A Dark And Quiet Room

I don’t think that I’ve mentioned that I’m not working in IT anymore. Instead, since last December, I’ve been heading up the Systems Department at my workplace. Being in Systems is like being an on-site business consultant…or a game designer. So, yeah. All the books I’ve been reading on design, psychology, sociology, and the like…now all work-related.

I love my job.

Okay, yeah, it’s been cutting into my game design, because I’m solving design problems at work. I haven’t had the mental bandwidth to do much more. (Well, that’s some of it, at least.) But, on the other hand, I get to apply my game design lessons to business issues.

Here’s an example of what I mean. At GenCon 2008, in a late-night conversation with some other designers, I uttered a phrase that had been kicking around in my head for a while: “players are more than just emitters of moves”. A system–be it a game system or a business system– is composed of people, and people do more than just emit moves…or perform tasks. They are each one a complex individual, and a designer who fails to take that into account is being foolish.

(As an aside, I consider that to be the point that I diverged a bit from my strict interest in Eurogames and found myself giving Fantasy Flight Games a lot of money for games like Cosmic Encounter and Battlestar Galactica, which both require that you play the players, not just their mechanical positions.)

I’ve heard a related sentiment echoed by Mark Rosewater, Head Designer for Magic: The Gathering. He has said on several occasions that “you can’t fight human nature”. Sometimes, design simply needs to bow to the reality that people are a certain way, and, even though the designed method might be superior in the abstract, it fails because it runs counter to human nature.

But this cuts against the personality that I’ve seen present in designers (including myself). I mean, if it was written in the rules (or the SOP), shouldn’t people do it? I mean, it’s right there, right? And who cares if the method doesn’t make sense to the people who are using it? If the outcome is superior, that’s all that is important, right?

And then, today, at staff prayer, I had a sudden thought. God designed the universe, right? That means all the intricate order of physics and astronomy and chemistry was all originally orchestrated and designed by Him. So, when we look at nature, what do we see? Certainly, we see order. We see repeatable behavior and consistency. As an example, consider the states of matter: solid, liquid, gas (and plasma, right?). The solid form of a substance is more dense than its liquid form, which is in turn more dense than its gaseous form. Right?

But what about water? Ice, the solid form of water, is actually less dense than water, which is why ice floats in water.

Buh?

That doesn’t make any sense at all! Except, if ice sank in water, it would kill all the fish, who would not be sheltered from the cold winter air by the protective layer of ice that forms on top of the water.

A human designer might have applied the rule with a broad stroke, making ice sink in water. It would have been elegant, simple, even aesthetically pleasing to consider rationally.

It also would have been wrong.

God knows the value of the well-crafted exception in design. Because simplicity isn’t the goal.

I think I need to consider this further.

Over the last year or so, I’ve heard rumblings about Happy Birthday, Robot! by Daniel Solis. The game proper was getting a lot of buzz. A storytelling game, designed to be played with children…. I was intrigued. The method which Daniel used to fund the project (collecting pledges through Kickstarter.com) was generating discussion as well. And then, when Fred Hicks announced that Evil Hat was going to fund a larger print run, I really started to pay attention. I had missed the sponsorship period on Kickstarter.com, and now I’d have a chance to buy it! [1]

But, really, should I? I’ve been conscious of the fact that my roleplaying time has been constrained of late. Did I really need to add another book to the gaming shelf that I might never play? And so, reluctantly, I let the game sit.

One moral of this story is that it pays to follow Fred Hicks on Twitter (@fredhicks). A couple of months ago, he put out a call for reviewers for Happy Birthday, Robot! who would be able to play with children and review from that perspective.

I write about games. I have children. I wanted a comp copy of Happy Birthday, Robot! It seemed like a perfect match to me. So I put my name forward.

Fred agreed, and early last week, I received my copy of Happy Birthday, Robot! in the mail. For free!

In other words, yes, this is a comped review.

However, as I hope I’ve made clear, I was interested in this game long before Fred put out a call for reviewers. Also, receiving this game for free will not sway my judgment of the game. [2]

It doesn’t have to. This is a great game that stands on its own merits.

How the game is played

Happy Birthday, Robot! is a collaborative storytelling game. By following the rules of the game, the players write a little story about a robot named Robot.

