When we go we will leave behind no written records of our passing, no etches in the stone, no words to be passed down year after year until generations hence will have twisted them into some sort of hidiouse monstrocity through which they can commit murders in our name. No manifestos will follow in our wake, no art to stand forever on display static as things were not meant to be, as little men with smaller minds do their best to scilently preserve the emptyness of before for all eternity to see. No pictures though. It scorns the light.
Instead we will leave scribbles on the sidewalk, pastel assualts against the unending blackness of an uncaring road that leads to no where except where ever you are going. Light laughture, and sometimes love will be born from our couplings singing gaily into the wind which blows scattering the sounds we make. Dust and ashes.
Nothing left behind. Except the feeling that there will be something great, always around the next bend.
Sorry I am sick, and I am more than a little sad and that was up lifting to me.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Plan one Failed
Bars are simply not the right atmosphere. I suppose if I found the right bar it would work, but that would mean sampling a wide variety of bars trying to find somewhere that doesn't fail miserably at life. I just need somewhere comfortable to sit, and a table, and to be left alone. I can't even do that outside as cops feel the need to harass me instead of...oh I don't know patroling a ghetto or something. Fucking assholes, "What's in your briefcase?" Fucking assholes.
I did buy a printer though and so far it has been a BIG help yay!
I thought the other side would work because it is quiet two nights a weeks and that should be enough. However, it is DEAD. Two nights a week and sitting in an empty bar isn't any better than sitting at home. *sigh* this sucks. I have such a hard time writting here at home for a variety of reasons, but it is looking like I am just going to have to start breaking through all of that and doing it anyway. The problem is that I stagnate inside my own head, I need other people to prevent that from happening.
Man heaven forbid that you have alternative lifestyle needs. Oh well. I am just frusterated. But I seem to be writting alright now don't I? I am. So I guess I should stop complaining and take advantage of this situation.
Moral Quandary
It isn't often that I have moral quandaries. Gernerally my morals are pretty easy to live by, and live up to. Gay marriage, activate, right to choose ho!, don't fuck with people, easy! They go on and on. It isn't so much that I am taking the path of least resistence, but the fact is that I am white, male, and poor. It is really easy to uphold ideas of gay marriage because they don't affect me directly. In fact the real moral test would be in opposing it and trying to convince my gay friends that they are sick and need help. But no I just accept them for who they are and wander off. Easy!
I should be more active. I should write to my congressmen and senators. Specificly my senators because I think congress is a waste of time. I should write directly to president aides instead of the president himself, that seems like it makes more sense in the long run. I should be better educated on civics, and whatnot but these are all things I will either do or won't.
None the less I have a moral quandery. The real problem behind this quandary is that at the end of the day it is ultimatly useless. While I can delude myself into thinking I am changing something I am not and it really is soley and issue of abstract morals.
It is the comics books. Or rather more specifically the purchase of said comic books.
Two issues. Thrift. Supporting Local Buisnesses.
Heaven or hell duel one lets rock!
Thrift first. Lefts face it ladies and gentalmen at the moment I am poor! I survive on 12,000 dollars a year meaning I make around 1000 a month. Of course I don't really want for anything. I have a snazzy computer, food, a tv, and a comic book buying habit, and even a lil money in the bank. Things are alright. Now my views on thrift are diffrent. I don't save money for the sake of saving money. I just don't have that urge within me. In fact I loath to spend the time required to do that. So lets just move on past that little idea. Throw your traditional idea of thrift out and come with me.
I woke 40 hours a week. That sucks. Of course when you factor in getting ready for work, driving to work, driving home from work, and getting de-worked, it works out to being much longer than that. It still sucks. But it is nessiary. I sleep 7 hours a night on average. I'd get that down a little lower but I have a variety of sleep disorders which makes that hard, and migrians for when I fuck it up so I'd rather avoid thouse. Oddly enough I sleep better with someone, isn't that ironically funny? Lets move on though. The point is that I don't have a whole lot of time to myself. Not enough to get everything I want done, especially after we factor in everything I need to get done.
Money. Money is the condensed representation of my time spent at work. It is the time I would of spent doing other things distilled down into something less than it was origianlly worth and handed to me. To be honest there are times where I've wanted to say, "keep your 40 bucks I am going home" but that isn't how jobs work. They keep you there even when there is nothing for you to do, and they expect you to produce something even if it is nothing. It isn't just the job I have either, lots of jobs just sort of have useless busy work to keep its employees moving in case they are actually needed for something. Money. My material compensation isn't nearly enough but it is all I have. So when I spend it I make DAMN sure I get the most out of it as humanaly possible. Each month I make certain that I download at least 100 dollars worth of stuff to counter balanace the fact that I have to pay for internet acess in the first place. I did that in 16 hours when I downloaded rome seasons 1&2.
