Audible Review, "Stranger in a Strange Land"

            I started writing this review before I even finished “Stranger in a Strange Land” because there is one LOOMING criticism that I keep seeing in a lot of old and new reviews of the book.  Some variation of the phrase, “it meanders”.  Yeah, it really does, but that is because this is not really one book.  It is 2 short books that were wielded together and each is weaker because of it.

 

I am generally disappointed with the fan-art community.
This is a sci-fi classic and there is nothing out there.
This is just the most recent book cover.

The Plot Goes Thusly

            You know what, I need to explain my chief criticism of the book via the plot, so let’s just say the plot is, “Valentine Michael Smith is Space Jesus.  He founds a church and sometimes he is a carney.”

Critique

            You could snap this book over your knee and you would get “Stranger of Mars” and “Stranger of Earth”.  The first story is a quasi-spy thriller about finding a man who has inherited a mountain of a fortune from parents he never knew, inherited a governmental authority over Mars because of a legal knot, and he has super powers because of his time spent with the Martians.  He is important on multiple levels.

            This first story ends with a big confrontation between the Man from Mars and his entourage of sympathetic humans versus the governments of Earth, and it is resolved peacefully with the entrusting of the fortune, a strange divestment of the accidental government authority, and his fantastic powers being kept secret.

            That would be a solid novel.  Valentine Michael Smith’s abilities as the Man from Mars and his worldview are interesting.  These ideas are explored with real stakes hanging overhead.  There is tension as you feel the government closing in on them, Mike’s growing awareness of the world and increasing care and concern for his friends, and the oncoming collision the two worlds.  All of this gets resolved in a satisfactory way without a massive shedding of blood, that is unique… And then the book keeps going.

            The Second part of “Stranger” is its own story and could have easily been stretched out into a full novel, what I would like to call “Stranger of Earth”.  This story is about the Man from Mars finding religion and explaining how his powers work as a reflection of his alien mindset and philosophy.  The Martians who raised him taught him how to tap into a greater power within himself and now Mike is going to teach everyone the Martian ways as a path to peace and enlightenment.

            Space Jesus is hardly an unknown idea in fiction, this is a quintessential example of it.  I would kind of like to see Mike debate Ender from “Ender’s Game” about their conflicting theological nit-picks.  Ender would probably turn into a psychic ghost in a couple hours because of his superhuman intellect and empathy.  But, I digress.

Ender had another advantage in that the Aliens he interacted with were vividly described.
Martians have only the vaguest of descriptions, 3 legs and big as a ship.  Rather weak.

            While you could complain that the first story is padded by too many conversations about moral relativism, lampooning astrology, and hanging out by the pool, this story is starving for attention.  Whole action sequences involving escape from prison, the firebombing of his temple, and the Martians having used Mike as a spy for their interests are all talked about but not shown.  What could have been an action packed tale of religious persecution is talked about almost academically until the final scene.

SPOILERS

            The last scene is a jarring turn into graphic murder.  As the Man from Mars allows himself to be martyred to serve as a figure head for his religion.  The reason he needs to do this is Earth is now on a countdown.  Martians see Earth as a threat and are preparing to collectively use their telepathic powers to rip the planet to bits.  They won’t do this for centuries, maybe even a 1,000+ years, but if the people of Earth don’t learn Mike’s psychic abilities to fight back then we are all toast.

MORE SPOILERS

            Turns out that Angels are real, and occasionally incarnate on Earth to create new religions to help humanity in times of extremely dire circumstances.  Mike is the archangel Michael and he is starting his religion to save Earth from Martians.  WHAT!?

END SPOILERS- You can start reading again

            So here is my biggest criticism of this book: it is not 1 book, it is 1 book, a stripped down manuscript for a second book, and NO THIRD BOOK.  This thing needed a third book to take place resolving the dangling threads of Mike’s church and the Martians’ ultimate decision about Earth.  Where is the “Revelations” part of the thing?  When Mike comes back centuries later with greater powers to combat the stars falling to lead humanity to some final salvation?  Too much is just left hanging.

Rumors

            I have read that this book started out as a bet between Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard to see who could create a functioning religion, but that Heinlein backed out when shit got too real.  You know what?  That is a plausible urban legend.  “Stranger” has a functional world view even if the psychic powers are a complete fiction.

            Free love, communal ownership and cooperation, a belief that all people are aspects of god… All of this stuff is a cohesive religious philosophy.  Rewrite this narrative so that it was beamed to the author by some alien mind and that all of this took place on Earth thousands of years before Rome and bam, you have a religion and mythos.

Recommendation?

            This book is hard to recommend.  I tend to judge books on different criteria, “do I like the subject matter?”, “does the writing from page to page have good flow and word usage?”, “does the book have good structure?” each of these things is present and to me gaugeable.

