Uncovered Goods

Pushed by the fact that H&H are going to be staying with me for a few days, I delved into the archeological dig site that is my bedroom closet. Amazingly, I uncovered a box that held my long missing Dashiell Hammet collection, along with my copy of On War by Clausewitz, Mekton Zeta, and my battered copy of the Striker miniature rules that GDW developed what seems to be a lifetime ago. That was an unexpected delight – as well as a sudden space crisis. I had to reorganize some shelves to find room for it all.

Truth is that I haven't actually been in my bedroom closet since I moved in some 5 years ago now. Just stacked the boxes in there, piled on some loose clothes and boots, closed the closet doors and walked away. I decided since I hadn't put on anything in there in all that time, I could safely get rid of it. 6 garbage bags of clothes later, I had room to move some of the clothes collecting out in the actual room into the closet, where they'll likely be ignored for another 4-5 years.

The other big find was my comic long box full of Suicide Squad and Legion of Super-hero comics. It's probably time for a re-read and if can find all my issues, I'll likely do some posting about the Suicide Squad. Definitely one of, if not THE, favorite comics I've collected. The Legion gives it a close run for the money, however.

 

Damn, that’s good

Spent yesterday in Vancouver with Graham doing some shopping and picking up a couple items I wanted. Finally have a decent dining table, with chairs, after around 6 years without. For most people, getting a table would be for eating – for me, it was motivated by the desire to a have tabletop for gaming. Need somewhere to set up my Advanced Squad Leader, after all. Other shopping included grabbing up a copy of the new miniatures rule set Field of Glory, snagging a collection of some Lupin III and a stuffed plush Vash (from Trigun) doll for Holly.

Graham's good people, so the trip was without headaches or much problem. All the more surprising, given how tired both of us were.

Put together the table and chairs today and they manage to look good in the apartment. IKEA was out of the black chairs I wanted, but had the chairs in red. Since I have some red highlights in the apartment, I took a chance and grabbed the red chairs. It proved a good move – the chairs look really good and set off the table perfectly. My hands are sore, though – using the hand screwdrivers is tough, especially when some of the screw holes are just starters and you're hand driving in the screw near the end. Still, for simple and clean design and construction instruction, it's hard to beat the wordless comics that IKEA produces.

The rest of the day was spent tidying up the mess and watching Season Three of The
Wire. Three episodes in and every time Major Bunny Colvin says "what can they do to me?" I wince, because I know they're going to break that poor, wise man in ways he hasn't imagined. The show is at once subtle (they are carefully drawing the differences between Sgt. Carver and "Herc", making it clear which one gets it, and which one doesn't) and blunt (every scene with Carcetti), but maintains a balance between the two that makes it entertaining.

I'm making some adjustments this coming week, as H&H are going to temporarily stay with me for a few days while their place is painted. Not sure how well this will go, since Dada's place (my apartment) is hardly the fantasy-land that Hunter thinks.

The crackdown in Tibet is a reminder that China is not a "good guy" in the world, and that we shouldn't let our desire for cheap goods blind us to that fact. Not that we in the west have a lot of moral authority at the moment to tsk tsk the Chinese for what they're doing; it's still important to remember what oppression looks like so hopefully we can recognize it when it pops up over here in some form. I'm hopeful that the political will in Tibet will remain strong.

And we’re back…

Wish I could blame a Writer's Strike or something for the long gap in posts, but the truth is I just stopped posting. The excuse is that I was sent to Vancouver for a week on a course for work, lost internet connectivity for the duration, and fell out of the habit. The reality is more that I just never bothered to resume after I got back.

In the gap, I watched the 2^nd season of The Wire. Truly it is one of the best written dramas on television, with strong characters and interesting things to tell us about the modern human condition. Of course, the downside is that it makes it hard to watch more than a couple episodes at a time. Much like with Battlestar Galactica or Angel, I find my emotional investment in the characters makes watching a draining event.

The flip side to this would be The Shield, which I've also been watching. Another finely done drama, with strong characters; however, the emotional investment here is less and the stories are just a little more fun over all. This compares well with Dexter – both shows are great, but I am able to maintain a separation from the main characters that makes them both easier to watch.

On the book front, it's been mostly more history, as I continue to plow through WWII and Roman history. On the fiction front, I've been encouraged to try some Tim Powers, so have started Last Call – almost immediately I'm in love with how it combines at least three, maybe four of my interests: mobsters, poker, the Tarot, and The Golden Bough. I'm immediately aware of why my friends have been pushing me to read his stuff, and look forward to finishing it soon.

In the local news, there's a real rumpus being raised over plans to move our Needle Exchange from its current location to a spot just down the block from the Catholic elementary school. There's been lots of protesting parents, signs up, and ruffled feathers all around. I think my favorite quote so far would be from Vancouver Island Health Authority president Howard Waldner:

This is not the way we wanted to begin the process. I wanted full consultation once we had confirmation this building was available to us.

