A Dark And Quiet Room

Welcome back to my mind. You’re about to get a tour of how I think. Ready? Here goes.

So, I’ve been working my way through a questionnaire evaluating my spiritual state. (The reasons why are unimportant. Suffice it to say that it’s something that will be read and considered by others.) And, I have to say, it’s been a rough experience for me emotionally. I have to answer honestly, and sometimes, I’d really rather not. I’m finding myself poking into various nooks and crannies of my life, and I don’t always like what I see. And, of course, I’m thinking, “I’m writing all this down, and then I’m going to give it to other people, and then we’re going to have to talk about it.”

And I’m not really feeling up for that, you know?

Smash cut to….

My newest game Showdown is coming along really well. Like, I’m dangerously close to putting out a blind playtest copy for review by others. (When I do, I’ll announce it here!)

For those of you who don’t know Showdown, here’s the basic idea. It’s a two-player roleplaying game, where you play two characters locked in a final epic battle to the death. You play out that final duel and simultaneously play through a series of flashbacks, starting from the first time the two characters met. At the end of the game, one of the characters will be dead, but you will also have filled out the story of how the two of them came to be fighting in the first place.

The design was pretty good to start, but I’ve been able to hone it better since I figured out what the game is actually about. On the surface, the game is about winning the duel. But I discovered that the real conflict is over the reputation of your character. We both know that we are fighting, but why are we fighting? If you’re not careful, you might win the duel, but your opponent got to define why you were fighting in the first place.

The major revision to the game mechanically reinforces this idea. Each character starts with four Qualities, which are things that he thinks about himself. Those Qualities are constraints on narration. Both players must respect that those Qualities are true. However, over the course of the game, your opponent can earn the opportunity to change those Qualities, which now act as constraints on narration.

So, you start off with a Quality that says “brave”. But then your opponent reaches across the table and changes that to “foolhardy” or “cowardly” or even “lazy”. Guess you weren’t really as brave as you thought you were, huh?

It can be a brutal game, especially if you identify closely with your character. Of course, I find this quite appealing. Because, of course someone is never as good as he thinks. We fill our lives with self-deception, telling ourselves that we’re better than we really are. And then, sometimes, you have an experience that pulls away some of the lies and lets us see ourselves like we really are.

You know, like answering a series of self-evaluation spiritual questions.

Yeah, my self-discovery really shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but there it was. Just like in Showdown, I discovered the truth about some of my Qualities.

Ouch.

Thankfully, God didn’t leave me with just this revelation. Otherwise, I’d be really depressed right now. Instead, He reminded me of two things.

First, this is part of how He is giving me the gift of humility.

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you[.]

(1 Peter 5:5-6)

God apparently loves me. Therefore, He is poking at all this stuff so that I’ll remember it and not get big-headed. Because, it’s better for me if I remember who I am.

But, even more than that, God pointed out this passage while I was reading it during family devotions:

Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall wash them with water and put on Aaron the holy garments. And you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priest. You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them, and anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations.”

(Exodus 40:12-15)

Yeah, you’re not really “supposed” to be encouraged by the description of how the Israelites were supposed to set up the tabernacle. But did you see what happened?

Aaron was washed. He was anointed. He was dressed in beautiful robes. He was made part of a perpetual priesthood.

God says that I’m his priest. So, that means that I was washed, and I was anointed, and I was dressed in beautiful robes.

That hasn’t changed.

God apparently loves me. Therefore, He gave me this passage. Because, it’s better for me if I remember who I am.

I still have to finish that questionnaire. And, yeah, it’s still emotionally difficult. But, at least now I’ll remember why I’m doing this. And I’ll be better able to look at who I really am.

Last Sunday I played Spione with James and Raquel. We’re not finished yet, and that’s actually what this post is about. During this session, I think that I finally grokked Spione and, in a larger sense, the reality behind Ron’s term “Story Now”.

We got started around 9:00. James had never played, and Raquel had only one playtest experience from back in March 2006. (We recorded that session, by the way, which you can find here.) So I was laying out how the game works: Trespasses, Maneuvers, Flashpoint, the Cold, all that.

Things started off slowly, but I think that they were going well. Sure, we had that stumbling feeling that you get when people are learning a game, but James and Raquel were getting it. In particular, James commented that he appreciated the authorial style of Spione more than the specific character focus of other roleplaying games. (Those are my words, but that’s what he meant.)

So, a positive session. The spies were getting wrapped up in the web of relationships, the Cold was closing in, and all that stuff. A little melodramatic at times, but I can accept that, too.