When I play video games I try to squeeze a dollar an hour out of them when I play them. So I just spend less on action games and more on RPGs and it generally works out for me.
I use my money in such a way so that I get as much as possible out of as little as possible. The use I have squeezed out of this computer has made it pay for itself several dozen times over.
On this score I am brutally effective at just about everything I do except...comic books.
Support you local businesses:
I beleive in supporting my locak buisnesses. I really do. It is nice, when you hand over your money, to be handing over to a person, usually the person you are seeing right there in front of you. After awhile they know your face, ask how you are doing, and make orders suited to you. Comic book stores are especailly dependent on this modle. 90% of its user base comes from repeat customers, and so it behooves them to cater to these people. To that end comic book stores are more than just stores. They are community centers. They provide places for people to play the games they just boughts, and encourage people to go forth and hang out at the store, using their recently purchased toys on their tables free of charge for the most part. Even a shoestring operation will have tables for people to play. Its just expected. Every time I buy a comic book from the interwebs I am not buying a coimic book from them and that sucks.
Now the problem:
I have recently, for other reasons, joined Books-a-million book club. I'm mathematically challanged and I didn't really thing 10% off would amount to all that much. And it isn't really, it comes to be the same price I'd get when would order it from amazon. Then I realized I can use $10 off coupons which they send me weekly in the mail. Combined with free shipping and we have a winner. I bought 5 comic books, for over $20 less than TBS. Ouch. just ouch.
So who wins? Not TBS that is for damn sure.
See here is the thing. Support your local buisnesses that is a movement I can get behind. Something I can help out with, and feel good about myself while doing it. The problem is that... well my local buisnesses don't support me. We aren't talking just the extra money. Hell I would pay extra to shop at TBS but I can't use that store's services. Why? Well they close at 8. I get out of work at 8:30. So what am I supposed to do? They stay open late on friday, but friday is magic night and trying to get magic unrealted things done on friday is stupid. Trust me I tried. I can't sneak in before work because they open at 12 when I am supposed to be there. Oh and I can't participate in fridaynight magic night because, yeah it starts before I get off work.
I'm not the only person in my situation. There are lots of us. To give the comics thing a rest for awhile. Recently, as in september my glasses suffered an acident at work, I don't know what got on them but it was bad. Anyway I needed new ones. So I figgured I'd go to a local opticians. I found an independently owned glasses place, got a couple of names tried to schedual visits. Didn't work out.
My days off being tuesday and wensday, you think this shit would be easy. BUT NO the earlyest either doctor could see me would be two weeks from then. And I couldn't wait that long. I need my damn glasses. So I walked into Eyeglass world and got seen within an hour. This story is repeated over and over again by me with diffrent small buisnsesses as I end up walking out of their doors and into the all embracing arms of the corporate owned goliath. I don't want to, but damnit I needed my fucking eyes examined. NOW. One was on vacation, and the other was just busy. So they loose.
This is the end of the day. Small buisness owners need to wake their asses up and realize that the 9 to 5 work day has been extinct for a long time, along with housewives and whatever the fuck else. I'm not willing to bend over backwards to spend money and why should I be. Half the damn city shuts down at 5, the rest at 8 and yet all sorts of corporatly owned stores are still doing a brisk buisness, and the small buisness owner is at home bemoning the corporate devil over dinner while I am at the corporate devil's store buying my own dinner. The entire small buisnsses model is supposed to be about convience when they make themselves anything but. Then they wonder why their stores are failing.
So yeah. Its what you get.
I could order online from smaller stores but even that in of itself is dicey. I don't trust the interwebs that much. So I am stuck between a rock and a warm soft convient place that makes my life easyer. Why choose the rock? Oh yeah because it is owned by someone I like. Sorry though kids I don't like you that much. Especially when I work a job where I get back far less than what I put in...at least before I make my own adjustments :-)
I did buy a printer though and so far it has been a BIG help yay!
I thought the other side would work because it is quiet two nights a weeks and that should be enough. However, it is DEAD. Two nights a week and sitting in an empty bar isn't any better than sitting at home. *sigh* this sucks. I have such a hard time writting here at home for a variety of reasons, but it is looking like I am just going to have to start breaking through all of that and doing it anyway. The problem is that I stagnate inside my own head, I need other people to prevent that from happening.
Man heaven forbid that you have alternative lifestyle needs. Oh well. I am just frusterated. But I seem to be writting alright now don't I? I am. So I guess I should stop complaining and take advantage of this situation.