Because the game is collaborative, no one wins or loses. In fact, as you’ll see in a moment, the game actively encourages cooperation between the players.

When it’s my turn, I’m the Storyteller. The players to my right and left are my Neighbors. Together, we will write the next sentence in Robot’s story.

The first thing that I do as the Storyteller is roll up to three dice. Some of these I keep and some I give to my Neighbors, depending on what I roll. I can keep doing this until one of my Neighbors has four dice or more.

At this point, I get to start writing the sentence. Each die that I have gives me one word for the sentence. Plus, I can use Robot’s name for free (like “Robot” or “Robot’s”). Then the Neighbor to my right gets to add words to the sentence equal to the number of dice that he has. He also gets a free word: “and”. Finally, the Neighbor to my left gets to add words to the sentence based on the number of dice that he got. His free word is “but”.

I’m going to cheat and steal an example from the book. Let’s say that I got three dice. I could write this as my sentence:

Robot sees a flower.

See? I used three words plus my free word “Robot”.

Then, the “And” Neighbor goes. Let’s say he has two dice. So he changes the sentence like so:

Robot sees a flower and a starship.

Two words added, plus his free word.

Finally, the “But” Neighbor goes. If he had three dice, he might adjust the sentence like so:

Robot sees a flower and a starship that is crashing.

Three more words, and he chose not to use his free word.

Then, I would get a coin for each die that I got (in this case, three), and then it’s the next player’s turn.

Pretty simple, huh?

Those coins are pretty clever, too. They don’t actually help the person who earned them. Instead, the player who earned them can give them to a different player, who then gets one extra word for each coin that he was given.

You keep playing until someone ends up with ten coins. At the end of that round, you do a special Epilogue round to end the story. Then you’re done!

A little about the book

First, you just have to check out the art for Happy Birthday, Robot!. Probably the simplest way to do this is to check out this trailer for the game on Youtube. Isn’t it adorable?

And that’s what the book looks like. Bright and cheerful, with lots of happy colors, cute animals, happy children and, of course, adorable robots.

Moreover, the book is made to look very similar to a children’s storybook. It would look more comfortable on a shelf next to Dr. Seuss than next to Grey Ranks or Hero’s Banner. (Yes, that’s where it lives on my gaming shelf. Alphabetization does funny things sometimes.)

I will admit that I chuckled a bit to see the toothy maw of the Evil Hat on the back amidst all the cuteness, but that doesn’t affect the aesthetics in the slightest. Happy Birthday, Robot! could easily take up residence in a children’s library or a homeschooling bookshelf and be perfectly at home.

I mention libraries and schooling for a reason. The book is filled with tips and hints addressed to teachers using the game as part of schooling. Many of these thoughts are written by Cassie Krause, a fourth-grade teacher who playtested the game with her class.

Also, the book is full of pictures and diagrams, showing exactly how the game is to be played. In fact, the rules summary for the game fits onto one page, but an entire chapter is dedicated to an extended example of play, which does a fine job of showing how to apply the rules in various circumstances. By the time I was finished reading the game, I felt confident that I could easily teach the game to my children.

And so I did.

A little discussion of our actual play

Quotable: “We don’t have enough words for [Roger] to die.”–Isaac, age 10

On Sunday, I sat down to play Happy Birthday, Robot! with my children and my sister Gabrielle. Originally I was going to play with the three older children, but Noah and Justice ended up being a part of the action. Noah played on Gabrielle’s team, and Justice helped me roll my dice.

I started by showing the book to the children and waving the pictures at them. My hope was that the artistic style would rub off and influence the game play. I wasn’t opposed to death-dealing robots of doom, but I wanted the kids to understand that this was primarily a cute game about children’s stories. I think that it worked fairly well.

The game assumes that you will be making special Robot dice, with two BLANK sides, two AND sides, and two BUT sides. This is one area where the small press nature of the game shows itself. I’d love to have custom dice for this game, but I know that there’s no way that Daniel Solis or Evil Hat would be able to pull that off. And, at least right now, I couldn’t be bothered to print little stickers and put them on my dice.

