What's Your Default?

So one of the things that I've discovered since really investing in the online world of social media is that there is a pretty vocal group who want you to know that your default when you read a character in a book is a Cis/White Male. According to these cats any character that you read who isn't specified is automatically a Cis/White Male. 

Obviously I have been reading books wrong all of my life. You see when I read a book and the character's race or sexuality isn't specified I never think about them. Not once in my entire life have I ever even cared. Now you might be asking yourself, "Self, I wonder what he does picture when those things aren't mentioned?" Line drawing with graphite shading.  I grew up drawing and until the author decides to fill in the lines with a skin color they remain blank spaces just like they would if I were working on them myself. 

Anyway, I want to play a game. I'm going to give you a passages from one of my favorite books and I want you to tell me what skin color the character is; and if you give a damn about it (which I really don't) what sexuality they are. Ready?

"When Zarathustra was thirty years old he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his sirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not tire of it. But at last a change came over his heart, and one morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and spoke to it . . ." (Kaufmann, 121)

So there you have it. What's your default?

Works Cited

Kaufmann, Walter (1976). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (Ed. and Trans). The Portable Nietzsche (103 - 439). United States: Penguin Books. Print

Is It Cool If I Pirate This? Come On! You Haven't Been Selling It for, Like, 5 Whole Minutes!

Here's the deal. 

I'm reading the U.S. Copyright Code right now for a project that, hopefully, will be launching on January 1, 2016 so that I can keep myself and my team on the safe and legal side of things. It's about as fun to read as taking a hammer and dropping it on your bits while watching a Congressional Hearing about Congressional Hearings. Yet it brought up these two questions in my mind:

1.) There is a thing that you want to download from the internet. There are no avenues available for you to purchase it from a first party vendor, like Steam or Amazon, and you can only find it in secondary markets (such as used bookstores) and as scans/downloads online. The original intellectual property owners are long since gone and there is, apparently, no one in possession of the IP and no licensing of the the thing in the market (no shirts, books, so forth). Morally, is it okay to download the thing under these circumstances?

A second question:

2.) There is a thing you want to download from the internet. The intellectual property is still owned by a company/individual who makes money off the property but they no longer sell the version of the product you want to download. They have not attempted to make money off the product for a number of years. Like in the above situations there are no avenues available for you to purchase it from a first party vendor, like Steam or Amazon, and you can only find it in secondary markets (such as used bookstores) and as scans/downloads online. Morally, is it okay to download the thing under these circumstances?

Without a doubt if the owner of the copyright has not been dead at least a hundred years (and in many cases 150 years) then the product is not in the public domain - and some things (such as recorded performances of songs) might never pass into the public domain - so in the situations described above nothing that you're contemplating downloading is in the public domain. But there is this whole new thing that has developed in the last few years called abandonware. Which is essentially a situation where the copyright holder has folded and the intellectual property has passed into this realm of limbo where no one, apparently, owns the rights. 

After running this blog for the better part of two years I'm firmly convinced that I have some wildly intelligent and thoughtful readers. So I'm turning to you for help because I'm struggling with my own answers to these questions and I'd love to hear your thoughts on them.  

I'll be here, waiting. 

[Edited on 4/8/2015  at 4:12 PM EST to add the word "Morally" at the beginning of each question to help clarify my questions]

Have I Been Added to Sombody's a List?

Strange things happening in my blog traffic reports over the last few days. First I'm getting a ridiculous amount of traffic from Google and now I'm seeing a crap ton from a "Do Not Link" site. The Google thing doesn't bother me but the "Do Not Link" thing makes me wonder what terrible thing I've said that someone feels they can't just come directly to me. Have I insulted someone's mother by talking about killing Ogres? Did I set someone's loins on fire when I talked about my evil campaign? Do I really care or am I just tired?

Hard to answer any of those questions I think. 

Seriously though, I'd love to know why this traffic is happening lately. It's like a little mystery that I've stumbled across and have no knowledge what comes next. Any ideas out there?

Ptolus, Anyone?

Okay I've often wondered about +Monte Cook's Ptolus book but at $60.00 it's really hard to even consider pulling the trigger. Can anyone tell me anything about this thing? Is it worth buy at the $60 pdf price point? Or even the $110 combo price point?

Is really that good?

It's a Terrible, Soul-Sucking Idea

I was thinking about the Hollow World setting that came out years ago with the floating continents that circled a molten red sun. Each of the continents are supposed to be devoid of life if you can believe such noise. Anyway the idea I've been having kick around my head is this: what if each of these floating continents are actually where all the people that you don't kill immediately live and the world below is filled with monsters. 

It keeps bouncing round my head and I think that would be a lot of fucking fun to explore. I follow that with what the fuck is wrong with me? Ideas like that are soul-suckers that draw you down a rabbit hole where nothing productive gets done and life becomes a dreary repetition where hate is your only sustenance.

What about you? What's the idea that's been kicking about your brain that seems like a great idea and terrible one all at the same time?

A Question on Style

I was going to publish the fourth part of the D&D Basic Series today, but my son deleted all of it when he was trying to watch his favorite video on youtube. Such is the way with children and wives. Anyway, as I'm retyping the entire thing it occured to me that I should ask a couple style questions before I get too far into the series.

1.) Do you want a "Click here to begin at the beginning" link at the top of each post?

2.) Would you like a "Click here to read the next part" at the bottom of each post instead of just the overall series of links that I've got there now?

To anyone who answers these two questions, thank you in advance.

-- Charles

Don't Cross This Line. Okay, Don't Cross This Line.