Moral Quandary
It isn't often that I have moral quandaries. Gernerally my morals are pretty easy to live by, and live up to. Gay marriage, activate, right to choose ho!, don't fuck with people, easy! They go on and on. It isn't so much that I am taking the path of least resistence, but the fact is that I am white, male, and poor. It is really easy to uphold ideas of gay marriage because they don't affect me directly. In fact the real moral test would be in opposing it and trying to convince my gay friends that they are sick and need help. But no I just accept them for who they are and wander off. Easy!
I should be more active. I should write to my congressmen and senators. Specificly my senators because I think congress is a waste of time. I should write directly to president aides instead of the president himself, that seems like it makes more sense in the long run. I should be better educated on civics, and whatnot but these are all things I will either do or won't.
None the less I have a moral quandery. The real problem behind this quandary is that at the end of the day it is ultimatly useless. While I can delude myself into thinking I am changing something I am not and it really is soley and issue of abstract morals.
It is the comics books. Or rather more specifically the purchase of said comic books.
Two issues. Thrift. Supporting Local Buisnesses.
Heaven or hell duel one lets rock!
Thrift first. Lefts face it ladies and gentalmen at the moment I am poor! I survive on 12,000 dollars a year meaning I make around 1000 a month. Of course I don't really want for anything. I have a snazzy computer, food, a tv, and a comic book buying habit, and even a lil money in the bank. Things are alright. Now my views on thrift are diffrent. I don't save money for the sake of saving money. I just don't have that urge within me. In fact I loath to spend the time required to do that. So lets just move on past that little idea. Throw your traditional idea of thrift out and come with me.
I woke 40 hours a week. That sucks. Of course when you factor in getting ready for work, driving to work, driving home from work, and getting de-worked, it works out to being much longer than that. It still sucks. But it is nessiary. I sleep 7 hours a night on average. I'd get that down a little lower but I have a variety of sleep disorders which makes that hard, and migrians for when I fuck it up so I'd rather avoid thouse. Oddly enough I sleep better with someone, isn't that ironically funny? Lets move on though. The point is that I don't have a whole lot of time to myself. Not enough to get everything I want done, especially after we factor in everything I need to get done.
Money. Money is the condensed representation of my time spent at work. It is the time I would of spent doing other things distilled down into something less than it was origianlly worth and handed to me. To be honest there are times where I've wanted to say, "keep your 40 bucks I am going home" but that isn't how jobs work. They keep you there even when there is nothing for you to do, and they expect you to produce something even if it is nothing. It isn't just the job I have either, lots of jobs just sort of have useless busy work to keep its employees moving in case they are actually needed for something. Money. My material compensation isn't nearly enough but it is all I have. So when I spend it I make DAMN sure I get the most out of it as humanaly possible. Each month I make certain that I download at least 100 dollars worth of stuff to counter balanace the fact that I have to pay for internet acess in the first place. I did that in 16 hours when I downloaded rome seasons 1&2.
When I play video games I try to squeeze a dollar an hour out of them when I play them. So I just spend less on action games and more on RPGs and it generally works out for me.
I use my money in such a way so that I get as much as possible out of as little as possible. The use I have squeezed out of this computer has made it pay for itself several dozen times over.
On this score I am brutally effective at just about everything I do except...comic books.
Support you local businesses:
I beleive in supporting my locak buisnesses. I really do. It is nice, when you hand over your money, to be handing over to a person, usually the person you are seeing right there in front of you. After awhile they know your face, ask how you are doing, and make orders suited to you. Comic book stores are especailly dependent on this modle. 90% of its user base comes from repeat customers, and so it behooves them to cater to these people. To that end comic book stores are more than just stores. They are community centers. They provide places for people to play the games they just boughts, and encourage people to go forth and hang out at the store, using their recently purchased toys on their tables free of charge for the most part. Even a shoestring operation will have tables for people to play. Its just expected. Every time I buy a comic book from the interwebs I am not buying a coimic book from them and that sucks.
Now the problem:
I have recently, for other reasons, joined Books-a-million book club. I'm mathematically challanged and I didn't really thing 10% off would amount to all that much. And it isn't really, it comes to be the same price I'd get when would order it from amazon. Then I realized I can use $10 off coupons which they send me weekly in the mail. Combined with free shipping and we have a winner. I bought 5 comic books, for over $20 less than TBS. Ouch. just ouch.
So who wins? Not TBS that is for damn sure.
See here is the thing. Support your local buisnesses that is a movement I can get behind. Something I can help out with, and feel good about myself while doing it. The problem is that... well my local buisnesses don't support me. We aren't talking just the extra money. Hell I would pay extra to shop at TBS but I can't use that store's services. Why? Well they close at 8. I get out of work at 8:30. So what am I supposed to do? They stay open late on friday, but friday is magic night and trying to get magic unrealted things done on friday is stupid. Trust me I tried. I can't sneak in before work because they open at 12 when I am supposed to be there. Oh and I can't participate in fridaynight magic night because, yeah it starts before I get off work.
