Gaming and Getting Over It

 

It’s been almost two years, and I still wake up thinking about Afghanistan. The further out I get the more I’ve begun to realize: there is no going back from that phone call and seeing the tiger at the zoo. I thought the anger would die down a bit, that I would be able to return this blog back to its previously scheduled routine. I want to. 

I can’t. 

Every time I close my eyes I see her: an illusory Afghan ripped from her home, her school, to be enslaved to some pig. My mind understands the absurdity of that image, but I don’t have the courage to attempt to debunk it. Sometimes when I close my eyes she’s riddled with shrapnel, blood streaming from her bleeding face. That’s when I force my eyes to stay shut; I can at least keep my mind's eye on something I don't have the courage to look up in real life. And the rest of America has moved on, much to my chagrin and total lack of surprise. I meant, why would they? Taking responsibility for the aftermath of decisions is so alien to the American mind they lose it when fairy tale endings don’t happen for their pop culture icons, nevermind entire countries condemned to slavery in the face of our own apathy! So what am I supposed to make of American popular culture, where we idolize those who will not kill even if it means others die to maintain whatever moral purity they can fool themselves into having? Where idealism is just fine, even at the cost of lives? Am I supposed to take such obvious hypocrisy seriously, now that I see it for what it is? How am I supposed to think about such an obviously damning idea being celebrated in aesthetics?

I don’t have answers for these questions, for the record, because my issue isn’t a rational one. I was involved in the abandonment of a whole country. I have to grieve that, and my questions are symptomatic of my grief. By now I know they’re not the real problem. Somehow I have to figure out a way to integrate what happened into my life now, and until then these questions will persist. That is not a comfortable answer, but it is the only one I seem to have found. Bide your time and hold onto hope and all that! 

But that sort of decision has consequences, one of them being learning to sit with that kind of awful ambiguity.

And pretending that it's a comfortable thing to sit with is a lie. You have to let go of loving comfort and needing comfort to make you sane. But it's not a question of just diving into horrifying pain all the time, because no one can do that, all the time. Where does gaming and popular culture fit into trying to actually develop yourself and to become more, because you're either striving to live or dying, and no there is no inbetween?

Again, the solution is to sit and wait and watch. So that's what I've been doing.

And then the other day I randomly decided to play Bioshock Remastered on the Switch. I'd not played Bioshock when it first came out, although I was always interested in it. So, now it's on the Switch, so I bought it a few months ago... and then did nothing with it. Until the other day. I was having fun, but not a ton of fun, just getting used to the mechanics and the world and all the things I normally don't give videogames much time to do, but this was enjoyable enough!

And then this happened.

Right before she was picked up I had closed my eyes, and yes there was the Afghan girl was, and yes she was shredded all to hell, and that one time I didn't keep my eyes shut, so I popped them open... and there was this little abomination being restored to a little girl. My hands shook as I watched. I didn't hear anything after that. I couldn't. I just stared as the little girl curtsied, ran off, and climbed into whatever the hell that thing on the wall is. All of a sudden I had a goal: rescue all the freaking little sisters. It just sits in the back of my head: "Have you rescued a little sister today?"

No, I know this isn't me actually doing anything for anyone in Afghanistan, nevermind me actually solving the issue. I still have plenty of work to do on that front, and I know it. 

But if you think for two seconds that this one moment of relief, where someone is healed, isn't itself a moment of mercy I don't know what to tell you. This experience did and continues to do something for me, something I did not anticipate but am eternally grateful for. It's unreality seems to be part of the point: I can make something like this real, somehow.

I'm not sure where to go from there. But it is a direction. And that is more than I had before.

The Meeting of the Telvrans: Introduction and Set Up

It all began on Reddit.

No wait it’s okay, this story doesn’t necessarily end bad!

Like I said, Reddit. We’ll call him Prince. I saw a post of his I appreciated enough to DM him, giving my appreciation for his candor. We got to talking and eventually Crescendo, the RPG I'm developing, came up. Prince was intrigued and we decided to give Crescendo a trial run: one act, which should be about six sessions, session zero not included. But first Crescendo requires a pretty detailed setting bible to throw at the players. I had to get that done first. 

I decided to finally draw up my long-running setting, The Wanderers’ Psalms, and pitch it at Prine. I’m not gonna lie, I wanted someone with the quality of Prince’s candor to rip my baby game apart. So I decided to throw the best I got at him. And frankly it was only a matter of time; two years of not really playing on Heranyt had been too long.

It was time to return to my old home.

You don’t really need to know the mechanics of Crescendo to appreciate the setting bible, beyond that Prince and I both have a journal and the following is copied into both of them. And yes, the journal has mechanical weight. All of the below was generated by the mechanics of Crescendo and is necessary to play the game. Yes, that means it's a bit of set-up, but in comparison to your standard open table game it's about commesurate. Well, at least the way I set up an open-table game that is.

Again, I am just following the directions in my game. I'm not deviating to the right or to the left, I'm running the instructions out of the book.

The below is what I sent Prince, with my commentary upon it in italics.

The Meeting Place of the Telvrans

Languages Appropriated

I have personally found that very few things help world building like stealing real-world languages and modifying them to your native ability. Given that I barely have my own American English down pat, this is likely to lead to some hilariously bad pronunciations, for which I think God the reader cannot hear... although Prince with his beautiful French will. RIP.