            Subject matter: I liked it.  The idea of how would a quasi-modern world deal with Space Jesus from Mars and his new church is a good place to start a story.  The few action sequences we get or scenes of them testing his abilities are interesting.

            Writing flow: I loved the dialogue 90% of the time.  It gets a little misogynistic at points (it was written in the 50’s, by the standards of the time it was exceptionally progressive, but by modern standards it is still too conservative in some areas but hyper-liberal in others), conversations can get a little long, and some words get over used; but taken as a whole there is a good rhythm.  Exposition (the bane of genre fiction) is done in funny ways, explaining legal questions is done while characters argue over who is cooking diner, that is cute and natural.

            Structure: This baby has bone cancer.  As I mentioned it is a three-part story missing the third part and the second part is malnourished.  There are long sections of things taking trips to literal carnivals to perform magic shows.  What?  What?

            I do not regret listening to this.  And the book that has to follow it, “Neuromancer” is already suffering from the comparison as it is heavy with lingo and jargon but lacks the easy going dialogue and relaxed ruminations of “Stranger”.

            If you like dialogue driven stories with a loose fitting narrative that is more about hammering out ideas (like Plato writing down Socrates’ methods for teaching) then this book will work for you… Mostly.  But I imagine you will end up having my same issues as it gets overlong and under-punch.

Voice Acting

            I should note that the voice acting for this book was solid.  There are a dozen speaking roles and each is done with enough distinctiveness that I was able to keep them all separate in my mind.  The only ones I would have difficulty telling apart would be the extremely late characters or tertiary presences like Ruth, Dawn, or the other astronauts from the Mission to Mars that brought Mike back to Earth.

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Dungeons and Dragons: "Healing"

Introduction

            I have played Dungeons and Dragons for more than 15 years.  Lately, I have not had access to any other players and so I have just been kicking around ideas that normally would be in a game and instead I am just going to post them on my blog.  This is going to be a reoccurring thing as I just keep hammering out things and not all of them can be turned into elements in my “random fantasy novel ideas” folder.

            Last week I talked about the concept of a “common” language that appears in Dungeons and Dragons and how that might reflect on the game world.  The fictional country I created was actually a massive metaphor for the game of Dungeons and Dragons itself.  I am clever.

            This week I want to focus on something that is more rules based, which is going to make this pretty inaccessible to anyone who wants to read just for the “how to write fantasy” aspects…  Anyway, I want to talk about healing and game flow.

What Have I Got: Injuries

            Most of my experience playing Dungeons and Dragons (like 90%) is in 3^rd or 3.5 edition.  In 3^rd edition healing is slow, expensive, and resource intensive.  I hate it.  At low levels, games quickly get bogged down as each room of a dungeon could potentially kill the entire party.  An Orc with a great sword and a single level of warrior has an attack that is likely to hit and likely to incapacitate.  Here is some math!  (This is perhaps the boringest part of this whole thing… I regret putting it here at the front).

            The orc gets +1 for being a level one fighter type class, +3 from his strength score with is likely either 16 or 17, but could be higher if they are an elite enemy, and +1 from the weapon focus feat.  That is a +5, assuming the orc has no allies granting a flanking bonus (+2), or a slightly better weapon or spell helping (+1), or maybe they are just charging (+2).

            The orc is going to certainly hit the wizard AC11, 70% of the time, and will probably have no issue hitting the high dexterity rogue AC17, 40% of the time.  And at low levels those guys are toast.  Because the orc will deal 2d6+4 damage.  The highest health you can really expect from a wizard is 9 hit points if they decided to toss away a feat on Toughness.

            Curing the damage caused by even a single hit by this orc (and remember, there is a dungeon/camp/waaargh-party of these guys hanging around waiting to hit too), just this one guy will eat up one of these three resources.

1)     Time.  “We will barricade the room so that we can rest up for the night and recover health before continuing.”  And resting is a shit way to recover, 1 hit point for your level and 1 additional hit point for your Constitution modifier.  And that assumes you can find a place to rest.  I once had a team hold up in a secure location, only one entrance to secure, when they woke the next morning they found the door barred from the other side, the kobolds had bricked them up inside.  This method stops the game cold, and is insane in the context of the world; you are going to break camp inside the enemy stronghold?

2)     Spells.  “The cleric can burn off one of their fun spells like- Hahaha…. I couldn’t even finish that sentence, Cleric spells are all boring protective wards, cook one off and use the spell for healing.”  Cleric spells are boring, and the role of the character in the party of adventurers/players is to heal (more than anything else, paradoxically they and Druids are considered the strongest classes) so this doesn’t really feel like much of a loss, but there are not a lot of spells to go around at low levels, each heal is a substantial resource lost.

3)     Items.  Scrolls, potions, and wands are all present early in the game, but they are kind of pricey.  Maybe this is supposed to be some kind of sub textual bit of commentary on how expensive healthcare is in real life?  But, why in heaven’s name does a potion that cures 1d8+1 hit points cost so much?  Imagine if healing magic existed in the real world and you could bottle a healing potion that would never expire and be in constant demand, why would this shit not be bottled like Coca-Cola?  People would be sprinkling it on their food.  And don’t give me that, “XP cost” BS, the Spice Must Flow!