To his credit, Daniel includes simple instructions on how to play with regular six-sided dice. Basically, ones and twos count as BLANKS, threes and fours count as AND, and fives and sixes count as BUT. It works, but it wasn’t quite as intuitive as I would have liked. Oh well. Fudge dice would probably work as Robot dice, too.

I also decided that I didn’t want to use actual pennies for the coins. The game says to keep them on heads until you give them away, at which point you flip them to tails. My children are infamous for fiddling with game bits, and I figured that they would likely flip some of them over and then not remember if they were on heads or tails. Instead, I dug into my game design closet and got out some red and green glass beads. When you earned coins, you took red glass beads. Then, to give someone else a coin, you spent a red bead to give the other player a green bead. This worked out quite well.

Teaching the game was a snap. The kids grasped the rules quickly and were quickly caught up in the joy of rolling dice and earning words. The first hurdle arrived when one of the children didn’t have enough words to complete the full thought that he was wanting to express. Suddenly, the idea of “creative constraints” became apparent to the children. On the whole, though, I thought that they did quite well with the experience. In fact, I think that it was good for them. Constraints breed creativity, and the children rose to the occasion.

Over the next hour, we worked together to tell the story of Robot’s birthday. For your amusement, here’s the story we created.[3]

Our Happy Birthday, Robot! story
by Seth, Gabrielle, Arianna, Isaac, and Samuel
with assistance from Noah and Justice

And so was Emily.

Everyone was engaged from start to finish, and I think that they would all happily play again. I know I would.

Thoughts on the game design

While this game is designed to be played with children, I think that it definitely benefits from an adult player or facilitator. I almost want to say that an adult is necessary, but I don’t know your children. I do know that competition comes easily to people, but collaboration can be hard. Having someone at the table with the social “juice” to insist that the players work together and to set a positive example of how to do that is important.

At the same time, the game provides numerous opportunities for these lessons of cooperation and collaboration to be taught. The coins provide hard mechanical opportunity to help out the other players. Beyond that, there’s the give-and-take of ideas at the table. Gabrielle talked about the game requiring a “generosity of creative space”, where players need to be willing to offer their suggestions while remembering that there needs to be room for everyone’s ideas. This is a good skill for life, not just games, and few people learn it. So, in this way, I think playing Happy Birthday, Robot! is good for its players.

I do think that it’s important to note that Happy Birthday, Robot! isn’t a roleplaying game as such. The players do not adopt any alternate personas or engage with the developing fiction as a participant. The game is very much about a shared authoring experience, making it more of a storytelling game. Additionally, the game is focused almost exclusively on process, unlike most roleplaying games, which are usually more fluid in nature. In this way, Happy Birthday, Robot! joins games like 1001 Nights, A Penny for my Thoughts, and maybe even my own Showdown, where the processes of play are focused more on the authorial experience than the immersive experience of a character.[4]

I have to admit: I’m really digging these sorts of games. Unlike most roleplaying games, which tend to require extensive setup and pre-game prep, these sorts of games are closer to being boardgames or parlor games. You can pull one off the shelf without any previous preparation, play for an hour or two, and then be done without any further commitment.

This style of game is definitely a better choice for children. I’ve tried playing roleplaying games with my children, and, as a rule, they do not yet have the attention span or desire to play in a continuous game over multiple sessions. On the other hand, Happy Birthday, Robot! was simple, engaging, and then, it was over. This is a big deal, particularly to my children, who want to know what we’re going to play next.

At the same time, I think that children who have spent time playing Happy Birthday, Robot! will be better roleplayers.[5] The skills required to play this game well are easily transferred to a full-blown roleplaying experience, and this can only be a good thing.

I should offer a word of caution. The game says that it is for players ages 10 and up. I’d say that’s about right. Players do need to have a basic grasp of sentence structure and the like. So, while Noah (age 6) enjoyed being involved in the game, I don’t think that he’s quite ready to be on his own yet.

Final thoughts

I hope it’s clear that I really enjoyed this game. It’s the kind of game that I can play with my children, and I could even see getting it out to play with non-gamers some evening over drinks. I might even incorporate it into our homeschooling. I know that there are a lot of games out there demanding attention, but this one is definitely worth a second look.

I’ll put it like this: if you are a gamer with children, you should buy this game to play with them. If you are a gamer without children, I still think that you will enjoy this game. It’s light, frivolous, and highly entertaining.

