Author: Ysharros_SC

Roll for SAN loss… the Fate way!

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Oh hell yeah! I am totally doing the THEY-PICKED-ME-THEY-PICKED-ME Snoopy dance, thank you very much.

The ABQ RPG weekly meetup is this evening and I’m thinking of organising TO THE PAIN wrestling matches for extra spots.

And for more awesome tabletop RPG news, the NewMexicon Kickstarter finished above $4000 and we’re going to see Matt McFarland, Michelle Lyons-McFarland, and Kenneth Hite.

That’s a lot of awesome. More on the FoC playtesting as it occurs over the next couple of months. SQUEEEEEEEE!

Thanks to Ursulav for the adorable Cthulhu — two words I never thought I’d juxtapose.

Tabletop RPGs and good beginnings

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So at the very end of last year I dragged the spousal unit to the “What should we play in 2017” meeting of the Albuquerque RPG group, and I’ve now attended all 4 of the weekly Thursday night gaming sessions that have taken place this year.

Why? That’s easy. Because it’s one of those meetups where what we play is sort of based on who shows up and pitches what, and no game is slated to run for more than a few sessions. Kind of like the sampling-buffet of RPG gaming, and for the way I am right now it’s perfect.

In week 1 we played Lady Blackbird, which was super fun. It’s an incredibly elegant little game with a lot of room for story that could easily have gone for more than a session but was satisfying as a one-off as well. Pick it up, it’s free!

In week 2 we played a Fate-accelerated homebrew kids vs. zombies game run by a member who had never GMed before. I always enjoy taking part in those because it’s very rewarding to see people want to try being on the other side of the screen (though actually pretty much nobody uses screens on the Thursday night games). She did extremely well for a first time and I hope she gained enough confidence to keep running stuff. It’s also always fun to play kids.

In week 3 we played another zombie game, this time with the End of the World rules, and that’s an interesting little system too, which shows very clearly how the underlying design assumptions affect how the game is played. As in, the design of D&D is almost exclusively based around killing monsters in dungeon crawls, and that’s what the game rewards you for doing – in general, players will tend to do what rewards them because duh, reward. We had to make characters that were basically ourselves, and I found that surprisingly constraining; it would have been a great deal easier to be heroic had I been playing anyone *but* myself, but of course that’s part of the point of the game.

It also demonstrated once again a principle I learned back in 1989, which is never to let the players go shopping in-character if you want the game to move smartly along. Especially during the beginning of a zombie apocalypse when you just don’t know what exactly you might need.

This week I was going to run Mythender, another free game where you get to punch Gods and monsters in the face (or get punched) (or end up as one of the myths you’re trying to defeat), but with one group off playing a multi-session Necessary Evil game we only had 3 players total and I didn’t want to have to deal with tweaking a system I only cracked open on the same day I was planning to run it. (Meanwhile, author Ryan Macklin kindly offered on Twitter to give me some tips, so I’m definitely rain-checking it for another night.) More on Mythender when it does get run.

So we ended up playing Dog Eat Dog because one of the players has been asked to run a game of it for a 7th-grade history class. It’s basically about colonialism and what happens on and to both sides, but has the potential to be applied to any kind of ‘colonisation’ where one entity takes over another — you could potentially apply it to cult dynamics, or even possibly to something as nebulous as the inexorable takeover by Hollywood of other, smaller film industries.

Two of us played the ‘natives’ and one played the ‘Occupation’, and it was fascinating to play out scenes of how the Occupation gradually killed off and/or assimilated the natives, whose violent rebellion (me) really only ended up making things worse. It made me notice how much the outcome is determined by our cultural expectations, because as a white European player I kind of assume that colonists usually end up ‘winning’, given the history I’m taught.

It shares some similarities with Microscope, which I’m also looking forward to playing one of these weeks.

The best thing for me about these weekly gatherings is that if I don’t feel up to it on a given week, I’m not letting a long-standing regular group down, even if I’d said I’d run something. Out of the 12-15 people I’ve met so far (there’s a core of same faces and the rest don’t always come every week), two thirds are able and willing to run stuff as opposed to just playing, and as a group we have pretty much every game under the sun covered. This takes all the pressure off me, which right now is very helpful.

It’s at least good to know that I’m able to get out of the house and interact with people again, though clearly I need to keep an eye on how much I commit to because my mental health and sensory issues don’t usually do what I want them to… Yet. Given the right mix of therapies that may change, but in any case I’m very glad to see I won’t be condemned to never play tabletop again because I have trouble being around people for any length of time. A good start for the year, if only on the gaming front.

Ugh.

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In a couple of days 2016 will hopefully Exit, pursued by a bear.