 

More like, "Blood must flow!  Am I right?"  All orc comedy is about bloodshed, it is not very funny.

            I am also going to point out how worthless I think the Heal skill is as I know of it.  Skills are a not-that-fun aspect of 3^rd edition, but Heal is actually so useless that it gives new players misconceptions about what they can do with it.  At best it should be called First Aid and should be a skill for people who have no access to healing magic.

            So what do I think should be the solution?  How can you speed up healing to keep the pace of the game going but not incur expenses that will screw up the game’s economy?  Well, I said that most of my DnD experience was with 3^rd, but the rest was with 4^th edition, and for all the faults that game had, healing was a lot faster, and the game was a smoother experience for it.  Beyond that, let’s look at some video games and I can complain about “Skyrim” a whole bunch.

4^th Edition and “World of Warcraft”: Healing Surges and Sitting on Your Butt

            The idea behind healing surges was to take healing systems like those in World of Warcraft and adapt them to Dungeons and Dragons.  In WoW you regenerate health after each combat encounter.  You are sacrificing time (a few seconds) to get back to your starting point and then you can get on with slaughtering boars and kobolds.  The game flow is interrupted, but that can be sped up by eating food and drinking beverages which shorten the recovery process.  You effectively have infinite health, just not all at once.  And charging people money for small amounts of food allows them to pull some money out of the bloated WoW economy.  WoW has lots of ways to heal, but they are thoroughly restricted for game balance.

            The 4^th edition of Dungeons and Dragons took that concept and adapted for a tabletop game which lacked the luxury of having actual time happening.  4E just said that your characters could recover back to full health via short rest periods several times each day, and several abilities could recover from these short rests as well, essentially a breather after each fight to gain one’s bearings and ready yourself for the next conflict.

            There was still a limit on how many times you could do this each day as a function of class and ability scores, these still served as a slight interruption to the gameplay (but not nearly the flow destruction of 3^rd edition), and some abilities required a night’s rest to get back which when coupled with the limited amount of surges meant the players still eventually ran out of resources.

            Each of these systems means that the players only had enough for any given encounter while simultaneously having enough for many encounters.  Healing Surges have a good balance, and had they included things like potions to restore daily abilities it really would have worn the fact it was borrowing from WoW on its sleeve.  Got milk?

 

"Guy Fieri is going to be here any minute!"

“Bloodborne”: Quick and Easy

            The great thing about every video game grafting RPG element into them is how it can illustrate which mechanics work and which that don’t in a variety of ways.  “Bloodborne”, to me at least, is a hack and slash game.  If the game just gave you a small incremental increase in health, stamina, and damage each time you beat a boss you really could pack in most of the other elements of the game’s leveling up.

            I am sure there are many people who love the insanity of trying to optimize builds in the game and the “Dark Souls” series overall, and those fans of the series are calling for my head reading this, but I actually find the system too arcane to use (and I say that as someone who has power gamed the hell out of DnD, mostly because I find that system modular and accessible).  Regardless of this I like the “Bloodborne” healing system.

            Healing potions, “Blood Vials” are common with nearly every goon in the game dropping them and you can regain health by counter attacking enemies that have just hit you.  The game keeps up its pace and rewards being aggressive.

            How would that adapt to Dungeons and Dragons?  The game is punishingly difficult, has limited team work opportunities, and death is a built in mechanic.  This seems like a hard thing to lift from the game and put on to another system right?  I don’t think so.

 

It is also a single player experience (for the most part), so its mechanics might not work for large parties.

            Make healing potions super common and cheap as hell.  But also make them less effective.  Instead of 50 gold for a standard healing potion, have the healing potions cost 5 gold, and have the players find them on bad guys who will use them if they have the opportunity to (make them easier to use, a move action or maybe even a free action if the player has the Quick Draw feat).  The new drawback would be this: the potions expire.

            “Bloodborne” has death as a core part of gameplay, and since that is not going to be taken over too, and you can’t cap the number of healing vials the players in DnD will carry (there are portable holes and bags of holding for reasons, namely that players like endless piles of stuff that they never use), so the only way to get rid of an endless supply of inexpensive healing items that the players would be willing to stockpile is to make the things only good for a short time.

            Have it so they can’t be found in ancient dungeons because they would have all gone bad, much like cough syrup they just don’t work after a certain half-life, or can even become poisonous.  They are common and useful in living civilizations but they are medicine produced to be used and only stored for protracted periods of time under special circumstances (perhaps there will be a bag of refrigerated holding).

