Dear Neckbeards

To the members of the vocal male gamer contingent,

We have never met before, probably because I value things like hygiene, the open air, and the desire to have conversations in meat space except for on TeH InTERWEBS!!! Regardless of our lack of introduction, I have heard quite a deal of you, and from you, and you. You're really loud, and obnoxious. And Loudly obnoxious and obnoxiously loud.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing you this letter is to convey this message as a fellow member of the gamer community who identifies as male:

Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are?

Over the past few days, I've heard reports from the great Gamer Grapevine about members of the community and slut shaming, fat shaming, disability shaming. I've heard about bullying, insults, trolling, and death threats. Oddly enough, most of this is aimed towards female identifying members of the gaming world. I know! It's weird, right? How dare women do things in our fields, why they should just act like the crumbly rubber dolls in your bedrooms, you lonely fucks.

Listen, I'm not one to beat about the bush, especially that hedge you call a beard. Dude, those things actually go on the chin and cheeks...you're too technologically savvy to think the Amish are in chic. So as someone from the same demographic as you, allow me to say that it makes me sick to my stomach that I am part of the same demographic as you feculent toe jams. Who in the flying fuck declared you the moral police of the gaming world? I don't remember a vote being called. I don't recall putting the sanctity of our community into your Cheetos encrusted hands. Nobody sent up the white smoke and if they did they should have shared that crap. So what fucking right do you have to bash these people down!?

Now, your first reply will be this: Who the fuck am I to moralize over your decisions. To put it simply, for your simple little minds, I'm a member of the community, I'm someone who enjoys discussing games, of playing games. I enjoy going to conventions and seeing something that six years ago I wouldn't imagine: people who shared the same desires I have. Not geeks, not nerds. People. These are people who are making these games in the hopes of making a meager life entertaining their fellow gamers. These are people who are trying to improve the quality of games and the gaming community. And yes, some of them are Women. I know, I was shocked when I first found out. And you know what I did afterwards? Got the fuck over it, especially since it meant seeing something, anything, other than you. These people you are bashing for your amusement are my friends You know the drill, friends are at a premium for those of us who are socially disinclined. My friends are as close to me as family.

And some of you have been openly attacking my family. There are two women I know who have been taunted, bullied and outright had their lives threatened.. I've always seen this community, the Geek Community, the Gaming Community as a gathering of people who never really fit right in growing up. Awkward, enthused, eccentric. This community has been a haven for some of us who never really knew what it felt like to be accepted.

And you're fucking it up for the rest of us. Threats? Harassment?  When did you start thinking the jocks and preppy assholes who tormented you in school had a good model for treating others? Huh? When did calling someone a slut or fat become a way of advancing your status or argument, of being cool in your small, pointless cliques? When did you become the bullies?

I don't fucking get it. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up identifying as a geek until I was out of college when I could find outlets for my geeky self. Maybe it's because ever since I started gaming I have, from the Jedi and Ren Faire circuit, the the Mind's Eye Society; Dystopia Rising and all points around, been surrounded by bold, brilliant and beautiful women. Not girls, not chicks, Women. Oh, I know that word scares you, you feeble minded fanboy. Right now your bowels are in an uproar over how these fake gamer girls this, and how dare that girl at sunday afternoon larp didn't date you that. Maybe if you took some fiber, you'd be able to flush that irritable bowel. Or maybe you'd just be kind enough to flush yourselves.

Honestly, you would think that you'd be happy that the geek world was populated more by women, if nothing else than to dispel that we're all just a bunch of zit having virgins. But maybe that's the problem, that despite the fact that women are here and you still are a virgin that you've got this anger, and you want to lash out. You're in denial, so much so that your feet are soaked through and you are seeing the fucking Pyramids. So much so that when a woman makes an acclaimed game, you have to drag her sexlife -real or perceived- to discredit her. Does it matter if it's a game worthy of the acclaim? You're in so much denial that you would attach someone who are trying to make games accessible to people of disabilities. It's fine if you disagree with them, but at what point does shaming their disabilities -real or perceived- become the point of the argument?