You can buy Happy Birthday, Robot! at the Evil Hat webstore or Indie Press Revolution.

Footnotes

[4] Look, I know that the whole issue of defining what is and isn’t a roleplaying game is somewhat complex. I also know that this analysis is somewhat incomplete, fairly broad, and full of holes and exceptions. Nonetheless, I think my general point stands. The fact that Happy Birthday, Robot! calls itself a storytelling game supports my point. Also, of the game I named, I’m aware that 1001 Nights is something of an edge case, since you’re roleplaying characters who are telling stories.

[5] This point applies to improv theater or other form of collaborative expression.

So, on the trip home from Erie, I found myself thinking about a game to play at my upcoming birthday party. Something similar to Mafia, but with a little more time to play and a little more than just simple social cues to work with.

This is what I came up with. I’d be interested in thoughts and feedback.

Spy One

At some point, I might write some flavor text here. But right now, I can’t be bothered.

You randomly and secretly distribute roles to the players.

One player is Spy One, the super-spy. He has a special passphrase that he must give to his handler.

One player is the Handler, who is trying to contact Spy One and get the passphrase from him.

One player is the Counter-Intelligence Agent. He is trying to trick Spy One into telling him the passphrase.

Everyone else is divided between Loyalist Citizens and Dissident Citizens. The Loyalist Citizens are on the Counter-Intelligence Agent’s team, and the Dissident Citizens are on the Spy team.

Once roles are distributed and Spy One has his passphrase, the game begins. Ideally, you play this game superimposed over another event, like a birthday party or something, where people have reasons to duck off into corners and have conversations.

For the Spy team (Spy One, the Handler, and the Dissidents) to win, the Handler must declare himself and state the passphrase correctly.

For the Counter-Intelligence team (the Counter-Intelligence Agent and the Loyalists) to win, either the event must end without a Spy team victory or the Counter-Intelligence Agent must declare himself and state the passphrase correctly.

Stating the passphrase incorrectly costs your team the game.

No, you’re not allowed to show the card with your role on it.

====

And that’s it!

One adjustment I’ve been contemplating is adding a role called the Bartender. He gets to know the role assignments for everyone. Each player can ask him the role assignment of one other player, and he has to answer truthfully. Additionally, each player can find out from him who asked about his role, and he has to answer truthfully.

I’m torn on the Bartender. It’s really more of a game moderator role, truth be told, and not everyone wants to be in that position. (On the other hand, some people like being above the fray.) On the other hand, it does provide a starting point for the players to try to make contact with other players, and it’s very much in theme to have a quiet conversation with the bartender before sitting down at a shadowy table in the corner….

So, thoughts?

There. That’s fairly definitive.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging much recently. There are various reasons for this, including my family’s current Sabbath summer, which I should probably discuss at some point. However, you can continue to get my thoughts via Twitter. I have my recent posts going into my sidebar, or you can just visit my Twitter feed. Even if you’re not on Twitter, you can still use the RSS feed on that page to subscribe to my updates.

I haven’t abandoned this blog. It’s just resting right now. But, if you’re really that interested in me, Twitter is the best way to get your daily dose of Seth.

You know, if you want to.

Recently, I made the comment that I might be going through a midlife crisis. I am judging this purely on my recent reattachment to the world of Warhammer 40,000. I used to play games set in this universe a lot when I was younger. In fact, my Internet handle (Great Wolf) is drawn from the background of this universe. Of late, there seems to have been a revival in games set in the 40k universe. Or maybe I’ve just been noticing more. And so, today, I’d like to talk for a moment about the new edition of Horus Heresy from Fantasy Flight Games.

And, for those of you who aren’t gamers, there’s still a bit of classic “Dark and Quiet Room” introspection at the end of this article. Stick with it!

First, here’s a thumbnail sketch of the Horus Heresy, for those of you who don’t know.

Once, the Emperor of Man walked among his people, having created the twenty Primarchs and their Space Marine Legions from his own geneseed. They had embarked on a Great Crusade to conquer the galaxy for the good of mankind. And the Imperium spread, and all was good.