As some parents rightly point out, that's consultation after the fact and essentially a presentation of a fait accompli. For my part, I'm thinking "No shit this isn't the way you wanted to begin the process…" Most people like to begin the process by not getting protested.

Something that also amused me is related to the reporting around the recently released Transport Safety Board report on the sinking of the Queen of the North some two years ago now. The gist of the report is that the two people on the bridge at the time of the accident were distracted. Initial reporting suggested they were involved in an "intimate conversation" at the time, but subsequent reporting changed this to "personal conversation".

Intimate Conversation = code for 'having sex'

Personal Conversation = code for 'breaking up'

It's since become clear that the pair, who had a relationship, had broken up the day before and that their shift on the bridge was the first time they'd been paired since the break up. I'd say that was likely a fairly heated "personal conversation" they were having when the ferry ran aground.

Of course, it's also being made clear that there were other contributing factors to the accident which helps deflect the possibility of BC Ferries being the sole responsible party in the event of a lawsuit. I'm mostly convinced that was the reason for the TSB investigation in the first place – to reduce the insurance exposure of the Corporation. Just a gut feeling, that.

Anyway, it's good to be back and I hope to keep this up.

Travel

I really hate to travel. Well, I guess that's not entirely true. It's not so much the travel I hate, as all the components that go into the travel. Booking hotel rooms, flights, planning to be at point X by time Y, figuring out a new city or place – all of it leaves me feeling stressed and wound up tight. Of course, once I get all wound up like that, I end up having to fight my innate 'flee' response, which leads to me becoming depressed and moody.

Once the initial part of a trip is over and I know things are going to work out, I can relax a bit more, but until that point I'm generally tired and listless. Why I'm like this, I don't really know. As a child, we travelled quite a bit – Hawaii, New Mexico, trips to Peace River and Grand Prairie, and even a Disneyland expedition. Those all seemed to work out. I don't have any specific memories of anxiety or worry during those trips, but I sometimes wonder if I picked up some kind of vibe off my mother and father that affects me now that I'm on my own and doing all this.

My main coping mechanism is to offload and delegate as much of the planning to others, hoping that in doing so I will reduce the mistakes and ensure success. I feel terrible doing it, because I am an adult and shouldn't have to rely on Mom-surrogates to accomplish something like a week in Vancouver – but there it is.

Up too Late

Richard Dansky, ex-editor of mine and a friend, has his first real novel out and published. It is Firefly Rain, and is getting good reviews. I'm waiting for my copy to arrive from Amazon right now. Hopefully you are, too.

Meanwhile, James Maliszewski continues to disassemble the pieces of the original Dungeons & Dragons to see what made it work. He's looked at the thief, cleric and the magic-user, and now he's prodding at demi-human level limits. Not too much there for me to disagree with, and in fact, much of what he says resembles my own thoughts.

I'd like to briefly discuss the magic-user in D&D, though. I mentioned in a comment on James' post that the MU (as we used to call them) was basically an artillery piece, transported over from the miniature wargame part of D&D's heritage. I'd like to expand on this a bit, before I pass out to sleep.

The traditions of magic in literature prior to the arrival of D&D were that magic was hard to use, difficult to control, and when used by the Good Guys, often subtle rather than overt. I think if D&D were being designed today, we'd see a wizard class that would conform to that image. Minor spells that could be cast-at-will would be the norm, with more powerful magics either being the result of rituals, or, if damaging, being dangerous to the caster.

The original D&D, however, was not truly designed with the literature in mind. Over on the table-top battlefield, the wizard provided a fantasy army with an artillery options akin to a trebuchet, catapult or ballista. The mighty figure wielded powerful spells that could put a unit to sleep, blast it with fire, rain missiles down upon it or shock it with lightning. While the description was magical, the mechanical effects were similar to lobbing rocks or firing small, sharpened logs into people. When D&D turned to adventure, the wizard came along and brought with him his powerful artillery spells.

In the tight constraints of the dungeon, I'm sure that the constraints on the powers of the wizard were shaped by the fact that his battlefield spells were designed to take on units, not single monsters. Spell levels were introduced as a means to balance the wizard against the hero. New spells were added, I have no doubt, as the people playing encountered new situations and would ask "what if there was a spell to deal with this?" The wizard became a utility knife character, with very big cannon.

What's interesting to me is how much the D&D wizard has influenced literary magic. Wizardry in typical fantasy is now fuller of the blasts and zorts you'd expect from the dungeon crawl, than the subtle displays of yore.

A closing thought hits me, though – in the 4e talk, they've discussed wizards as "controllers", using area effect spells or terrain modifying spells to shape the battlefield. It's an interesting definition and very tied to the clear tactical focus of the new edition. It also is a very clear break from the old utility knife wizard of the previous editions. One wonders if wizards will retain the ability to cast spells that duplicate the class abilities of others (knock being an obvious example).

On Purple and Green

As promised, a short discussion of the color coding of super-villains in old Marvel and DC comics.

