The measure of a man

The running joke is that the internet is all porn and cat pictures and it's true that fake breasts and cute felines with a craving for cheezburgers certainly consume a disproportionate amount of the world's bandwidth. However, I think there is a third pillar of the internet that is growing in strength everyday, that is, manliness. Massive bacon consumption, a killer porn 'stache and hero-worship of Ron Swanson are apparently the true measures of a man these days. Well balderdash, I say! (Crap, my monocle fell out...hold on). Let me tell you young whippersnappers what you require in order to be a man. Oh, and by the way, these guidelines are not limited to men, they will serve women well too.

1. Have a working knowledge of history: Now put down that smartphone and don't even think of consulting Wikipedia. No one says you need to know what year the Second Punic War started, but understanding many of the problems we face today requires knowing the history of those problems. How can you understand the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians if you've never heard of the Balfour Declaration? As George Santayana, a famous Spanish-American philosopher said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

2. Have a working knowledge of politics: Every adult should know the orientations of major political parties in his or her country. You should know what socialism and capitalism actually are, beyond the slogans you see on bumper stickers and T-shirts. If a politician is described as progressive or conservative, liberal or centrist, you should be able to guess what said politician's opinion will be on most major issues of the day. You should have opinions of your own and you should be able to defend them. You should vote. It matters.

3. Know how to do things: Change a tire or a light fixture, make your own beer or grow your own tomatoes, go hunting or fishing, own some tools and know how to use them. Be as self-sufficient as you can be, you never know when it may save your life.

4. Fulfil your obligations: Everyone has obligations, to your society, to your employer and most importantly, to your loved ones. Be the man everyone needs you to be. Get your lazy butt out of bed and do what needs doing. Be engaged. There are probably people who depend on you. There are certainly people who care about you. Put down the game controller and go help your wife with the housework or your kid with her homework. Invite your parents over and cook them a meal. Go shovel the driveway for your elderly neighbour. Pay your debts.

5. Be respectful: A real man does not insult or belittle others. He doesn't misuse other people's property or use threats of violence (but see below). When a woman says no, a real man accepts it. Oh, and if you disrespect my daughters I will crush you like a bug!

-Rognar-

Think positive

As my family can attest, I am not exactly the life of the party a lot of the time. Being something of an introvert with, as Melville would describe it, a bit of "damp, drizzly November in my soul", I tend to steer clear of internet negativity whenever I can. There's enough ugliness in the real world, without having to crawl around in the fetid swamp of trolling and nerd rage that occupies so much of the internet. Longtime readers might notice, for example, that I never give anything a bad review, be it a book, game or movie. That's not because I like everything I see, it's just because if I don't like something, I don't bother to write about it. I don't feel as though I have anything to say. I used to have a political blog which I eventually purged from the internet because I was finding it so hard to find anything positive to say. Politicians, even ones I admire or agree with on many issues, always seem to find a way to disappoint me. Being a father, I want to be optimistic about the future. I want to believe things will be better (or at least just as good) for my kids as they were for me. I've talked about this a bit in my "bright future" blog posts. Happily, I'm not alone in my desire to see more optimism and positivity in the world of geekdom. Two personal initiatives in particular have come to my attention from prominent members of sci-fi/fantasy/gamer community, Sarah Hoyt's "human wave" movement and Monte Cook's "A+ campaign". I'd also give honourable mention to Wheaton's law, but I prefer not to scold (an assertion my kids might contest). I'm not really going anywhere with this other than to bring attention to these laudable efforts from two talented writers. Now I just have to find the time to read Darkship Renegades.

Oh, and Numenera looks awesome.

-Rognar-

More on gun control

The rhetoric on both sides of the gun control issue in the US is, not surprisingly, heating up to a pitch I do not recall seeing in recent memory. I don't think even the Columbine shooting generated this kind of momentum. Where it will ultimately lead is still an open question, of course. With shots like this coming from guns rights advocates, however, it looks like the pro-gun forces might just prevail.

To quote:

The position of pro-Second Amendment Americans is that gun ownership is part of the fundamental human right to self-defense, explicitly stated in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers due to an overarching political philosophy regarding the balance of power between the individual and the state.

The position of the anti-gun activists in the Obama administration is “guns are icky.”

The media consider them the intellectuals in this debate.

Ouch!