            The healing potions, Blood Vials, would be not too expensive so they can be stocked up on before a big adventure, but if they are not consumed in a short enough period of time (3-5 days) they will spoil, so you don’t have to worry about the players splurging on 100 potions all at once and destroying all tension to any individual encounter.

            And you might be saying that this system will make the Cleric’s healing ability a lot less worthwhile, and by extension all healing magic will be less meaningful.  Yes.  Yes, that is the case.  I consider that a good thing.  Maybe then the players will be willing to let the cleric cast some wards around them so they don’t need the healing as often?  And the player with the cleric character can do something other than make everyone else not dead.

“Skyrim”: An Example of What Doesn’t Work

            The economy of Skyrim is broken and unbalanced.  It is possible to have money coming out of your ears in no time and there is nothing that serves as a drain on that system.  I blame their healing system.

            Let’s see,

1)     You get fully healed from sleeping.

2)     You can just stand still in a safe location for a while and you will heal.

3)     If you want to hurry things along you can cast a healing spell you get for free at the start of the game.

4)     You heal to full when you gain a level.

5)     There are potions you can buy or make yourself from free ingredients that are everywhere.

6)     And there is a ton of food which is so ineffectual it is rendered meaningless almost instantly, but it is there and thus should be mentioned.  HEY GUYS, if cooking requires a lot of butter and salt, maybe make those things super cheap, super common, and make food somehow functionally better than the potion which has the same weight, otherwise it isn’t worth the trouble.

            You can also remove all diseases by touching a holy shrine or if you are in the middle of something just swallow a potion.  Though I found myself walking thru hours of game without noticing my diseased self because the effects are often to negligible and there is no indication of illness on your heads-up-display.  This is poor design.  But, let’s stay on Healing.

"You look rather pale."
"Shut Up."
"You'll find tonics, salves, poultices and potions on my shelves. Browse to your heart's content."

 "SHUT UP!"

            All of these things together add up to too much.  Healing could easily serve as a pressure release on the world’s economy if healing cost more money.  But healing really doesn’t cost much, or anything.  Not having to manage your health in a game like this sucks a lot of the challenge out of the game, and a lot of the use for money goes out the window too.

            Sure even somewhat useful magic items cost a fortune and in theory they could serve to take some of your money, but who buys those?  Really, who buys items in Skyrim?  I buy raw materials, but more often than not (before installing a mod that just gave all the merchants more money) the hardest part of Skyrim was finding a place to sell shit to accumulate more and more nearly-useless currency.

            Adjusting the Healing system could have solved that.  Get rid of the WoW-esc “heal by standing still” method.  You have to cast a spell, take a potion, or rest (like in 3^rd edition Dungeons and Dragons) but make the potions cheaper so that people will be more inclined to buy a bunch and use them with impunity.  Suddenly this system means food will remain useful longer, as it will provide a slight, but present, source of health on the run, all those set tables in dungeons full of Bandits will serve as hubs of quick recharging to continue on the mission.

            This video game is one of the many that does not benefit from recharging health but I think it was included because its first person perspective made it expected.  This complaint is more about fixing their busted economy than healing itself.  I keep finding myself stocked up on potions and money in the late game and that is not good.  Cause you need tension.  Hell, “Skyrim” doesn’t even put a limit on how many potions you can take in a single fight, WoW does that.

            This system would still have regenerating health (in a way), because mana still regenerates, but it would require that extra step of actually casting the spell.  This actually is an instance in which making things more like 3^rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons would benefit the game because of the minor differences in Skyrim that are harder to transplant back into the system: spells are less of a massive resource because of mana regenerating, resting is a more substantial because it is solidly a game feature, and the existence of food as another inexpensive source of healing.

It's like Scrooge McDuck's.

The Compromise: What’s Right for Your Game

            So what should you do for your game?  You can probably already tell what I would be my preferred method to slide into a game.  Either healing surges so that you have limited health per encounter but plenty of health over the course of the day, or cheap and plentiful Blood Vials that provide enough help to push forward but a supply that will eventually run out so as to require thought and management.

            The system for 3^rd edition now is excessively resource consuming and the system for Skyrim is not consuming enough.  The first leads to characters getting bogged down and being too careful because loosing health is expensive, the other leads to your pants being pulled down from the weight of unused money.

 

"You just need a place to put it, mate!"

            If you want to go with the Healing Surges method I would have it work like this, each player gets a number of healing surges equal to 5 plus their constitution modifier and each is worth ½ their full hit point total.  With feats like Endurance, Great Fortitude, and Toughness providing an additional healing surge to make those feats more attractive to the players.  Cause Endurance is pretty boring as is.  You might also give additional Surges to Barbarians and Paladins, or the ability to swap out unused Surges for additional uses of a class abilities like Rage or Healing Hands.

            If you want to go with the Blood Vials method make all healing potions cost 10% of their current price, and whenever players fight humanoid or other intelligent creatures (like giants, though they would be using stronger stuff) roll 1d6-4 (or 1d6-3 if you want to be generous) to see how many healing items they have on them.  You could also introduce a few feats that make the individual items more effective on the player than they otherwise would be, like the Fast Healer feat.

