I’m Worried About D&D 5e – 18 Months Before it Ever Comes Out

D&D, Pen and Paper Gaming | Posted by Felonius April 19th, 2012

As a hobby gamer, I spend quite a big of time over at Enworld.org. And the last 2-3 weeks in the D&D 5e forums, the majority of topics being discussed–hit points, Vancian casting, ability scores, multiclassing–are actually centered around one common theme:

How much can D&D 5e stray from “being D&D” before it becomes “not D&D”?

And if Enworld’s forums forums are any indication, to a lot of people being “not D&D” is a bigger sin than being a mediocre RPG.

And if you ask me, that’s possibly the worst position to take.

In my mind, it’s possible that one of D&D’s biggest strengths–its long-standing traditions–may now be just as much, if not more of a hindrance to the ongoing success of the game.

Here’s the thing: there’s a huge difference between saying, “How can we make the best RPG possible?” versus “How can we make the best version of the D&D RPG possible?”

Look, I get it, D&D is D&D because it has a certain . . . flavor. Sensibilities. Common tropes. Take those away and it’s just not quite “D&D” anymore.

But I’ve got to be honest–so far 5e doesn’t feel all that inspiring to me. And I think it’s because the designers are “stuck,” as it were, trying to make the best version of D&D that they can–rather than simply being able to make the best RPG possible.

D&D 5e is potentially the most popular RPG system in the world’s “last hurrah”–and if it’s going to go out, I want it to go out with a bang. I want real innovation. I just spent the last couple of days checking out FantasyCraft. And while the overall rules feel intensely heavy, I LOVE the fact that no assumption has been left unturned. There’s ZERO adherence to the credo, “Well, it’s always been this way, we can’t change it.”

The thing that worries me most about D&D 5e from what we’ve seen so far, the designers seem to be risk-adverse. That it’s more important for recognizable “D&D-isms” to be present and accounted for than for the rules to be shaped by innovative thinking.

It’s clear that they were trying to push the envelope in 4e; it just didn’t work out the way they wanted. But FantasyCraft has been clear proof to me that there’s still massive amounts of room to innovate the D&D “core.”

I’m becoming increasingly worried that truly innovative, improved game rules and ideas are getting tossed out simply because they don’t meet the audience’s view of “what D&D should be”–or more appropriately, what the designers perceive their audience’s view of “what D&D should be.”

Frankly, Wizards of the Coast, give me the best possible RPG you can make. If it happens to look and feel closer to some other game than the “historic” versions of D&D, I’m okay with that. If it looks and feels like a new game entirely, I think I’m okay with that too. If it manages to feel very much like D&D editions of yore, all the better.

But the way to “win” the battle going forward is to have the best product on the market, that appeals to the broadest range of people. 4e has already proven that the D&D brand name has cachet. Many people will buy your products just because of the logo printed on the cover, even if the game itself is different.

This being the case, make the best RPG possible. Frankly, you’re the only RPG company in the world with the history, tradition, and corporate backing to truly move the needle forward in RPG game design. Indie games and self-publishing are neat–but the industry moves with you.

Give us something that we, the fans, want to pick up and proudly march with ourselves. Something we can point to as being a high achievement in game design, regardless of whether it “feels like D&D.”

Don’t shove us along with some half-baked cocktail of rules that’s more the product of pandering than innovative thinking.

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This One Time, at the Dragon’s Keep . . .

D&D, Pathfinder, Pen and Paper Gaming | Posted by Felonius March 1st, 2012

The other night after work, I walked into one of the two FLGSes just to look around for a bit, maybe pick up a mini or two, and generally just enjoy browsing through RPG product.

While I'm standing there, I notice a young guy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, standing next to the next rack to my left, looking over the D&D books.

"Cool!" I thought. "Maybe a new player added to the ranks!"

However, to my dismay, a couple minutes later, the following exchange took place.

One of the employees wanders over with some stock to put back on a neighboring shelf. Doesn't talk to either one of us, just going about his business.

While the employee's doing this, the kid leans over and asks him, "Hey, do you guys play D&D here?"

Looking slightly nonplussed, the employee replies semi-tersely, "Yes, we have D&D encounters night here on Wednesdays." No follow-up to the question, no discussion on how to get in on it, no discussion of his interest in RPGs generally . . . nothing.

Seeking more information, kid follows up, "Is that something I can play with and bring in a custom class I designed?"

Again, instead of sounding interested, and maybe even discussing what the class is, and following up, employee says, "No, you can't bring in outside classes because it's officially sanctioned play."

Kid lowers his eyes and nods, a little bit of the wind taken out of his sails. Seeing the kid's reaction, the employee adds lamely, "If you want to know more you can come up to the register and I'll give you some information."

Kids just nods, says "Thanks," and goes back to his browsing.

By this time I am cringing inside at how poorly this kid has been treated by the employee, so I sidle over and ask him. "So, cool, saw you looking at the D&D stuff."

"Yeah, a friend of mine just got me into the old Baldur's Gate RPGs lately. Those were awesome games."

Having played both Baldur's Gate I and II extensively, I smile enthusiastically. "They were awesome. 'Minsc and Boo stand ready!' Have you played any of the actual D&D tabletop RPG?"

"Well, a buddy of mine had some old books of his brothers that we looked at, but I had the most interest for it. I thought it would be cool to learn more about it, maybe even try it out."

"It's an awesome hobby. If you loved the Baldur's Gate games, the actual RPG is twice as fun as that."