But trouble came. The Warmaster Horus, the greatest of the Primarchs and beloved of the Emperor, fell to the corrupting influence of Chaos and turned against the Imperium. Fully half of the Space Marine Legions rallied to his banner, and the Imperium was split by civil war.

Horus knew that the ultimate success of his rebellion required the death of the Emperor. So, he diverted a number of the loyalist Space Marine Legions and then, in a bold gambit, struck with the bulk of his forces directly at Terra, the capital of the Imperium.

Initially, the traitor forces swept aside the loyalist defenders, who were also betrayed by Chaos sympathizers within their own ranks. The Imperial Palace itself was breached, and bitter house-to-house fighting filled the compound with bodies. Massive armies collided, and the dead were everywhere. Time and again, the traitor Marines hurled themselves at the defenders, and each time they were repulsed. And yet, slowly but surely, the loyalists were pushed back. They were running out of time.

Interestingly, so was Horus. Word reached him that the other loyalist Marines had defeated the troops he had sent to pin them, and now an armada was en route to Terra. If he could not kill the Emperor in time, he would be overwhelmed by reinforcements. So, he dropped the void shields on his flagship, hoping that the Emperor would beam aboard.

He did.

The fate of Terra was sealed in single combat between the Emperor and the Warmaster. In the end, the Emperor was victorious, killing Horus while suffering a mortal wound himself. And so the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne, where he is kept in perpetual life support so that his powerful psychic mind can continue to protect his people.

The siege of Terra is the single most important event in the history of the 40k universe, and it is the setting for the wargame Horus Heresy. One side plays the loyalist defenders, and the other side plays the attacking traitors. Like other wargames, part of the joy of the game is seeing if you can outperform the historical (or, in this case, “historical”) outcome. Can you actually succeed where Horus failed? Or can you preserve the Imperium with fewer losses than the Emperor?

Yeah, this sort of thing totally works for me. Some have noted that the universe of Warhammer 40K is a fascist one, and I’m hard-pressed to argue with them. However, that’s not the appeal of the setting for me. Instead, it’s the overwrought heavy metal opera-ness of it all. You know, massive heroes in massive armor doing massive battle with each other. (For a sense of this, check out the intros to the Warhammer 40K computer games Dawn of War and Dawn of War II.)

And the siege of Terra particularly works for me, because it’s such an epic battle. You know, not just treachery, but vile treachery!!!. Not just heroism, but desperate heroism!!!. Not just combat, but grim combat!!!. And yeah, those exclamation points are definitely appropriate. But there’s more.

Horus Heresy does a fine job of depicting the siege of Terra as it’s described in all the stories: a grim, grinding, desperate battle. Combat isn’t about slashing maneuvers as much as it’s about feeding troops into the meat grinder and hoping they survive just a little longer than the enemy. The scale is so vast that the armies feel more like lumbering behemoths crashing into each other. And both sides feel the hot breath of bitter defeat on their necks.

As the loyalist defender, you are constantly surrounded by forces that seem more mobile and responsive than yours. The besieging ships barrage the ground from orbit, killing your few defending troops. Drop pods land everywhere, disgorging traitor Marines at your weakest points. You are betrayed by your own units who join the enemy, rather than standing strong by your side.

But the traitor player is no better. There never seems to be enough forces in place or enough maneuverability to get the job done. The defenders have vast adamantium fortresses which shelter them from your onslaught. Loyalist Marines slaughter your troops as soon as they land, scattering the survivors to the four winds. And time is not on your side. The game has a built-in timing mechanism and all the Imperium has to do is hold on long enough for relief to arrive. Wait too long to muster your forces, and you may not have enough time to use them.

And so, both generals feel the pressure, the sinking feeling that it’s all about to come apart, that defeat will claim you. I’ve found that it’s a common occurrence for both players to feel like they are losing at the same time.

And this led to a conversation I had with my wife. I was commenting on this aspect of the game, and she said that she actually didn’t like that part of the game. Well, kinda. Because then she launched into a passionate description of the desperate last stand. You know, the kind of story where the defenders are outmanned, outgunned, and surrounded. The kind of story that ends either with a hard-won victory for the defenders, earned at great cost, or their finally being overrun and slain. And we agreed that the important part of these stories is that the defender doesn’t let go. The point isn’t that they won or lost. The point is that they refused to give up. That, whether victorious or defeated, their will was not broken, and they stood tall against the onslaught.