Boys, you're in denial, and it's time to go into the other phases of Grief. You're douchebags. Similar to the preppy jock elitist scum we all dealt with in school, I call them Guy Dudebros, because they all look dress and act alike and in the end are as generic as you can get. You, my misogynistic meatheads,  have henceforth been dubbed Neckbeard Dudebros. You are the unwashed (in some cases, literally. Ew.) masses of the gamer community. You're that cyst on the neck of gamer life that smells of rancid offal and causes harmless yet annoying pain. You contribute nothing, you dedicate your pointless lives in tearing others down from your safe, crusty seats and congratulate yourself like you actually did something. You've done nothing. You've wasted your time and the times of others. Some of us have shit to do, some of which, whether you realize it or not, you actually benefit from.

And, I hate to tell you this, but quite a few of them that do these things aren't men...and I'll tell you a little bit more for free. Most of them...and maybe even all of them, don't frankly care whether you live or die. Maybe if you changed your attitude...or bathed. What smells like onions?

 You need to understand that we as a Communty are up and moving in a new direction. All of us. Gamers everywhere. The internet's got us all connected and people have more access to various forms of gaming and media than they've ever been able to have. We've gone beyond the dungeon crawls in your parents den. We're playing Cards Against Humanity on Google Hangout, doing Panel Discussions in New York with panelists piping in from Denmark on Skype. We've got brilliant developers coming up with game after game and getting them published and moving through Kickstarter and Patreon.

And somewhere, you're not celebrating this. Does it threaten you? Does it scare you that your notions of what it means to be a gamer are wrong?

Good.

Because quite frankly, I'm tired of having to live by your image of being a  male gamer, of being a Male Anything. I'm tired of having to witness grown men leering at teen girls at conventions and shaming them when they don't appreciate their advances. I'm tired of men shaming others as a means of discrediting their work. I don't want to live in your closed minded world. I want the barn door open and all manner of things to fly loose. If you don't want to accept that people -man, woman and all points therein and without- are out there doing things you don't like, than do the world a favor, you mouthbreathing turds. Go back to your lonely little basements and Stay There. 

Some of us just want to play games, you're the ones sucking the fun out of it. 

The Quest

So I found out at the last minute (read: an hour and a half before it's premiere) that ABC was debuting a new Reality Series called "The Quest". It was shown as like The Amazing Race, but in a medieval fantasy world. Regular men and women from our side of reality are cast and put into the roles of heroes and are set on a quest to save the realm. Fast reading through some of the reviews, everyone is calling this a form of Live Action Role Play. Everyone but the showrunners.

After three episodes, here's my take on it.

A lot of the reasons why larping is such a hard hobby to describe to people outside of larping is because larps are about everyone being the performance. It's not something you can easily show to a passive audience. The only way it's worked in the past is through documentary, interspersing the action that is going on with comments from the players. Reality Shows also follow this pattern of showing you the action while having one of the folks in the scene comment on it while separated from it.

And that's how they did it here.

So, okay, the premise so far. 12 people from 'our world' were chosen by the Three Fates to become Paladins on a quest to save the fantastical kingdom of Everrealm from the oncoming Verlox. Each Paladin was given a piece of The Sunspear, an ancient weapon to fight back the dark. Only by overcoming challenges with and between each other can the one True Hero emerge to wield the Sunspear restored against Verlox. From Sanctum, the Capital of Everrealm, the 12 paladins live together and a constantly moving world world (aided by actors from around Austria, where the castle they are staying in really is).

The Fates are The Judges, The Sunspear the Reward.