"Yeah?" he smiles. "I definitely gotta check this out more."

At this point, though, I have a choice to make, namely–do I gently mention the Pathfinder stuff two shelves over (which the game shop has TONS of, including most of the adventure paths)? Do I mention that it's probably more like Baldur's Gate than the 4e stuff he's looking at? Or just let it go?
Ultimately, I tried to take a balanced, "middle of the road" approach, though I'm sure my biases got in the way a bit. "Just to let you know, if you're used to the Baldur's Gate-style of rules, that the current Dungeons and Dragons game is quite a bit different. It's got a lot of the same basic features, like armor class and hit points and spells, but the core of the game works somewhat  differently."

I then go on to describe the basic semantics of the powers-based approach, ultimately concluding, "It's still going to be a fantasy adventure game, but it's not necessarily going to feel the same as the rules behind Baldur's Gate."

I then point to the broad selection of Pathfinder material and casually mention, "There's quite a few players out there that feel that this game, called Pathfinder, actually follows along with the more traditional style of games, like Baldur's Gate."

I then explain just a bit about the OGL, and how Paizo used it to create the baseline core for Pathfinder. I then point out the Pathfinder Beginner's Box and say, "If you want to try it out, this is an AWESOME way to do it. Thirty-five bucks gets you a ton of stuff to use to get started, and is built to help you and your friends get started right off the bat. Again, I'm not saying which one's right for you either way, I'm just bringing it up, that Pathfinder might 'feel' more right to you than the current version of D&D. But both are pretty popular and widely supported."

So maybe I pointed him in the wrong direction, maybe some 4th edition fans might feel I gave 4e short shrift, but I did try to make it more about fitting his play style–though colored by my own bias, of course.

Anyway, I concluded by saying, "Whatever you choose, try it out. It's one of the most fun things you can do with your friends," and left him to his browsing.
 

Looking back, he seemed like someone DESPERATELY looking for a support group to help him enjoy his new-found hobby, and I felt powerless to help him. And with the way the idiot from the FLGS had just treated him, it didn't seem right to tell him, "Yeah, just ignore that moron, check out the game nights!"

I do regret in retrospect not at least getting his name and email address. But I'm not even playing in a D&D group; a friend is GMing a GURPS game for the foreseeable future (6+ months). Besides, our society's different now than it was 20 years ago. Would his parents freak out if their son was exchanging emails with some random dude he met at a game store, to talk about a fantasy game that they have zero conception of? He just seemed like a good kid, and I wanted to help him get going on the right foot, but didn't exactly know how.

In any case, the entire experience illuminated a number of things for me personally:

  1. It's HARD to come into this hobby cold turkey. Without someone providing guidance, how would a new player even know where to start? And Pathfinder is even worse in this regard. Sure, it says "Core Rulebook" on the side, but if you have no history with the RPG hobby other than Baldur's Gate, Pathfinder is meaningless.
  2. Even if the FLGS employee had been friendly, I don't think I would have recommended trying in-store play. To somebody just starting off, it's such a danger of totally turning them off if they get with a crappy GM or group.
  3. WE CANNOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE D&D BRAND. The only reason that kid was standing there is because he knew the D&D logo from a decade-old computer game.
  4. Even though I greatly dislike 4e, as a result of #3, D&D 5 needs to be a massive success. If D&D 5 isn't a grand-slam product for WotC, it's going to be bad for the hobby in the short term.
  5. The "Edition" schism is BAD, BAD, BAD for the hobby. Good for us as players, who want to play in our preferred style. But bad for the hobby. In retrospect, I should have probably simply pointed him to the 4e PHB and said, "Start here. You've taken your first step into a larger world."
  6. Combining #1 and #6, there needs to be an obvious starting point for the hobby. Say what you will about the rules, but the '83 Mentzer Red Box made the game seem fun, and even cool, for an adventure-loving adolescent.
  7. I now wish, in all seriousness, that the D&D brand would pass into different hands. Hasbro simply doesn't seem to get how to treat D&D like a beloved piece of life and culture for its fans, and not like a bottom-line profit enterprise.

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Gamism, “The Forge,” and the Elephant in the Room

Pen and Paper Gaming | Posted by Felonius February 10th, 2012

If you hang out on RPG message boards long enough, you’ll eventually hear the name of Ron Edwards brought up, and his now-largely-defunct Web site, The Forge.

Any time I try and have discussions looking at RPG mechanics, RPGs as a genre, etc., inevitably a response will refer to Edwards’ work–particularly his “magnum opus” Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist, or GNS theory.

So having heard so much about it from various sources, I finally decided a month ago to venture over to the site and see what all the fuss was about.

Ultimately, my first impressions of the site were generally positive, though a lot of people have complained about the pretentiousness of Ron Edwards’ writing in the past, and rightfully so. His style is a veritable jargon-fest, filled with definitions and “re-definitions” galore, most of them used only in the context of his writing.

In any case, however, I found, interestingly enough, that I actually agreed with most of his explication of Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist theory, and the theory’s general taxonomy. I enjoy exploring basic human motivation (one of the reasons I’ve always loved RPGs to begin with), and GNS theory is nothing if not a short-hand for looking at how RPG group dynamics develop.

If you want the full breakdown of how it all works, go over to The Forge and explore it yourself, but in a very, very (very) small nutshell this is the theory:

Games, and the people who play them, typically engage in, or perceive the enjoyment they derive from RPGs, as arising from one of three basic psychologies: Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism.

