Inner Yule

So for a while I've been debating how to write a blog about Christmas - or specifically how I feel about it. This has proven harder than one would suspect. It's led to a lot of self-analysis which has led to even more self-analysis, et cetera, like staring into the mouth of Charybdis and counting the teeth.

What it really comes down to is that I have a series of traits that don't match with the festive target market, really.

I'm an introvert for one. The amount of social occasions and family get-togethers that happen over Christmas (it's called the party season for a reason) can swiftly lead to burnout. The extroverts flourish - the introverts wilt. Often ducking out of Christmas functions can lead to problems, too, as they tend to be important.

Also the whole family aspect is another issue. My family isn't what one would necessarily call close; on Christmas Day the only two members of my family that I will necessarily see are my mum and aunt. That'll be quite nice, but at the same time I can't get behind the whole message of half of the ads on TV.

I think perhaps the biggest thing that works my nerves about the season is linked to my depression. Winter makes it worse, which is no secret. Expectation can weigh heavy - everyone's happy, and if one amongst them isn't, it can really mess with their karma. Not being in the spirit of things, walking against the flow, isn't actually a choice for a lot of people. The shadow you sometimes find yourself under doesn't give a damn how many doors you have left to open on your advent calendar, which is hard to grasp for those that don't suffer the condition.

...is that it? I think that's it.

I'm not trying to grinch anyone's holiday. Truly. This is how I feel - not how anyone else should feel, nor a condemnation of how anyone else feels. If you enjoy your Christmas, then fill your boots and more power to you.

Just...please don't look at people like they've grown a second head, if they're not rolling out the tinsel with you.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Remember Remember

Gunpowder, treason and plot... these things have not proven terribly effective at bringing about positive social change in the UK. We the general general public have demonstrated a lack of stomach for such a thing.

There is of course significant debate about what WOULD work. There's a large proportion of the populace that argues that not voting is a good way to influence an elected body, which is - in my not so humble opinion - misguided.

If Russel "Parklife" Brand had his way and most of the British public stopped voting, all it does is reduce the margin by which each party can win - because there's a slice of the populace who will ALWAYS vote.

Nutters.

My great aunt has never ever failed to vote. She's a nonagenarian. She's racist,  homophobic, antisemitic, believes the BBC are trying to brainwash us all into being Scottish, and has several theories involving The Scientists (ominous music) and their attempts to destroy our good honest way of life. She believes there are 200 million immigrants in this country (which has a population of 64.2 million) and is still legally allowed to vote.

She's a nutter, but she's passionate about what she believes, as many nutters are. No matter how many lank-haired twerps like Brand tell them not to vote, they will vote.

If nobody else in this town does, that means that the nutters have free reign. Nutters like my luddite bigoted great aunt. Nutters like the EDL and their ilk. Nutters that have opinions on immigrants and economics that aren't tempered by logic or reason.

There is no doubt that the current voting system is far from ideal. The fact is though, while right-thinking individuals seek electoral reform, it's still the way our leaders are picked.

Luckily one can fight a war on multiple fronts.

Voting in an election doesn't invalidate the hard work put in to raise awareness for better voting systems. It doesn't turn you into a slave. Ten minutes out of your day, to ensure that your voice is heard in the (admittedly unfair) way that actually determines government? Not a bad ten minutes.

Then you can go right back to the "they're all the same" rhetoric, safe in the knowledge that you've at least counterbalanced the nutters a little.

...and hey. Just maybe the low voter turnout that the government relies on each year is being kept low by idiots like Brand. Maybe they are doing the establishment's dirty work without even knowing it.

Of course that's just a theory.

Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Writer

Almost a month since my last post...urgh. Trust me when I say I feel pretty shitty about that.

So NaNoWriMo is coming up. I'm gonna do it. Why not. Each year it seems I attempt it and fail miserably - but I gotta keep going. Especially the years it feels like I have too much to do, or whatever. Got to bull through. I'm stubborn like that.

I have a plan. If it falls through I have...no plan, but I'll think of something.

It's scifi - and kind of a military scifi at that, but not quite. It's about a cyborg soldier; she gets released from a military prison...to find that her side lost.

The thing is - the two sides couldn't be more different. Her side - very conservative, all about productivity and industry, no genetic modification, no subtle bionics, none of that. The other side - pretty much the opposite.

It's about how she fits in with this new, different society. It's about how society isn't perfect, no matter how good life is. It's about what happens when a life seemingly on a one-way street suddenly comes across a junction.

It's also, of course, about what happens to the human mind when you take off the blinkers...and the boundaries.

This could be fun.