Some of the gun control proposals I have heard are quite extreme, not only exceeding the regulations of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban which expired in 2004, but even going beyond the legal restrictions in Canada and some other western countries. Admittedly, the most extreme proposals are being made by some liberal state senators in blue states and aren't likely to gain much traction at the federal level, but they do gain media attention far in excess of what is warranted. Inevitably this filters down to the voting public as something seriously being considered and there is a run on sales of AR-15s. Such is the perversity of this debate.

Now, personally, I tend to lean toward the gun rights side, but I'm not convinced by some of the arguments of the pro-gun lobby. The framers of the US Constitution may indeed have envisioned the right to bear arms as a necessary counterweight to power of the state, but the simple fact is, that balance does not exist anymore regardless of the Second Amendment. Semi-automatic rifles are highly-effective at slaughtering civilians and even give local police forces trouble, but against armoured fighting vehicles and Predator drones, they are useless. If the US government wishes to oppress its people and the US military is on side with that, civilian small arms are not going to make much of a difference.

-Rognar-

Gun control in Canada

Sadly, we are once again confronted with the horror of a school shooting. This one is particularly painful for me as I have two small children, one of whom is the age of those slaughtered in Connecticut. Inevitably, talk of gun control in America begins anew. I know the issue is different in the US than most other countries because gun rights are constitutionally-protected. Here in Canada and in most other western countries, gun control is a political issue. Governments establish gun laws according to the whims of the electorate with little concern for possible legal challenges. For this reason, it is difficult for Americans to draw much insight from the gun control laws in other countries. Still, for what it's worth, I offer my thoughts as someone who has recently begun the process of exercising my legal gun ownership priviledges in Canada.

Americans would probably find some things about Canada's gun control laws surprising. Gun rights advocates in the US often exaggerate the severity of Canada's gun laws. We have three categories of firearms, non-restricted, restricted and prohibited. Non-restricted firearms include most rifles and shotguns, including semi-automatic rifles. To own a non-restricted firearm, you must get a non-restricted Possession and Acquisition License (PAL). To do this, you must be 18 years of age or older, take a certified firearm safety course and pass both a written and practical exam, provide two references as well as your spouse or conjugal partner, provide contact information for any previous conjugal partners within the last two years and reveal any criminal offences or diagnoses of mental illnesses. You then submit this information to the RCMP so that background checks may be performed. If you pass the background checks, then and only then may you purchase your firearm or ammunition. Restricted firearms include most handguns as well as certain short-barrelled long guns and any rifles with telescoping or folding stocks like the AR-15 used in the recent school shooting. The process for getting a restricted PAL is similar although an additional exam is required. The major difference is that every restricted firearm must be registered. Some of you Americans may, at this point, notice that despite what you may have heard, handguns are not illegal in Canada. I must confess, even I was a bit surprised by how easy it is to legally acquire a handgun in Canada and I live here. Still, most Canadians don't own handguns. It is, I think, a bit of a cultural thing. Handguns are associated with police or criminals. So, if you're not a cop, Canadians tend to wonder why you would want a handgun. The third category is prohibited and it includes all firearms not covered in the previous categories. This includes certain types of small, concealable handguns, "sawed-off" shotguns and rifles and, of course, automatic weapons. Despite the terminology, it is possible to own some of these weapons, although the criteria for qualification is so extreme, it is virtually impossible for private citizens to own such guns, unless you own a firing range. One important caveat should be noted at this time. As I mentioned, military-style, semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are legal in Canada, but the large-capacity magazines like those used in the Connecticut school shooting are not. Semi-autos in Canada are limited to 5-rd. magazines regardless of the type of magazine they employ. If a particular rifle doesn't have the option of a 5-rd. magazine, a larger capacity mag may be modified by a gunsmith to limit it to five rounds. This regulation will not, of course, stop a mass shooting, but it can reduce the death toll.

In researching for my gun license application, I was surprised to notice how rates of firearm ownership vary from country to country. The US is, of course, far ahead of the rest of the developed world with around 90 firearms for every 100 citizens. After that, the frequently-cited Switzerland and Finland come in at around 45 guns per 100 citizens. Canada, along with France, Germany, Austria and most of the Nordic countries have around 30 guns per 100 citizens and the UK, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the free world, has around six guns per 100 citizens. Given its draconian gun control laws and stifling level of domestic surveillance, I fear the UK is, for all intents and purposes, a benign police state.