I'm not the only person in my situation. There are lots of us. To give the comics thing a rest for awhile. Recently, as in september my glasses suffered an acident at work, I don't know what got on them but it was bad. Anyway I needed new ones. So I figgured I'd go to a local opticians. I found an independently owned glasses place, got a couple of names tried to schedual visits. Didn't work out.
My days off being tuesday and wensday, you think this shit would be easy. BUT NO the earlyest either doctor could see me would be two weeks from then. And I couldn't wait that long. I need my damn glasses. So I walked into Eyeglass world and got seen within an hour. This story is repeated over and over again by me with diffrent small buisnsesses as I end up walking out of their doors and into the all embracing arms of the corporate owned goliath. I don't want to, but damnit I needed my fucking eyes examined. NOW. One was on vacation, and the other was just busy. So they loose.
This is the end of the day. Small buisness owners need to wake their asses up and realize that the 9 to 5 work day has been extinct for a long time, along with housewives and whatever the fuck else. I'm not willing to bend over backwards to spend money and why should I be. Half the damn city shuts down at 5, the rest at 8 and yet all sorts of corporatly owned stores are still doing a brisk buisness, and the small buisness owner is at home bemoning the corporate devil over dinner while I am at the corporate devil's store buying my own dinner. The entire small buisnsses model is supposed to be about convience when they make themselves anything but. Then they wonder why their stores are failing.
So yeah. Its what you get.
I could order online from smaller stores but even that in of itself is dicey. I don't trust the interwebs that much. So I am stuck between a rock and a warm soft convient place that makes my life easyer. Why choose the rock? Oh yeah because it is owned by someone I like. Sorry though kids I don't like you that much. Especially when I work a job where I get back far less than what I put in...at least before I make my own adjustments :-)
Friday, January 2, 2009
What's shakin
So this hasn't been updated in awhile has it? Nope. Well that is because I've started GMing exalted. Well okay I've only run one session so far but I am really excited about it and the second session is coming up sunday and there on into many months from now.
The downside being, my lunch time is now taken up by exalted. All exalted all the time. Lunch time is where 99% of all blog entires are birthed from. So this presents a multitude of problems for me. So I've decided to attack this problem utilizing a two pronged approch.
One is to buy a printer. I now have the super power to type anywhere. Time to put that to work. If I buy a printer I'll be able to type my rpg notes and print them, I type MUCH faster than I write.
Two is to set aside a writting night. I'd do it tonight but it is new year's day and the place I have chosen might be a lil crazy.
Hopefully between the two of them it will work out.
I was going to write a lot more but I suddenly got tired. It is 3:15 and I am a notoriouse insomniac so I'll take being tired when I can get it.
Be back in a bit.
The downside being, my lunch time is now taken up by exalted. All exalted all the time. Lunch time is where 99% of all blog entires are birthed from. So this presents a multitude of problems for me. So I've decided to attack this problem utilizing a two pronged approch.
One is to buy a printer. I now have the super power to type anywhere. Time to put that to work. If I buy a printer I'll be able to type my rpg notes and print them, I type MUCH faster than I write.
Two is to set aside a writting night. I'd do it tonight but it is new year's day and the place I have chosen might be a lil crazy.
Hopefully between the two of them it will work out.
I was going to write a lot more but I suddenly got tired. It is 3:15 and I am a notoriouse insomniac so I'll take being tired when I can get it.
Be back in a bit.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
"Smells like death blondes and victory"
From a year's worth of buildup, to naked dictation, to a crucifixtion, to lying ending a fight in a stalemate where both participants end up unconsiouse on the floor, Norman Osbourn better known to everyone else as the green goblin has risen from one of the stupest villians of all time to someone who should be on par with the joker.
The moment I am taliking about IGN actually voted as the best comic moment of the year, I am not going to argue with them for once.
Thank you Warren Ellis for that.
Warren Ellis's ability to slowly develop a plot element is something everyone should fucking study. When I say they spent a year building up to Norman loosing his shit and becoming the green goblin again I wasn't joking. It has been something Ellis has been forshadowing since day one when he took over the Thunderbolts. Long story shot the thunderboilts are a group of villaims who have agreed to fight crime in order to shorten their jail time, however because of that silly civil war event marvel did they are now hunting down unregisterd heros. Womp.
Most everyone is familiar with the green goblin because of the first spiderman movie. Woop! This makes my life easyer. Instead of him flying around on his rocket sled, Ellis deicded to put Osbourn back into the office chair acting as public relations, manager, and coach for one of the most controversial super hero teams on the face of the planet. Still from day one you knew he was going to loose his shit.