I won’t lie, it’s been a difficult year. Sometime down the line I may also see it as a useful, productive, or possibly even personally strengthening year, but for the time being the main word that comes to mind is “shitty”. Not that I’m looking for sympathy — for many others it’s been an even worse year. RIP so damn many famous / fun / influential / brave / honest / talented people I cared for since I hit the age of 12. Oh wait, earlier – Richard Adams also died just the other day. And we’re not even going to talk about Syria, world politics, Brexit, American politics, or money.

To misquote (or fix, that’s how I see it) her Majesty ERII, this has been an Anus Horribilis.

It’s been kind of bleh on the gaming front too. I’ve hopped from MMO to MMO for a few weeks here and there but nothing sticks. Ditto single-player stuff. I don’t have the headspace and/or I have better things to be doing, like figuring out ways to approach my upended selbstanschauung. I dropped out of the face-to-face tabletop RPG group I was in, and shortly thereafter dropped out of the VTT-RPG group I was in. Both were good decisions at the time, and while I miss spending time and having fun with all those people, I couldn’t handle being around anyone, in person or online, for the greater part of this year.

(Quick reminder: In June or July I was diagnosed with both Sensory Processing Disorder and Asperger’s. You’d think that in 47 [now 48] years on the planet I’d have noticed those things for myself by now, but apparently that’s not how it works, especially when you’re ‘high functioning’ and really good at hiding things. Anyway, different discussion for another time. The salient fact right now is that my issues had been getting much worse since the death of my dad in 2012, got even worser (it’s a word) (now) starting in Feb this year, and made it extremely difficult for me to work, go out, or basically function in any way generally considered ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’.)

Long story short, I have started taking a tricyclic medication which — cautious hurrah! — appears to have a greatly calming effect on the anxiety that basically comes along for the ride with the above-named issues. It does nothing for said issues, but not being in a constant state of dread sure is helpful. Therapy (just CBT for now) seems like it may also be helpful, but with only 2 sessions under my belt I can’t really comment for sure.

The good thing about that is that for the first time in months I feel able to be around people again. So I’ve joined a local tabletop RPG listing/meetup group thingy and have posted that I’d like to run a one-off session of something light and fun.

We’ll see if anything comes of it. Chances are nobody will reply because that’s the nature of these things — and if nobody does, that’s ok. I’ve put myself out there in whatever tiny way — but for just one session, which means I can flee if it’s too much. I won’t be committing myself to something lasting/regular and therefore won’t feel awful if/when I flee and let people down (as per the two groups this year). That same meetup collective holds single-session gatherings every week, and while they’re too late in the day and too far away for me right now (evenings + distance are a bit of an issue), maybe that will change.

Baby steps. And of course, there have been some good points this year as well, because life is rarely just black or white. I have made some new friends. I’m learning things about myself (however bloody painfully), about others, and about mental health, which has always fascinated me. I might start writing again (someday – freaking baby steps, people).

Have a lovely, warm, safe and alone/surrounded New Year, as your preferences and needs dictate. Let’s bury 2016 somewhere deep and dark, surrounded in garlic and with its head cut off just to be on the safe side.

 

MMOs are dead; hey, let’s give ESO another try

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MMOs are not dead because people aren’t forced to group or because people can’t commit 18 hours to camping a spawn anymore. MMOs are dying because the generation that loved them is growing up, had kids, and generally has other things to do. The newer generation visits MMOs but doesn’t live in them the way we did.

Maybe it’s time for a new paradigm in online gaming.*

 

I posted this as a comment on Facebook earlier today and am wondering if maybe I hit a nail on the head, at least as far as my own MMO experience goes. I play them, but I don’t live them anymore like I used to; and even then, I don’t play them nearly as much as I think I’d like to.

(It’s like the person who keeps waiting for that other person to call because they said they would, but they haven’t yet and it’s been 3 weeks. If that person wanted to call they’d have done so by now. We make time for the things we find important.)

I still call myself a gamer, I still keep a bunch of games around, and I even keep some of them up to date, but I don’t really actually play all that much. I do way more thinking about gaming and talking about gaming than actual gaming, and even the thinking and talking are down to an all-time low compared to, say, 2009 and the heyday of this blog. (Man, time really flies.)

I suspect MMOs will end up being a mere blip on the evolutionary landscape of whatever gaming is turning into, because whatever it becomes it’s clear gaming itself isn’t going to go away anytime soon — it just probably won’t look like what the dinosaurs from the turn of the millennium think it should or would.

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In the meantime I’m downloading The Elder Scrolls Online again, mostly because of this fascinating article that a friend linked on Facebook and that led to the above-mentioned comment. Sometimes MMOs are a cynical labour of trying to screw as much money out of people as possible, and sometimes they’re a hopeless labour of love, but they’re almost always made by at least a few people who are literally pouring themselves into something that usually doesn’t have a whole lot of chances of succeeding, or not for any length of time. And when someone cares that much, it makes me want to take another look at a game I tried and cavalierly abandoned after a few weeks — not because it was awful, but because it didn’t galvanise me the way Asheron’s Call and the early MMOs did.