I don't really know how Americans will square the circle on gun control. Any measures, even if broadly-supported by the electorate, will be subject to legal challenge on constitutional grounds. Throw states rights and partisan gridlock into the equation and you have a real mountain to climb. I'm not at all confident President Obama is the man to climb it. It may be that only a Republican president could manage it, like only Nixon could go to China. Still, I hope for the best. Atrocities like those we witnessed this past week in Connecticut erode the soul of a nation. They make us fearful and paranoid. They chip away at the foundations of civilization. They must be stopped.

-Rognar-

What do I want from D&D 5?

The short answer is nothing. Now that's not to say I wouldn't play it under any circumstances. I can certainly conceive of the possibility of D&D 5e being a more enjoyable gaming experience than Pathfinder and, if that were the case, I might be inclined to switch. However, I know what the parameters are for the redesign of D&D and they don't excite me. WotC has tried to slaughter a few sacred cows since taking over TSR, but despite the protests of the more vocal critics to the contrary, in my opinion, they've mostly been cosmetic changes. Feats and skills add some complexity, but the fundamentals are intact, hit points, armour class, class-and-level character design and advancement. It's all still there, it's all uniquely D&D and it's all untouchable. Whether the next iteration of D&D looks more like BECMI or D&D 3.x or AD&D is largely irrelevent to me because all those versions of the same game still exist and they all share the same flaws in my mind. Here's the thing though. I don't think D&D 5e should change a thing. Ok, they should change a few things, but they are mostly superficial. D&D is what it is, warts and all, and if they can "Unite the Clans", that's great. But with what I consider to be far superior games like Legend, BRP and Traveller out there, it's hard to get too excited about ascending vs. descending AC or whether dwarves can be wizards.

-Rognar-

Hey, the OSR won.....something! I guess

Some self-described members of the old-school renaissance (revolution, revival,...whatever it is) have declared victory. I didn't even know there was a game on, but apparently we're on the losing side. At least I think it's us, (i.e. non-OSR gamers), since it's not clear what the rules of the game are or even who's playing. Now, it would seem to me, a clear victory condition for the OSR would be for WotC to re-release all the older edition pdfs, but that hasn't happened. According to the "winners", the victory results from the release of the D&D Essentials red box and the fact that Mike Mearls likes old-school D&D. Well, I guess you take your wins wherever you can get 'em. Of course, before they pop the champagne corks, they should recall that WotC just hired Monte Cook. Remember, he's was one the main guys behind D&D 3e, the game the grognards used to complain about before D&D 4e came along. If the OSR guys think D&D 5e is going to be 1974 all over again, I think they're in for a surprise. There are certainly some admirable qualities to the DIY mindset of the OSR, but it doesn't give them much influence as far as the business of rpgs is concerned. Nobody is going to market a game to you if all you intend to do is praise it. Approval won't cover the payroll.

-Rognar-

Traditional Xmas bloodletting at WotC

You have to be a real glutton for punishment to work for WotC. Every year around this time, the Christmas layoff notices get dropped off to undeserving game designers and their families. This year, it's longtime employees, Rich Baker and Steve Winter. I understand how business works and sometimes costs have to be cut, but guys like Baker and Winter bring something to the table that some nameless desk jockey in accounting never will, creativity. That's worth more than a few dollars on a spreadsheet. I suspect much of the decline in the quality of WotC's products results from the annual loss of talent and the inevitable drop in morale that follows.

-Rognar-

Narrativism...is that how it works?

I have never given much thought to the GNS Theory or the Threefold Model or any other theory related to rpg design, for two reasons. One, I don't care. My sole criteria for buying a game is how much fun I think it will be. Typically, I go for games with well-developed rules for combat (as I likes me some hackin' an' slashin') and lots of options for character building. A cool game setting helps too. The other reason is that I've never had a clear understanding of the different components of the models. I have a pretty good idea what Gamism is, largely because the classic example of Gamism is D&D in all its iterations. Typically, we talk about rpgs being non-competitive. There are no winners or losers. Compared to boardgames or CCGs, that's true. But clearly, games like D&D are competitive. You don't compete against your fellow players, but you do compete against the world controlled by the DM. Victory is achieved by gaining treasure or levels or in-game objectives, while defeat typically means character death. So, having established that rpgs like D&D are competitive, the gamism comes into play with issues such as game balance and setting victory conditions. Now sit down, you OSR guys. I played old-school D&D and there most certainly was game balance. Monsters were defined by level and typically, the deeper underground you ventured, the deadlier the monsters became. Game balance wasn't as strictly defined as it would become in later editions, but players still knew that they wouldn't face an ancient red dragon in the first level of the dungeon.