Watching the first episode, I saw a lot of familiar tropes going on that many people who've ever done a fantasy role play have ever experienced. The players, still in their normal street garb, are transported across an underground river where they are met by the Fates, who guide them to their main contact. They're representing the threshold into game space, from here on in, no one is going to be in Kansas anymore. They enter and recover the fragments of the sunspear while meeting their contact, Crio. Crio leads them to the castle through a dark forest. Just as they're making their way, an Ogre appears and kills Crio's friend. Everyone bails, but as soon as the danger is over they reassess what just happened, which leads to one of the Paladins going "Okay, from here on out we NEVER Let that happen again".

They make it to Sanctum, and are then immediately put into jail by the obligatorily smarmy Vizier. It's at this point that the players get a chance to converse and talk. So you have a "You all meet in Jail" scenario, which allows the players to get to know each other and to establish themselves. Some talk about climbing the walls to escape, whilst others try to rationalize this and wait for Crio to try and spring them. After a while, they do get sprung, and it becomes clear that they will be housed in the castle and trained to defend themselves and the realm.

The format of the show is really simple. Plot happens in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the show, then comes the challenge of the day. In the first episode it was learning to fire ballistas into dummy soldier, the second involved archery and accuracy with a spear, and the third required a puzzle to get ingredients to an antidote. At the end of each challenge, the three Paladins who do the worst must complete a second challenge before the Fates. If they win, they are excused, the two who did not win risk Banishment from the world as voted on by their fellow Paladins. They then continue the plot which leads to the next episode. It's a simple plot, but there is a lot going on here.

The main thing is this: This entire premise stands out because they are interacting with a fully fleshed out world. There is a lot going on, and it's clear we're only getting the highlights. These players are immersed in the world and treat it as if it's really happening. This is aided and abetted by the NPCs that are moving about, either as citizens or as named NPCs who guide and interact with them.

What makes this whole thing special is that it's a reality show with a plot. The Reality comes from the players while everything around them is part of the show and scripted. This sometimes leads to them all huddled together as the plot happens around them, watching as the actors take part. I also have the feeling that the filming of this was done in days and not in weeks. Something about the pacing makes me think that each day is a challenge. One, because of the production value put into the show, Two, because the actors go home every day while the Paladins sleep in the castle. I would love to see this be done with a more controllable town where, if the players wished to, could go out and see people interacting and playing with one another and the players. It'd give more a sense of depth to the world.

The show reminds me of another reality show. It was called "Murder in Small Town X" it was aired in 2001, it focused on murder in a fictional town in Maine, with the players being the investigators brought in to find the killer. There was a very David Lynchian aspect to the show, with The town was entirely populated with actors whom interacted with one another around the players and with the players. There was a story and a world to explore It was at the time very ambitious, and marked with Tragedy as the winner of the show was a New York Firefighter who died during 9/11 just one week after the finale aired.

One of my major hang ups with 'Reality TV' is that it's not Reality. It's artifice, of people duking it out for fame and for money. That sets a horrible precedent. The players of the Quest aren't playing for the money, there is no money. They are playing purely for the experience, for the story. I think this enhances it for the players, as their voting of the other players removal is more emotional. There is no sense of greed, but many of them are trying to figure out a way to achieve the goal of saving the world. Many of them have said during the voting process 'They may be the One True Hero, they may not. I'm voting for them because they will help us get to that end". I think this also allows for the viewers to sit and enjoy, because there are consequences to the world around these guys. They aren't in a bubble, and their actions have consequences and there is a definite end along the way.

As a Writer, I have to help but to laugh at some of the things I see on the show. It's truly a "Fantasy Role Play Trope 101" course with generic names for locations and using common character types. The sneering Vizier, the Faithful Steward, the Unimpressed Hardass Combat Instructor, all of them are at the heart of this game and many more. The dialogue that is not exposition can almost be quoted five seconds before they say it. This does not take away from the experience, because you're watching a group of people getting to live the life of a fantasy role play protagonist.

The Quest has become a popular show, hitting many TV Watch Lists. This shows to me that people are more amenable for people to do something as outrageous as this, to follow a fantastical notion and accept that these relatively normal people are willing to do something that is as undeniably geeky and undeniably cool as living out the dream as being a hero in a fantasy novel. To quote a few of my friends, it's Larp Light. This gives me hope that people may be more accepting of the fact that we, as larpers, try to do similar. Of course, I'm a closet idealist.