Most importantly to the point of this post, there was a sense of flow. Someone would say something, which would spark an idea in someone else, which would then press the story forward. Specifically, there was no sense of having to get anywhere. Really, it seemed like the driving question was something like this: “In light of what we’ve seen so far, what’s the next logical thing to happen?” It was a good vibe.

But it was getting late, and it didn’t look like we’d be able to finish.

James started trying to pull the threads together. Suddenly that sense of flow went away. Now the driving question was “Where do we need to be?” Everything felt different.

We called a brief story conference and agreed that we just wouldn’t try to finish that evening. Instead, we’d play through to the next Flashpoint and then pick up the game later. We all agreed and proceeded with Maneuvers. The sense of flow returned.

We ended with a cliffhanger of sorts. Thomas Baum and Fiona Summers have both been betrayed by romance (though in different ways) and doubled back on their handlers. In the final Flashpoint, both of their original handlers figured out that they have been doubled.

The next session should be interesting.

But the big lesson that I learned is that you can’t drive towards any sort of predetermined ending in these games of ours, even if that ending is simply a specific time constraint. If you try to focus on the future, the game doesn’t work. Instead, simply work in the present. “In light of what we’ve seen so far, what’s the next logical thing to happen?”

I hope that I don’t sound like I’m being critical of James. I’ve done this very thing before and, honestly, if the system didn’t constrain the ending via Supporting Cast, I probably would have done the same. But it wouldn’t have worked and, honestly, it wouldn’t be as good. We probably would have wrapped with both spies being doubled, and that would have been it. Instead, we’re only a part of the way into the whirlwind with much more to come.

Now, I know that Ron has been saying this for years, but it finally clicked in my head. This is the “Now” of “Story Now” that he keeps talking about. And I guess that I knew it all along, but I finally saw it in action. Something for me to tuck away in my mind for future games.

First, check out this video of David Simon, creator of The Wire, talking about Baltimore. Here’s a salient quote:

“Some of the smallest, gentlest moments I’ve ever experienced have been being a bystander to how people relate to this city and to each other as Baltimoreans. The trick is to tell the stories [on the Wire] with enough insider affection and insider angst and insider worry and insider anger that other Baltimoreans recognize that it [The Wire] is something of a love letter. It’s from a conflicted and often frustrated lover, but it’s nonetheless a love letter.”

Replace “Baltimoreans” with whoever you live with. Yeah, that’s how I think Dirty Secrets ought to be played.

As I worked on designing Dirty Secrets, I found myself developing this same affection for Peoria. Yeah, I learned all kinds of badness about my city, and I’m still learning more. But, at the same time, it’s my city…the place that I love. This same sense drives my political critiques and all that. I love where I live, warts and all.

So I hope that some of the players of Dirty Secrets would develop a similar feeling about where they live. I guess we will see.

Eero Tuovinen (of Zombie Cinema fame) gives A Flower for Mara a thoughtful review. Here’s a sample quote:

The positive surprise in A Flower for Mara was quite profound, and it was that I could enjoy the thought of playing through it if I took its theatrical affectation seriously (and not as an empty analogue, like the theater-rpg thing is usually presented); I have some history in amateur theater myself, and I like doing it, but it has almost nothing to do with roleplaying games - an actor is trying to project a work of art, which is a pretty different thing from playing a game. A Flower for Mara seems like a really fun piece of theater: it has solid rituals, pacing, symbology and a chunky topic (dealing with sorrow) that everybody has an opinion on. I’m tempted to put together a troupe and put this on in front of an audience, actually.

Thanks, Eero!

So, at dinner, Samuel tells me, “Today, Isaac and I went over to the Lansberrys’ house! But we had to play in the basement.” Okay, I think. Not unusual. The play area is in the basement.

Samuel goes on. “They found their copy of Faery’s Tale! So we played that.” And he went on to tell me about it.

In other words, my sons went over to a friend’s house and played a roleplaying game in the basement.

I think I’m proud.

Having recently playing Mist-Robed Gate, I remembered that there were a number of wuxia films that had come out recently that I hadn’t seen. So, last night I finally got around to watching House of Flying Daggers.

I liked it. I liked it a lot. The martial arts wasn’t quite as over-the-top as it was in Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it still had the poetic cinematography, expository combat choreography, and raw emotional intensity that I’ve come to appreciate from my small forays into the genre.