In the 60s and 70s, both Marvel and DC used costume colors as a kind of shorthand for indicating a character's status. The main colors used for this activity were purple and green; often in combination, sometimes alone. The two companies made a distinct split, however, in how they presented the characters in these colors. We'll look at DC first, and then move on to Marvel's handling of the sumptuary of its villains.

Over in DC, the combination of the color purple and green was a clear indicator of villainous status. The two obvious poster-boys for this are Lex Luthor and The Joker. Lex Luthor spent much of the 70s running around in green pants, boots and a purple top with a flared collar over a green undershirt. The Joker was rarely seen without his purple suit, and of course has green hair. Brainiac, at least in his pre-floating skull days, was also clad in purple over his green skin (a color scheme maintained in his reboot appearances). Over in DC, when a character appeared with purple and green in his or her costume, you were pretty safe assuming it was a villain.

Meanwhile, Marvel uses the purple and green colors as indicators of reformed or redeemable villains: Quicksilver first appeared clad in green, Hawkeye in purple, the Prowler in green and purple, Wonderman in green. All of these character later turned into heroic characters, though some more so than others (I'm looking at you, Quicksilver). In general, when reading an old Marvel comic, if a character debuted with a green, purple, or green and purple costume, at some point you could expect them to turn out to be not so bad after all. In the case of someone like the Green Goblin, they might be bad but not entirely aware of their badness, or the best friend of the main character. In other cases, like the Beetle, it might take decades before someone would reform them and turn them into Mach V.

Of course, these weren't universally true – The Vulture and The Scorpion debuted in green, and they were pretty irredeemable. Over on the DC side, the Green Arrow and Green Lantern (well, until the Parallax thing) were heroic despite their color choices. Still, as a fair bet, you can't go too far wrong watching the color coding of the characters. Heck, when Gambit appeared, he had purple under that oh-so-cool trench-coat. You knew he had to be more evil than he was letting on…

Monday Monday

I haven't been able to shake off my cold yet, and I'm back to losing at Scrabble; in other words, another week that's the same as the last week.

Over on (postmodernbarney), Dorian had an interesting question derived from two message board quotes:

True writing talent comes from inspirational ideas, vision and creativity. The boring technical stuff can be done by others.

And

The characters are not there to serve your super-special plot. Rather, your plot should serve the characters. This a fundamental rule of writing in someone else's universe. *I* obey it and I don't even get paid, you fuckwads.

Dorian's question, likely rhetorical, was how telling these comments were about fandom in general.

I've heard the first sentiment expressed a lot, about how writing is just about putting words down on the page. It's the ideas that are hard, they say. After all, everyone always seems to ask (well, at the SF conventions I'd go to, anyway) "Where do you get your ideas?" like it's some magical process. Over the years of reading various how-to books on writing, talking with authors, hanging out with some and attempting to become one myself, I've learned that the ideas are actually the easy part. The hard part is taking that idea and expressing it in a way that others will find interesting. One of the reasons for my attempting this blog this year is to gain practice in just that.

Thus, I find that the first statement denigrates the writing process, and doesn't recognize that even a bad story (like, oh, One More Day) still takes craft, discipline and skill to put together.

The second statement is more subtle in its wrong-headedness. Assuming it's written by someone referencing super-hero comic books, it seems to ignore that the comic book characters are corporate properties. It also ignore that comic books have almost always given no more than a passing nod to characterization, letting the needs of plot drive events. The insult at the end is, however, unsubtle in its contempt for the people who are trying to put out this entertainment.

Fandom, or at least, the vocal contingent of fandom online, has grown to believe itself to be privileged to act as the gatekeeper of taste and quality. This sense of entitlement has definitely led some people to hold unreasonable expectations of the object of their fanaticism. I suspect there have always been people like this, since I can remember some of the old letter pages having the occasional missive with hints of that "how dare you do something I don't approve of" tone to them. The more extreme letters, I hope, were filtered out by the editors. Online now, there are no editors – so people like me can vent and rant and complain all we want.

I have been trying hard, though, to step back from my emotional responses and recognize that it's not my Avengers or Legion of Superheroes or Batman or Iron Man who's being "ruined". Rather, it's just a story I don't enjoy. My not enjoying it doesn't make it a bad story, or a story without merit. Nor does it mean that anyone who does like that story is instantly an idiot or loser. Other people's enjoyment of these things should not threaten or undermine my own sense of worth and self, after all. I can express why I don't like what Marvel has done to Spider-man, but I shouldn't berate, insult or call you an idiot if you disagree.

… anyway, tomorrow, I think I'll rant a little bit about color coding villains in old DC and Marvel comics.

Rob Liefield

You know, I don't ever hear about too many people declaring that they're Rob Liefeld fans...usually the opposite, in fact. But someone's buying these comics.

… Mike Sterling

Over at Progressive Ruin, Mr. Sterling's commenting on the rapid sale of Onslaught: Reborn #5, the latest (late, last?) issue in Marvel's attempt to do a 10 year anniversary revisit to the Onslaught and Heroes Reborn story lines. Rob Liefeld, who must be one of the most hated men in comics, does the art.