The dwarves use a bastardized Japanese

The elves use bastardized Finnish. Humans, when trying to be fancy, use bastardized Finnish.

Humans from The Seven Iron Kingdoms use French, probably really bastardized.

The Seven Dooms

Dooms are the Judge's goals for the setting that are also world-building tools. Crescendo plays out in what are called Acts, where three Dooms are addressed. The other four then act upon the setting and change it.

1.       Not all post-medieval information we have is true, especially gunpowder and antibiotics. People are at the mercy of nature.

2.       There is a flame of goodness at the center of X ,linked to the hearts of all creatures on the planet. That is not so for other planets.

3.       Some beings have set up their own anti-flames, anti-points of light. They are corrupted and horrific beings. They wish to destroy those not like them.

4.       The elves fly amongst The Ring of Tears, the sub-orbital remnants of their continent.  Strange things are said to live there.

5.       The dryads of The Glade will decide to go to war with Fort Falls.

6.       The people of La Fourchette will begin to abandon it, even as winter comes on.

7.       The dwarves will enrage Fort Falls into war.

The following entries (Current Five and the planets) are the immortal pantheon of the game. These immortals are constantly acting upon the setting, and play a major role in the story. With each immortal are also symbols, like swans and elder plants, that those particular immortals favor.

The Current Five

1.       The Outsider. Prophet and Observer. Lit the Flame Eternal by becoming a member of each race, who all betrayed him in equally repulsive fashion. His deaths lit the Flame Eternal.

·       Swans, dandelions, tin, wind, creation, travel

2.       The Flame Eternal, The Secret Source. Integrator and Lover, servant and creation of The Outsider. Blue.

·       Fire, courage, magic, doves, copper, elder

3.       Telos, Leader of Those Who Sailed. Prophet and Inquisitor. A former anti-flame who was converted by the Flame Eternal. Black.

·       Bears, lead, seas, grief, protection, yew

4.       Eous, Leader of the Anti-Flames. Warrior and Trickster. One of the two moons in the sky, placed there as punishment for creating the Anti-Flames. Sickly Teal.

·       Chaos, defilement, crime, bees, bloodroot, iron

5.       Verzhoben, The Corrupter of Creation. Inquisitor and Observer Led the origin race known as the ensivalo in rebellion, extinguishing the first flame and dooming the planet for millenia.

·       Beetles, iron, deadly nightshade, void, betrayal, harvest

·       NOTE: all spells invoking Verzhoben are called “tech”.

The Seven Planets

1.       Enusta, The Mysterious Elder. The sun (gold). The Integrator.

·       Dandelions, fire, gold

2.       Tuntematon, The Painful Friend. The real moon (silver). The Observer.

·       Seas, grief, deadly nightshade

3.       Sota, The Suicide. Red. The Warrior.

·       Bees, iron, yew

4.       The Triplets (Epasointu, Epatoivo, Lahjonta), The Baneful Ones. Yellow. The Trickster.

·       Betrayal, chaos, bloodroot

5.       Rakkaus, The Hidden Devourer. Blue. The Lover

·       Elder, doves, copper

6.       Viivoty, The Mother by the Gate. Green. The Inquisitor

·       Swans, crime, travel

7.       Viestinta, The Destroyer. Orange. The Prophet.

·       Defilement, protection, deadly nightshade

The Myth

The myth is the cultural myth that everyone in this small little section of the setting uses to explain the immortals they've encountered. This myth is generally considered reliable by those in the setting and those at the table. Don't be looking for any real subversive stuff going on here.

Once upon a time Verzhoben decided that he did not wish to serve creation, but to master it. He corrupted himself and the ensivalo, along with all their slave races, extinguishing the First Flame. When they did so, the ensivalo realized they cared nothing for their own genetically engineered creations, and left them, to parts unknown. Without the First Flame the races fell to barbarism and undeath.

The Outsider intervened. He incarnated as each of the races -elves, orcs, minotaurs, dwarves, dusken, wolves, dryads, and humans - trying to get them to accept him… only to be killed by each of them, in turn. The humans didn’t even let The Outsider survive childhood. But as the last incarnation of the Outsider was killed, a pillar of blue flame leapt from the corpse and burrowed into the planet, straight down to the core… where the Eternal Flame now rests. The undead plague ended. The insanity ended. Some were nostalgic.

Led by Eous, some began to try to extinguish the Eternal Flame, to no avail: the Outsider’s will was behind The Eternal Flame. Telos, Eous’s right hand man, turned on Eous, founding a resistance group, Those That Sailed. Unable to extinguish the Eternal Flame Eous forced the flame within him, which he could not extinguish, to turn to his mind, to his goals. And thus the first Anti-Flame was born. Others followed suit, drawing power from Herna, the Abyss.

Telos and the Eternal Flame begged The Outsider to force the Anti-Flames to relent, traveling to the very heights of Seitseman to plead their case. No one knows what was said that day; Telos and the Eternal Flame will not speak of it. But Telos, along with Those Who Sailed, have spread throughout the world, working towards an end goal that none know of. Someday we may know of it.

Seasons

A cold spring, a mild summer, a vicious fall, and a bone-chilling winter, as the wind usually comes in against the Etranger Mountains.