Gamism is a straightforward, tactical rules-based approach of overcoming challenges–”There’s three orcs over there, how do I use my fighter’s combination of stats, weapons, terrain, and skills to defeat them?”

Narrativism is about “story,” but not in the “sequential series of events” sort of way; it’s more about exploration of human psychology and morality set against the backdrop of a given situation. Vampire: the Masquerade sets up this paradigm in so many ways: “How would it feel to be a morally conflicted vampire, forced to kill / harm humans to remain alive? How would one psychologically deal with that?”

Simulationism is also about “story,” also not in the “sequential series of events” sort of way either. This perspective seeks to explore “how things are / would be” in a given set of circumstances, and watching the consequences of actions play out “as if they were real.” Narrativism seeks to set up moral dilemmas as the functional basis of RPG play, whereas Simulationism is okay with moral dilemmas arising, as long as they arise from a real, “grounded” space in the game. Simulationism is about fidelity to the world, and the ways in which the players explore the functional underpinnings of the imagined game world.

Obviously this is a microscopic view of what covers no less than 6 essays, most of them 5,000-10,000 words each, but I think this captures the basics.

However, the farther I got going into Ron’s five or six different treatises on GNS, a problem, this little thorn in the back of my mind appeared and didn’t go away. Even after further re-readings it has still stuck with me. To me it’s a huge “elephant in the room” surrounding GNS, and it is this:

Gamism in its purest form, as defined by Ron Edwards, is largely antithetical to the social contract of roleplaying.

To be sure, what I’m not saying is that those who enjoy Gamism are doing anything “wrong.” I personally have a near-infinite appetite for gamism. I LOVE board games, and an evening of hard-core Cities and Knights of Catan, followed up by some Dominion is one of life’s true joys. I love the “Step on Up!” challenge of digging into rules and figuring out how they tick, all to create a strategic advantage, and win the admiration of peers for a game well played.

What I am saying, however, is that RPGs are a vastly inferior source of fulfilling Gamist tendencies compared to numerous other venues, and as such, Gamism should, as it has since RPGs have evolved beyond their war gaming roots, play third-fiddle to Narrativism and Simulationism. Ron Edwards is all for having more “Gamist” RPGs. I happen to think they’re the last place I would want to push Gamism.

In Ron Edwards mind, Gamism is “easy, diverse, and unpretentious.” Yet pure powergaming, and “munchkin-ing” have long been derided in our hobby. So if Gamism isn’t “bad,” why is it so difficult to incorporate into many RPGs, and why do the majority of RPGs implicitly or explicitly push back against Gamist tendencies?

Ron seems to think it’s mostly misguided GMs and game designers trying to “enforce their will”:

“Some groups and game designers treat Gamism’s easy ‘in’ as a necessary evil and to take an appeasement approach. The ‘Id’ can be controlled, they say, as long as the Superego (the GM) stays firmly in charge and gives it occasional fights and a reward system based on improving effectiveness. This approach may rank among the most-commonly attempted yet least-successful tactic in all of game design. It will never actually work: the Lumpley Principle correctly places the rules and procedures of play at the mercy of the Social Contract, not the other way around. Therefore, even if such a game continues, it has this limping-along, gotta-put-up-with-Bob feel to it.”

But here’s the thing: I don’t think the problem is the groups, the GM, or the rules systems. If Bob is the problem, then Bob is the problem. And the problem is that most Narrativist and Simulationist players rightfully feel that Gamism in RPGs unnecessarily encroaches on territory considered to be fundamental to the genre.

Board games are one type of social experience, and RPGs are another, but to a Gamist, the ultimate purpose of them is the same–to “win” the “game.” A Gamist can have similar senses of satisfaction playing WoW, Risk, Pinochle, or RPGs. Narrativists and Simulationists, however, are pretty much limited to RPGs.

Nobody cares about sharing a “narrative,” or “interacting with the game world” of Risk–but in RPGs, they are fundamental to the entire experience.

If Gamism in RPGs has evolved away from its earliest war gaming roots, it’s because most RPG players have found that Gamism is a poor fit, or more appropriately, a poorer fit for the genre than Narrativism and Simulationism. Why on earth would a Gamist prefer roleplaying games to one of the numerous, vastly superior outlets for their desire–video games, board games, card games, and the like? RPGs are different from other Gamist venues precisely because they’re not wholly Gamist.

So if you’re a pure Gamist, why hang out with all of us “Narrativists” and “Simulationists,” when we’re mostly going to tell you to stop being “Gamist” in the first place? Why not spend your time on something that fills your Gamist desires much more readily and fully than RPGs generally manage? Having said that, I recognize that many of us don’t always get to choose our group’s makeup. And sometimes, we have a friend we just want to be involved in the hobby at all, regardless of motivation.

But if Gamists consistently feel dissatisfied with their RPG experiences, it’s probably because generally speaking, the genre is already making them swim upstream. RPGs are one of the few, singular outlets that Narrativists and Simulationists have, whereas RPGs are just one of dozens, if not hundreds of outlets for Gamists. As a result, Narrativists and Simulationists are rightfully protective of our turf. Our opportunities for exploration are vastly more limited compared to Gamists. We need our RPGs to be Narrativist and Simulationist, in ways that Gamists don’t need their RPGs to be “Gamist.” In other words, when it comes to RPGs, it’s the Gamist’s job to adjust their viewpoint to the Narrativists and Simulationists, not the other way around. And frankly, if the Gamists don’t like it, they’re almost assuredly going to go back to something that better “scratches their itch.”