When I first started running Dungeons and Dragons I wanted to be the best Dungeon Master that anyone had ever played under. I read what blogs there were on the subject, scoured forums, and listened to all the Dungeon Masters I knew as they told me their 'secrets.' I hoped that by doing all of this research that I would be able to be as great a Dungeon Master as I imagined all these others were. 

After spending nearly two years researching different styles of Dungeon Mastering I discovered what I thought was a hidden truth. The best and most exciting games I had been involved in, and read about, all had Dungeon Masters who seemingly never said the word "No." When the realization hit me I decided that I would never refuse my players; and like a fool I announced my decision to my players. They smiled at me and I had the sinking feeling that I had just fucked up.

The next night the gloves came off. They murdered and tortured their way though the underground kingdom of Goblins. It was a game within the game with my players attempting to find something that would force me to stop saying yes. 

In the end, as a group, we discovered that the lines none of us would cross should have been obvious to all of us from the beginning: rape and harm to little kids. Since that time there have been a few other points where I didn't like what was going on and stopped it - like the time one of the players was getting picked on through the game - but in general those are the two lines that none of us are willing to cross.

What about you? What things in your games are the lines in the sand that you won't cross?

Monday Morning Clearing House

The last couple of weeks have been really hard on me and I couldn't point to any one thing that's made things so difficult. My wife has been suffering through some terrible asthma attacks that have made our plans practically impossible to follow through and my son has solidly entered into the terrible twos nearly a month before his birthday - he's an over achiever, you know.

Anyway I've begun working on an overhaul to the blog that should make things a lot more functional and easier to navigate. Currently I'm going through and redoing each of the tags on my posts. I'm also going to be grouping all of the short fiction and actual play reports I've written together on their own page. The Art Page is going to have a big update so that I can go back to updating that series on a regular basis . . .

I'm working on a new header for the blog that, hopefully, will be ready some time in the next couple of weeks. The idea is to get the blog completely away from using anything that might get me in trouble and solidly into the clear. So I'm going to make a header using some sketches I made and some Photoshop stuff. My plan is to integrate the header with the background I'm making which, if everything goes to plan, should be a great introduction to the blog. 

I mentioned last week that I had ordered the Blue Yeti. It should be here some time this week and I'm looking to start doing some recordings that I'll be releasing. A friend of mine is currently writing a song for a project that will involve my microphone and his talent. More on that when there's more concrete information to reveal.

A Question

I want this thing to be a great resource for anyone who finds it - no matter how they come to read the thing. That said is there something I could add to the blog that would make it easier for you to use it and share it with your friends? Is there something you'd like to see added to the blog that you feel is missing from it?

The Increasingly Difficult Buy In

I was sitting in my parents' living room staring at the enormity of the third edition Player's Handbook and contemplating suicide. I had never made a character before and now that I was left to my own devices I found the matter incredibly frustrating. The book is obnoxiously long, filled with esoteric terminology, and has the most piss poor index and glossary I have ever had the misfortune of using. So I threw the book on the table, took the time to make myself an Akins Screw, and contemplated all the wrongs I had committed in my life. They are numerous though not without number.

It was around that time that I remembered that Wizards of the Coast posts their contact information in the front of every book they publish - as did TSR and basically every company you ever purchase anything from in this modern world. As it was my first day off in the last 85 days I decided to call.

"Thank you for calling Wizards of the Coast, this is Corporate Facade, how may I help you?"

"Son your god damned game is fun but too fucking hard to learn. Can you do something about that?"

"Well, what seems to be the problem?"

"Your made up words and lack of a workable glossary."

"Ah, yes. That is a problem."

------------------------------------

One of the worst decisions in our hobby was made when Wizards of the Coast decided to stop publishing the Basic, Expert, and Companion Dungeons and Dragons games. Now I am sure that part of this decision was based around the release of Third Edition and their experiences with Magic: the Gathering and competing product lines within the company diffusing sales.

It was a mistake.

The Basic game, whether you're talking about Holmes, Moldvay, or Mentzer, is a fantastic introduction to the hobby with a very minimal buy in for new gamers. The Expert and the Companion volumes are steady expansions on the initial game and provide players and Dungeon Masters alike with an increased level of difficulty and game complexity that come with mastery of the Basic game. Even going from the Basic game to Advanced or Second Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is an easy transition. The entirety of the product line builds from an easy introductory set for new players through varying levels of complexity and difficulty in later products - that's what we call synergy in modern business models.

Neither Third nor Fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons provides this sort of introductory model and I would argue that it is to the detriment of the game and of the hobby as a whole. Without that easy introduction new players are forced to find existing groups, groups that are notorious for being hesitant with introducing new people into the fold, to teach them the hobby; but what do you do when there are no groups around?

The simple answer is that you don't join the hobby because the buy in is too high.

The Holmes Basic game is only 49 pages long and includes all the rules you need to play at early levels, monsters, and a sample adventure. Moldvay's Basic game is only 64 pages long and provides you with everything Holmes brought to the table but with better formatting. The Mentzer Basic game boxed set is only a 120 pages which includes all the rules you need to play, monsters, a sample adventure, a separate Dungeon Master's guide, and a hell of a lot better art throughout the booklets.  Contrast that with the three basic books for third edition: Player's Handbook I, 319 pages; Monster Manual I, 319 pages; Dungeon Master's Guide I, 320 pages. Fourth Edition is just as bad when it comes to page counts so there is a ridiculous amount of effort that a new player has to put forth with these games - not to mention cost. Third edition started out at $30.00 a book while fourth edition started out at $40.00. By contrast I can buy a used copy of the Moldvay Basic game today for less than $10.00 on Amazon and can pick up both PDFs of the Mentzer Basic game for $10.00 through Dungeons and Dragons Classics.

So how does any of this get fixed?