The Feast Cycle of the Seven Iron Kingdoms

Yes, there's a cycle of celebrations, and it is relevant! Players use these to heal up from long-standing conditions and get a lot of XP from participating in them.

The Gathering and Forgiving Days: The first days of harvest. With each barn filled an attempt is made at resolving a grudge with copious amounts of communal drinking. Small trees are placed into the ground with a secret desire whispered into them.

The Day of Mourning: The winter solstice. All lights are extinguished, even the eternally communal bonfire. The bonfire is relit by a child at midnight, and the party begins.

Finding Seitseman: the spring equinox. Telos and the incarnation of the Eternal Flame had to learn the way to Seitseman by climbing a tree and watching the cloud formations. Roof parties and tree crownings are held.

Secret Day: All gather around the trees they planted, and reveal whether or not their secret was granted.

Yes, I drew the map in Paint. Yes, the circles in the top left are trees. Shut up.

 

The Local Area

The Glade: where the dryads gather, location actually unknown. They were last seen gathering for a push against Fort Falls for cutting down several dryad hometrees.

Fort Falls: Right at the meeting of The Telvra River, Telvra Falls River, and the Minor Telvra River, Fort Falls is the last military outpost from the Seven Iron Kingdoms. It protects the town La Fourchette, but both are losing more and more people to migration south each year.

La Fourchette: Colloquially just called “Crotch”, La Fourchette was once a prosperous trading post with the dwarven strongholds Sakabun Horu and Kami Horu. With the slight of Warlord Akio, however, the trade dried up, with the dwarves growing ever colder. If Crotch doesn’t fall to the dwarves, it’ll become a ghost town, whichever comes first.

Sakabun and Kami Horus: The two closest dwarven strongholds still in existence, the dwarves have total control over all natural resources in the area, including up to the area of Fort Falls. After the slight to Warlord Akio a growing resentment to the human presence in the land has been brewing, including raiding parties.

I sent all that over to Prince, who was supposed to read it and make a character with that context in mind. Crescendo makes characters by a structured series of journaling prompts, which the player uses to make one of those overly long and drawn out backstories that folks like myself love. Here's what I got back:

I grew up in Fort Falls. My father was a sergeant there, my mother a seamstress. I remember watching the logs going on the barges of the Telvra River. Even then I was headstrong, fearsome, quick in anger. The old woman said it was the Sign of Sota, under which I was conceived. She took her own life during the Day of Mourning, two years later. When they relit the bonfire she was gone.

They were a tough breed, army brats. By day we ran all manner of errands for whomever asks. You learn to stand up to the elder children or you will be worked to the bone. Sota the Warrior. When we were sent outside the walls to collect firewood I split a boy's lip with a yew branch; he was two years my senior. Father thrashed me, but I could see in his eyes he was proud. In the fall my mother gave birth to my sister Veronique and passed away shortly after, while I held her hand.

Life became harder then. The groups of boys would chase me, but I was nimble enough to run and hide amongst the beekeeper's hives. Other times I took a beating, sometimes badly. Father would ask me how and, when I told him, he would grunt and reach for his bottle, telling me to do better on the morrow. It was a harsh existence. Fearful, painful. While I made few friends, the next years were easier. The elder boys became apprentices and were gone. I then made two friends, Sal and Rene, and we watched the lumber barges pass in the summer, while the younger boys gathered firewood.

The masters came at the appointed time, Finding Seitsemann. While parties were being prepared and trees were crowned they inspected us in a cold hall. Master Girard selected me for the polemen. I was so happy I cried.

Master Girard was hard, his piercing rasp never failing to elicit verbal jabs from the other apprentices. He would know if you were lying or scared or hiding something. I feared and respected him.

My hot blood made me ill-disciplined. It took many cuffs and mess duty shifts before I could march in step. The intricate formations and maneuvers of a pike-man became mine over time. I learned also to control my temper. Your fellow apprentices  were tied to your fate, and if your unit fell short all were punished.

If we were not being trained there were endless tasks. Bringing water, mending tunics, sharpening pikes. An hour every day we would have to ourselves, one we would play cards for coper. If Iwas indifferent to marching I was a gifted Bez-lue player. I gained a reputation for stubbornness. After the second year our apprenticeship was over, and I was allowed to wear the colors of the Papillion, Fort Falls' block of pikemen. I married Genevieve the same day, a match made by my father and hers, and though I loved her little she was kind and doe-eyed.

Our duty began in earnest. We patrolled walls, roads, and the forests of Fort Falls. We had to quell unrest in La Fourchette. I gained a reputation for discipline and courage. I never saw dryads, but men would go missing on patrols or be found in unusual places later. I found an unusual talent: I was a natural carpenter. Soon Papillon found me a hundred tasks to train that skill. I set wheels, mended barricades, and repaired the commander's tent. I grew in time to be respected.

Genevieve passed away giving birth to our son, Luk. I asked Veronique and her husband Gelbert to take him in, for I had no time to raise a young boy.

I worry for the future.

And with that the backstory concluded. Haunting stuff. Prince then figured out his relationships, based upon the number of times he'd written about them in the backstory:

Veronique, level 2

Gelbert, level 1

Luk , level 1

Zak level 1

Rene level 1

Father level 4

Master Girard level 2

We drew up some gear for Girac: a decent pike and some armor that could take a hit or two.  Nothing terribly fancy, and Girac had some money left over.

