. But as adipocere puts it above, you're yet another voice of sanctimony about a fictional world, joining evangelicals and the demon worship fear of the 80s through to criticisms like the one Zak mentions in the article,
“I have literally typed in ‘I believe in non-unified dice mechanics,’” he says, “and basically gotten back, ‘You’re a rape apologist.’”
Your position contains some reasonableness, but it definitely wasn't phrased that way, and still comes with the condescension inherent in suggesting that the other users haven't considered moral ramifications in the way you have and need to be informed that you find their morality lacking because of it. Empathy towards others should also apply to commenters, not just to fictional constructs.
posted by gadge emeritus at 1:54 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
brb planning a new campaign where everything is named after locations in canada
Module CA1: Quest for the Medicine Hat
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:14 PM on October 8, 2014
Module CA1: Quest for the Medicine Hat
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:14 PM on October 8, 2014
Empathy towards others should also apply to commenters, not just to fictional constructs.
The problem with this assumption of the moral high ground is that this is what I was responding to:
Once you start worrying about orc orphans, Dungeons & Dragons turns into Charities & Causes. How will the electrum be equitably distributed? You're free to write that one yourself but don't be surprised if you don't get a lot of takers.
Caricaturing people who think differently to oneself and then getting very upset when they point out why they do is probably not the best use of anyone's time here.
posted by howfar at 3:04 PM on October 8, 2014
The problem with this assumption of the moral high ground is that this is what I was responding to:
Once you start worrying about orc orphans, Dungeons & Dragons turns into Charities & Causes. How will the electrum be equitably distributed? You're free to write that one yourself but don't be surprised if you don't get a lot of takers.
Caricaturing people who think differently to oneself and then getting very upset when they point out why they do is probably not the best use of anyone's time here.
posted by howfar at 3:04 PM on October 8, 2014
D&D shares a part of its heritage with Nazism. The Nazis didn't know they were monsters, they thought they were mythic heroes.
core diff between them and me, imo, is that I am not intending to invade poland
posted by Sebmojo at 3:07 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
core diff between them and me, imo, is that I am not intending to invade poland
posted by Sebmojo at 3:07 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
core diff between them and me, imo, is that I am not intending to invade poland
i'm just sayin', there's a shit-ton of lebensraum in mordor
posted by murphy slaw at 3:18 PM on October 8, 2014
i'm just sayin', there's a shit-ton of lebensraum in mordor
posted by murphy slaw at 3:18 PM on October 8, 2014
Those are some good links, adipocere! I have the donjon one, but the other two are new to me, as is the measurably fun dungeon link, which seems useful. I confess, I think the TinyKeep is very cool to watch, but I don't know that it's particularly useful, unless there's a way to export the map that I'm not finding.
I ran across this today, which might be of interest to you.
posted by Caduceus at 4:12 PM on October 8, 2014
I ran across this today, which might be of interest to you.
posted by Caduceus at 4:12 PM on October 8, 2014
howfar: Caricaturing people who think differently to oneself and then getting very upset when they point out why they do is probably not the best use of anyone's time here.
As you're the one who implied the connection between playing a game with moral absolutes and What The Nazis Do, I'd hope you'd also agree that extreme analogies, "I'm just saying..." rhetoric and reacting all surprised when your judgement of others causes them to react poorly to your arguments are all, similarly, not the best use of anyone's time. It's certainly not a thread contribution that adds value or ends well.
More to the point of the thread, old-school or not, I've found Zak's website to be filled with all sorts of interesting ideas and concepts for games, and while they have come with tables or percentiles attached, it should be easy enough as the GM to take only the parts you like (creepy hand creatures! A cursed castle! Causal relationships in hierarchies!) and discard the rest. It's neat that he gives rules as well, but it's all the creative ideas I find the most interesting.
posted by gadge emeritus at 4:29 PM on October 8, 2014
As you're the one who implied the connection between playing a game with moral absolutes and What The Nazis Do, I'd hope you'd also agree that extreme analogies, "I'm just saying..." rhetoric and reacting all surprised when your judgement of others causes them to react poorly to your arguments are all, similarly, not the best use of anyone's time. It's certainly not a thread contribution that adds value or ends well.