Even if they died. All of them.

We respect that kind of story. Those are the virtues that we celebrate, which just goes to show that we were made for each other. I’m not as interested in a conquering hero as much as a desperate man, surrounded on all sides, who refuses to yield because his cause is righteous and just. Victory is irrelevant, because, really, he has already won. He fought the battle against his fear, and he emerged victorious.

That’s why the siege of Terra and Horus Heresy speak to me.

But, if these are the sorts of stories that I celebrate, what does this say about me? I often find that I discover qualities in myself through gameplay that I can then apply to life. What can I be learning about myself from this?

Could it be that God made me to fight this sort of fight? Not a grand and glorious push to achieve some noble goal, but something darker? A grim resistance, perhaps, surrounded on all sides but refusing to yield, having already won the battle against myself because I know that the cause is righteous and just.

And, if that is the case, should I be surprised if I sometimes feel tired and surrounded and alone? After all, for some bizarre reason, I consider that to be a position of honor. Maybe I need to see it as such and learn to shoulder that burden. Maybe…just maybe…God is actually seeking to honor me in this way. So maybe…just maybe…I need to learn how to honor Him in those times. Incomplete thoughts, I know, but there you are.

So, a big thanks to Jeff Tidball for designing Horus Heresy. I enjoy the game, and I’m looking forward to playing it more.

It’s been a while since I’ve written here, so I figured I should assure everyone that I’m still alive.

So.

I’m still alive.

It’s been a rough winter for me. I don’t think I realized exactly how rough until recently, when I was talking with Crystal. I realized that I’ve been tired and depressed pretty much all the time. We’re into analyzing body language these days, too, so we knew that I’ve adopted more defensive body language, which is not characteristic of me. I’ve felt like I haven’t enjoyed reading. I’ve felt a total lack of creativity. I’ve felt cold and lifeless.

Yes, winter is usually rough on me, but this has been particularly bad, and I know that a lot of it is because of the fire.

My parents would talk about times in their lives that were simply dreadful, memories that they would rather not revisit. Oddly, these times were often times that my siblings and I would remember fondly. We simply didn’t understand the situation at the time, and we had no real idea of how hard it was.

My children look back on our stay at the hotel as a happy memory. They cheer when we happen to drive by the hotel and then race to share their memories with each other.

For me, it was only recently that I could even bring myself to look at the place.

I was talking with Crystal, and I realized that December 2009 was essentially expunged from my memory. No, that’s not quite right. Rather, I would dodge around it in my mind. I couldn’t face the memories or the feelings that went with them. The sparks flying from the ceiling. My desperate dash to the basement. Smoke billowing. Firefighters tramping through the house. And then, the power being shut off, everyone leaving, and being alone in a dark, cold house.

After I threw the breakers, I remember thinking, “Well, now what? How do I get this fixed?” I know the answer now.

In my head, I acknowledge that there has been life before this winter. That there were happier times, when life was joyous and warm. But I have no memories of that. Before the fire, I can remember having a popcorn kernal lodged in my lungs. Before that…nothing.

Yeah, I’ve been in a cold, dark place for a long time. And that’s why I took this week off of work. I needed to take the time to stop. I needed the time for my body to heal, for my emotions to rest. Crystal and I planned it all out, too. We had certain food we were going to eat, a daily walk planned out, and fun events to do.

And so, of course, I got sick.

Now, to be clear, that’s not an “Of course I got sick, because the universe is out to get me”. That’s a “Of course I got sick, because my body finally slowed down enough to realize that it was carrying all this stress”.

My vacation started on Friday, which is about when I started getting sick. Today I woke up without a fever. Yep, four days being sick, not counting today as a recovery day. That’s a long time to be sick, especially for me.

But I’m not complaining. Really! Now, to be sure, I don’t like being sick, but I think it’s what I needed. I actually think that my being sick was God’s gift to me.

I think my body needed to collapse. I think I needed to have the time to be purged of my stress and sickness. I think I needed to be able to justify accepting help from Crystal. I think I needed to stop.

And I did.