We then drew up three Beliefs for Girac. Beliefs are subjective statements that are part characterization and part plot hook. Beliefs have what are called Resilience Points (RP), which tell you how hard the character believes in them. They're roughly equivalent to HP from old-school games, and the numbers mean just about what they mean there:

Superiors should be obeyed, 4 RP

You should stick by your comrades, 5 RP

It is natural to use force to advance your own interests, 7 RP

So yes, those are very low. The beginning of Crescendo is usually of a brutal nature that most games do not think to show, that of the effects of adventuring upon the mind and its need for constancy... as opposed to all the shit that can happen to you if you go out your door.

Prince then chose two Traits for Girac, adjectives that described his base personality: Prince chose Quick to Anger and Loyal, both at level 1. Trait levels tell you how powerful the Trait is in influencing the mechanics of the game. HINT: level one's not very good.

Last, but not least, we drafted the Act's Poem. Yes, you make up a poem in Crescendo. It is used as world-building and a set of thematic rewards is based upon it. Prince seemed a bit skeptical at first but took to the process like a duck to water, practically writing the Poem, much to delight and surprise. Here it is!

Sing to me, O muses!

Of man-killing Sota

And the zenith of his rage

With his resentful fist of iron

Sota smote Tuntematon

he split and cracked his silver skin

And nightshade blood rained from the heavens

Before Sota came then the inqisitor

And queried "Why then have you smote my son?"

Sota laughed: "How could I not, given what we are?"

And with that prep was done. 

Thanks for reading!

If you're wanting to see the current draft of Crescendo, please click here.

If you want to come to the Discord server and ask questions and possibly even see a game or three, click here!

At the Bottom

Ever the Lord schools my tongue to utterance that shall refresh the weary; awakes my dull ears, morning after morning, their Master’s bidding to heed.

An attentive ear the Lord has given me; not mine to withstand him; not mine to shrink from the task.

I offered my body defenceless to the men who would smite me, my cheeks to all who plucked at my beard; I did not turn away my face when they reviled me and spat upon me.

The Lord God is my helper; and that help cannot play me false; meet them I will, and with a face unmoved as flint; not mine to suffer the shame of defeat;

here is One stands by to see right done me. Come, who pleads? Meet me, and try the issue; let him come forward who will, and accuse me.

Here is the Lord God ready to aid me; who dares pass sentence on me now? One and all they shall be brought to nothing, like garment the moth has eaten!

Who is here that fears the Lord, listens to his servant’s message? Who would make his way through dark places, with no glimmer of light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God.

For you others, with brand at girdle, that your own fire would make, with fire your own brands have kindled light the path if you can; this is all the gift I have for you, a bed of anguish.

Isaiah 50:4-11

Let's get something straight: the idea that progression doesn't lead to death is a peculiarity of our modern age. You can try to conserve your momentum into the great beyond, but the actual end point is always the same. This is true for all things, from single-cell organisms to planets and beyond. No, you cannot avoid it: you will die. So will your society, along with the thoughts that went into making it; can you imagine what future civilizations will think of our society a hundred years from now? No? Get started, it changes how you approach life now, and for the better. Oh, and this applies to your own psychology as well, with your body moving in its own up and down rhythms. Anything before Christianity acknowledged this reality, with "afterlifes" either not existing or being so wretched that nobody in the modern era would want it, finding that the reality presented in pre-modern religions to be something out of a horror film.

Sorry folks, it's not a horror film, that's reality.

Christianity does not deny this reality. It does not deny that progress is disintegration, death, and that the best you can do is try to slow down the process as much as you can before control is lost. Oh no, Christianity does not deny the cycle. It calls it what it is: the Fall. This existential change was not intended by God, we did this and cannot get out of it.

No, progressives, you neo-Christian heretics, you cannot defeat it, or even slow it down for all that long.

Christ did not get rid of death and its cyclical loop. Christ changed the loop itself. By dying and going into Hades, where He rescued those who wanted to leave, whom we know as the righteous dead. But they had to choose to leave.

Today in the Orthodox Church we celebrate the beginning of this cycle, of Christ giving us the choice to change the loop in our souls, in our minds. Today is the day that God, instead of annihilating His creation and starting over like a child with his toys made our creation, the cycle of death, His.

For those of you wanting to know why God couldn't just yank us out of creation and put us in a new world... think that request through. You are not a soul in a body, you are a body-soul hybrid, you are not one or the other. You are both. You are you because of your body and soul. If you hate so much that you're willing to nuke your own self and everyone and everything else so that way you're no longer in pain... just sit with that idea and really think it through. And I mean really, actually, think it through.

God. Loves. You. And that means the world you're in. Not what you want the world to be. Not what you want yourself to be. But you as you are, whether your be drugged to avoid the pain, just taking that pain out on other people, or denying it with sheer force of will and wearing yourself out. God loves you, so much so that  He took on your reality, becoming man so that He could feel the disintegration, feel the pain that is the normal human experience not to mention when things go wrong. And the normal way involves you collapsing under the weight of your own existence, suffocating under all the little paper cuts to your psyche as the years wear on and your body begins to fold under the stress of your mind and its inability to fully process everything it's faced.