Likewise, I sort of understand what Simulationism means, although the definition seems a bit fuzzy when applied to modern games. Basically, simulationist games try to model the reality of the game world as accurately as possible. In older games, this typically meant modelling reality itself. For example, RuneQuest was more simulationist than D&D because it had hit location tables and armour-as-damage-reduction and other aspects which made combat more realistic (and more deadly). However, the broader definition means modelling a reality defined by the setting. If you had a game based on cartoon physics, for example, you would have to include rules that accurately model the fact that you don't fall after running off a cliff until you notice that you have done so.

Where the GNS Theory really breaks down for me is Narrativism. I have read the definition on Wikipedia and the best I could distill from the verbal diarrhea is that narrativism is role-playing, you know, all the stuff we do between fights. Deciding that your elven character doesn't like dwarves, knowing full well your buddy is going to play a dwarf, then playing up the conflict, that's narrativism. By this definition, every damn role-playing game ever written is narrativist, making it a fairly unhelpful term for defining game design characteristics. Now, there are games like Vampire: The Masquerade which are described as narrativist, or, I suppose, more narrativist than every other narrativist game. So, I assumed that meant you spend less time throwing dice and more time talking about your character's alienation. However, I have recently uncovered some information which suggests to me there is something more to narrativism than I thought. Reading up on the HeroQuest rpg from Moon Design (under license from Issaries), I found this little tidbit regarding the narrativist aspect of the game:

The game's mechanics are focused on quick resolution; Contests are resolved by comparing the results of two twenty sided dice, each tied to a character ability chosen by players and/or narrator. After the die roll, the participants work together to interpret the outcome in story terms.

So, apparently narrativism actually impacts game mechanics and conflict resolution and does it in the most pablum-spewing, self-esteem-building, non-confrontational way possible. It's like playtime at pre-school where everyone wins and ribbons are awarded for participation. Maybe I'm interpreting this wrong. Help me out, Storytellers and indie gamers, what does narrativism mean to you?

And please remember, I'm a science guy, so use small words.

-Rognar-

Balkanization of the rpg industry, pt.2

My previous post on the fragmentation of the tabletop rpg industry was picked up in this post over at one of my favourite gaming blogs, Whitehall ParaIndustries (someday I'll work up the courage to ask what the name means). Gleichman and I are in general agreement about the state of the industry, although I sense he is somewhat more pessimistic than I. However, we disagree about the relative importance of the D&D edition wars to the overall state of things. I actually believe the divergence of D&D 3.5/Pathfinder and D&D 4e is, on the whole, beneficial to the industry. I don't believe the rpg industry lost very many customers as a result of this. D&D fanboys got a whole new line of gamebooks to buy with the emergence of 4th ed. People like me, who were more or less satisfied with D&D 3.5 got Pathfinder. The beauty of Pathfinder is that for many gamers who didn't feel the need to either move to 4e or the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game, they could still purchase the adventure paths and use them with their old D&D 3.5 rules with only a small amount of tweaking. As a result, you have D&D 4e fans, Pathfinder fans and D&D 3.x fans still spending money on game materials.

This brings us to the OSR. I think the big question that needs to be asked is when did these guys drop out? Gleichman believes this exodus resulted from the release of D&D 4e. That doesn't ring true to me. Sure, the OSR movement seemed to coalesce sometime around 2008, judging from the start dates of many of the most high-profile old-school blogs, but these guys seem no more enamoured with 3e than 4e. If the OSR is a response to 4e, why scurry all the way back to '74 or '77? No, it appears more likely that the old school guys were lost to the rpg industry for much longer and there is not much the industry could do to keep them spending. The one big mistake WotC did make with respect to the grognards was to remove the old edition pdfs from circulation. Selling out-of-print games doesn't keep game designers employed, but giving up an easy revenue stream makes no damn business sense whatsoever.

So where do I think we're heading? Well, I think eventually WotC will abandon the traditional tabletop rpg industry altogether, leaving Pathfinder and maybe Warhammer as the flagship games. The Dungeons & Dragons brand still has some value, so I think it will still exist in some form. The real carnage I think will happen among the second teir companies. There are simply too many of them selling too many products to a market that is not growing. Many of the casualties will probably not die completely, but will contract into one- or two-man operations selling pdfs and POD or turn into living dead companies like Palladium Books, selling one popular game over and over again to a small, but fanatical following. The industry won't die, but nobody is going to get rich either.

