• Staying home to be sure that I’m not spreading pinkeye love. I’m probably better, but I’m guessing my coworkers would like me to be *sure*. #

This is how I’m starting the Designer’s Notes. I liked it so much that I figured I’d share it here.

On July 19, 2003, at 11:30 p.m. EDT, my mother passed away. It was a shock to all of us. She was not ill; she had shown no indication of any problem. She was working outside that afternoon and, around 2:00 p.m., was stung by a bee. She wasn’t feeling well and called my sister Elizabeth. While on the phone, she collapsed. My sister hurried over and found her unconscious. The paramedics could not revive her and, after several hours spent in intensive care, she died. She was only 51 years old.

That wasn’t the first time that death had entered my life. In the first six months of 1997, five people who were close to me suddenly passed away. Among them was my Grandpa Anderson and my Grandma Ben-Ezra. Cancer took them both.

Nor was it the last. In 2006, I helped bury Hannah, the three-year old daughter of a co-worker, dead from a congenital disease. A week later, I stood at the grave of William, a sixteen-year old boy from my church, dead from brain cancer.

These are just some of the griefs that I bear, the flowers that I carry for Mara. Writing this game is part of how I am putting them down.

Per Adiel’s request, an update.

I’m writing on my blog, mostly because I was swinging by to grab some info. Not to be morbid, but I wanted to make sure that I got the right date for Mom’s death. (And, while I’m here, I’ll probably grab the date that William died, too.) I’m gathering this info, because I’m about to write the Designer’s Notes for A Flower for Mara, which is mostly autobiography. I figure that I’ll talk a little about Mom, maybe about William, maybe about Hannah. Then a little project history and a brief bibliography (four entries, at present). I’m thinking just a couple more hours, actually. Then, my first draft will be complete!

Of course, there’s still the joy of editing and all that, but it will be a major milestone.

• Pinkeye is a difficult disease. I feel mostly okay, except something is in my eye. Bleh. #
• I think that I might be recovering. That would be good. #

• Finished Season 1 of The Wire. Now to bed…if sick kids will let us. #
• @Linnaeus What’s wrong with that? #
• I’m tired, but the coffee is brewing. #
• My right eye feels a little odd. Here’s hoping it’s not pink-eye. Yay. #
• Playing it safe and going home. #

• I should be asleep. But I’m not. Not even tired. Sigh. #
• Sleep comes. Good. #
• Spending time with Lansberrys #

• We’re going to play Imperial! And the rain is lovely. #
• I won Imperial! #
• I’m working on A Flower for Mara again. If I keep this up, I should be done with my first draft in a week or so. That would be good. #

• Done playtesting. Now to bed. #
• Kids+cough+one shared room=lots of missing sleep for me. #
• Food helps, but the day hasn’t really come together for me. Sigh. #
• I’m tired. Last night is catching up with me, I think. #
• Tired. Hungry. Ready to go home. So I guess I will! #
• Getting a Dirty Secrets report from Poland first. #

Dungeons and Dragons made simple!

HT: Brett

I’ve been thinking about blogging about the situation in Texas. It’s a ticklish situation, but it needs to be addressed. Happily, I don’t have to; James and Stacy McDonald have taken up the task instead. So, all I have to say is, “Read these posts.”

Well, except something my wife pointed out.

The original raid was prompted by a single anonymous phone call, right? (Which, by the way, turns out to have been fake.) So, on the basis of a single anonymous phone call, the police are allowed to raid what is essentially a small town? That would be like the police raiding every house in the University East neighborhood on the basis of a single anonymous drug tip.

I thought that kind of thing only happened in “bad” countries. Hmm.

• I’m preparing to settle in for a day of work. Yay allocations. #
• I just finished spending my lunch break working on A Flower for Mara. I’m happy with the direction the manuscript is taking. #
• @dbcoyer We are praying for you, right now. Tell Renee. #
• I’m allocating…still…. #

• Eating dinner and watching LOTR. #
• Wow. The Wire actually is that good. Approaching the end of Season 1. #
• We’re heading into that point in the month where I have very specific types of work to do. Sometimes it’s a lot; other times, not so much. #
• I’m listening to an AP recording of Steal Away Jordan from a presentation Julia Ellingboe made at Spelman College. #

I’m listening to an actual play recording of Julia Ellingboe’s Steal Away Jordan, recorded by Sam Chupp at Spelman College as part of a presentation that Julia was making there. It’s interesting stuff, especially as I’m beginning to do some serious prepwork to run the game. I’d promised Crystal a while ago that I’d run this for her, and I really need to keep my promise.