            If you want further restrictions on Blood Vials, making it so the players can only use a few during any given encounter and need a short rest (5 minute) before using more, would limit their use in each encounter to prohibit the game from dragging out as players just keep healing themselves rather than taking risks to end the fight.

            The truth of the matter is that most of this discussion is probably moot.  5^th edition is where a lot of new players are right now, and unless you like reading about game design and adapting it to your own game this will have little relevance.  But maybe, if you think your games have been a little slow consider adapting a system like this to play, maybe it will speed things up a bit.

Whatever works.

Future Dungeons and Dragons Discussion

            I am unsure how to install a poll function in this blog.  But if you have a topic you would like to see someone else talk about in the context of Dungeons and Dragons (or just in the context of writing fantasy stuff) write it in the comments.

            I think the next thing will be about Alignment.  It will probably have to be a 10,000 entry series on the subject matter that has all the depth of a teaspoon and more debate among players than ANY OTHER THING IN GAMING.

The Beg for Attention

            If you enjoyed reading about this, please say so in the comments.  If you think I am off base about “Bloodbourne” please tell me in the comments.  If you have had your own issues with healing in video games or Dungeons and Dragons, share in the comments.  If you think I contradicted myself somewhere, criticize me in the comments.  Thank you for reading.

  

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"Today, the Statue of Liberty shrugs." -Zach Weinersmith

Today, the Statue of Liberty shrugs.

Some of you have family somewhere overseas. I do not.

I do not, because four generations ago my great grandfather came here while his sister chose to stay behind. Her name, to the best of our knowledge, was Peltia Wollach (née Winokur) and she was lucky enough to die before the Shoah. As far as I could tell from the records digitized by JewishGen.com from Bialystok, Poland, and from documents in Yad Vashem, everyone else was murdered. Her husband Itzchak, and (I believe) five children - Chasia, Riwka, Tauba, Avram, and Jehoszua.

I am lucky that my ancestor, Szimon Winokur, came here in 1925. I am also lucky that he was white. If he had been Chinese, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 would have kept him out.

He brought his family here. One of his sons, my grandfather, was a small business owner. His son, my father, received a free education in New York, then went to Caltech. My father was, until his retirement, a doctor in a small town in Texas. He has six children - One is a Christian pastor. One is an executive director at a medical technology company. One is a conservative political philosopher, one is a chief technical officer in silicon valley, and my little sister is a doctor in Louisiana. I’m the one black spot on this record because I write books for a living.

We are all here, all contributing to this country because in 1925, a boat passed Ellis Island and nobody told the ill-clad funny-accented people in it to turn around because they were too poor or not Christian enough, or that they hadn’t been vetted properly. You all know the poetry - give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. The green lady’s tablet doesn’t say a thing about whether those huddled masses were Chinese or Muslim or Jew or Arab. And, it specifically enjoins us to take those who yearn for freedom. It doesn’t say take a highly educated European or Indian on an H1-B visa. It doesn’t say take a Christian or a rich business owner or a diplomat.

But, look east, and you can see Libertas shrugging. There are weights around her robes, and her torch is flickering in New York Harbor.

And the politicians who had the poverty of spirit to diminish her poem by knicks and cuts, and now slashes, could at least have the honesty to add their caveats and fears to the tablet she carries before it sinks to the bottom.

This nation is supposed to have been founded by pioneers. People like Franklin, who defied a Crown. People like Lewis and Clark who went west, not knowing exactly what they’d eat or what they’d find. People like Teddy Roosevelt, who took a bullet, then smiled through a speech.

We’re supposed to be a culture of people who are rugged and risky and independent. And yet, when you are more likely to be killed by a shark attack than a terrorist, we are told that we need protection. We are told we should be afraid. And the people who are telling us we need to be afraid are the very people who benefit most from our fear. Fear is their currency. Don’t make a deposit.

I want to quote at length from the book The Moon is Down, by Steinbeck, written in the midst of World War 2. This passage is from the end of the book, when Mayor Orden is going to be executed for not capitulating to the conquering authority. The people of the conquered city have gotten access to explosives from the British, and the conquering enemy (in the person of Colonel Lanser) wants the mayor to tell his people not to use them.

The Mayor spoke proudly.  "Yes, they will light it.  I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but - I do have a choice of how I do it.  If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight.  If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very brave man will have made them a little braver."  He smiled apologetically.  "You see, it is an easy thing for me to do, since the end for me is the same."

Lanser said, "If you say yes, we can tell them you said no.  We can tell them you begged for your life."

Doctor Winter broke in angrily, "They would know.  You do not keep secrets.  One of your men got out of hand one night and he said the flies had conquered the flypaper, and now the whole nation knows his words.  They have made a song of it.  The flies have conquered the flypaper.  You do not keep secrets, Colonel."