Does this mean that Gamists can’t, or shouldn’t be accommodated at all? No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never primarily be the “G.” After having read Edwards’ GNS theory, I am even more convinced that while it doesn’t need to be wholly ignored, Gamism is and should be subservient to Narrativism and Simulationism in RPG design and play.

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Follow-up to Dissociative Mechanics

Random / Uncategorized | Posted by Felonius July 14th, 2011

Someone at EnWorldlinked to this thread on the Wizards of the Coast message boards as some sort of proof that dissociative mechanics aren’t actually dissociative, and really aren’t a big deal even if they are.

All I can say is, if that’s the type of reasoning and “logic” that defined the creation of D&D 4e, it’s no wonder that most of the people I respect and game with rejected its tenets outright.

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In Defense of the Theory of Dissociative Mechanics

D&D, Pathfinder, Pen and Paper Gaming | Posted by Felonius July 9th, 2011

Anyone who enjoys the process of analyzing RPG mechanics should familiarize themselves with the Alexandrian’s treatise on dissociated mechanics.

The theory posits that any rules mechanic is “dissociated” when the character inside the game world–NOT the player rolling the dice and eating Doritos, but the avatar acting within the game construct–has no reasonable explanation for the in-game results of a particular rule mechanic.

He gives several examples in the essay, so I don’t want to repeat them here, but his presentation of the premise is fairly ironclad–if you create a rule and the characters have no reasonable explanation for how and why it “works” inside the game world, the mechanic is dissociated.

(What isn’t as ironclad is the effects of dissociated mechanics and whether or not it produces the type of gameplay players enjoy. Let me repeat–what I’m saying is that the theory itself is solid; opinions on the actual effects of dissociated mechanics vary wildly. It’s entirely possible for players to ignore the effects of dissociated mechanics and still have a great time playing a game that uses them. And it’s entirely possible that some players either don’t mind them at all, or actually prefer them over other styles.)

I bring this up because I’ve heard comments from people in a number of RPG-related message boards that Justin Alexander’s essay was little more than a pot shot at 4e.

Let’s be clear–Justin Alexander is pretty up front with his opinion that 4e is his least favorite iteration of D&D. But that alone doesn’t mean the theory itself is incorrect, or that 4e doesn’t make liberal use of dissociated mechanics, as Alexander defines them.

The reason I bring this up, however, isn’t to elevate The Alexandrian or excoriate 4e. The real point is that I think the theory of dissociated mechanics is important, because it makes apparent the difference between an RPG, and other kinds of games, which is at its core a sense of simulation.

We’ve all heard certain factions of RPG players claiming that RPGs either can’t, or shouldn’t try to “simulate reality,” or that somehow “simulationism” has no place in a world of elves, dwarves, and Boots of Mighty Poopsmithing +7.

But here’s the thing–if you take away the “R” and the “P” from “RPG,” all you have left is a game, an arbitrary system of rules that control a limited set of outcomes. The second you attach “RP” to an existing “G,” you are naturally, inherently, and necessarily attaching some form of simulationism to the game.

The reason roleplaying works at all is that it’s founded in a simulation of human interactivity. When playing an RPG, we inherently accept that the characters in the game world have the ability to make choices, and the choices those characters make will be based on how they–through the function of the RPG rules being interpreted by the player–are able to react to the world around them.

You can have a crazy, off-the-wall, messed up world with flying purple dinosaurs, talking screwdrivers, and three-foot-tall shoeless people with hairy feet, but the point of the “RP” in an “RPG” is to simulate how a person/alien/elf/orc/sentient object of nebulous proportions interacts with that world, and to explore the consequences of doing so. If a game doesn’t include that element, it’s not really a roleplaying game, but a game of some other kind.

The Alexandrian’s point is that dissociated mechanics can, when used in specific ways, inherently destroy that sense of interactive simulation. Even if your world DOES have flying purple dinosaurs and talking screwdrivers, it’s still possible to create rules mechanics that dissociate from that reality.

If the rules force exigencies upon the characters and game world that have no connection to the world itself, but are arbitrarily imposed “because the rules say so,” you’re breaking the simulation of character interactivity. The character–again, via the rules being interpreted by the player–can no longer successfully say, “I see and perceive that consequence X will necessarily follow choice Y.”

The Theory of Dissociated Mechanics is important for RPGs because it proves that it’s never a question of whether an RPG is a “simulation” or not. It’s a question of what the simulation is modeling, and how accurately or inaccurately the rules portray that model.

As a consequence, complaining that a game is too “simulationist” or too “gamist” is a bit of a misnomer. What people are really saying is either, “I don’t like the simulation model you’ve presented for the game world,” “I don’t think the rules model your simulation all that well,” or both.

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A Response to UTOPIA

Marketing and Business | Posted by Felonius May 2nd, 2011

So, if you didn't know, I recently applied for a job at UTOPIA as a marketing director.

And I didn't get the job.

No big deal, really; I wasn't expecting to necessarily, and I probably didn't have as much experience as they were looking for.

However, I did make it through an initial phone interview, and a personal interview with Mr. Todd Marriott, UTOPIA's Executive Director.

If you can call it an interview.

Normally, if you apply for a job and they don't think you meet the qualifications, they either:

  1. Don't bother calling you back, or
  2. Interview you, but politely explain that they don't think you meet the qualifications.