And, because I was watching the movie partly for roleplaying purposes, I realized that the story slotted perfectly into face-stabby narrativism. Shreyas defines face-stabby as “…having to do with that cluster of emotionally violent things like inescapably compressing situations, ethical dilemmas, etc.” which seems like a good definition to me. And there’s a certain vibe that goes with this style of play. Characters tend to be a bit larger than life, while simultaneously being very human in their emotional bonds and confusions. There is this ongoing escalation during the story, where the stakes just seem to keep increasing, forcing increasingly desperate actions by the characters. Finally, there’s some incredible confrontation, where all the pent-up energy of the conflicting agendas explodes in a violent confrontation of some kind. Then, the audience picks up the pieces and goes home.

In recent days, it seems like face-stabby play has been getting short shrift in the world of roleplaying. We want to make “serious” stories and the like. Now, sure, I think that there’s plenty of room for experimentation and expansion in roleplaying. And, when I was setting up A Flower for Mara at GenCon, I stressed that it was not intended for face-stabby play.

At the same time, I also stressed that I really like face-stabby play. And, honestly, I think that a chunk of our literature would essentially be considered “face-stabby”. I’m thinking here of certain of Shakespeare’s plays, like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. I’m also thinking about Silver Age superheros.

I think that the sort of play/story that we class under “face-stabby” is appealing because it is universal. Its strength rests in issues that are common to all people of all times. Love, hate, revenge, conflicting loyalties: we all understand these things. The travails of the drug war or the Iraq war just simply don’t have the same broad appeal.

So, this is a simple request from a simple guy. In our desire to expand the reach of roleplaying, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. There’s still plenty of strength in face-stabby stories; let’s not discard them prematurely.

And now, I have to figure out where to put Curse of the Golden Flower in my Netflix queue.

This weekend is the Go Play Peoria Summer 2008 minicon. We will be meeting from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Samaritan Ministries building at 2400 W Altorfer Drive in Peoria. We’re asking for donations to help offset the cost of food and such.

If you’re interested in boardgaming or roleplaying, or if you’re just wondering what in the world I’m babbling about on my blog, come on out!

Emily wrote up this Actual Play report of A Flower for Mara from GenCon. That means that I don’t have to! Hooray!

Plus, it was a really good game. Very emotionally intense, especially since the group decided that Mara had killed herself. Yeah, that was pretty hard. But still, good.

Because I didn’t stick around for Sunday, I didn’t have a chance to contribute to One Cool Thing I Saw at GenCon 2008. But it’s okay, because Josh Roby covered it for me: Zombie Cinema.

This was the first thing that I saw at the con that actually blew me away. Essentially, Eero Tuovinen took a simplified version of Tim Kleinert’s The Mountain Witch resolution rules and crossed them with the corruption track rules from Reiner Knizia’s The Lord of the Rings cooperative game to create a snappy zombie story boardgame. The mechanics are simple enough to be taught quickly, making it a natural gateway game into These Games Of Ours; however, there seems to be enough depth to be a lot of fun for veterans as well. Even better, the rules are delivered with boardgame-style rigor, leaving nothing to handwaving.

And the kicker. Eero is planning on releasing additional board overlays, allowing the same basic mechanic to be used in other genres as well. Then he said, “Heist game” and I was sold.

I have yet to play, and so it’s possible that the luster might be rubbed off after stepping through a story with these rules. And yet, I don’t think so. In terms of overall coolness, this has my vote for Best New Hotness from GenCon 2008.

Okay, so there’s a lot that I should write about, and I’ll need to schedule the time to do it. I ran A Flower for Mara and several games of Dirty Secrets, met neat people, talked game design, and actually got some sleep. Plus, zombies!

But, all that for later. For now, I present you with this, the ultimate gaming table.

Christmas is coming….

Okay, I just went through the last month of violent crime reports from the Peoria Journal-Star and put them on Google Maps.

Peoria Violent Crimes 2008

And, as mentioned before, here are the murders for the year:

Peoria murders 2008

And, as a bonus, here are those two maps overlaid!

Peoria Crimes 2008

If I’m feeling particularly ambitious, I may do the non-violent thefts on a separate map. If you’re interested in helping put in the older stories, let me know, and I’ll get you set up.

No, I’m not doing drug crimes (e.g. possession and dealing). First, I’m opposed to drug prohibition, so I don’t really feel like putting the effort into reporting it. Second, it’s hard to tie a drug crime to a particular place, at least from the sorts of reports that I currently have access to. Third, the point of these maps is to try to chart some sense of the danger that crime presents to people in various areas of the city. Possession and dealing simply don’t present a threat of bodily harm to those nearby.