Hey look, crucifixion is death by horrific suffocation!

Huh.

Now, this leaves us all with an uncomfortable choice, doesn't it? We can either fight the process and hurt all those around us by doing so and still fail, or we can trust that God's Crucifixion means He sits right there, behind the pain, all the way down that inner chute to Hell so many have found, and that if you look for Him, and scream with Him "MY GOD MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED MED?" you will find Him!

That's a big ask. The biggest.

But I've done it. Y'know, once or twice, if I can summon the courage. I've looked on the way down, following the notes left behind by those who did it. That's literally part of the point of this blog. And God is there. He is not there in the way I expected Him to be. But He is, and when He opens His mouth, it is to ask to join in. It is not what I thought I wanted, but you cannot do another cycle than the one humanity already picked: the collapse is always going to come. And there's very little I can do to slow it down, or anyone. Christ does not tell me that my experience is wrong, He asks to ride the elevator to Hell with me.

Every time I've told Him yes something has changed within me. I don't know how else to put it, but my experiences have proven to me that this two thousand year process, of finding Christ in that elevator on the way down is the true way to survive and thrive in this world.

Today is the day Christ goes down. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and find the courage to let Him take the trip with me. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God, after all.

Index Card RPG

It's a very strange thing, to read the Index Card RPG (ICRPG). Like, what on earth can you say about this book, beyond asking "Is this near the apex of d20 design or is this so darn close it would take a miracle to evolve any further???" And, I mean, I don't really have an answer to that question, but the fact that I have to even ask that question should tell you what this game actually is. Regardless of the answer, ICRPG's mechanics are simple but have significant depth to them, the GMing section is about to close to perfection as you can get, and the hundreds of pages of additional content are beyond what was necessary, in the best way possible

So, first off, mechanics. Anyone reading this blog knows I'm a stickler for them, that games have to be well-designed before anything else. ICRPG took every single d20 innovation I'm aware of and not only iterated on it, but then perfected the mechanics they iterated on. It's really hard to understate how simple this game is to actually run! Difficulty classes are assigned by "room", and can be manipulated very easily to produce a wide range of results. Characters now have multiple "damage dice" to deal with different types of challenges, and so therefore the difference between monsters and complex tasks have been eliminated entirely; it's possible to run the game entirely on the fly to a degree that no other d20 game could possibly match. I'd feel very comfortable handing this game to a beginner and seeing what they did with it, because as long as they were confident in their ability to BS they could do pretty much anything they wanted. Character creation is quick and almost painless, with you just needing to pick some stuff from a few lists, jot a few numbers down, and then start. I mean, maybe others would have difficulty running it completely on the fly, but I sure as hell wouldn't, and I know that when I was a younger GM or a player I would have killed to have these mechanics.

The GMing section is easily the best d20 section I've ever read. No, you're not going to do a better one, sorry! Besides the usual "be confident" and other such nonsense there is actual, good, real advice, like setting up room as set pieces, different tips and tricks that could only be gotten with years and years and years of playing. If you're not going to play the game that's fine, but read the GMing section if nothing else. It's a game written by an incredibly experienced and intelligent GM, who had spent a very long time trying to work out exactly what he wanted to say to newbies. If there is any reason to buy this book, it's the GMing section!!!

... and then there's the extras. Oh man, the extras. There's tons of settings in the back half of the book, along with races, story hooks, classes, stuff that would normally be its own book at 50 bucks, but it's in here in a small $17 book and it's just so wholesome. Looking at this book, at the sheer value of this part of the book alone, I find myself humbled. There's love in the rest of the book, but that's not really what jumps at me in the front half. That's simply a great game and great advice. But here? This section? It absolutely didn't need to be here. There's page after page after page of content that's thrown in practically for free, and only because the author wanted you to have the very best he could possibly give you! As I struggle to make Crescendo, as I bang my head on that engine over and over again, books like this become a beacon of hope for me. I know that sounds odd, but if I'm not even in the same ballpark of ICRPG in terms of love and value, what's the point in making a game at all???

And that, ultimately, is why ICRPG is the d20 RPG. Not because its mechanics are practically perfect. Not because its GMing section is the best d20 GMing section I've read in actual years, somehow beating out 4e's DMG2. It's that this game was made out of a serious love for the pulp genre, a love that pushed at this author so freaking hard that he made the best game he could, simply so others could see what he saw and love it too. I am not saying other designers do not make their products out of love, or that d20 is a soulless field of horrors or something, but in the realm of d20 this is a gem, and even outside of that type of game ICRPG stands out as the definitive text on the d20 pulp genre. Just period.

John Wick

 

I usually don't care very much for the action genre. Heck, I mostly don't care for movies anymore. But there is one movie series that so far has done absolutely no wrong, and that's the John Wick series. Two and three took a really simple story and asked "How can we play out these consequences and make it interesting?", pushing the story into wilder and wilder places as John tries harder and harder to get out, only making it all worse and worse. But it all had to start somewhere, and for my money the first is still the best of a very good bunch.