Osbourn used a great deal of medication to keep himself under control. One of the people under him, kept messing with that medication, then when they had to keep three telepaths in thunderbolt mountain before they could be transported to super jail proper you knew it was coming. But so what? No really he was just a guy on a rocket sled, his greatest accomplishment was chucking one of spiderman's girlfriends off of a bridge. Only vaugly impressed.
However, over the course of the year Ellis developed Osbourn. He made him into a man to be feared not because of his martial prowess, but because of he sheer unrelenting ablility to manipulate everyone around him to get what he wants. Even with his grip on sanity gone he still had the ability to outwit anyone he came up against. Well maybe that's not true. Okay it isn't true at all.
He doens't out wit them, he teriffys them. Scares the living crap out of them until there is nothing left. When he fought the sword's man (don't ask) he didn't win because of anything he did, he scared the living crap out of him. The thing is, that it worked. I beleived he was that scary. I saw this man sit around and do some throughly evil things from the comfortable seat of his desk chair. Now he flipped his shit and is running around with granades in the shape of pumpkins claiming he is god. After that, all the sudden your super powers mean a whole lot less, and you end up crucified. No really.
He then preceeded in indulging on a murderouse rampage on the staff. Only to then get into an actual fight, which you believe in that too. The transition from machievellian buisnessman to pysochpathic killer is handled so well, that I was left litterally in awe of how it all came together. It has truely been a masterfully written joyride that is nothing short of brilliant.
Marvel was in the toilet for a long time, and it shows in its villians. Really the green goblin is a combonation of the joker and Lex Luthor, you would think that there would be more to him than that. However, short sighted writters have left him to languish for far to long leaving him as little more than a joke until now.
Shortly after he murdered serveral people, nearly beat to death one of the thunderbolts, and crucified another he became the man who is in charge of every hero in the country.
HA!
I'm not really that excited though because Ellis has moved onto other projects, and while I like the author's involved all that complex charecterization will be once again thrown out the window.
Oh well.
I got two of the most amazing graphic novels ever out of the deal so no complaints here. Lets hope he writes something else sharpish.
The moment I am taliking about IGN actually voted as the best comic moment of the year, I am not going to argue with them for once.
Thank you Warren Ellis for that.
Warren Ellis's ability to slowly develop a plot element is something everyone should fucking study. When I say they spent a year building up to Norman loosing his shit and becoming the green goblin again I wasn't joking. It has been something Ellis has been forshadowing since day one when he took over the Thunderbolts. Long story shot the thunderboilts are a group of villaims who have agreed to fight crime in order to shorten their jail time, however because of that silly civil war event marvel did they are now hunting down unregisterd heros. Womp.
Most everyone is familiar with the green goblin because of the first spiderman movie. Woop! This makes my life easyer. Instead of him flying around on his rocket sled, Ellis deicded to put Osbourn back into the office chair acting as public relations, manager, and coach for one of the most controversial super hero teams on the face of the planet. Still from day one you knew he was going to loose his shit.
Osbourn used a great deal of medication to keep himself under control. One of the people under him, kept messing with that medication, then when they had to keep three telepaths in thunderbolt mountain before they could be transported to super jail proper you knew it was coming. But so what? No really he was just a guy on a rocket sled, his greatest accomplishment was chucking one of spiderman's girlfriends off of a bridge. Only vaugly impressed.
However, over the course of the year Ellis developed Osbourn. He made him into a man to be feared not because of his martial prowess, but because of he sheer unrelenting ablility to manipulate everyone around him to get what he wants. Even with his grip on sanity gone he still had the ability to outwit anyone he came up against. Well maybe that's not true. Okay it isn't true at all.
He doens't out wit them, he teriffys them. Scares the living crap out of them until there is nothing left. When he fought the sword's man (don't ask) he didn't win because of anything he did, he scared the living crap out of him. The thing is, that it worked. I beleived he was that scary. I saw this man sit around and do some throughly evil things from the comfortable seat of his desk chair. Now he flipped his shit and is running around with granades in the shape of pumpkins claiming he is god. After that, all the sudden your super powers mean a whole lot less, and you end up crucified. No really.
He then preceeded in indulging on a murderouse rampage on the staff. Only to then get into an actual fight, which you believe in that too. The transition from machievellian buisnessman to pysochpathic killer is handled so well, that I was left litterally in awe of how it all came together. It has truely been a masterfully written joyride that is nothing short of brilliant.