Actually, that leads into a good point about these crimes. “Random crime” often isn’t. If you look into the news stories, you’ll see that many of these crimes were perpetrated on victims known to the perpetrator. Even in crime, it seems that it’s all about who you know.

I’ve been reading The Great Neighborhood Book recently. One of the points it made is that “rough” areas of town aren’t necessarily less safe than “nice” areas of town. Instead, it is often a matter of reputation, not reality.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer this map: Peoria Murders 2008

Notice that two of the three reported murders occurred north of War Memorial Drive. You know, in the “nice” areas of town. Also, notice that none of the three reported murders on the South Side.

(Why am I emphasizing the reported murders? Well, there is that little place on the north end of town, where nearly 800 citizens were murdered this year. But no one really wants to talk about that.)

Yes, there’s more to safety than just the murder rate. I’ve taken to watching the papers, and I know that there’s a lot of violence reported on the South Side.

Yes, this is just for 2008. If I’m so moved, I might try to root around in the Journal-Star’s site and see if I can find the locations of the 2007 murders.

Nonetheless, I think that this is somewhat significant for the core neighborhoods to note, especially in the Heart of Peoria and on the South Side, as we try to address the city’s perception of where we live.

Murder #3 for the year.

Well, except for these murders, of course, which are kept off the stat sheets.

Maybe we weren’t doing as well as I thought.

If you’re reading this and consider yourself to be a gamer, please do me a favor and register at Nearby Gamers. I’m already on there (as “greatwolf”, of course).

Very specifically, I’m hoping that more Peoria gamers will use this tool, because I’m trying to find you all for Go Play Peoria, and it’s not easy. And, after all, it’s all about my ease.

So, take a couple of minutes and sign yourself up. Soon, you will be able to see the constellation of nearby gamers unfolding on a Google Map near you. Isn’t that an exciting thought?

So, yeah, I wrote Dirty Secrets, a detective noir game. And that meant that I read a lot of the source material. So, trust me when I say that this sounds like something that I would have expected to find in the pages of a Ross MacDonald novel:

Rolling Acres woman’s death remains mystery

Police are releasing few details regarding the homicide investigation of a Rolling Acres woman found dead in her home Friday morning, to the dismay of worried neighbors….”She was a quiet woman,” Lowe said Saturday afternoon. “But she was the most wonderful person you would ever meet.”

Lowe met her neighbor when she moved in five years ago and said Finnegan would always check up on her and see if she needed help around the house.

Lowe returned the favor, recently watering the woman’s flowers while she was out of town. She said she’d planned to have dinner with Finnegan the night she was found dead.

“When I found out she was killed, I was so confused,” she said. “I can’t understand, why would someone kill her?”

Son arrested in Rolling Acres death

Police have arrested the son of a woman who was found strangled to death in her Rolling Acres home Friday morning.

Stark County deputies found John W. Finnegan, 20, sleeping in his mother’s car at a rest stop in Toulon early Sunday. He was detained in Stark County until Peoria police picked him up for questioning.

He was later booked into the Peoria County Jail on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Mary T. Finnegan, 43, with whom he lived at 5513 Merrimac Ave.

Bond set for Peoria man accused of killing his mother

Bond was set at $2.5 million Monday for a Peoria man accused of strangling his mother last week.

The death occurred sometime Thursday, when John Finnegan, 20, entered his mother’s room, found her sleeping and “swiftly killed her emotionlessly,” Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons said in court, repeating what Finnegan reportedly told detectives.

Mary Finnegan, 43, was found dead around noon Friday, when her other son, 23, stopped by her house and found her naked and wrapped in bedding.

During a five-minute bond hearing in Peoria County Circuit Court, Lyons said the situation had “peculiar” overtones. He cited a “consensual but inappropriate” sexual relationship that had existed between John and Mary Finnegan for about four years. John Finnegan said he and his mother had sex the day before he allegedly killed her.

Finnegan initially denied killing his mother but later told police he felt like he was “bottled up with rage.” He also told detectives he sexually assaulted his mother’s body and then tried to kill himself.

Lyons said Finnegan first tried to drown himself in the bathtub before trying to overdose on various household medications and pills. When that didn’t work, he grabbed some money and left the house in his mother’s car.

He was arrested about 1 a.m. Sunday by Stark County sheriff’s deputies, who found him sleeping in the car. He was then brought back to Peoria.