-Rognar-

Balkanization of the rpg industry

When I started playing tabletop rpgs back in 1981, there were only a handful of games that anybody ever played in my little corner of the North American continent. Most everybody played something from TSR as their main game, be it AD&D, Basic D&D, Gamma World, Star Frontiers or something more fringe like Boot Hill. Some people played Traveller, although I never knew any personally. A few adventurous types even dabbled in games from Chaosium or FGU, but you typically had to go to conventions to try them out.

Of course, we all knew about other games like Original D&D or Empire of the Petal Throne, but they were really more myth than reality. Even back then, a set of the OD&D books would have been something akin to a hockey stick used by Rocket Richard, more of an heirloom than something you would take out to the local rink for a game of shinny. Other games like GURPS or MERP which would garner a lot of attention were still a few years away.

I mention this because in gaming circles, the early '80s are often described as the golden age of tabletop role-playing. It seems, the trpg community has been wringing its hands in existential dread ever since. Every new development, from the parting of ways between Gygax and TSR to the rise of CCGs to the demise of TSR and the emergence of online gaming has been greeted with a new round of doomsaying. Now, I agree with those who say the tabletop rpg industry is in decline, but I don't think any of the reasons usually cited are responsible. I think the big problem is fragmentation of the market. I'm not talking about the OSR and the edition wars here. The OSR guys have their own little thing going on and good for them. As for the WotC v. Paizo melee, both are big enough to nourish the industry and a little healthy competition is good for both companies. No, I'm really talking about the second tier of game publishers. The most egregious example is what is currently going on with RuneQuest.

Back in the day, RuneQuest, released in 1978, was a pretty popular game in some quarters. Not D&D popular, but it held its own and allowed Chaosium to become a major player, especially with the 1981 releases of Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer. The Basic RolePlaying system used by Chaosium today is based on the d100 game mechanic developed for RuneQuest. In the early editions, RuneQuest was intimately tied to the Glorantha setting, but in 1984, a new edition (3rd ed.) published by Avalon Hill, broke that connection and the game went into decline. Eventually, Greg Stafford, the original designer of Glorantha, reacquired the rights to RuneQuest under his own company, Issaries. Issaries later licensed both RuneQuest and Glorantha to Mongoose, which released two editions, the second of which is, in my humble opinion, the single best-designed tabletop role-playing game ruleset ever devised. It should be noted that Issaries also publishes another game, called HeroQuest, which is mechanically very different from RuneQuest, but which also uses the Glorantha setting (confused yet?).

Jump ahead to 2011, Mongoose has just ended its licensing agreement with Issaries (note, by this time, Chaosium is completely out of the picture). However, it is justifiably proud of its MRQII rules and wants to continue to support them. Enter Legend, a rebranded version of Mongoose RuneQuest II. Interestingly, Mongoose owns the rights to the Stormbringer license, having acquired them from Chaosium in 2007, so for a few years, Stormbringer, renamed the Elric of Melniboné Role-Roleplaying Game, and RuneQuest were reunited using the same ruleset. Anyway, we now throw in another monkeywrench. Peter Nash and Lawrence Whitaker, the two game designers most intimately associated with MRQII, have left Mongoose to form their own company called the Design Mechanism and wouldn't you know it, they promptly acquired the rights to RuneQuest and Glorantha with the intention of releasing RuneQuest 6 next year. Meanwhile, Mongoose, has several IPs, Deus Vult, Wraith Recon, Age of Treason and Elric of Melniboné that all use the Legend game engine. With that many properties, chances are none are going to get the support they deserve. Indeed, based on the release schedule Mongoose recently put up on their site, it looks like the newly-published Age of Treason campaign setting may be left to wither on the vine.