Also interesting to note is that several of the players in the game are friends of my friends in the geek field. Christian is a staple of the Renfaire Circuit and Adria is a larper and Cammie herself. I'm always amazed at how small the community is, and yet how isolated we sometimes can be with one another. It will be interesting to see what the show has to offer and maybe one day I'll be able to meet some of the players and get to ask some questions.

In short, watch the Quest. It's a fun adventure, for the players, and for the audience. It gives a fairly good account of what a larp can be to those who view it from the outside, a rarity in our communiity.  For those of us who larp, this is a dream come true. And I hope that it is the first of many seasons.

Later,

C

Here's a Link to The Quest's Hulu Page: Watch Here

For the sake of Nostalgia: here's a Youtube Playlist of all of Murder in Small Town X's episodes: Watch Here

If you like this blog, and wish to make a donation, consider supporting me on my Patreon Account. It allows me to continue doing games and conventions and you'll get special prizes. You'll never be charged for reading, but any support is appreciated. Thanks

Chronos Universal Larp System

I wrote last month about my experience playing in Rise of Tiburon, an amazing larp run by Nerdy City. The game used a version of the debuting Chronos card system as it's interface for actions in the game. I'd heard about it a year back just as it was entering it's Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of interaction with the system. This by no means lessened the experience of the game, but I made myself a small and silent vow to make up for the deficit and buy the corebook.

My copy of Chronos came in today. It's not a large book, only 70 pages in total. There is, however, a lot of information going on here. The book is designed almost in a 'Book of Five Rings' format, with each chapter taking on one of the four classical elements which in turn feeds into the theme of their corresponding chapter. Interspersed throughout the book are four short vignettes from four different worlds, three of which appear to be focused around a specific game set on these rules: Ex-Arcana, Dreamless, and Devil Days. The fourth was an assassination set in a contemporary setting focusing on an assassination in the middle of a gaming convention. Writing what you know, huh guys?

Chronos is a card based mechanic system. You build a deck consisting of a core card, and supplemental skills, specialties and augment cards. This deck is for all intents and purposes your character sheet, but reads more or less like a Tarot spread. This makes it very easy to transition from a Tabletop -which they refer to as Narrative Play, more on that later- and larps. The Core card has the standard stats such as Health, Focus, Speed and so on, but also has several skill stats such as Brawn, Dexterity, Acumen, Resolve. There are two sets of these numbers on each card, one for action and one for defense. Challenges are done by adding up the action and adding up the defense, the one with the higher number wins the action. 

When combat is declared, the entire scene is taken into Chronos Time. All physical actions are slowed down, and all combat must be (safely) acted out in that time. Combat rounds last 30-60 seconds, and anyone who doesn't do an action in that time has not acted for that round. This means that, if everyone knows what to do and knows what cards they are using, the roleplay doesn't stop just because someone wants to fight someone else. This also means that instead of sitting there deliberately thinking of what to do, you have to respond to what is actually going on. This also means that combat is going to end soon. There is an entire conversation/rant that I'd like to give on this concept but it would detract from the review. Follow ups to come.

So having a card based role play system leads to some other interesting concepts. Along with the core deck, there will also be cards based on specific games in the line, expansions and other such things. This is actually ingenious from a business stand point, as you're selling both the games and the cards. However, it's weakness is that, for the most part, you're limited to by however many cards you have. This can be augmented by printing out pdf copies, but if someone just has the core deck printed out to him, then they reach limits. I'd recommend buying the pdf and the deck just as a backup, it's 10 dollars more, but it's a long term investment. 