I'm reluctantly going to admit to being a fan of Liefeld's work. I bought X-Force #1 solely for the art, and grabbed Youngblood #1 for the same reason. The guy can't draw feet, barely manages human anatomy and loves pockets far too much, but I still enjoy the energy and enthusiasm that fills some of his best work. When he was younger, working on something like Hawk and Dove, you could just see that he was a guy who loved what he was doing.

In the late 80s, early 90s, I think comic book art went through a revolution. On the one hand, you had folks like Erik Larsen, Rob Leifeld, Jim Valentino and Todd McFarlane on one side, who were injecting their books with high energy and loosey-goosey style that broke from the more staid works of people like Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Curt Swan, etc. On the other hand, there was the work of people like Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio, who stretched the realism and detail work of a Neal Adams, John Byrne and (once again) George Perez out to the limits.

I really enjoyed all these new artists works – they pushed comics into new, interesting looking directions. While Rob was probably the least polished of the bunch, he also seemed to have the most fun with what he was doing. At the time, and even today, I value fun in my comics a lot and so I became a fan.

I suspect that, as time has passed and things changed … because things always change as we grow older … that some of the fun Rob was having has passed. His work seems to be trying harder to conform to expectations of the audience, rather than his own imagination and ideas. While it remains identifiable as Rob Leifeld in style, a great deal of the energy and appeal for me has faded. Yet I can still look at the cover to something like Onslaught: Reborn and feel a bit of the rush that I had 15 or so years ago, going into the comic store.

I am a Rob Liefeld fan.

Distractions

In truth, I don't know that I can ever actually be bored. I have far too many distractions, as yet another late blog post can attest. Recent distractions now include Pirates of the Burning Seas, Rock Band, my D&D campaign, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and the comics I bought yesterday. This leaves out Holly & Hunter, the two best distractions I could have. I have a shelf full of DVDs to be watched, shelves of books to be read, boxes of comics to be flipped through, and a stack of games to be completed.

Pirates of the Burning Seas is truly an obsession right now, though. It's an MMORPG set in the Caribbean, circa 1720, with the player nations of Spain, Britain, France and Pirate. Sailing ships, boarding actions, and even some swordfight on shore make up the action component of the game. That alone hits on two of my interests – wooden ship combat and old-time fencing. Add in the complex economy modeled, as near as I can tell, on the theories of Adam Smith and his The Wealth of Nations, and I'm sucked into a black hole of deep interest. I'm maintaining an offline spreadsheet of resource costs to work out up to the minute values of products I'm making and working out profit models, all while battling pirates and the evil British in my Spanish cutter.

It's all too much fun, and also the reason this post is short and late.

Marvels

This writing every day thing is harder than it looks.

I went to the comic shop today (Legends Comics on Johnson St. in Victoria – great shop, you should shop there) and picked up 2 months worth of comics. Not with a lot of enthusiasm, mind you. I did grab up a collection of the Savage Sword of Conan stories from Dark Horse, though, and the Essential Captain America 4. Good nostalgia fodder, that. More modern fare includes The Immortal Iron Fist trade, collection Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction's story with the character, and the usual suspects: Punisher: MAX, Astonishing X-Men, The Spirit and World War Hulk. I wish I felt more of an urge to read the books, though.

What I did re-read recently is MARVELS, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross' breakthrough series… it's actually 14 years old now, which surprises me. When the books first came out, I passed them up, mostly due to the cost. I think they were a little more expensive than other books, and I had only recently moved to working full-time. This would have also been back when I was collecting a whole bunch of books from DC, Marvel, and others – my monthly budget for comics was already used up. I didn't really pick up and read the collected trade until last year.

Well, I missed out on something grand. The books really do establish the tone and style of Busiek, with the emphasis on the human perspective on the super-humans and the impact of super-beings on the normal world. This is something he does very well in the best of his Astro City work, and even manages to inject him his more mainstream works (like his Iron Man or The Avengers runs). That's one key element of the series. The second key factor is that the books treat continuity and the old comics with respect and finds a way to weave the existing old stories together to create something epic, but also accessible. The final factor must be Alex Ross' art. The feel here is looser and rougher than his later work, on Kingdom Come or Earth X. It has life and energy that's often lacking from his latest works – Justice comes to mind. Even so, the painted images with their sense of reality and humanity transform the old stories from fantasy to something with a real weight and reality.

I look at what Busiek and Ross were doing in 1994 and have to remember that it was likely a response to the wild and irreverent approach to superheroes being taken by companies like Image and Malibu. Just as Mark Waid would later do in Kingdom Come, MARVELS is an attempt to restore a kind of respectability and luster to the older stories that these authors and artist grew up reading. There's no real attempt here to tear down the heroes, to bring them to earth by giving them flaws or new failings. Instead, even in their failures and flaws, Busiek gives them a grandeur and style that reminds me why I grew up loving superhero comics.

If you haven't given it a read, I recommend it.