So, what is the point I'm trying to make here? I think I represent pretty much an ideal customer when it comes to the gaming industry. Tabletop rpgs are my primary hobby. I don't own an Xbox or a World of Warcraft account. I've played Magic: The Gathering once and even that was with a borrowed deck. I go to maybe five movies a year. But I spend a lot of money on games, many I will probably never play. I am the kind of customer a game publisher wants to keep happy. What the rpg industry doesn't want to do is to confuse the hell out of me! Almost every game I have invested heavily in over the last few years has gone through some kind of similar trauma to that described above. CthulhuTech, Cthonian Stars, Eclipse Phase, d20 Modern, Septimus, an endless litany of failures and lack of support, some terminal, some temporary, but in every case, I stopped buying the game. Only the Star Wars Saga Edition (and, of course, Pathfinder) managed to survive to what I considered an appropriate conclusion and I bought every single book. What I'm saying is, please gaming industry, show me some commitment. I wouldn't buy a car if I thought the automaker was going to hand off the model to another company which would completely redesign it and stop making parts that fit my vehicle. Likewise, I don't want to invest in a game if I think the company is going to abandon it half-finished.

-Rognar-

Ed. note: The real reason for this post, I just bought Age of Treason and it looks there won't be any supplements for it in the next 10 months at least. I am not amused.

Some declarations of my own

I'm not usually much for memes, but I can't resist any opportunity to inflict my opinions on the public at large (or at least the miniscule subset of it that actually reads this blog), so when Joseph Bloch and, later, Zachary Houghton posted about their personal gaming preferences, well, I felt compelled to join the fun. Please note that the following represents only my opinions, and does not necessarily reflect those of my fellow contributors (although they are welcome to add their own).

On game design:
I love "kewl". I know that as a 45-year old gamer who first started playing D&D in 1981 and has been continuously playing tabletop rpgs for three decades, I don't really fit the demographic profile of a new school gamer. But I am. I love to min/max, but I also love to play suboptimal characters just to see what I can get out of them. I am a powergamer. Character background, story arc, narrative, none of these things mean very much to me beyond providing a framework in which my character can develop. I don't care what is going on four kingdoms over and I don't care what happened 2000 years ago, unless that information is relevent to what my character is attempting to accomplish. It's a bit odd, since I am history buff, but I guess it's because I only care about real history. I like a lot of options for character design. I know a lot of old school types prefer to personalize their characters outside of the rules, but I want tangible game effects from the decisions I make. I want to know that choosing a two-handed sword over a longsword and shield will have some meaningful consequences.

I definitely fall into the simulationist camp when it comes to game design. Even though I have played some iteration of D&D for most of the last 30 years, I have always chafed under some of the more gamist aspects of the game. I've never liked AC, preferring something like the BRP system in which armour reduces damage, but not the chance to hit. I also don't really like the power curve of class-and-level games. No character should ever be so powerful as to be able to confidently take on an entire army. I prefer that players never be completely confident of the outcome of any fight. Even a lowly goblin should have at least a slight chance to seriously injure any PC with a lucky shot.

I am comfortable with Tolkienesque player races, but I'm also willing to entertain divergence from those templates as long as they're not too weird. Gloranthan elves and dwarves, for example, would certainly be "too weird". I don't care for subraces, however, unless they are radically different and only serve as evil alternatives to the PC races, such as drow or duergar.

On setting:
I'm a bit of a stickler for consistency in setting design. For example, I don't like Asian settings in general and I certainly don't like them freely intermingled with my pseudo-European medieval D&D setting. No knights and ninjas for me, thank you very much. I do like the inclusion of firearms of the appropriate technology level for a High Middle Ages European milieu, but I've never been satisfied with any of the efforts to incorporate them into D&D. It seems impossible to model the advantages of firearms using the D&D rules, without making bows completely obsolete, so they are inevitably underpowered and overpriced.

Oddly enough, my gaming history and my personal preferences on setting are, once again, at odds. I am a sci-fi guy. I'd prefer a rail gun and a powered exoskeleton over a longsword and a suit of chain mail any day. Yet, somehow I always end up slinging spells and swinging battleaxes. I guess fantasy is simply more conducive to my hack-and-slash style of gaming.

On pronouns and gender issues:
I always use the male pronoun. I find reading a game book that switches back and forth from male to female pronouns to be very distracting. I don't have any problem with female gamers, but my group is all-male and we like it that way (and so do our wives, I'm sure). Game night is boys night out. We don't have to suck in our guts or tighten our sphincters. Most importantly, we don't have to censor ourselves and worry that what we say might offend the ladies.