Todd Marriott, the Executive Director at UTOPIA, on the other hand, for some reason felt it necessary to insult, belittle, and generally question my intellect and competence.

Why?

I can't really say.

Look, I’m no Einstein—but I’m a college graduate, I’m finishing a Master’s thesis, and I work for a fast-moving technology company as marketer and technical writer. I may not have been as qualified for the position as they might have liked, but I certainly had the capacity to do the job.

But I've never had an interview experience like that before, ever. For the life of me I can’t figure out if they didn’t think I was qualified, why go through the hassle of dragging me up there for an interview?

It could have been a fast, quick conversation: “Hi, thanks for interviewing, even though we like you, we'd like someone with more experience. Here's how you could increase your chances next time we interview. Thanks!"

But apparently insulting potential employees is the name of the game if you’re UTOPIA. I guess when you’ve wasted over $550 million dollars of Utah taxpayer money over a period of 7 years, insulting job candidates is just all part of the fun.

Well, yesterday I got the email letting me know I "didn't get the job."

Needless to say, I wasn't losing any sleep over it based on the interview, but I was feeling kind of….puckish, I guess, so I wrote this response, and carbon copied Mr. Marriott on the reply: 

James,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

As the customer service manager, I'm sure you appreciate the necessity of treating every customer, lead, and prospect UTOPIA receives with a sense of responsibility, respect, decorum, and generally acting in good faith on their behalf.

Sadly, decorum, good faith, and personal respect were traits I found brutally lacking in your Executive Director, Mr. Todd Marriott.

Indeed, I was asked to provide samples of prior marketing and branding work to Mr. Marriott, and to Mr. Kirt Sudweeks during my interview with them. Ultimately, I declined to do so based on my interactions with Mr. Marriott, deeming that my time, energy, and efforts would be better served doing something else–indeed, practically ANYTHING else. I don't know what gave Mr. Marriott the idea that he had the right to treat me in such a puerile, unprofessional manner, nor do I particularly care at this point, other than to bemoan the fact that a portion of my Orem City taxpayer dollars are paying Mr. Marriott's salary.

The saddest part, however, is that personally I am a believer in the UTOPIA initiative and what it stands for. My graduate research at Utah State led me to an intense study of technology literacy in U.S. students and citizens, and physical access to Internet technologies (something UTOPIA can profoundly offer to Utah citizens) is a vitally necessary component for achieving that aim.

It's a shame that I am now essentially forced to oppose something for which I, in principle, should be a strong proponent, but now cannot support, due to Mr. Marriott's actions.

Obviously this doesn’t reflect on you personally, James, so I apologize if the nature of this response comes across as rhetorically inappropriate. That said, I do have one final piece of advice for you, and any other employees at UTOPIA:

Life's too short to work for assholes.

Have a great day!

Cordially,

-Felonius

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Review of Wise Man’s Fear – The Kingkiller Chronicles Day 2

Literature | Posted by Felonius March 16th, 2011

I published this review initially on Amazon.com. I'm updating it, and adding a few more wrinkles here. 

** May Contain Spoilers ** 

Reviewer's Rating: 2.5 Stars out of 5 

Your enjoyment of Wise Man's Fear will ultimately come down to how you answer this question: When you encounter unrealized potential, are you more apt to enjoy something for what it is, or dwell on what it could have (and should have) been? If you are in the former camp, Wise Man's Fear can be gloriously inventive, and entertaining, and certainly has much to offer. 

However, if like me you find unrealized potential to be frustrating, Wise Man's Fear is ultimately unsatisfying. 

First, let me unequivocally state that I love, love, LOVED Name of the Wind. Name of the Wind is without a doubt the best fantasy novel I've read in the past 15 years (and I've read a substantial amount). 

The personal, gripping, intimate nature of getting inside Kvothe's head was a true joy in Name of the Wind. 

We share Kvothe's triumphs–sometimes over his adversaries, sometimes over the worst parts of his own nature. But we also see him spectacularly fail in other instances, and in spite of his extraordinary talents in magic, learning, and music, Rothfuss maintains a sense of humanity with Kvothe by also making him socially awkward with women. 

He's a genius, but a relate-able genius, because he has flaws. 

Now on to Wise Man's Fear: 

On the whole I enjoyed WMF. The same sense of wonder, the sense of exploration, of mystery that lived in the Name of the Wind pervades Wise Man's Fear. And it cannot be denied that Rothfuss has a great sense of meter and rhythm in the way he conveys the language of his world. 

But–and there's no way to beat around the bush with this–the second half of the book is an outright mess. And more to the point, the fact that it's a mess is all the more disheartening because we know Pat is better than this. 

Wise Man's Fear all too often feels like a famous movie director run amok, indulging in personal whims simply because they know their editor/studio won't get in the way of "creating their true vision" for the story. A little restraint would have gone a long, long way here. 

To be sure, there's more good than bad to be found. I have always related to Kvothe's struggle to earn respect–of his peers, and for himself. The scenes that are most compelling are the ones that relate to that struggle–with Devi, Ambrose, the Maer, and up to a point, with Denna. In these scenes, we come to see ourselves, because Kvothe is coming to see himself. 

But there's not enough of them. 

Many have commented on the second half of the novel as needing more "tightening," and I would agree with that in general. We go lots of places with Kvothe, but never really "Go anywhere with him." 

That alone would be forgivable, except Rothfuss strangely, and heavy-handedly takes from us one of Kvothe's remaining means of being relateable–his awkwardness around women–and to make matters worse, does it through a horribly conceived plot device. 