More to the point of the thread, old-school or not, I've found Zak's website to be filled with all sorts of interesting ideas and concepts for games, and while they have come with tables or percentiles attached, it should be easy enough as the GM to take only the parts you like (creepy hand creatures! A cursed castle! Causal relationships in hierarchies!) and discard the rest. It's neat that he gives rules as well, but it's all the creative ideas I find the most interesting.
posted by gadge emeritus at 4:29 PM on October 8, 2014
As an aside, I'm running my first adventure in almost 20 years this weekend with a group of newbies. 5th edition rules. Wish me luck.
posted by echocollate at 5:04 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by echocollate at 5:04 PM on October 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Can someone explain the part in the article about the baby Orcs and Zak saying that killing them makes the author "Old School Renaissance." What does that mean and what does it have to do with old-school games? Is that these games expected/rewarded this kind of role-playing behavior?
I remember reading an interview where Zak said he didn't really know what OSR is, just that he did things his way and someone else told him he was OSR.
I don't think his test is great... He may be confusing his own ideas about how brutal his campaign is with something inherent in the OSR, but it's not. There is affinity there, because the OSR play is usually about simulating dangerous places without a lot of hand-holding. But OSR is not synonymous with Zak's style.
It's not about alignment. The stipulation that orcs are "by defintion, pure evil" is not an inherent OSR thing. The ethics of alignment, worrying if it comes out 'right' is really a 1E/2E era naturalism kind of thing where our campaigns are like stories and our heroes are good guys. Old school D&D has a lot of roots in pulp that was pretty amoral. It may not even be true that the orcs in Zak's campaign are pure evil and it's just a rhetorical device.
The most OSR thing about the question, in a way, is that it was asked. "Are you OSR? Let's see how do you handle an instant bit of OSR style gameplay." The author could have answered, "Well, I'm not squeamish about evil, so I raise them to be my minions," and that would have been equally right. I think the only non-OSR kind of answers would be ones that ducked the moment or hid behind a character sheet or something.
posted by fleacircus at 3:31 AM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
I remember reading an interview where Zak said he didn't really know what OSR is, just that he did things his way and someone else told him he was OSR.
I don't think his test is great... He may be confusing his own ideas about how brutal his campaign is with something inherent in the OSR, but it's not. There is affinity there, because the OSR play is usually about simulating dangerous places without a lot of hand-holding. But OSR is not synonymous with Zak's style.
It's not about alignment. The stipulation that orcs are "by defintion, pure evil" is not an inherent OSR thing. The ethics of alignment, worrying if it comes out 'right' is really a 1E/2E era naturalism kind of thing where our campaigns are like stories and our heroes are good guys. Old school D&D has a lot of roots in pulp that was pretty amoral. It may not even be true that the orcs in Zak's campaign are pure evil and it's just a rhetorical device.
The most OSR thing about the question, in a way, is that it was asked. "Are you OSR? Let's see how do you handle an instant bit of OSR style gameplay." The author could have answered, "Well, I'm not squeamish about evil, so I raise them to be my minions," and that would have been equally right. I think the only non-OSR kind of answers would be ones that ducked the moment or hid behind a character sheet or something.
posted by fleacircus at 3:31 AM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Me? I would have held the orc babies hostage and made their tribe do the heavy lifting of treasure recovery/suicide missions for me. And just to show them I meant business, I would have dismembered one of the orc babies w/o killing it and left it for the orcs. The message? Meet my demands or enjoy your tribe's future as a nation of cripples.
posted by KingEdRa at 12:36 PM on October 9, 2014
posted by KingEdRa at 12:36 PM on October 9, 2014
The message? Meet my demands or enjoy your tribe's future as a nation of cripples.
Neutral Good, I see.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
Neutral Good, I see.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
Weird thread. Anyway, his most recent blog post is great: Gender And Representation In Warhammer's Realms of Chaos.
posted by chunking express at 6:10 PM on October 21, 2014
posted by chunking express at 6:10 PM on October 21, 2014
Also, Vornheim is amazing. I wrote a review on my blarg. It's very creative.