Marvel was in the toilet for a long time, and it shows in its villians. Really the green goblin is a combonation of the joker and Lex Luthor, you would think that there would be more to him than that. However, short sighted writters have left him to languish for far to long leaving him as little more than a joke until now.
Shortly after he murdered serveral people, nearly beat to death one of the thunderbolts, and crucified another he became the man who is in charge of every hero in the country.
HA!
I'm not really that excited though because Ellis has moved onto other projects, and while I like the author's involved all that complex charecterization will be once again thrown out the window.
Oh well.
I got two of the most amazing graphic novels ever out of the deal so no complaints here. Lets hope he writes something else sharpish.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
And then there was fun [braindump]
Hrm Blogger is very excited about using the enter button in the subject line. I can respect that though.
So social contract theory in gaming. This is a brain dump, which means I take no credit for how bad any of this is.
No seriously.
Okay time to come clean when Lock and that other guy with to many extraneous letters in his name came up with the social contract theory gaming hadn't yet evolved to the state that it is today. If it had then they would of had a much better way for them to talk about it. Still it gives me an interesting look into the deep psychological diffrence a social contract can make. Especially when there is an end in site.
While I typically do this about RPGs, rpgs tend to play if fast and loose with social contract so I thought I would start with something easyer on me, and that would be board games, specifically the board game Arkam Horror.
AH as it will now be known from now on isn't like traditional board games such as candy land or shoots and ladders. Players generally have free riegn over the board, and it is one of those games that straddles the divide between rpgs and board games. The idea behind the game is that pretty soon a majorly evil and ancient god will awake and eat the world unless this group of plucky, but endlessly stupid people cowboy up and stop it. In essence it is a game where up to 8 people have to work together to stop an anciet evil from showing up and fucking the wold to death. TO BE CLEAR, you absoluely have to work together or else you will loose and die hopelessly.
Essentially it is you vesus the game. There is no real human component for you to get mad at. Just a game...a game that hates to loose. To give you an idea, every turn you draw a card, usually htis card will tell you what will be going horribly awry this turn. Some of these cards are brutally difficult requiring massive sacrifices on the part of the players in order for them to suceed. On top of that these cards also open a gate, which summons two monsters, and they make a clue token show up. You need 5 clue tokens to seal a gate. If a gate shows up on a clue token the clue token goes away. If a clue token shows up where there is already a gate then no clue token for you. Mind you, you need these clue tokens to win. Along with a gate opening a monster comes out. Most monsters will drive you insane by looking at them, so you have to contend with that even before you are forced to beat them to death. Once you kill the monsters in front of the gates you have to go through the gates, spend two turns in another dimension before coming back and trust me the other dimension is no picnick...you can maybe use clue tokens to seal the gate...you need 5. Oh yeah if 12 gates open over the course of the game guess what, you loose! To many gates open at one time, you loose, to many monsters, yeah you loose, so no need to worry about the game it can fend for itself.
So here we are, picture it, 8 people crammed around a table, things have just gone south, gone south hard, and now we are frantically trying every tool at our disposal to survive. Yet depite the fact that every odd in the world is stacked against us no one mentions the idea of cheating. Not all the monsters in the game are equal, and so instead of just quietly slipping the extra nasty one blocking everyone's way, we instead we come up with spiralingly complex logisitcal plans to work around it, or to get the right combonation of skills and weaponry in the area to kill the damn thing.
On a side note the game itself requires a stupid amount of focus. We didn't pay atension to the game for 2 turns last night and we only pulled out of that situation with luck and paniced action.
That's the thing though. We are playing against a game. So we could just as easily make the game easyer by removing certain parts of it we don't like. We could take out certain cards that make it nearly impossible to win, or we could remove certain monsters, there are all sorts of things that can be done to make the game easyer, and yet...we don't.
okay by now you should get enough of the set up. There is a strage dynamic involved where there is no compulsion to follow the rules, no refferee, no one to tell us we are doing something wrong, or making something to easy, or to hard in some hilariouse cases. No instead we try to follow the rules as closely as possible because...
Well the social contract. The invisable jailer. We don't need someone to watch over us because we are overcoming a challenge together.
I could go into a Foucaltian look of power, the power the game has over us and how we don't need a ref to monitor us because we do it far more fiercly than a ref ever could. I could also go for some sort of utopian view where someday we won't need laws because we are working together to build a better unified whole.
However, I won't do either of those things or anything in between. Why? Because when we are playing a game we enter into a specific mode, which is diffrent than normal group activities. First of all we are playing a game so we are predispositioned to have fun. Secondly, if we fail/die we all fail together, at the same time more or less. So not only is your turn of great interest but so are most of the other players. Many times their actions will hinge upon your own, what you can do will be based on what they do, plans are made, along with actions coordinated.