It would be one thing if the Felurian sub-plot wasn't a horribly contrived Deus Ex Machina (which it is), or if it moved the plot forward and tied up other loose ends (which it doesn't). But Rothfuss, it seems, has an aversion to letting Kvothe remain nuanced. Kvothe the Character increasingly either has to be the "greatest ever," or nothing at all. It wasn't enough for Kvothe to have his first sexual encounter the way most of us do, with some trepidation, wonder, mild embarrassment, invigoration, and sense of the sublime. Oh no, not Kvothe. Kvothe has to have the most mind-blowing sex of all time, with a Faerie Queen, who teaches him all the world's sexual secrets. Because apparently Kvothe just can't be Kvothe otherwise (for as much as I love Name of the Wind, it's sad that I feel this much disdain for this aspect of Wise Man's Fear). 

To add insult to injury, as a plot device, having the protagonist "run off into the Fae realm to discover the undiscoverable" is already a stale, worn-out fantasy trope, but even if it weren't, the scenes' treatment of sexuality is eye-rollingly facile at best, and as others have commented, could be construed as being outright offensive to women at worst. Wise Man's Fear has other flaws, certainly, but the very concept of the Felurian sub-plot was frankly an embarrassment, and those 70+ pages by themselves were enough to drop this from a 4-star to a 3-star review. 

I'm a little more forgiving of the Ademre sub-plot–though it also dragged on far too long, with seemingly little payoff–because at least it arose from the actual in-character development of Kvothe's friendship with Tempi. I realize that the whole "Surviving an encounter with Felurian" is supposed to be part of Kvothe's mystique, but really, couldn't the whole "Kvothe gains some sexual experience" be simply wrapped into the Ademre plot (and since the Cthaeh is just a giant Deus Ex to begin with, it can be thrown in just about anywhere–"Oh, Bast, remember the time we blah blah blah and then met the Cthaeh?")? The sexual content is handled only marginally more maturely with the Ademre, but once again, at least it has some basis in the actual characterizations, whereas the Felurian sub-plot is just … bizarre (and not in a good way). 

It's just such a strange juxtaposition for this book, on the one hand to see such well-crafted, sometimes poignant, often incisive prose mixed with such brutally heavy-handed plot structuring. From the time Kvothe leaves the University, we're barely given any real sense of transition, not just plot-wise, but in the ways the plot actually reflects Kvothe's motivation. In Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe seems to do things because Pat Rothfuss thinks the story requires it–not because Kvothe the Character actually would. 

Strike Felurian from the record, tighten the plot down, and give us more of what we love–watching Kvothe discover himself–and Wise Man's Fear could easily have been a 5-star, bravura outing. Rothfuss's prose, and the overall sense of the world are enough to propel Wise Man's Fear to an above-average read, one many Rothfuss fans will likely enjoy. 

But more than anything else, my thoughts while reading Wise Man's Fear were, "Rothfuss is better than this. He's a better writer than this, right? Surely he sees the holes, how contrived this is. Surely someone TOLD him, right?" 

But clearly, the final product is just how Pat wanted it–and like Baz Luhrmann at his worst, Rothfuss's excesses in Wise Man's Fear more often than not get in the way of the enjoyment, rather than add to it. 

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Roleplaying Going Mainstream – One Gamer’s Fondest Dream

D&D, Gaming, Pen and Paper Gaming | Posted by Felonius December 9th, 2010

Not that any of us are embarrassed by our hobby–well, mostly not embarrassed–but it's my observation that many of us have carried around for years an inferiority complex, largely placed on us by others, that playing RPGs was somehow . . . less valuable, or not socially acceptable compared to, well, nearly any other hobby.

How different would our lives be if we would walk proudly down the street in our "I roll 20s!" t-shirts, talk around the water cooler at work about the damage output per round of a wizard versus a fighter, or banter about which "edition" is best, and that said banter would be as normal and common as that between Packers and Vikings fans, or Yankees/Red Sox?

Now that's not to say that this isn't happening already in some circles–any company that employs large groups of computer programmers is likely to have any or all of the above mixed in to their daily work conversations.

But the truth is, RPGs aren't mainstream. Even if, by a stretch of the term "RPG" you include all 12 million World of Warcraft subscribers in the count, they're not even close to being as publicly visible and accepted as football (in the U.S.), or soccer/"futbol" if you're outside of it.

And if most of us were willing to admit it, deep down I think anyone who has ever thrown polyhedral dice on a table and shouted "Magic Missle!" secretly wishes that pen-and-paper RPGs were  more mainstream, because A. as mentioned, our social status would increase, and B. even if we don't give a flying rats arse about what other people think, if RPGs were more mainstream, we'd have infinitely more opportunities to game, and game with the types of people we enjoy gaming with. 

What's one of the most common complaints of pen-and-paper gaming, since the beginning of time? Bad players and GMs. It's curious, in an entirely-not-positive way, that so many of us are willing to put up with what would be considered moronic, anti-social, rude, condescending, and just generally boorish behavior from other people inside our chosen hobby–simply because if we don't, the alternative is often to simply not play at all.

Yet when exposed to it in a good light, so many people who might not otherwise participate come to enjoy it, and on the whole, it's at least as enjoyable a hobby as collecting stamps, or baseball cards, or playing tetris, or Halo. 

So why hasn't pen-and-paper gaming gained more mainstream traction? Is it because it simply isn't a viable mainstream hobby?