They’re &S&*@ My Childhood

The big news in comics this past week or so has been the "oops" reset of Spider-man continuity over at Marvel. The core of the story is that Peter Parker and Mary Jane, in a bid to save Aunt May's life, make a deal with the devil (Mephisto). The price of this deal is that they never married and never will marry, so are giving up a future of happiness and hope. Which is why Mephisto is making the deal – it helps cement his status as Evil ™. Apparently a side effect of Peter and Mary Jane never getting married is Harry Osborne (son of Norman Osborne and the second Green Goblin) never died or married Liz Allen; instead, he vacation in Europe and has opened a coffee shop in New York now. Oh, and the organic web-shooters Peter developed have reverted, and he's back to using mechanical web-shooters. Plus, he's not very successful, so he's moved back in with Aunt May and he's broke all the time.

In other words, welcome to 1976, I hope you enjoy the visit.

It's been said that the Golden Age of Comics is when you first started reading them (for me, somewhere around 1974 or 75, thanks to long drives in the car). I suspect 1976 played a big role in Joe Quesada's comic book development, because that's effectively what he's brought back. Given he would have been about 14, it seems a likely explanation. I return to my Golden Age by reading the old comics again – Marvel's gone a long way to make this easier with the Essential collections and putting out CD-ROMs with comics collected on them. DC has followed suit with Showcase collections. I recognize that my enjoyment of these older stories is driven partly by nostalgia, though some of them hold up really well even today. In any case, it's not like I could bring back the old days – that's why they're the old days.

The difference between me and Joe Quesada (one difference, anyway) is that Joe is the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel. If he wants to roll the clock back to when he remembers reading and enjoying Spider-man comics, he can and will. Everyone will just have to follow along.

Am I outraged? Not really. I'm mostly curious how much these storylines and changes were driven by a personal nostalgia dressed up in marketing-speak.

I skipped yesterday's entry, as the cold wiped me out for the most part. Hopefully that won't happen too often.

I see Hillary is suddenly on top and in charge and leading the pack after a "surprise" win in New Hampshire. From what I could tell, she and Obama were only a few percentage points apart, so it promises to remain an interesting battle for the nomination in the next month. On the Republican side, I wonder if we'll see a rally to McCain, as perhaps the more middle of the road members of the party realize they may accidentally turn the GOP into a theocratic party if they don't pay attention.

Plus, its sounding more and more like the depression that should have hit the U.S. a year or two ago is finally arriving. I suspect the sub-prime mortgage market which is leading the pack on the current recession indicators was also responsible for delaying it – easy credit to people who previously couldn't qualify could hide and mask the economic downturn, after all. Surprise, surprise, though – extending credit to people who can't afford to pay it off isn't a great business model. Now there's a sudden drain of buying power out of the economy, matched with the slowdown of job creation and the slow death of actually producing anything (replaced by the "service industry"), and it looks like some lean times are coming. I'm curious to see how wide-spread the effects are, however – is the US really that vital to the world economy, or has its previous privileged position been replaced by some other *cough* China *cough* country?

A Scrabble update: I finally won an actually game, by 1 whole point. This will not likely happen again this month. Or this year.

Blip-blap-blort

As Gman is fond of saying, "You shouldn't have dumpstatted your Constitution."* I can feel a cold coming on, likely an infection passed from a co-worker who's been sick for a few weeks. My nose is dry and aches, my eyes are heavy, and I've got a general ache in the joints that usually precedes me going into the full sniffles and sneeze mode. I'm hoping that it's not the case, and instead is just a combination of weather changes and a lack of sleep, but I'm just not sure.

Big find on Saturday was at the Great Canadian Super Store. Holly, Hunter and I headed out there mostly as a time killer – I was half-thinking about picking up a few food items, and we were going to check out their prices on diapers and the like. When we got to the store, while I was off checking the long-shot that they might have Rock Band Special Edition for the PS3 (so damn hard to find), Holly was checking out the discount DVD bins. Where she found a copy of Angel: Season One for $15. Well, that started us both dumpster diving – I can up with StarGate SG-1 Seasons 1, 2 and 3, along with Angel Season 1 and 3. Holly grabbed the Simpsons Season 1 … all for $15. That's a heck of a mark down from the $55 they were selling for a year or so ago.

I'm finding the outfall from the Iowa primaries interesting, as the Republican machine scrambles to groom someone (anyone?) as a viable alternative to Huckabee. Meanwhile, on the Democrat side, John Edwards is angling for the Vice President slot with Obama, and Clinton finds herself suddenly portrayed as a loser. The dynamics on the GOP side are interesting, as the religious wing is now contesting the neo-con and conservative wings of the party for dominance. On the Democratic side, you've got the interesting mix of race, gender and economic class all battling it out. Yet despite all the talk of Iowa and New Hampshire, both are relatively minor in terms of delegates, and we could still see one of the current "losers" take over. Despite my pessimism about democracy in general, I find this current mix fascinating for what it might bring.