Look, y'all probably all know the story by now: man's dog is killed and his car is stolen... and it turns out he's a former Russian assassin. He also recently lost his wife,  so he was emotionally devastated to begin with. Man then burns it all down in a fit of vengeance that rivals Homer. The simplicity is unparalleled. The beauty of the story isn't how simple it is, but that it only does that. We do not attempt to get into John's psyche. We know how he's feeling, and why, there is absolutely no need to get into it any more than they do. We don't ask where he is at the end of the story psychologically, because John Wick does not care. He did what he set out to do, you know how he's doing.

The action has a purity to it that you can't fake. You know that everyone who was in this movie trained and did their utmost to make as authentic a movie as possible, because you can see all the little things that they get right. Keanu's skills as an actor have been frequently laughed at, but his physicality is undeniable. He does what he does with a casualness that can only be arrived at from years of mastery. It's really sweet to see.

The acting itself is a lot better than it has any right to be. Everyone owns the parts, everyone's into it. Maybe that helps me with Keanu's performance as well? Dunno, but I feel like they wrote the movie around his personality. And that's probably what happened and all, but I feel like they gave Keanu a range that he knew he could do, he knew it, and didn't attempt to stray even a little bit out of it. And isn't that enough? The action's amazing, you don't really need fantastic acting, even if some of these actors are clearly class talent, all on their own.

This is a movie that is no muss, no fuss. It knows what it is, has no bones about only being what it is, and goes to great lengths to do what it should as perfectly as it can. The action is perfect, the acting gets the job done, the writing doesn't reach for anything its not, and it was all wrapped up with a pretty little bow. Every once in a while someone does a job so competently it's art. John Wick is one of those movies that, in the hands of lesser mortals, would just be another movie.

It's not.

There, a no fuss no muss review for a no fuss no muss movie!

The Lens: The Scandal of Not Discerning

 

Modern day Christians are a bad joke. Sorry, but we are. We're perceived as this hypocritical Pharisee jerks who hold to a series of rules that make no sense, with no fruit to show for it. By using our own human judgements of problems we make a mockery of the person who have come to us for help, always get it wrong, somehow, and then look like idiots when we insist that our esoteric learning has merit. It doesn't, but isn't it nice to pretend, even a moment? The ones this hurts the most are our own children who, growing up with aches and pains they do not understand, turn to us, the parents... who then stuff their head with nonsense that has no meaning aside from the Spirit of God. The children then grow up cold and leave, embittered against the Church, even while searching for Him, bitter towards their own parents.

If that made you mad go look in the mirror and stare awhile.

Here's the deal: the Christian is meant to receive the Wisdom of God. Right here, in Proverbs:

"1 Here, then, my son, is counsel for thee; take this bidding of mine to heart;

2 ever be thy ear attentive to wisdom, thy mind eager to attain discernment.

3 Wisdom if thou wilt call to thy side, and make discernment welcome,

4 as thou wouldst fain hoard riches, or bring hidden treasure to light,

5 then thou wilt learn what it is to fear God, make trial of what it is to know God.

6 Wisdom is the Lord’s gift; only by his word spoken comes true knowledge, true discernment.

7 So it is that he watches over the lives of the upright, bids the innocent walk unharmed;"

See that, right there? The bolded? That means wisdom doesn't come from your pastor/priest, from the Scriptures, from the Fathers, nothing is going to make sense without wisdom from God. No human can teach you what you need to know, and anyone who doesn't tell you that is selling you a bill of goods. I don't care who they are, or what they say, or how good the cookies at their church are, if the aim isn't in helping you receive God's gift of wisdom the rest is useless drivel. There are a lot of people I've met who have the wisdom of God and don't know it, there are very few I know of who got the wisdom of God by reading.

Actually I don't know of anyone who got the wisdom of God by reading, as if the words on the page themselves were the point.

The problem is that most Christians have culturally taught to ignore this fact, most definitely since the 18th century, something that was pointed out by Fr. LaGrange in Three Ages of the Spiritual Life.

"... ascetical theology (working on your flaws, blogger) treats of the exercises which lead to perfection according to the ordinary way, whereas mystical theology treats of the extraordinary way... Is this absolute distinction or separation between ascetical and mystical theology entirely traditional, or is it not rather an innovation made in the eighteenth century?"

It's a rhetorical question, folks.

Without direct grace from God to aid you in your struggles you will lose. Period. And the wisdom of God is the beginning of all these things. It allows you to see things from God's perspective, however little of it He shows you. Without God's view this life makes no sense.

Not that you'd normally hear most other Christians talk about it!!! "Read your Bible", some will say. "Go read the Fathers and be a good person! That'll fix it!" Or they'll tell you to do a bunch of different things. And none of this is wrong, but it's certainly not complete. Wait. On. God. He will show up when it is time. Is the only answer anyone should be saying. You sit with them while they wait, you grieve at the silence, you provide hope in that silence, but you wait.

Do you see what the problem is? Does it not scream at you? It screams at me! "Go do the following things" could be construed as waiting, sure. You could do what good you can while you await your answer. Sure. Some try to give answers that just don't answer your questions; frankly no one but God can.

This lack of trust in the saving power of the Spirit has damned many a poor unfortunate, both the people receiving bad advice and those giving it. And sometimes this lack of surety comes out as anger, as judgment, on the person who had the gall to ask the questions in the first place. Actually, it frequently does.