So, it’s Tuesday afternoon. (Right? It is Tuesday, isn’t it?) I’m sitting on the back patio, typing away. The sun is out, and a warm breeze is blowing. Crystal is grilling turkey for dinner. I just had a beer.

And I feel like I’m at peace.

Like, maybe, winter is finally gone.

There haven’t been many blog posts around these parts recently. There hasn’t been much game design either. Actually, very little creative has been going on in my life recently.

Right now, I’m feeling tired. Some of this is doubtless the result of having come through our experience of the fire. Some of it is probably because it’s winter.

I’ve decided that’s okay.

Rather than trying to fight my fatigue, I’ve decided to take this time to rest. So, I’m not making lots of additional commitments. I’m not writing blog posts furiously or scribbling game design notes or anything else. I’m just…resting. Taking time to play with my children. Relaxing in the evening and doing nothing of consequence. This won’t last forever. But for now, it feels necessary. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

So, please be patient. You will see more content here again. You’ll probably see more games from me, too. Just not yet.

As I write, I’m sitting at my dining room table. Yep, the one that’s in my house. We’ve been back for about 24 hours. Last night, I slept in my own bed. We’re still unpacking, and there are still issues to be addressed, but we are home!

God has been good to us.

One of the ways that He has blessed us is with the people of Providence Church. Over the last month, we have been overwhelmed by the love and assistance they have provided us. I’d write everything down, but there’s just so much that it would take too long, and then I’d still be afraid that I’d forget something. Some helped us understand how to work with the insurance company. Others offered expert advice on the electrical work that had to be done. Still others opened their homes to us so that we could have some time away from the cramped quarters of the hotel. And, of course, when it was time, people showed up to help us move back in.

And then there was the financial assistance. Some of the electrical work that the city inspector required was not covered by the insurance company. So, the deacons of Providence Church organized a special collection, and the people of our church raised enough money to pay for all the additional electrical work. And, I was informed, if we had further unexpected expenses, there was more available. Several times Deacon Sanford urged me to keep him informed of our needs so that the deacons could coordinate the church’s assistance.

This continues to be a difficult and emotional time. But, through it, God has brought good. Because, through it, He has shown us how much our church loves us.

Right now, I’m surrounded by children getting ready to head over to the house. So, I must be brief. (By the end, we’ll see if I actually pulled that off.)

The electrical and HVAC work is done. The city inspector has approved the electrical work. As I type, the cleaners are working to remove any lingering smoke smell from the house. And, in a few minutes, Crystal and I are taking a work crew down to the house to prepare it for our arrival tomorrow.

That’s right. Barring some disaster, we will be moving back into our house tomorrow. God willing, we will ring in the new year at home.

Doubtless there will be issues upon reentry. But for now, we’re glad to be on the verge of returning home.

Or, perhaps I should say, Rooksbridge!

Um, so, a little backstory. First, let’s talk about me.

I am not an early adopter. It’s true. I am the person who reads reviews, contemplates options, weighs variables, and finally makes an informed decision. Also, for most of my life, I’ve not really had lots of money to spend on experimental purchases. So I’m fairly conservative when it comes to investing money or time into something new.

Now, a little about Josh Roby. I first really interacted with Josh when he was working on his game Sons of Liberty, which I playtested at GenCon 2007 and proceeded to blab about a lot.

Since then, I had the opportunity to meet Josh and Meghann at GenCon 2008. My only regret about that meeting is that they live in Los Angeles. I wish they lived closer. Say, in Peoria. Then we’d have more opportunities to get together and hang out. Josh and I would argue religion and politics loudly over a beer while Meghann and Crystal hovered in the other room, making sure we didn’t kill each other. And, of course, Prudence and Hope would be playing in the other room, watched by my other children. It would be good times.

(Consider that an invitation, guys! Moving to Peoria is a great idea!)

So, last July, Josh announces a new project: Rooksbridge. This isn’t a game project; instead, it’s a serial fiction project. I look at it and even downloaded the free installment (”Dirty Work”). But, I never quite had the time to read it, and it slipped off my radar. Occasionally I’d see Josh talking about Rooksbridge on Twitter, but (not being an early adopter), I didn’t want to spend the money on something that I didn’t know about.

Then something wonderful happened.