From the direction of the mine a whistle tooted shrilly.  And a quick gust of wind sifted dry snow against the windows.

Orden fingered his gold medallion.  He said quietly, "You see, sir, nothing can change it.  You will be destroyed and driven out."  His voice was very soft.  "The people don't like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be.  Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat.  Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.  You will find that is so, sir."

Lanser was erect and stiff.  "My orders are clear.  Eleven o'clock was the deadline.  I have taken hostages.  If there is violence, the hostages will be executed."

And Doctor Winter said to the colonel, "Will you carry out the orders, knowing they will fail?"

Lanser's face was tight.  "I will carry out my orders no matter what they are, but I do think, sir, a proclamation from you might save many lives."

Madame broke in plaintively, "I wish you would tell me what all this nonsense is."

"It is nonsense, dear."

"But they can't arrest the Mayor," she explained to him.

Orden smiled at her.  "No," he said, "they can't arrest the Mayor.  The Mayor is an idea conceived by free men.  It will escape arrest."

Steve Bannon, who is now inexplicably advising the president on matters military, reportedly said he wanted to bring our entire system crashing down. But our system - our system of free people who do not want or need to be ruled - is like Mayor Orden. It can’t be destroyed, because you can’t destroy an idea. The idea may be silenced. It may leave its home, for a time. But, as long as people can think, no idea can die.

The Statue of Liberty may step down from her podium, she may sink below the surface, but will still be there. And, when the moon is up, you will see her shining through a rippling surface, ready to stand again.

I should end on that note, but I want to close with something pragmatic, because this can’t all just be talk. Barney Frank - the first openly gay congressman in US history - gave an interview to New York Magazine shortly after he retired. He said something that I’ve never forgotten:

I believe very strongly that people on the left are too prone to do things that are emotionally satisfying and not politically useful. I have a rule, and it’s true of Occupy, it’s true of the gay-rights movement: If you care deeply about a cause, and you are engaged in an activity on behalf of that cause that is great fun and makes you feel good and warm and enthusiastic, you’re probably not helping, because you’re out there with your friends, and political work is much tougher and harder. And I think it’s now clear that it is the disciplined political work that we’ve been able to do that’s won us victories. I am going to write about the history of the LGBT movement partly to make the point that, in America at least, this is the way you do progressive causes.

For a lot of us, in recent times politics has gotten a lot less fun and a lot more scary. I know we have to buoy each other up, but I say this as a professional writer of jokes - let’s take politics to an even less fun place.

When I heard about the immigration ban, the first thing I did was to order 400 sheets of paper, a giant roll of stamps, and a bulk box of envelopes. I will be writing letters as frequently as possible to all of my representatives. And, if they do not stand against this prodigy of indecency, I will personally donate to whoever opposes them. And, if Trump defies a federal judge’s order, I will join those calling for an impeachment.

You cannot arrest the mayor.

Zach Weinersmith

January 29, 2017

PS: I’m declaring this document public domain. Feel free to share any way you like.

Dungeons and Dragons: "Common"

Introduction

I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for 15 years now.  I started shortly after I began playing Magic: The Gathering and aside from each being a creative outlet that helped me develop an almost instinctive understanding of statistics they have been (more importantly) a lot of fun.

In lieu of anything else to write about at the moment I figured I would make a few things for use with Dungeons and Dragons and try and take you all thru my creative method in hopes that you might apply this knowledge to your own creative endeavors both in the game and outside of it.

I will also use this as an opportunity to criticize little issues I have had working with the system all these years, looking back on it with all I have learned playing it, and what I have learned playing other games like “Dark Souls”, “The Elder Scrolls”, “Fallout”, and the trillion other RPG’s and management simulations I have played.

This is going to be a reoccurring blog-type as I just keep hammering out things and not all of them can be turned into elements in my “random fantasy novel ideas” folder.

 

And not all my ideas boil down to, "Gorgeous woman with magical powers."

What Have I Got: A Country

            It is difficult to be creative, more difficult to be original.  Often times original concepts are too different for players (or readers if you are writing a fantasy book) to take hold of or take seriously.  How does a government work?  What are some cultural traditions or taboos?  What are the races?  What are the languages?

            In real life countries are incredibly complex entities, the idea of the Nation-State is less than 200 years old, an idea spun out of several world events, Otto Von Bismarck uniting the various German states, the restoration of the Emperor and modernization of Japan, and the United States' Civil War.  Prior to these events the idea of an Empire on the large scale, community on the small scale, and a crown head of state in the middle defined how “countries” interacted.

            The idea of a nation, of a single larger body politic that was both responsible to the will of the people and united by a common boarder was a newer concept that was put to the test with the creation of Turkey after WWI and India and Pakistan after WWII.  What it meant to be a part of a national history or people is constantly evolving, so how do you reflect that in the fictional world in a way that feels real?