Holly's a big Steelers fan, so I feel bad that the team lost yesterday. They were without Parker, a key element in their running game, and Roethlisberger threw 3 interceptions, which just sealed the deal, really. The score was close, but only because the Steelers tried to mount a 4^th quarter comeback, not because they were the dominant team. It's hard to win against the clock, in football, and time just ran out for Pittsburgh. The safe bet, really, is that the Patriots are going to win the Superbowl this year, but I'm not going to put any money on it.

And in other news, I continue to get my butt kicked around in Scrabble. Sigh.

* Dumpstats are where you put the lowest values when making up a RPG character.

The Camouflage of Sports

I don't know that I would claim to be a big fan of sports. I follow football, hockey, and baseball with a casual interest. I have my favorite teams, mostly picked for regional reasons (Canucks, Seahawks, and Mariners) or nostalgia (Oilers, Cowboys, and Phillies). I dabble in some fantasy league stuff, but not for any money or big prizes. Other sports like tennis, golf and soccer also ping against my knowledge radar. In general, though, it all happens mostly at a step removed from any kind of real passion.

I was drawn to sports mostly as a thing to talk with other people about. When you're passionate interests are history, comic books and role-playing games, there's a real lack of common ground with people outside those circles. Given the size of those circles, that means you're lacking common ground with a lot of people. I found that being able to talk about last night's game, or how a team was performing, provided a safe and comfortable way to connect with people at work. There's a kind of camouflage it provides to keep people from seeing you as strange.

Even with a casual interest, though, I've discovered things I consider interesting. For one, everyone has a sport they absolutely hate or consider boring… but that same sport will be someone else's passion. I've often discovered that someone's interest in a sport is directly related to their understanding of the underlying game-play of the sport. For example, a lot of people consider baseball rather dull. I often find, though, when I start explaining the strategy of the pitchers versus the batter, and how what looks like just some guy throwing a ball at a guy with a stick is actually a complex psychological matchup… some people will get interested. Watching a baseball game with them later finds them often discovering that what previously looked dull is actually exciting.

That's what happened to me with golf, which is just one of those sports that seem so dull. My co-worker, Kelly, was an avid golfer and started describing the decisions and processes involved in the game and suddenly I could watch Tiger Woods teeing off and get excited when you made a perfect drive. Or, conversely, recognize when someone else made a less than perfect drive and why. It sparked an interest in golf in me that allows me to watch the sport on television and not fall asleep.

I've taken that lesson and started to apply it to other hobbies people have, as well. I think a lot of things that strike me as dull or uninteresting appear that way because I am ignorant about them. It is easy to confuse my ignorance with some kind of privileged value judgment, and to believe that my feelings about someone else's interests are truer than their own feelings. While I'm not always able to manage it immediately, I have taken to trying very hard to step back from my initial reactions and to take a little time to become informed about what they seem passionate about so I can understand and accept.

Scrabble

Yesterday, I mentioned that I'm not really big on winning games which is a good thing, because I really suck at Scrabble. Still, it's a good illustration of what I enjoy about games.

I've been playing a fair amount of Scrabble lately, thanks to the Scrabulous application on Facebook. I enjoy the game, which isn't just about making words with the tiles. There's strategy involved in positioning and where to play the words to score maximum points. Like many games (poker, for example), the play of the game appears deceptively simple but rewards close attention and a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanics. Or it would, if I could just turn that understanding into better play.

Aside from a few decent bingos (where you play out all 7 letters in your tray in a single word), I have yet to truly put down a good run of words. I can take some small satisfaction that my win-loss record (2-13) is still better than the Miami Dolphins this season (1-15), but I have more faith that they'll improve more next season than I will in the next few games. The problem mostly seems to be that I'm playing against people who are really, really good at the game. However, another part of the problem is that I'm still working on the skill of assembling words out of the letters in ways to maximize points.

The dirty secret of my Scrabble play is that I'm often more attracted to playing a word that amuses me or makes some commentary on the game, than one that makes the most points. Of course, this makes it sounds like I'm purposefully choosing a losing strategy… I'm not. The other half of the dirty secret is that I haven't memorized the list of wacky Scrabble words that maximize points (did you know that EDS is a word?) and can, with a few strategic plays, move someone into the lead in the game.

At the moment, I mostly take pride in the fact that I can play a good enough game to keep my opponents on their toes and, hopefully, keep their interest. That should be enough, right?

Now if I can just figure out a word using I,I,I,I,I,U,S …

Gaming Personality

First, a shout out to my friend Sue, who independently decided to take on the same challenge I have. Here's hoping we both see this through (weirdly, we also share the goal of writing a novel this year – but she's got more ability than I, and is more likely to succeed, I think).

A while back, I did one of those meme's that occasionally strike a social group. In this case, it was Bartle's Gaming Personality Quiz – basically a series of loaded questions designed to identify what kind of MMORPG gamer you might be. In my case, the results turned out very accurate:

AESK
AESK players are interested in the player-versus-environment aspect of the game more than anything else. They are often soloists who want to achieve and see what the world has to offer. Often, they find groups cumbersome and PVP to be more an annoyance than a feature.
Breakdown: Achiever 86.67%, Explorer 60.00%, Killer 26.67%, Socializer 26.67%

That's me to a T, really. I've often joked that there is a cruel irony in how I really love MMORPGs, but hate grouping and the people. Since one of the main draws for an on-line gaming experience is supposed to be the chance to team up and work with others, it does make people (and myself) wonder why I bother. I think the main reason is that I like to analyze and understand systems.