Or is there something that we, as the gaming community, haven't yet discovered, haven't yet pieced together that's preventing it from happening?

I'll admit, I'm tired of feeling "guilt by association" when I see the vast majority of gamers at FLGSes. Just the other night, I wandered in to one in the town adjacent to where I live that I had never been to before, and of course there was a crowd of about 8-10 people playing M:TG. And as I looked over at them, call me snobbish, call me arrogant, but I really didn't have any desire to talk to any of them, and if I had met them on the street, would probably have mumbled a quick "Hello" and kept walking.

I remember ENWorld admin Piratecat once saying that if he couldn't have an interesting, engaging conversation with someone about something OTHER than gaming, he probably wouldn't enjoy gaming with them–and that's how I feel about the vast majority of the FLGS crowd.

So what are we missing? Why does the RPG hobby seem to self-select so many of the socially challenged?

1. I can tell you this: RPGs are never going to go mainstream–truly mainstream–until it becomes socially acceptable to women.

I'm sure they exist, but how many actively played RPG groups were spearheaded, founded, and managed by women? Why aren't their women's RPG clubs? Why are women perfectly willing to get together and talk about whatever novel is being hocked by Oprah this month, but they largely ignore RPGs?

Is it that it's a juvenile hobby, and most women simply don't have the time to waste when they think they have to raise and protect a family?

Does it really take such a unique mindset, or outlook, to enjoy what roleplaying provides as a creative, psychological, and social outlet?

Or is it that the sociality of RPGs as it exists right now simply turns off the vast majority of people, particularly women?

2. Is it the content? Elves and dwarves and magic and orcs and all things fantasy are more mainstream now than EVER before with the advent of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings movies. Yet there's been no real upswing in participation.

3. The rules of the "World's Most Popular Role-playing Game" are largely built on a set of assumptions that are a turn-off to women. "Kill something and take its stuff" is not a particularly compelling social situation for most women–because if it was, the bulk of the RPG gamer population would be women.

If RPGs are going to go mainstream, it's going to be because someone outside "the establishment" creates something that falls outside of what WE think as being an RPG, but it captures the imagination of everyone.

The RPG "Facebook," so to speak. And it will probably be built on a set of rules and assumptions that will bear little resemblance to the tropes of D&D. It will be more social. Conflict resolution will be far less mechanical, or if it is mechanical, it will be a mechanically simple system. It will assume that more than anything that the people playing it are doing it to have fun, and that if someone in the group is killing that fun, that there will be no qualms in kicking them out, because there will be hundreds of other opportunities to enjoy gaming with a group they like.

More than anything, it will be like The Sims, not World of Warcraft.

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“Inception” Thrilling, but Doesn’t Resonate – SPOILERS POSSIBLE, BE ADVISED

Film and Television | Posted by Felonius September 17th, 2010

I realize it's been hailed as the best movie of 2010, if not one of the better movies of the last decade, but having experienced Inception a couple of times now, I simply can't shake the feeling that from a structural / plot  standpoint, the film ultimately fails on a number of levels. 

The A-#1 Problem: For all of the build up and time spent looking at Cobb's deep-rooted struggle to reconcile his feelings about his wife, the eventual payoff for the audience rings hollow.

We spend 1/3 of the entire movie exploring this relationship, examining the psychology of it, and are supposed to believe that her existence in his subconscious presents a real, credible threat to both Cobb individually and the group collectively.

Yet in the end, the problem gets resolved simply by Cobb having the equivalent of an inner therapy session. "Oh, well, guess I'm not as hung up on this as I thought. Thanks for sticking around my subconscious for so long!"

Ultimately the entire relationship is a red herring; it has nothing to do with the real, more interesting conflict between Robert Fischer and his need to reconcile who he is in relation to his father and his legacy. The scene between him and his father at the very end carries far more weight and poignancy than Cobb's dilemma, because we don't really know how he feels about the idea to begin with. It's more interesting because even Fischer doesn't know until that very moment how he feels about his father and himself, and having it revealed to himself, through himself,  is dramatic and startling. Fischer's epiphany shows real change.

Cobb, on the other hand, KNOWS he shouldn't be thinking about his wife the whole time, knows that she isn't real, knows that he can't go back to her. There's no epiphany, it's simply watching someone do what they should have done years ago.

Fischer's dilemma is revealing; Cobb's is slightly pathetic.

But I'd be willing to accept Cobb's wishy-washiness if THE ENTIRE SUB-PLOT HAD ANY BEARING ON WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE REST OF THE STORY. Why is Ariadne constantly threatening to tell the team, but doesn't? The tension of the action would raise considerably if the team members were faced in their own minds with the possibility of Cobb's psyche damaging the plan, but the film doesn't go there, and doesn't let us explore the team's relationship with Cobb. Letting us see how they would deal with it in the real world, how it would change their relationships in the real world, would create a powerful way to shape the meaning of the film.

2. After creating a fairly consistent set of "rules" for entering dream space, and even getting to a second or third dream level (though why does getting into a second or third dream level reqiure the use of "the machine" inside the original dream? YOU'RE ALREADY IN THE SUBCONSCIOUS, CONNECTED to the machine in the real world–why do you have to use a projection of a machine to send a group deeper?).

But the "rules" of how limbo is accessed, and how each of the people is able to move into / out of another subject's "limbo" space is never explained.  How is it that Robert Fischer simply "appears" in Cobb's limbo space? How does Cobb get into Saito's limbo space to pull him out at the end? Is limbo space just supposed to make us think that we've abandoned all rules, and it just "works the way it works?"