Pausing For (over)Thought

So it's been a while since my last blog, mainly because I started to overthink what it was about.

The original idea was to wax poetical about how high school never really ends (like the Bowling For Soup song). I got to thinking about how I would work it, the comparisons I would make, so on, and in the end it turned out to be quite a large topic - or at least my brain made it that way.

So I went in another direction; I decided to write one about Destiny, which I have been enjoying immensely - but then what would I say about it? Again I entered thinky stage, a stage that - in regard to that topic - never produced a blog.

Following that was the idea of chatting about the music I am enjoying right now but that got really thinky. What albums would I single out? The latest Counting Crows, Rise Against, Slash, Gaslight? Perennial favourites like The Cinematic Orchestra or Alice In Chains? So to try and decide I listened to a bunch of music, which didn't help matters at all.

Several times, the parties I game with have ended up being called Team Overthink. I think the reason why is perhaps connected to why people overthink things in "real life", or whatever the popular term is for when you're not playing your lvl17 Wizard.

Maximising the chances of success - that's just the beginning. We've all failed, and for the most part, we don't like it. Failure is bad, especially in a team, when other people are counting on us. The consequences of that failure vary wildly. Sometimes those consequences are NOT getting something awesome; sometimes they are the lives of the characters involved, or everyone within ten miles, or the fate of reality itself. A party of professional murder-hobos will go to immense lengths to ensure that when the ancient dragon dies, they can still get the gemstone stuck in its face.

One of those consequences isn't even necessarily failure. It's the thought of making the wrong decision. Something that flashes back even a little negatively can be looked upon as a screw-up of Windows ME-esque proportions - because whatever the actual difficulties caused by such a decision, we get to look back at when we made it and regret it constantly. Who cares if it got us past the army of goblins and destroyed a dragon with zero effort? It cost us a frigging gemstone.

It's about ensuring that there's no little trick that trips us up, too. Ensuring our attempt to achieve whatever we are trying to achieve is watertight, that no fickle twist of fate or minor oversight or well-meaning accident on behalf of someone else will sink it unjustly. Of course, many of those little tricks are products of our imaginative overthinking, too - but try telling the overthinker that, see what happens. So what if the dragon is weak to sonic attacks? That might shatter the gemstone!

We can't help it. Just like in a game, life has consequences for failure, or making the wrong decision.

The thing is, though - the game, we can put down afterwards. I've had characters die, or had bad things happen to them, or made really harsh decisions with those characters. Yesterday the first Pathfinder character I've ever had to actually get a Wish used it to dispose of the thing that gave him the Wish in the first place. That hurt. That decision cost my character potentially damn-near infinite wealth or a significant amount of power. There was no way Junayd would do anything else, though - that's who he is. So that is how it is justified, and when we put the character sheets down, we talk about it and laugh.

Outside of game, we don't get to put anything down and laugh in the same way. We're still engaged in the world that the consequences are a part of. Don't pay council tax? Expect a visit from a man with hobnail boots and a name like Mister Granite. Get absolutely mortal when you're meant to be up for work at 5am? At best, have a terrible day at work - at worst, get alcohol poisoning, get the sack, do something stupid while wasted and face criminal charges.

That's why it is so easy to overthink decisions. Reality plays for keeps, always has. These are the lessons we learn over the important things, so how are we meant to react to the trivial?

It begins in school - though while half the consequences there are direct (punishment for failure or misbehaviour), several are indirect (having no job prospects the moment one turns 18). We either learn that there are these consequences - and we run the chances of becoming an overthinker - or we just don't learn at all, and...

...well, we turn into something far worse.

So here's to the overthinkers - because frankly it's better than not thinking at all.

Keeping Up With The World

Hey all. Been a while since I posted, so before I do anything thematic, it's update time.

My left leg is clad up to the knee in a compression bandage. This is to treat an ulcer that sits on my left ankle and causes me no end of grief. If it's not one thing, it's another, right? So yes. That's a wonderful little fashion accessory.

Recently I came off a course of antibiotics to treat aforementioned ulcer. These were the kind where you couldn't eat an hour after taking them, and had to wait at least an hour after eating before you could take them. Which means big chunks of the day not eating.

You know how the only thing you want to do when you can't eat...is eat?

The only thing I want to do right now is scratch my leg. It feels like it is buried to the knee in a fire ant nest. 90% of the thoughts that pass through my mind daily are about scratching my leg - but I can't until the compression bandage comes off.

Thing is, when it comes off, another one is going on in its place.

If I am really lucky the nurse will permit me thirty seconds "scratch time".