So why not take it one step further. We are all working together, the feeling of brother hood that develops over the course of the game is pretty fantastic, why not take on the ultimate consiracy and take the game's knees out from under it. Its trying to kill you after all and what is good for one person is good for everyone right?
I've come up with the theory that it is the absence of competition. Were I smart this would go at the top of the page in a part marked thesis. I might actually do that latter who knows.
Competition adds things like desperation, desperation breeds things like mistrust, and the desire to take things into your own hands. Competition also alters the game dynamic in a certain way because it alters the pecking order. A game involving competion isn't just a game. It is a contest of persons, and at the end of it one person gets to say "I beat you". Being able to say that gives the person, in my case, an extroninarly mild amount of control over me. Through cheating, or various other underhanded methods in a competative setting, it artificially alters the playing field to make up for a precieved imblance on the part of the person being cheated.
Arkam isn't like that. It hates everyone. Everyone extra equally. Although for some reason that game seems to like to pick one player and ground them into the dirt.
It also doesn't gloat. If we win, we win together as a team, if we loose we loose together and thirst for vengence.
Similarly. I suspect that is the reason why we don't run into to many cases of direct sabotage, because we have enough problems on our hands. Someone running around and screwing things up on purpose is recipie for inviting the wrath of the entire group down upon you.
Anyway the competition thing, yeah.
I'm going to come back to this topic in a week or so focusing on that. I'm positive that is the key to how this works.
I think I am going compare it to the queerly adversarial relationship that develops between players and game masters in roleplaying games.
So social contract theory in gaming. This is a brain dump, which means I take no credit for how bad any of this is.
No seriously.
Okay time to come clean when Lock and that other guy with to many extraneous letters in his name came up with the social contract theory gaming hadn't yet evolved to the state that it is today. If it had then they would of had a much better way for them to talk about it. Still it gives me an interesting look into the deep psychological diffrence a social contract can make. Especially when there is an end in site.
While I typically do this about RPGs, rpgs tend to play if fast and loose with social contract so I thought I would start with something easyer on me, and that would be board games, specifically the board game Arkam Horror.
AH as it will now be known from now on isn't like traditional board games such as candy land or shoots and ladders. Players generally have free riegn over the board, and it is one of those games that straddles the divide between rpgs and board games. The idea behind the game is that pretty soon a majorly evil and ancient god will awake and eat the world unless this group of plucky, but endlessly stupid people cowboy up and stop it. In essence it is a game where up to 8 people have to work together to stop an anciet evil from showing up and fucking the wold to death. TO BE CLEAR, you absoluely have to work together or else you will loose and die hopelessly.
Essentially it is you vesus the game. There is no real human component for you to get mad at. Just a game...a game that hates to loose. To give you an idea, every turn you draw a card, usually htis card will tell you what will be going horribly awry this turn. Some of these cards are brutally difficult requiring massive sacrifices on the part of the players in order for them to suceed. On top of that these cards also open a gate, which summons two monsters, and they make a clue token show up. You need 5 clue tokens to seal a gate. If a gate shows up on a clue token the clue token goes away. If a clue token shows up where there is already a gate then no clue token for you. Mind you, you need these clue tokens to win. Along with a gate opening a monster comes out. Most monsters will drive you insane by looking at them, so you have to contend with that even before you are forced to beat them to death. Once you kill the monsters in front of the gates you have to go through the gates, spend two turns in another dimension before coming back and trust me the other dimension is no picnick...you can maybe use clue tokens to seal the gate...you need 5. Oh yeah if 12 gates open over the course of the game guess what, you loose! To many gates open at one time, you loose, to many monsters, yeah you loose, so no need to worry about the game it can fend for itself.
So here we are, picture it, 8 people crammed around a table, things have just gone south, gone south hard, and now we are frantically trying every tool at our disposal to survive. Yet depite the fact that every odd in the world is stacked against us no one mentions the idea of cheating. Not all the monsters in the game are equal, and so instead of just quietly slipping the extra nasty one blocking everyone's way, we instead we come up with spiralingly complex logisitcal plans to work around it, or to get the right combonation of skills and weaponry in the area to kill the damn thing.
On a side note the game itself requires a stupid amount of focus. We didn't pay atension to the game for 2 turns last night and we only pulled out of that situation with luck and paniced action.
That's the thing though. We are playing against a game. So we could just as easily make the game easyer by removing certain parts of it we don't like. We could take out certain cards that make it nearly impossible to win, or we could remove certain monsters, there are all sorts of things that can be done to make the game easyer, and yet...we don't.
okay by now you should get enough of the set up. There is a strage dynamic involved where there is no compulsion to follow the rules, no refferee, no one to tell us we are doing something wrong, or making something to easy, or to hard in some hilariouse cases. No instead we try to follow the rules as closely as possible because...