Also, Zak Smith isn't pure evil. I've played D&D with him and he was thoroughly pleasant and didn't try to marginalize me. That fail forward article is a hatchet job, seemingly related to ancient nerd fights. I feel like it was debunked a million times over in that last MetaFilter thread, but that thing has legs.
Also, "orcs are racist" is the dumbest thing ever. Argh. You know what's racist: people who ignore my resume because they can't say my name. Fantasy creatures? That doesn't even rate. My god, people.
posted by chunking express at 6:28 PM on October 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also, Zak Smith isn't pure evil. I've played D&D with him and he was thoroughly pleasant and didn't try to marginalize me. That fail forward article is a hatchet job, seemingly related to ancient nerd fights. I feel like it was debunked a million times over in that last MetaFilter thread, but that thing has legs.
Also, "orcs are racist" is the dumbest thing ever. Argh. You know what's racist: people who ignore my resume because they can't say my name. Fantasy creatures? That doesn't even rate. My god, people.
posted by chunking express at 6:28 PM on October 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
Ah, I found it. Medieval Demographics was the sort of thing for which I had been searching when it came to populations. Just how big is that hamlet, anyway? Quite a number of scripts have been developed from that research and I think it is a fantastic way to start. Some of it has to do with a very loosely simulationist mindset I have about having just enough verisimilitude not to jar the player out of disbelief, but this is something of a tightrope, the other half being that play be Larger Than Life. Needing five hundred people in a village just so your horses can get reshoed is kind of a drag.
Back to my cave examples, if you start looking up species of cave-dwelling animals here on Earth, you realize most of them either run outside for food or they're very small. Dungeons and Dragons just doesn't work in that regard. You're either full of constructs and self-resetting traps or the dungeon itself is staffed. You have only one other option, which is having so many hapless dungeoneers entering the area to require some kind of reasonable queue just to feed all of the inhabitants. Really, about three parties a week would be required to keep a gelatinous cube, some giant rats, three carrion crawlers, a mated pair of bugbears, a very lonely roper, and so forth well-fed.
All of it ties into a weird concept I have, which is that the Prime Material Plane has a decidedly smaller gradient between trophic levels. Rather than the usual ten-to-one caloric exchange for a given level and the one above it, what if the Prime Material had a much smaller ratio, say ... three-to-one? Instead of a food pyramid looking like 1000, 100, 10, 1, you might have 1000, 333, 111, 37, 12, 4, 1. It would solve a lot of problems: how do caves stay populated? Why not nearly everyone on the Prime Material is a farmer. Various megafauna roaming about the landscape. How the hell the tarrasque can survive even with its gigantic food comas factored in?
Once you tweak that number, you can justify having a shop with a handful of magic items in it located in the relatively large city of ten thousand people. Everything appears slightly more intense than reality, more unlikely.
posted by adipocere at 1:15 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Back to my cave examples, if you start looking up species of cave-dwelling animals here on Earth, you realize most of them either run outside for food or they're very small. Dungeons and Dragons just doesn't work in that regard. You're either full of constructs and self-resetting traps or the dungeon itself is staffed. You have only one other option, which is having so many hapless dungeoneers entering the area to require some kind of reasonable queue just to feed all of the inhabitants. Really, about three parties a week would be required to keep a gelatinous cube, some giant rats, three carrion crawlers, a mated pair of bugbears, a very lonely roper, and so forth well-fed.
All of it ties into a weird concept I have, which is that the Prime Material Plane has a decidedly smaller gradient between trophic levels. Rather than the usual ten-to-one caloric exchange for a given level and the one above it, what if the Prime Material had a much smaller ratio, say ... three-to-one? Instead of a food pyramid looking like 1000, 100, 10, 1, you might have 1000, 333, 111, 37, 12, 4, 1. It would solve a lot of problems: how do caves stay populated? Why not nearly everyone on the Prime Material is a farmer. Various megafauna roaming about the landscape. How the hell the tarrasque can survive even with its gigantic food comas factored in?
Once you tweak that number, you can justify having a shop with a handful of magic items in it located in the relatively large city of ten thousand people. Everything appears slightly more intense than reality, more unlikely.
posted by adipocere at 1:15 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
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posted by turbid dahlia at 2:44 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]