Josh emailed me (among other folks) and offered me a copy of all five of the Rooksbridge stores that he has written so far. He said that he was needing to spread the word about Rooksbridge and that he was sending out these free copies to people he knew that might like Rooksbridge and would then be effective in talking about it. He was very clear that he wasn’t trying to buy good press or anything. He was just hoping that we’d like what he wrote and then talk about it.

Well, an appeal like that, coupled with free stuff, is hard to resist. So I figured I’d finally give Rooksbridge a chance. The price was right, and I was having a hard time focusing on longer works. And, as I say, I like Josh, and this was a chance to help him out.

So I read “Dirty Work”, the first chapbook of Rooksbridge.

I loved it.

Rooksbridge fits into the darker, grittier style of fantasy that has become popular over the last few years, such as A Song of Ice and Fire or The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. Rooksbridge has a significant advantage over these works: it’s much shorter. Josh says, “Each chapbook tells its own story, but together, the chapbooks tell a much bigger story set in a place called Rooksbridge. It’s not unlike a television series that you can read.” Actually, a better comparison is to an issue of a comic book, such as Fell. And it’s true. Each story does stand alone, but I can’t imagine reading just one. “Dirty Work” is probably the best as a stand-alone, but that’s simply because there’s no prior story to refer to.

I’m also impressed by Josh’s choice of format for releasing these stories. In short, he’s chosen all of them. Want to read these stories on your smartphone or computer? He has a PDF format for that. Want an actual hardcopy? He can do that for you. More into audiobooks? Yep, he has that, too.

And they’re cheap! The electronic copies are just $2.

Now, personally, I’d love to see Josh release periodic collections of these stories in print. Say, one per year or something like that. After all, I prefer reading my comics in trade paperback collections, not month by month. But, you know what? I finished the latest chapbook “Where There Is Smoke” a couple nights ago. And now I want more. Now!

Because of my bad experience with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, I made myself a rule that I never start a series that isn’t already finished. Whenever I’ve violated this rule, I’ve regretted it.

For Rooksbridge, though, I think I’m going to break my rule.

From http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0374.html:

According to Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Benedictine monks arranged these antiphons with a definite purpose. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one – Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia – the Latin words ero cras are formed, meaning, “Tomorrow, I will come.” Therefore, the Lord Jesus, whose coming we have prepared for in Advent and whom we have addressed in these seven Messianic titles, now speaks to us, “Tomorrow, I will come.”? So the “O Antiphons”? not only bring intensity to our Advent preparation, but bring it to a joyful conclusion.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Amen.

O Emmanuel, God with us,
Our King and Lawgiver,
the expected of the nations and their Saviour:

Come

to save us, O Lord our God. Amen.

O Emmanuel,
Rex et legisfer noster,
expectatio gentium, et Salvator erum:

ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.

One of my very first blog posts was quoting Moby from the liner notes to his album Hotel. I think I have a little more to add now.

I’ve now lived in a hotel for a little over three weeks. This has been really challenging, but I find it hard to explain. I mean, it’s hard to complain about a place that has an indoor pool and hot tub. You can make waffles for breakfast, which is nifty. Every day, someone comes through and replaces all our towels and makes the bed. It’s like magic.

But it’s not home, and each day is full of subtle reminders that we are not at home. The kitchen isn’t big enough. The children don’t have enough space to run around. We don’t have enough dishes and pots and pans. And…I don’t know. Everything just feels harder.

And it’s not home.

We’ve been so busy that there isn’t time to think, which has probably been a gift. When I have too much of a pause, the reality of what’s going on in my life comes crashing in on me.

But what about the hot tub? The pool? The waffles? Aren’t these things good and enjoyable?

Sure they are. But I’d give them up in a heartbeat to be home.

This world…this world is like a hotel. There are lots of good things here to enjoy, and it’s certainly not wrong to enjoy them.

But it’s not home.

O King of the Gentiles and their desired One,
the Cornerstone that makes both one:

Come,

and deliver man,
whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.
Amen.

O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unem:

et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.

O Dawn of the East,
Brightness of light eternal,
And Sun of Justice:

Come,

And enlighten those who sit in darkness
And in the shadow of death.
Amen.

O Oriens,
splendor lucis aeternae,
et sol justitiae:

et illumina sedentis in tenebris,
et umbra mortis.