I'm not very big on "winning", really. I'm a realist and recognize that I won't always be the best at something, even if I do understand the methods and means to accomplish being the best. For example, I know the technical details of how to perform a layup in basketball, to hit a homerun in baseball, or ace a serve in tennis – I just don't have the physical ability to do those things at the level of a consistent winner. Similarly, when it comes to game systems, I can figure out how the system of resource trading and victory objectives interacts in Settlers of Cataan, but I know that doesn't mean I'm going to win every game.

My enjoyment is in playing the games and building a mental understanding of how they've decided to model their reality, which generally requires some isolation and reflection – things you generally don't find when you're grouped up or sitting around a crowded tabletop. Thus, my desire when playing most MMORPGs is to spend long periods performing solo missions, trying out different combinations of abilities, and avoiding having to prove myself or my worth to others. I most recently experienced this playing in the open beta for Pirates of the Burning Seas. To best grasp the nature of ship-to-ship combat, the swashbuckling fight system, and even the economy, I needed to isolate myself and explore things alone.

I suppose to some extent that is the role this blog is playing for me, as well. It's allowing me to explore and understand the method and means to accomplish a goal I've set for myself, and to do it in a way that feels a lot like a solo endeavor. Perhaps if I can figure out a way to turn the writing of words into a habit, I can understand what other steps I'll need to take shake free the ideas in my head that I've kept locked away for too long.

Potpourri

I played some more Star Wars Saga Edition tonight with Gman and the fellows. We're doing an adventure set in the time frame of The Phantom Menace, with our characters on Naboo doing some investigating for the Jedi Council and Senator Antilles. We opened this session with my character, Rann Nassin (Noble of Alderran, agent of Senator Antilles) and Laari Noobles (Sullastan Scoundrel) locked up by the invading droid army in Theed. Our partners, a Rhodian Soldier and a Human Jedi had to lead the rescue attempt from outside the city. Plenty of violence dished out on the droids in the city square outside our "prison", while inside the two least combat oriented characters managed to have trouble beating up a single B1 battle droid armed with a stun rod.

The game plays well, with a few artifacts of the underlying d20 system occasionally getting in the way. At one point, I wanted Rann to try and pull the B1 droids stun rod away – a classic cinematic struggle. The rules, however, made such an endeavor painful and difficult to manage. The same went for trips, shoves, grabs and grapples. In the end, I was left with pretty much standing there waving my hands in the droids face in a futile attempt to distract it. Those issues aside, the game plays very well. I just need to take a bit of time to make my Noble a little more versatile in the action, adventure and talking scenes.

Other news on the radar is Obama's win in Iowa, which should give his campaign a bump and a push and make him the legitimate front-runner for the Democratic nomination. I'm suspecting an Obama-Edwards ticket will be more likely than an Obama-Clinton one, but we'll see how the future caucuses shake out. Huckabee over Romney is more of a surprise, but given the Republican slate there really wasn't much choice. The Republican nomination feels a little more Wild West, though, and I expect to see a few more shoot-outs before that one solidifies with a clear front-runner.

I realized today that I have very little urge to pick up my comics for the month. Aside from Ennis' The Punisher, there's nothing really out there I want to collect on a month-to-month basis anymore. I am interested in finding more Age of Bronze trades, and filling out my Essential Spider-man collection a bit more. The monthly issues, though, just aren't doing it for me anymore. After about 34 years of reading comics, the efforts of DC and Marvel have exhausted my interest and left me feeling curmudgeonly and isolated from the marketplace. Which, really, may not be a bad thing; I could definitely stop spending the $20-30 a month on the habit.

I haven't been able to find out where I finished in the for-fun NFL football pool I was in. I was tied for first before the last week, but I think I blew my picks and might have fallen to third place. Unfortunately, my friend who was running the site seems to have shutdown the server and I haven't found out. Last year, I was leading until Week 8, when I suddenly lost whatever skills I had, and ended up picking under .500 for the rest of the season. This year, I managed to keep a brisk clip of picks through a combination of reading NFL.com and the ever handy 'flip a coin' method of picking. My personal theory is that in each game of NFL football, the odds are 50-50, or close enough to that, that you can flip a coin to decide the winner. This theory is based on the effects of the salary cap, plus the nature of American football. Of course, it doesn't account for a team like the Patriots or the Colts.

God of War

I tried playing God of War last year, as a rental but didn't get too far. I ran into a bit of a puzzle-block in the early part of Athens and didn't manage to solve it before the game was due back at the store. What I did play, I enjoyed, so earlier this year I grabbed up a used copy of the game from the discount bin at the video store. Around Christmas, I fired it up on the new Playstation 3 and started over again.