On politics and religion:
I am a Canadian conservative. That means I'm of a different breed from our friends on the right of the American political spectrum. It means, for example, that I believe religion is something best not discussed in polite company. I don't want to know how you did the nasty with your wife last night and likewise, I don't want to know how you scored with your personal savior on Sunday. Having said that, there are some similarities which have implications for my gaming experience. I despise moral relativism. Some things are just plain wrong and no amount of cultural sensitivity training is going to change my mind about that. This means the morality in my world may seem a tad Victorian to some. There are good guys and bad guys. Sure, there are some occasions of moral ambiguity, but inevitably, my heroes prevail, though the price of victory may be steep. It also means I don't really like playing in evil campaigns. That's not to say I haven't done so and I've been told by reliable sources that I can whip up a pretty awesome villain when situation demands, but it's always well outside of my comfort zone. I'm very pro-military and my games always have a healthy dose of righteous smackdown by the thin olive drab line. If I can find some way to stick a tank in there, mores the better (I know most guys are into fighter jets, but I'm a tank guy). I'm queasy about violence against women and children. Such violence exists in my campaigns, but I always prefer to leave the details to the imaginations of my players. Needless to say, any character, be it NPC or PC, will encounter swift and brutal judgement from the appropriate authority for perpetrating such violence. On the other hand, if a paladin wants to thrash some bad guy to within inches of his life, so be it. Men are expendable and evil men even more so. Waterboard the terrorists to your heart's content, boys.

On technology:
Whatever. Use it if you want as long as it doesn't grind things to a halt. In our group, we have a mix of technophiles and technophobes (ok, that last category is mainly just me) and it seems to work fine. There are laptops and iPads operating cheek-and-jowl alongside dice and pencils with no problems. Of course, no one has spilled a bottle of Dr. Pepper on someone's keyboard yet.

-Rognar-

What is the future of manned space exploration?

With the end of the Space Shuttle program and no new generation of manned space vehicle on the horizon for the United States, those of us who care about the future are naturally concerned. Sure, the Russians have their Soyuz program and the Chinese seem to have every intention of being the second country to put a man on the Moon, but without the Americans in the game, it seems the exploration and eventual colonization of the Solar System is becoming ever more the realm of science fiction. I have heard some suggest the future of American manned space exploration is actually better off without NASA. They believe private companies like SpaceX can do it for less money. I don't doubt that private enterprise can handle routine low Earth orbit operations such as launching satellites or shuttling personnel to the International Space Station, but are we ever going to see a manned mission to Mars, for example, from a private company? I seriously doubt it. Where is the profit in it? There's little evidence to suggest there are any resources of value to us on Mars, at least in the short term. No question, the resources of the Solar System are vast. One can imagine limitless solar energy or asteroid mining for all the raw materials the human race would need for the next ten thousand years, but these are extremely long-term efforts. Most financiers don't want to invest in projects that won't see a return for centuries. So what is the future of manned space exploration? I see three scenarios.

One, we let the Chinese do the heavy lifting for awhile. In other words, we do nothing. It's definitely the path of least resistance and there is no law of the universe that says the future belongs to English-speaking peoples. Maybe the first space colonists will speak Mandarin.

Two, we get NASA back in the game. This is certainly a possibility, especially if the Americans get shocked by the successful launch of a manned Chinese lunar mission. It seems to be a question of timing and the current American debt crisis. Will the Americans pull themselves out of their malaise in time to get their space program back on track before the Chinese get too far ahead? It's hard to say, but in my experience, it's never a good idea to bet against the Americans.

Three, turn space exploration into a non-profit, charitable endeavor. Wait...what? Admittedly, this is an unconventional idea, but I think there are a lot of people who would like to contribute to space exploration. First, there are private individuals. Millions of Americans (and Canadians) who dream about our future in space might be willing to make small tax-deductible donations to a manned space program. Even more importantly, big investors could benefit from tax incentives as well in order to get access to the billions of dollars required for manned space flight. I envision a manned mission to Mars involving some input from NASA, private companies like SpaceX and non-profit space exploration organizations working together. If we don't want to see the future of the human race shaped by the regressive, totalitarian regime in Beijing, this may be the only way.

Thoughts?

-Rognar-

Respectability? No thanks

When I look back at my early gaming life and ponder what it was that made D&D so cool in '81, I realize it was because the game was subversive. It was teaching kids reading, writing, mathematics and it was doing it without any adult supervision. That is ultimately what caused certain religious and political authorities to condemn D&D. The kids were learning, but not necessarily the things their authority figures wanted them to.