            For me I looked at something from history and used it as best as I could to help explain something that appears often in Dungeons and Dragons that DOES NOT EXIST in the real world.  The thing that doesn’t exist?  The “Common” language.

The Common Tongue

            There are two ways to use the idea of a common language in the game of Dungeons and Dragons.  #1 is that it is the language of trade.

            Common in this instance is not the language of a country, but the language of tradesmen, people who move between countries or who interact with those who do need to have certain terms and symbols that everyone can understand to facilitate the exchange of goods.  Words for numbers, colors, sizes should all be present.  Words that describe types of materials, cloth, metal, porcelain, and the quality of each (though all good traders selling will say, “it’s the best” and everyone who is buying will say, “It’s the worst” so you need words for best/worst/most/least).

            English actually serves this function in a lot of the real world, mostly for three reasons, 1) there are English speaking communities in every hemisphere because of the British, 2) the US dollar is the base currency of the world with all other currencies pinned to its value, and 3) the United States is the largest economy in the world and uses English in all its deals.  But English was unmistakably the language of a people before it became the language of trades people which takes us to the second potential role of the language of “Common”, that it is the language of a particularly powerful/wealthy/communal country, and everybody uses it because they are kind of stuck with it.

            So here is an example of a country founded on the idea of making “Common” something that used to be hectic.  Feel free to change the names of anything to fit into your own campaign world, I typically use my own pantheon of gods and decided to use the Greyhawk gods for this example.

The Kritarchy of Xeer

(And yes, “Kritarchy” is a real type of government, and for that matter, so is “Xeer”)

Capital: Moot’s Keep

Symbol/Flag: Blue text on a white background (“The Law”)

Highest Office: Chief Justice

Government Structure: Kritarchy (an order of Judges and Barristers dubbed, The Moot)

Racial Demographics: Halfling, Human, Orc

Religious Demographics: Kord is the most popular god

Motto: “Thru trial and hardship we stand together”

History:

            In the past dozens of tribes were held in a perpetual state of feuding over hunting and water rights in the Golden Plains.  These tribes would clash, form alliances, schism, and be assumed within each other generation to generation.  Banners changed color, war paint styles changed pattern, fighting styles, tactics, cooking, and fashion swirled between them.

            At year zero, Kombi Salax, an advisor and wise man for one of the larger tribes invented a system of writing and arithmetic that could be used to communicate between the tribes and to record the history and traditions of the tribes that previously had only used an Oral tradition.  This is the origin of what people now call the “Common” language.

            Common allowed for a vast and comprehensive history to be recorded, cultural traditions to be codified into what was dubbed “What is Known”.  A council of wise men chosen from each tribe were brought together to make a single great code that cited “What is Known” to make a single all-encompassing societal structure, “The Law”.

            Kombi is seen as the supreme founder of the nation of Xeer, and the title of Judge is a position of great prestige, and is exceptionally hard to attain.  Having mastery of the language, a deep and broad knowledge of history, and knowing how to reference and cite the Law to maintain order.

In a community there is a chief and officers of the chief who enforce the law, and judges and advocates that seek to ensure that those accused of violating the law are protected from false persecution and given a fitting punishment.  As to whether a chief is a hereditary position, appointed by a council, or elected varies from community to community, but the ultimate power is a council of Judges which reside at Moot’s Keep, keeping a vast library of historical texts and record of criminal offenses while constructing treaties and new laws as needed to fit within the bounds of their internal codes.

The national military is feudal in system, with chiefs drawing upon their own men to band into larger military units, which would be a difficult to manage mess if not for numerous rules that help to regulate how soldiers should be trained, how chains of command work, and obligations an individual tribe has to contribute to the defense of other tribes.

            While the days of tribal warfare are over, inter tribe rivalry still exists and is mostly settled on the sports’ fields.  Athleticism, sportsmanship, and a commitment to pushing one’s limitations are all high virtues in Xeer society.  Personal honor and commitments to higher causes are seen as laudable and more Paladins and Monks come from Xeer than any other nation.  This is seen as ironic because the single most popular god is Kord, god of strength and athleticism.

Alignment, Roleplaying Citizens, and Treasures

            There is a natural tension in the country between seeing rules as the basis for just competition, but at the same time a looseness to how the systems function in practice with the constant jockeying for position in the overall hierarchy of prestige and honor.  If looked at from the outside their propensity toward law would cause them to be seen as “Lawful”, but from within, the number of laws that have to be drawn up to cover the numerous situations and to settle the conflicting cultural traditions and establish a peace, the citizens would see themselves as “Chaotic”.

            The truest statement in regards to their alignment is that towards “good”.  They are generous because they see generosity as noble, they are athletic because they see that competition brings out the best in each other and themselves, the follow the rules because they see rules as beneficial to the communities, they break rules if they feel the rules are a detriment to communities.  The do not see a rule as important intrinsically, and is only worth keeping and enforcing if it is noble or beneficial, conversely they do not see rules as intrinsically wrong nor “freedom” as always the best state of being as too much freedom detracts from community.