Now take this glaring weakness and spread it out over about three hundred years.

Hey Christians, see why we get such a bad rap? Masquerading as believers while actually teaching some weird form of stoicism isn't really a good look.

Okay, let's say you agree with me, at least enough to keep reading. How do we fix this problem? I don't say "You": I've definitely told people how to fix their worldview before, as if God's perspective didn't exist. It's really easy to do it, I know! And I know I've done a lot more harm than good. I said everyone was gonna get cut here, didn't I?

Well, the only thing I've found that seems to work, the only thing I've run into that's actually helped me, is as follows: generally, I'd find someone I knew could be trusted to keep my privacy and tell them what thing I was having trouble with, and how I couldn't figure it out. Yeah, sure, advice was given and whatnot, but we'd either pray together or go back to our own places to pray about it. I'd not ask for a particular outcome, other than to know what God's thoughts on the matter were, what His perspective was. I'd present the problem as I saw it, either journaling it or finding an icon/statue and using it as a focus in prayer, and just... talk.

And then I'd sit back, close my eyes, and wait. I'm always listening for the small still voice, for the small but powerful presence whose merest existence can cause cataclysms, at least in me. I have never gotten the whole picture, and I wouldn't even begin to tell you how to discern what the darn Voice is saying. It is a presence that your brain somehow decodes. Somehow. And, again somehow, listening to this voice, for whatever reason, always seems to work out. If I question it too hard it goes up like a puff of smoke. I'm not going to pretend that I've liked the answers I've gotten sometimes. But they are true. It does work. Somehow.

That voice? That's in your heart? That's the letter from the living God, as 2nd Corinthians 3:3 states. It is this letter that Saints Silouan and Sophrony call Holy Tradition. This is the real Tradition. And together, prayerfully, we find it together, using the Tradition of the Church, especially Scripture, to help us listen in more to that small still voice.

It is together, praying for each other and trying to help each other struggle through to find the letter in our hearts that is the core of the Christian life. Not throwing Church Father and Scripture quotes at each other like footballs, expecting the other to catch it and do something with it. Such a notion is atheistic, it it assumes that God is not present and loving you at each and every moment, ready to talk with you should you willing to listen to Him. I am not saying this process is easy. I am saying that, together, God will help us. As St. Cyril of Alexandria says: "For it is not the number of those gathered but the strength of their piety and their love for God that is effective."

What, you hear that and you think "But I don't have any faith!" Then say it, out loud: "God help me, I don't have any faith". There, you now have faith. No, seriously, it does work that. God reacts to that sort of thing, and always will.

God is with us. If we acted like that more often we wouldn't like so much of a joke, even if it just means sitting there and going "WHERE HAVE YOU GONE". Because that is a necessary part of the experience.

There lived a man in the world, a man of godly desires. His name was Simeon. He prayed long and his tears were unrestrained: "Have mercy upon me". But God did not hearken unto him.

Many months went by in this prayer, until his strength was exhausted. He despaired and cried out "Thou art implacable!" And when at these words something foundered in his soul grown weak from despair, suddenly for an instant he beheld the living Christ.

St. Silouan the Athonite, by St. Sophrony of Essex

There's another subsection of folks reading this blog who will go "But all this is for my priest, why go to a laymen?" This is a clericalism that needs to die, and the quicker it dies the better. I am not advocating for the elimination of the Sacrament of Confession, but rather its fulfillment. 

“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)

Notice it doesn't say a priest is supposed to do all the work? This is a general command. The command to show compassion (to bear another's evil) is the purview of all Christians. Like all Sacraments, Confession is the crown of your life, not a substitution for it. And that life is meant to be the taking care of the orphans and widows and all their burdens, with a life rooted in prayer and the care of those in pain. That is your existence, not some "let my priest handle it", which Protestants mock quite justly. Relegating the Sacrament of Confession to the priest is a concession to human weakness, not the full form. I am not advocating for casual stupidity, however. Go to those who you know will pray with you and offer your concerns to God, and go to your priest. Both, not one or the other!

God is with us. Always. We are God's body. Always.

I really wish we started acting liking it.

How I World Build: House Rules for Viestinta

So, once again: players respond to context. And some of the most important context is rules. After playing multiple systems for years I have a few ideas of my own as to how to run a game. So here's the stuff I'm porting into Realms of Peril and Hearts of Wulin.

Rules for Both

What Could Go Wrong?

Whenever a player has to roll he has to ask, out loud: "What could go wrong?" Whoever wants to answer does so.  The GM might grab from the ideas as he wishes.

I love this rule from Trophy. Once you get people really into it the table just erupts into silly banter and egging each other on to worse and worse ideas.

Devil’s Bargain

Whenever a player makes a roll, other players (the GM included) may pitch a bad thing that will happen, regardless of success or failure. If the rolling player accepts one of these deals his roll counts as skilled.

Part of the Realms of Peril's appeal is the skilled/unskilled system, which allows skills to have real weight. This keeps the table banter pointed and it keeps the idea of the players feeding into the game engine going, as opposed to finding out later whatever nasty things the GM may have had planned.

Flashbacks

If a player has the money for an item or could have conceivably made a plan off-screen, he may state his plan or purchase the equipment. If the plan is implausible to the GM or he  couldn't have gotten the item in question to where they are in the present the GM may veto.