3. Some of the key tropes of the film–the "tokens," Ariadne's "architecture" talents, Cobb's supposed "extraction" ability . . . . these are all shown in promotional material as being key elements of the characters, yet after the first 30 minutes, we never see them again.

4. The symbolism of Cobb not being able to see his kids faces seems anti-climactic. You've got a suppressed, deep psychological wound embodied by your wife running around your subconscious…but you can't even bring yourself to mentally see your kids' faces? How does this make sense? You spent 3 entire generations of time inside your own "limbo" creating a world out of nothing with your wife, and you can't bring yourself to "think" of your kids faces?

5. The other characters are given far too little screen time, and we're given far too little opportunity to listen, hear, evaluate, and see WHAT THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES THINK OF WHAT THEY'RE DOING. What are the broader moral implications for this? What's the broader implications for a society where subconscious thought can be manipulated? The use of this "technology" to do nothing but "extract information" is an incredibly narrow view of the ways most people would want to use that technology. The scene where we see all of the people lying on cots, wishing to remain in the dream could be one of the most powerful, meaningful elements of the entire film, but it's completely glossed over. Other than the complete lack of connection to Cobb's dilemma, this is the film's biggest problem–it never explores with the audience what the larger ramifications of exploring the subconsious means for society and the human race. There's no larger "So What?" to all of the action-packed proceedings.

The bottom line is that though the concept is admittedly heady, and much of the execution is well done, there's a lot that simply doesn't connect, is inconsistent, or really add to the story.

Some have commented that you could even take Cobb's entire plot out of the movie, and simply let the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character stand in, and the movie doesn't really suffer for it—and I agree.

This is not to say that the film wasn't enjoyable, nor that the production values and acting performances weren't stellar, it simply means that at risk of sounding cliche, the film isn't as clever as it thinks it is, and that the Cobb sub-plot isn't really addressing the human condition in a way that can resonate with audiences.

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Realism vs. Believability in Fiction and Fantasy

D&D, Film and Television, Gaming, Literature, Pathfinder, Pen and Paper Gaming | Posted by Felonius July 28th, 2010

I've been ruminating for some time now on what I see as being a common misconception about FRPGs.

I've heard it said many times, "Talking about 'realism' in a game where there's elves and dwarves and gnomes and magic is stupid, because it's inherently unrealistic."

I disagree with this statement, and here's why:

In any fictional construct–film, novel, play, shared roleplaying experience–there is "realism," and then there's something else called "suspension of disbelief," "suspendable disbelief," "verisimilitude," or "believability."

"Realism," as I'm going to define it for the purposes of this argument, is an approximation, or sliding scale, of how closely the fictional world models the "real world."

In a work of fiction trying for absolute "realism," then every minute detail about what happens in that work of fiction must be constrained by what is solely possible within our own real, lived experience. An absolute "realist" piece of fiction will not even admit the possibility of fantasy/sci-fi/pulp action tropes, because they don't exist in our world.

On the other hand, "suspension of disbelief," "verisimilitude," or "believability," are NOT an approximation of "realism" (meaning it's not about modeling the real world), it's about internal consistency within the fictional construct's own set of constraints.

(For ease of use, I'm going to refer to this idea as "believability," but you can use "verisimilitude" or one of the others at your discretion.

Every fictional world creates a set of rules on which the actions within it are either possible or impossible based on its own set of internal mechanisms. These "rules," or "creative mechanisms," are wholly independent of realism. They can approximate realism, they can completely differ from realism, but they themselves are NOT the same thing as "realism."

Something can be utterly and totally "unrealistic," yet still be "believable," because all of the actions taken within the fictional world hold true to its own internal set of mechanisms. We accept fictional worlds with elves, dwarves, and gnomes, and magic because within the constraints of the fictional world, those things are that world's "realism."

So when someone starts talking about "realism" in an RPG, I think it's very important to ask them, "Are you talking about 'realism' as it relates to the 'real world,' or are you talking about 'realism' as it relates to the construct of the game world?" because these two concepts are completely different.

If the fictional world has chosen to model, or not model some of its own internal constructs after the "real world," the question isn't how "real" it is, but how consistent it is. If the fictional construct deviates from "the real world," there typically needs to be a reason/explanation for the deviation, and it usually needs to be applied consistently. If you want to say that elves are seven-foot, 300 pound giants in your world, that's fine, as long as there's a reason, and as long as it's consistent.

A great example of this being done poorly is Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III. One of the reasons they suck so bad (besides the horrific dialogue and acting) isn't because they lack "realism," it's because they lack believability. The actions, behaviors, motivations, and consequences of the actions of the heroes/protagonists aren't even consistent within their own constructed environment, let alone our "real world."

What I'm saying is that like good fiction novels, films, and plays, RPGs don't need to be realistic, but need to have a level of believability to the way their mechanics interact within the chosen fictional construct.

Having elves and dwarves is inherently "unrealistic"–but it doesn't mean it's not "believable" within a game world like Forgotten Realms or Golarion.

Saying, "Well, in my world all humans have magical abilities that makes it so when they throw a sword, it automatically comes back to them" isn't "realistic" OR "believable" in the Forgotten Realms, because it goes against the Realms' own internal constructions.

Why do comic book heroes often have backstories? Why do we need to see Peter Parker get bit by that spider in the movie? It's not because it's "realistic," but because it makes what Spider-Man is later capable of "believable."

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