On the plus side I've started collecting Gunpla again. You may have seen some of my piccies on facebook. Expect to see more - and when I have a wider selection I will take some decent pictures and post them here, perhaps.

Also the new Counting Crows album is wonderful.

Right. I am off to contemplate the blog post following this one. In the meantime, enjoy this little titbit of madness from beyond the Baltic...

...in which a man antagonises the driver of a minibus with hilarious results.

DM Tips - What I Learned Out On The Road

I've acted as DM/ST for a few RPGs in my time. Not quite twenty years yet, but still, it's deep in the second decade right now. During that time I've come across some little sayings that - while only sometimes true - can make one's life in charge of an entire world that much easier.

1) Never throw a stick you don't want chased.
It might seem like a trivial throw-away detail to you - something that isn't worth worrying about, a minor piece of flavour to lend a hint of exoticism to your world. Be careful, though, because players pick up on details. They think - they overthink - they form conjecture. They'll chase that stick you just threw, whether it was an important stick or not. That movement in that shadow? They will want to take a look at it. The cursive handwriting of this note? They'll want to look into that. Be sure you know where a party will end up going if they chase that stick before you ever throw it - or at least be confident that you can think on your feet fast enough to keep the game going.

2) Never assume the stick will be chased.
On the flip-side of the previous point - don't be surprised if sometimes that juicy plot hook is actually passed up as apparently being a trivial throw-away detail. Sometimes it won't even be that players miss the potential story - sometimes they just don't want to go down that route. That's fine. Gaming is an exercise in character and journey, after all. Make sure there's alternatives or that you're prepared for a divergence - multiple sticks can sometimes be useful.

3) Detail and saturation are not the same thing.
It's very tempting to flood a setting with detail to try and give it that extra bit of depth. Don't. You only need so much - a hint here and there and people's imaginations will do the rest. Work the detail of the setting into the interactions the characters have with it, and you need never drown your players in exposition. It's like tricking people into learning - make it fun and it stops being a chore.

4) Be prepared, think fast.
The twofold strategy at handling anything your players do is thus: plan until just before you think you have enough, then freestyle the rest of the way. As long as your setting has a foundation, and you have good NPCs you can fall back on, then making it up as one goes along is no great crime. It can be pretty fun, too. That said, if you are thrown a huge curve ball, never be afraid to take ten minutes to rethink your plan or work some notes for a new approach.

5) Always have a surprise up your sleeve.
Things moving too slowly? Players plodding through a town they don't necessarily need to be in? Surprise them. Do something they aren't expecting. Stir up the status quo. Throw in a non-plot-related encounter with something they couldn't predict. As an added twist - work it into your plot in a way that isn't obvious yet. The life of an adventurer is filled with surprises.

6) They aren't your Sims.
It isn't you versus them. You have literally the entire world at your command, and they are a group of individuals within it. If the story is going to be about persecution and grossly unfair odds, tell the players beforehand - because most players come to the table expecting fairness and fun. They're people, not digital representations of people.

7) Don't be a dick.
This should be obvious. Randomly being an asshole to your players, constant bad jokes, mockery for no good reason - these things aren't acceptable in real life, they shouldn't be acceptable at your table. Banter and witticism between friends is okay. Abusing your position as DM to get away with being a dick is not. Learn that line - we have to do it in real life, after all.

There may be more to this later...but for now this will have to do.

Have fun.

My New Tattoo

When its carnival season and the nights are long, the big light-up displays strung in between buildings downtown comes into its own. The parades pass under a shooting star brightly lit by dazzling lightbulbs, a symbol of hope and exploration and discovery in a small town held together by hope alone.

The tourists see that light - the brilliant display put on to muse and decorate and entertain. It allures and attracts, sheds its glow on all those that pass underneath it, laughing in the late evening. Then as the night wears on it becomes a beacon for those wending their way home, something to be pointed at and revelled in when one's state is slightly altered.

But then the tourists go home; the little shops close their doors and the outside starts to move a little slower. The posters come down. The lights stop being turned on, and instead of a pulsing gleam of a shooting star - we see its dark outline, a frame where our hope used to be. We see everything that made the illusion possible without the illusion.

A shooting star - a comet - a bright arc that flashes across the sky. Now dark and hollow, and shut down until the world turns warm again.

How could I not want this on my skin?

It's the cover of Recovering The Satellites, Counting Crow's second album - an album which as a whole, and in particular the titular track, speaks of a life in a small town. Talks of the lives of people from somewhere that is just smaller than most, with a few more walls than the average. It's about those people that manage to get away, that stay in orbit for a moment of time before coming back down again. Always drawn back to that little insular place we call home.

That's why I got it.