I. HATE. Shopping. And logistics. In RPGs. It bores me to tears. Just start the adventure and if you need something just tell me you have it and get on with it!

New Races: The Drahskin and the Hserpa

For both games here are a series of talents/moves that the Drahskin and Hserpa characters can pick, in both games.Yes, some of the talents are stolen from the Realms of Peril races, which are otherwise not allowed. Some of these abilities show up very different mechanically in either of the games.

The Drahskin

Fire Breath: May breathe fire on a nearby foe (using Strength in Realms of Peril). The attack deals D12 damage in Realms of Peril, but confers the Winded condition.

Fearless: You are immune to supernatural fear.

Iron Gut: In Realms of Peril you are skilled when resisting poison and alcohol, in Hearts of Wulin you get a free reroll on resisting poison and alcohol.

Vengeance: When hurt while fighting you either deal +1 damage and +1 AR against the perpetrator (Realms of Peril). 

Whenever you lose a Duel against someone who is above your scale, you may become equal to them if you narrate a scene where you hurt those you respect and love in your Entanglements to get even (Hearts of Wulin).

Psych UP!!!!! If you spend a rest singing and reciting the chants of the drahskin everyone gets +1 HP to recovery rolls while resting and camp (Hearts of Wulin).

If you spend an appreciable amount of time singing and reciting the historic chants of the drahskin you use the Comfort and Support move, with a free reroll (Hearts of Wulin).

Greedy: You can smell gold and precious stones.

One Eye Open: You cannot be surprised because you're sleeping.

The Hserpa

Cold Features: You are always trained in deception checks (Realms of Peril). You get a free reroll when using Hearts and Minds if deception is involved (Hearts of Wulin).

Slippery Foe: You are trained in grappling and dagger attacks (Realms of Peril). Unless the situation obviously dictates otherwise you are +1 scale when using grappling and dagger styles.

Hypnotic Movement: You may make a roll to hypnotize all who can see and hear you while singing and dancing.

Parsel-Tongued: You understand all reptiles and can speak to them in their language.

Steel Trap: You cannot be mesmerized, hypnotized, or fooled by illusions.

For the Greater Good: You only need half the rations of a human.

Poison-Fanged: Your teeth now produce a venom that grants someone advantage/reroll on their next roll against the target. 

Realms of Peril 

You're Not Special

Everyone gets the same basic items: basic clothes, backpack, tinderbox, two days of rations, a blanket, two torches, and either a dagger or a staff.

I hate shopping. Here's your crap. You'll find better crap out in the world, I promise. Let's play!

HP as Resource

Spend 1 HP to increase your die result by one; pick up the die and change it to its new result. You may do this as many times as you desire. Yes, you can do this to get a nat 20.

There are very few things Dark Souls the RPG got right, but the one thing it stuck the best was expanding HP into a resource to control dice rolls. The dynamic is an inspired push and pull, where players have to figure out just how far they’re willing to go to get their victory. The issue is that the advancement system quickly neuters the genius, and temp Position is a bad idea, flat out.

Realms of Peril has a fantastic progression system, one which feeds a bit more control to the players as time goes on, alongside the best d20 resolution system I’ve run into. So when you take this system, which really emphasizes degrees of success and failure, and throw in being able to spend HP to affect rolls? You get something special.

Mighty Deeds of Arms

I hate "I roll, do I hit?" I hate it very much. Awhile back I wrote a thoroughly middling piece on replacing the attack roll with skill rolls. I don't think I was wrong to suggest such a thing, but Realms of Peril provides a framework that, tweaked just a bit, I can use to achieve those results. Enter the Mighty Deeds of Arms move!

Whenever you attack a creature and the GM says you may not kill it, ask why. The GM must give his list of considerations. Name how you will address one of those considerations, and roll:

16-20: You cancel one of the considerations the GM had and deal your weapon damage.

11-15: You cancel one of the considerations of the GM.

10-: The creature gets a free hit in, with the GM auto-hitting you on an attack.

Yes, if you reduce the monster to 0 HP it just dies, but now it's a lot harder to just batter it to death, and if you're not careful you could get killed yourself, which is how it should be. Keep in mind that players can spend HP to change their natural roll, so this isn't as harsh as it looks.

Deadly Strikes 

This is the normal kill shot move. It's still plenty dangerous, requiring you care in setting it up, but once you're able to just line up kill shots, you should be good! Keep in mind that players can spend HP to change their natural roll, so this isn't as harsh as it looks.

Whenever you attack a creature and the GM says you may kill it, outright, roll:

16-20: It's dead, and you heal 1d4 HP!

11-15: It's dead! Congrats!

10-: You both roll for damage.

Hearts of Wulin 

Screw Bell Curves!

All moves use 1d12 instead not 2d6.

If there is one thing I dislike about all PBTA, it's the insistence on using 2d6. It's a personal taste thing, and I get there's gonna be somebody going "But the bell curve is important!" Yeah, for putting me to sleep. Let's actually get some risk in, shall we?

A Wellspring of Emotion

Whenever a player fails a roll he may reroll his d12, provided he allows the GM to use a soft move. He may do this as many times as he wishes, with the GM getting a soft move every time.

Let the emotion flow!