            Xeer is a nation of people who are confident, combative, but as always a good sport about it all.  They should be seen as fast to be friends and fast to challenge people to competitions, boasting of victory and cheering on those who have defeated them.  They always start out by reviewing the rules so that everyone knows them, but if a rule is hard to understand or is making the game less fun they will re-write the rules to everyone’s liking and remember the changes to suggest to others in the future.

            Treasure found in their territory will by and large have more championship belts, laurel headbands, and rings as status symbols.  Their dungeons and keeps will have lots of murals to sporting events and statues of great athletes.  Trophy halls filled with little statues made of precious metals or engraved stones will be common.

Future Dungeons and Dragons Discussion

            I have plans to talk about other things in the future, maybe something as broad as, “Currency in Dungeons and Dragons” and something as specific as, “Here is an NPC I Made”.  If you have any suggestions or questions on writing for Dungeons and Dragons leave a comment and I will probably get back to you as few people comment and I like the attention.

            These updates will be infrequent and random.  Probably.  I don’t know.

The Beg for Attention

            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Trump is the Pilot, I Guess Jesus would be the Copilot?

            I keep hearing/reading a certain analogy in regards to President Trump.  And in a way I see the appeal of the analogy.  It goes something like this.

            “The President is sort of like the pilot of the great big plane we are all flying in.  Much like you wouldn’t like the idea of a pilot failing (even if you do not like them as a person) you should not want President Trump to fail, or hope for that to happen.”

            And to a degree I agree.  BUT, this analogy is imperfect and works under certain assumptions.

1)     The flight in question is not a voluntary experience for most of the people on this plane.  The only way off the flight is to “jump off” which would probably analogize to your death.

2)     I and many others did not want him to be the pilot, so I am going to complain about it at least as much as the guy who got the wrong in flight meal would complain.  I think that is fair.

3)     Hoping for President Trump’s success also assumes a few things like that he is a pilot, who knows how to fly the plane, knows where he is flying it to, and will know how to land it when he gets there.  I am not sure that he knows these things.

4)     This also assumes Trump is not going to just fly the plane up to a cruising altitude, sabotage the thing, and then parachute out so as to collect on some insurance scam.  Which sounds plausible.

5)     Lastly, this also assumes President Trump is not some agent of a foreign power who is going to fly the plane to the middle of nowhere so everyone on board can be taken as political prisoners.  And that place rhymes with Prussia.

            Hoping for someone to succeed is generally a good thing, but only when they

are aiming to do something kind to the rest of us.  And beyond that they have to be able to demonstrate both the mental faculties to accomplish that thing, and you have to trust what they are saying by looking at their past actions and words.

            When President Obama took office various flavors of deplorable people said he was going to take away everyone’s guns, declare Sharia Law, institute death panels that would process the old and sick into early graves, and/or be a dick to people.  None of that came true, but it is important to note that President Obama never said that he would do those things.

           President Obama was accused of wanting to do those things by people who are racist.  His name is Obama, so of course he is out to destroy America.  I never saw any reasoning or proofs that went beyond that, and I still do not see any evidence that would make people think it was true.  We have video of people saying he is a Muslim tyrant out to destroy America, and no evidence for why these people think the way they do.

            Let me contrast this behavior.

            When I speak out against President Trump, I am quoting his own words.  In context.  I am pointing to things he did or did not do.  I am looking at evidence, some of it too sketchy to base a solid opinion off of, but I am looking for and at EVIDENCE.  I disagree with and am judging President Trump by HIS WORDS AND DEEDS.

            I am not making up wild conspiracies. I am not protesting an empty chair.  I look at a person who has been a public figure for 40+ years who has stated goals that I disagree with and have EVIDENCE to back up why I feel the way I feel and think the way I think.

            If you want to cheer for President Trump because his success is “our” success that is your business.  But if you expect me to cheer with you, to “give him a chance”, or even to just stop speaking against him.  YOU NEED TO GIVE ME EVIDENCE AS TO WHY I SHOULD DISCARD ALL THE HORRIBLE THINGS HE HAS SAID AND DONE.

            Right now, there are people calling for the barring of refugees from our country because they share the faith of some terrorists.  These human beings are children who have watched their world burn, women who have seen their families die, men who do not want to be drafted into an army that will kill innocent people, and some of them are probably rotten assholes because there is never a short supply of those.  But right now people are calling for homeless and stateless refugees not to come to the US because they look like someone we dislike.

            I am speaking against a man who has shown himself to be rotten.  I do not want him to succeed because his duplicitous behavior has shown him to be untrustworthy. I feel his success is our plight.  And I am basing this not off racism, not off fear of a religious group, not off of jingoism, I am basing my opinion off of what I know about him.