So now the generation that grew up on D&D is reaching middle age. We have kids of our own and we hope to pass on the hobby to them. Some of us want D&D and other RPGs to take on an air of respectability. Well, I say nuts to that. I think the hobby should remain the forbidden fruit, something not talked about in polite company. Like your dad's collection of vintage Playboy magazines, your old D&D books should be something the kids stumble upon while poking their noses in places they don't belong. I think this is the way tabletop RPGs will survive and endure. This hobby can't hold a candle to video games in the minds of kids today unless it has some element of danger. Make our games subversive again.

-Rognar-

Katana - just a bastard sword with good PR

If you want to create a cool character, equip him with a katana, because, as we all know, katanas are miracle weapons. There is nothing you can't do with a katana. Armed with a katana, Uma Thurman can clear a room full of bad guys in the blink of an eye. In the hierarchy of cool weapons, only the lightsaber and the minigun can compete with the katana. Well, I say bullsh*t! And apparently tvtropes.org agrees with me. Here's what they have to say about the famous "Katanas are just better" trope.

But the myth of the katana being a better weapon than equivalent European swords (namely the medieval longsword) is debatable.

Japanese swords use vastly inferior iron for katanas compared to that available for medieval European swords, necessitating costly and time-consuming efforts by Japanese master swordsmiths to remove impurities from the iron, such as the famous "folding of the blade". Folding iron is a common forging technique not unique to Japan, but Japanese blades were folded many more times than some European ones to compensate for the inherent lack of quality in material. Viking swords, on the other hand, were commonly more folded, by orders of magnitude, than most ancient Japanese swords. Contrary to popular belief, folding a sword does not aid its cutting or edge holding properties at all; it merely ensures an even distribution of carbon within the steel (while some other alloying elements will remain layered).

On the other hand however, European swords are just as good, if not better than the katana. Besides aforementioned better material quality, the longsword was double edged with a point, which was far more difficult to forge than a single edged weapon. The longsword is a much more versatile weapon, able to cut and thrust, and the cruciform hilt construction is a lot better for parrying off blows than the katana. And the second edge allows the weapon to cut in either direction; blows with the "short edge" (which faces the weilder) are a major component of many Western martial arts. Contrary to popular belief, many longswords of equivalent size were just about the same weight.

-Rognar-

By the way, tvtropes.org is awesome. Spend some time and check it out.

The Vanishing Nerd

I was reading an article on the Cracked.com website the other day and it got me to thinking about the deplorable state of 21st century nerddom. The article was entitled 7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics, just the sort of thing that would attract an old-school nerd like me. While several of the miracle materials were really not all that novel; carbon nanotubes, aerogels, perfluorocarbons, one that did catch my eye was transparent alumina. I'm a regular reader of Cracked.com, so I know sometimes these guys feign stupid for its comedic value, but it was clear to me that they genuinely didn't know the difference between alumina and aluminum. That's when I realized these guys are geeks, not nerds. Geeks like all the same stuff we nerds like; D&D, Star Wars action figures, Monty Python movies. The difference is, nerds know about other subjects as well. There are two topics in particular, that are near and dear to the nerd heart, science and military history. A geek teenager may have a poster of Optimus Prime on his wall, but a nerd is just as likely to have one of Albert Einstein.

Now, once upon a time, nerds were the dominant species. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I and my friends were the school nerd club. We were the only people at home on Saturday night playing D&D. We didn't have to worry about wannabes stealing our subculture. Nobody wanted it. We would hang out in the school cafeteria debating the implications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for Star Trek transporter technology and everyone else would look at us like we were aliens, and we liked it that way. Nowadays, it's cool to be a nerd. Everyone from Vin Diesel to Shaq is now down with the culture. But it's obvious to me, they are all geeks, not nerds.

At this point, I should be clear. I'm not trying to bash on geeks. They're pretty cool and most women at gaming conventions are likely to be geeks, rather than nerds. However, I do have to say that the lack of knowledge most geeks display of topics of such vital importance can be disconcerting and even a bit aggravating. So, to all you geeks out there who yearn to be nerds, you need to do some homework. Read some non-fiction once in awhile. As a public service, I provide below, a list of 10 people you should know something about. It's a good start.

Simo Häyhä
Yuri Gagarin
Edward Teller
Sun Tzu
Nikola Tesla
Hannibal
Niccoló Machiavelli
Hernando Cortés
Maxwell Planck
Heinrich Himmler

-Rognar-

By the way, you get bonus nerd points for being able to produce all those accented characters in that list using just the "Alt" button and the number pad on your keyboard.