Well the social contract. The invisable jailer. We don't need someone to watch over us because we are overcoming a challenge together.
I could go into a Foucaltian look of power, the power the game has over us and how we don't need a ref to monitor us because we do it far more fiercly than a ref ever could. I could also go for some sort of utopian view where someday we won't need laws because we are working together to build a better unified whole.
However, I won't do either of those things or anything in between. Why? Because when we are playing a game we enter into a specific mode, which is diffrent than normal group activities. First of all we are playing a game so we are predispositioned to have fun. Secondly, if we fail/die we all fail together, at the same time more or less. So not only is your turn of great interest but so are most of the other players. Many times their actions will hinge upon your own, what you can do will be based on what they do, plans are made, along with actions coordinated.
So why not take it one step further. We are all working together, the feeling of brother hood that develops over the course of the game is pretty fantastic, why not take on the ultimate consiracy and take the game's knees out from under it. Its trying to kill you after all and what is good for one person is good for everyone right?
I've come up with the theory that it is the absence of competition. Were I smart this would go at the top of the page in a part marked thesis. I might actually do that latter who knows.
Competition adds things like desperation, desperation breeds things like mistrust, and the desire to take things into your own hands. Competition also alters the game dynamic in a certain way because it alters the pecking order. A game involving competion isn't just a game. It is a contest of persons, and at the end of it one person gets to say "I beat you". Being able to say that gives the person, in my case, an extroninarly mild amount of control over me. Through cheating, or various other underhanded methods in a competative setting, it artificially alters the playing field to make up for a precieved imblance on the part of the person being cheated.
Arkam isn't like that. It hates everyone. Everyone extra equally. Although for some reason that game seems to like to pick one player and ground them into the dirt.
It also doesn't gloat. If we win, we win together as a team, if we loose we loose together and thirst for vengence.
Similarly. I suspect that is the reason why we don't run into to many cases of direct sabotage, because we have enough problems on our hands. Someone running around and screwing things up on purpose is recipie for inviting the wrath of the entire group down upon you.
Anyway the competition thing, yeah.
I'm going to come back to this topic in a week or so focusing on that. I'm positive that is the key to how this works.
I think I am going compare it to the queerly adversarial relationship that develops between players and game masters in roleplaying games.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Come here Charlie Brown I am going to show you some good grief
Betty Page died. Yesterday technically but I was doing something. Something important! Comics actually.
Anyway so yeah Betty Page is dead. I don't really know how to describe how I feel about this. I can't really remeber my life without her actually. It took me a long time to learn her name, but the image of her always stuck with me. It was her smile mostly. I mean damn, that woman looked like she would bake you some cookies just as soon beat you.
In more than a couple of ways I adopted her as a mother figure. Yeah whatever, look I was raised by mass media alright? I don't want to hear it from any of you. I learned long ago that she wasn't actually into all the kinky stuff but that never bothered me, because I was. She worked as a defining force in my aesthtic and now she is actually dead which is kinda sad.
Man I wasn't this bothered when Vonnegut died, but I also liked him less than most other people so whatever.
Oh well.
Fare well Mrs. Page may heaven keep you, and if not well you will be remebered hear warmly on earth, well at least as long as I am alive.
Anyway so yeah Betty Page is dead. I don't really know how to describe how I feel about this. I can't really remeber my life without her actually. It took me a long time to learn her name, but the image of her always stuck with me. It was her smile mostly. I mean damn, that woman looked like she would bake you some cookies just as soon beat you.
In more than a couple of ways I adopted her as a mother figure. Yeah whatever, look I was raised by mass media alright? I don't want to hear it from any of you. I learned long ago that she wasn't actually into all the kinky stuff but that never bothered me, because I was. She worked as a defining force in my aesthtic and now she is actually dead which is kinda sad.
Man I wasn't this bothered when Vonnegut died, but I also liked him less than most other people so whatever.
Oh well.
Fare well Mrs. Page may heaven keep you, and if not well you will be remebered hear warmly on earth, well at least as long as I am alive.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Zee goggles they do nuzzing!
Yes I play WOW, no I won't be blogging about it regularly. However this does merit some special attension.
See the first expansion to wow made your charecter look fabulouse, the second expansion just sorta makes you look goth. LAME. Since I am about to move onto the second expansion I think I would like to point out that my charecter blazed new paths as far as fasion is concerned and should be loved and remebered by all.
For those of you who don't know I am playing a blood elf. Essentially we are elves that got addicted to magic and now we smoke it like crack. No seriously that is our back story. I look like such a fucking tosser, it's great.
Its going to be to bad once I goth myself out.
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