This is an example of a game that, near as I can tell, gets everything right. The main character, Kratos, is not a very good man – he has a definite habit of slaying "cowards" and civilians who get in his way. This means we have the dark, troubled loner thing going on. The action is violent, fast and over-the-top. Kratos wields a pair of blades on chains that slice-n-dice every monster or thing that gets in their way. There are elements of RPG in the set-up, as we use experience from our kills to power up the blades or various powers we're given by the Gods of Olympus. There's action-platforming, as we jump from place to place or balance along precarious beams. Puzzle-solving comes into it, as various obstacles in the game have to be overcome using items, levers, and buttons in the environment. The game uses the mythology of Greece as its driving engine, so there are recognizable monsters to fight. The plot involves taking down a rampaging Ares, who we discover may be the cause of Kratos' current broodiness.

Okay, so the game is near perfect. I'm playing on "Easy" mode, since I've slowly realized over the years that one element of modern console gaming I dislike is the difficulty ramp up at Normal. Even on easy, my aging reflexes guarantee I die more than a few times trying to get places. Plus, I mostly play these kinds of games to enjoy the stories and graphic design, which is hard to see if you get bogged down on a Boss Monster in level 1, as I have a few too many times for my liking.

The interesting bit is that I'm also playing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which has many similar characteristics. It's a blend of action-platforming, puzzle-solving and action-adventure. The story and characters are cliché, but done in such a way that you enjoy the stereotype, rather than resent it. The hero, Drake, isn't entirely a good guy – but he's trying, which is nice. The only downside so far to the game is that the action-adventure part is mostly shooting people, which is not something I find easy to do on a console… working the two analog sticks to aim just makes me long for the mouse and keyboard. This is one element God of War gets right, with the melee fights in that game mostly involving inventive button-mashing to unleashing amazing displays of gory, fiery doom on your enemies. Unfortunately, in Uncharted, you mostly spend your time desperately trying to line up a head shot as the fastest way to get out of what feels like an endless stream of bad guys.

Even with that downside, Uncharted is a ton of fun. I'm not allowed to play without Holly on the couch with me, though, as she wants to see what happens next. It's actually replaced our normal movie nights.

Under Way

The dawn of a New Year (or, more technically, the late morning) is a time to step back, reflect, and set goals for the future. For me, a long time goal has been to learn and develop the discipline needed to treat writing as something more than a sideline or hobby. To that end, I'm going to make another attempt to do a post a day. Past attempts focused on comic books or a life journal; they stuttered and failed as I lost interest in both. This time out, I've decided to broaden my focus and write about the things that interest me on a day to day basis.

Over in his livejournal, James Maliszewski poses the interesting question "when did roleplaying games take the big plunge in transitioning between being rules that allowed you to tell your own stories in an imaginary world (of your own construction or others') to being rules that allowed you to tell other people's stories?"

Myself, I kind of look back and see the period around the release of TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2^nd edition as a marker point for the kind of gaming transition to which he's referring. For one thing, there was the forced move of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting to the 2^nd edition, including the release of a trilogy of railroaded adventures (Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep) that forced the PCs to follow along during the "major events" that changed the game world. I always found that move interesting, as it asserted TSR's control and dominance of the Forgotten Realms setting over that of the local Gamemaster.

I mark this as a transition point, because initially the Forgotten Realms were presented as a kind of sandbox setting for Gamemasters. The setting was massive; with broad areas left undefined and barely sketched in, it had much in common with the earlier Greyhawk Gazetteer. After the release of 2^nd edition, and the migration of the FR setting into that ruleset, I think it was made very explicit that as far as TSR was concerned, we were no longer playing in our sandbox, but rather sharing theirs.

This isn't to say there weren't earlier games that had elements of telling other people's stories – Runequest and Pendragon were both explicitly telling other peoples stories, for example. The comic book tie-in games for Marvel and DC were also clearly set in other people's worlds. But all these systems seemed to encourage the GM to take ownership of the setting and story, and to use the rules as a guideline to telling their own stories. Even DragonLance, despite the heavy tie in with the novels, seemed structured around the idea that the GM and players would fill in the gaps and make stuff up.

All of which brings us back to those three modules and the move to 2^nd Edition AD&D as a kind of marker point for the transition. It might just have been me, but I remember buying those modules (I was buying all the Forgotten Realms stuff at the time), reading them, and feeling like they had talked down to me. They didn't trust me to figure out how to bring my game up to date with their new rules, so had provided what I found to be a badly written and constructed set of modules to force things into their mold.

From that point on, I think the nature of RPGs shifted away from privileging our personal imagination and inventiveness, and instead began to rely on the imagination and inventiveness of those writing the source materials. I suspect this might have been because by 1989, the industry had filled up with a second generation of gamers – people who had grown up on the games of the 70s and could use them as source material for their own designs; but also with people who, as gamers, felt a desire to share their own campaigns and settings with all of us.

The trend continues, I think. It's gotten even stronger, as computer gaming has begun to influence tabletop design in an incestuous circle.