But that’s not the focus of this post. Instead, I want to discuss briefly a technique that has entered indie roleplaying called a “Lines and Veils discussion”. Don’t know what a Line or Veil is? I’m glad you asked.

Ron Edwards coined these terms in his supplement Sex & Sorcery. A Line is an area that is off-limits for play. In other words, nothing is allowed to enter the fiction that crosses this Line. For example, if you have a Line about violence against children, then that’s simply something that isn’t allowed to enter play at all, even off-stage.

On the other hand, a Veil is an area that is placed (figuratively) off-stage or obscured in play. The action enters the fiction, but it is passed over lightly, without much detail. So, if you have a Veil on sexual activity, you might “pan away” to blowing curtains or the like.

I’ve found these concepts to be very helpful in play. However, people took these ideas and developed the idea of a pre-game “Lines and Veils” discussion, where you formally establish these boundaries up front. This can be problematic, and I think that this AP recording gives a good illustration of why that is the case.

Check out 1:15:30 to 1:17:00. This is where the discussion takes place. First, notice that none of the players actually provide any Lines or Veils. In fact, one of them makes a joke about the whole thing. So, what are we to make of this discussion? Are these players really saying that they don’t have any Lines or Veils? Sure, someone said “PG-13″, which is helpful, but I’ve seen enough PG-13 movies to know that this is a grey, fuzzy line.

Julia’s Line about the use of racial language illustrates this point. Would other players have been offended if someone had busted out some racially derogatory language? I’m guessing so. However, none of them said it. Would the “PG-13 rating” have been sufficient to keep this language out of play? I don’t know, and I wonder if the players did, either.

I’m not arguing for untrammeled face-stabby play, where we sit around and abuse each other. People really do have Lines and Veils. The problem is that they tend to be relative. Depending on the group I’m with, I will definitely have different Veils and sometimes different Lines, and I don’t think that I’m unique in this. Lines and Veils can’t be present before play. Rather, they are discovered in play.

So, I don’t think that the Lines and Veils discussion, as framed, is helpful. Instead, I think that it’s better to use that time to establish a formal awareness that anyone can “tap out” of a particular narration, citing a Line or Veil. At the same time, it’s the responsibility of the players to be sensitive to each other, watching body language and the like to see if narration is approaching someone’s Line or Veil. That way, anyone can feel comfortable to pause the action and ask for clarification to make sure that Lines aren’t being crossed or to see if a Veil needs to be drawn over the action. If the game has a strong GM, this is particularly his job, but everyone at the table has this responsibility.

Roleplaying can be a dangerous activity. Sometimes, the issues and subject material can be fairly harsh, and I respect the desire of my fellow players to take proper safety precautions. However, in the final analysis, I believe that the formal Lines and Veils discussions that are in vogue are not as helpful as they appear, and that the better route is to encourage an open environment, both implicitly and explicitly, where players are able to raise their concerns and are also watching about for the concerns of others.

First, check out my award-winning RPG called Wuxia Melodrama. Yay me!

Anyways, I’m in the process of developing this game a bit, and one of the changes I’ve made is to make the game genre-neutral. Now, you can play any genre you want, as long as it allows for a duel to the death. In playtest, I’ve seen musketeers and matadors with bullwhips, and I’ve thought that you could do dogfights, Western showdowns, and Jedi lightsaber duels with the game. This is a pretty cool change, in my opinion, but it makes the previous title (which was already weak in my opinion) completely unusable.

So I’m turning to my loyal audience. Got any name suggestions?

• One World bound. #
• @tckoppang Yeah that’s odd. And what new RPG? #
• Another episode of The Wire finished. Now to bed. #
• Huh. It’s morning. How did that happen? #
• Adopt-a-Terrorist for Prayer: http://www.atfp.org/ What an excellent idea! #
• Listening to an interview with Julia Bond Ellingboe http://tinyurl.com/6n7642 #
• Heading home! #