The book goes into description of the Universe of Chronos, or more appropriately, Multiverse. Each game of Chronos is related by one thing: Aether. Aether is an energy source from outside Space/Time that allows for marvelous advances to occur. How it manifests depends on the world it's in, as is the way it's harvested. The general concept shows that Aether appears at some point in history, and from there time splits off into an alternate realm. So this is how Steampunk Mages may come about, how Devils can roam about in the 1950's and fight for the souls of boring squares and how the Fae can make it's deals. All of these worlds exist both separately and yet connected by the Aether. This allows for a potential overarching story, both by whatever game runner wishes to take it on and by Eschaton themselves. It gives me an idea for a story/character concept I'd love to attempt one day (guys, if you're listening...)

The other two chapters focus on more practical matters. One talks about running a Chronos game, but some sections talks about logistical concerns that any gamerunner should consider. Most fascinating though is the discussion defining what, as far as the Chronos system is concerned, is the intent of play for these games. They speak of safety, consent, and an understanding that these products that they are making and running are a form of play and play should be paramount. The goal, they say, is to make an immersive world that goes beyond rules and costumes and for the time being feels real.

In the brief time I got to hold a set of Chronos cards for Rise of Tiburon, I never once felt the need to use them. They told me of what I could do, at what at the core of my character I was. My character had a childlike glee for building fighting machines. When we were handed out our decks, I was expecting a core card that described to me something along the lines of the Innocent, with a lot of Acumen and Resolve but low on Dexterity and Brawn. I had found he was a Trickster, prone to obfuscating and keeping things secret. His cards also had a hardy bit of Brawn to them. That informed me a lot of my character and his play. I never had to use them, but they told me what he could do.

And that's the least, and in some ways the most this system can do. The Chronos system is an ambitious effort, both mechanically and as a business venture. I think the overarching universe of Chronos is something that can lead to a lot of variations, homebrewed games, and interesting crossovers that would make for fun encounters. I'm personally interested in Ex Arcana, which shouldn't be a surprise considering my love of all things Mage. It will be interesting to see where the Chronos Universe goes, both through Eschaton and the gaming community.

Later

C

If you like this blog, and wish to make a donation, consider supporting me on my Patreon Account. It allows me to continue doing games and conventions and you'll get special prizes. You'll never be charged for reading, but any support is appreciated. Thanks

What Changed But the Name

So as some of you will be noticing, we're no longer running under the banner of "Confessions of a Wrathful Larper". There are reasons behind that, the first is simple: I'm not that Wrathful. Ranty, sure. Pedantic, oh yeah. But I'm not Wrathful. I'm not going on this site and going "Yeah? That guy? Eff that guy!"

Unless they're powergaming douchenozzles who think that LARPs and Role Play are all about proving how much of a numbers crunching badass you are. Congrats! You passed Algebra. You're the guy! NOW GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME TO MY MAKE BELIEVE.

As I was saying, I'm also changing it because I'm also aware of the fact that people are reading this (which is actually kinda terrifying) and that they too have some opinion about the profession, or moreso are making their lives around the profession (which is also just as terrifying). I'm now looking for support for my larp addiction through Patreon. In short, I'm trying to be professional in my presentation.

Alright, fine. Professional-ish...

And in the end "Confessions of a Wrathful Blogger" while snarky and sounds like the title of a book that would one day be turned into a movie starring Jay Burchel (my god...that could work...), it also doesn't draw the right kind of attention.

Some of you may be asking me why I chose the new title "Other Worlds Than These". I chose it because it's a Stephen King reference. In The Gunslinger Jake Chambers, reality hopping surrogate son of perennial badass Roland Deschain, says this at a pivotal point of the book. 'Go Then, for there are other worlds than these" and that line changes the rules quite a lot shortly thereafter. I also chose it because this is really what we're discussing in this blog, the exploration of different worlds, different mindsets, different ways of performing and creating those worlds. Even in regards to larp community itself, which is sometimes a world in and of itself, separate but linked to the real world.

So, nothing's changed. I'm still me, the site is the same, but hopefully this is a nice step forward towards improving the site and getting my voice out there.

Later,

C

PS: Also, this came in the mail today

Babies First Dice!