The problem is, no game can. One can’t go back. Maybe it’s time for me to admit that, move on, and find my own new paradigm.

PS: Yes, I’m still mad at World of Warcraft.

 

*I don’t think I’ve ever quoted myself quite this blatantly before. I don’t know whether to feel cool, conceited or just a little bit dirty.

WoW – back to Vanilla

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This is a whine post, and I’m just getting something off my chest in public, so feel free to move right along.

Turns out that everything, and I mean everything in Legion is gated behind dungeons, except for actually getting to max level. Which is a shame, because in every other respect Legion is probably the best (and best-looking) expansion World of Warcraft has ever done. It reminds me of Vanilla-WoW, which I basically stopped playing at level 50-odd because everything led to doing dungeons, everything you might need or want was in a dungeon, and the entire game was focused on doing dungeons so you could gear up to do more dungeons.

Things I like to do in WoW:

— Harvest stuff and craft stuff (just for fun – I long ago gave up any illusion of it being useful). Progressing through crafting professions (to 800) is now gated behind dungeons.

— The levelling process. Ironically (for a game whose design paradigm revolves around something completely different), WoW has one of the best levelling games there is. Only SWTOR comes close. Levelling characters is super fun for me and yes, I have an enormous capacity for repeating content (because I play to relax — knowing “what’s coming” is actually a plus for me). That part Legion does really well.

— In Legion, I was looking forward to doing the Class hall stuff because it’s part of your character’s story through the expansion. This is gated behind dungeons. Apparently it’s only one dungeon if you’re a hunter*, but that’s not the point. (Especially since I’m an altoholic.)

Things I do not like to do in Wow:

— Dungeons. (Even when I’m umpty-nine levels above them and can go through them on my own, they’re basically the last thing I would ever choose to do when I log in.)

I. DO. NOT. LIKE. DUNGEONS.

And by “do not like” I mean: get so overwhelmed and upset by the process (finding a group, getting there, sitting through the “pretty” visual effects and fights) that I usually end up in tears. It’s a sensory processing disorder thing, and possibly even an Asperger’s thing, I don’t know. I do know that lights + noise + speed of action + having to deal with other people = cruel and unusual punishment.

Why on earth would I want to put myself through that for a game?

Answer: I don’t. And I won’t.

I’m not asking for the gear or indeed for any of the “goodies” one gets from doing dungeons. I’m not motivated by that shit. But the epiphany I just had included this: WoW is all about the gear. It always has been and apparently always will be. At the end of the day, there is nothing else. Gear is the WoW paradigm, and while we can sometimes work around it, I guess in Legion the designers decided it was time we remembered it with a vengeance. And in WoW, gear equals dungeons equals gear equals more dungeons.

For a while I actually thought Blizzard had decided that it was possible to make a game where some folks could do dungeons and raids (and get the benefits of those) and those who didn’t want to could do other stuff (and not get the same benefits but that was ok too). That’s basically what Warlords of Draenor was. Apparently this was not popular, and Legion decided to go waaaay over to the other extreme.

Way to go, Blizzard. It feels like we’re back in 2006, and I’m going elsewhere until 2018.

I’m updating EQ2 as I type.**

*Thanks to Kanter for pointing that out. I appreciate the effort and I know you get it. But it’s still one too many. 🙂

** Yes of course I’m knee-jerking and rage-quitting. I’ll be back.  I just won’t expect to play Legion.

On courtesy, phones and the generation gap in tabletop roleplaying

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So I came across this on Twitter. But first, a quick caveat.

This is a rant. It is not a rant aimed at @GMRaphi in particular, even though I’m using his Tweet as a springboard for the rant. I’m taking issue with what he’s saying — and okay, with his generation (or what I assume to be his generation) — but not with who he is. Because a) that would be a dick move and b) I don’t know the man but he looks like a decent chap.

And an extra caveat a few days later. Yes, it’s all generalisations, that’s what a rant is. Do I think entirely in generalisations? Do I assume what I’m saying applies to each and every possible situation? Of course not. Do me the courtesy of understanding that and understanding that a rant is, by its very nature, a complaint against a general order of things. Yeesh.

 

I couldn’t find a way to respond in 140 characters so here we go.

  1. It’s impolite, at least to basically anyone of my generation or older. I’m 47 — which, by the way, doesn’t make me decrepit, doesn’t make me incapable of understanding the internet (we invented it, assholes), and doesn’t make me stupid — and where/when I come from, using your phone at the dinner table or while you’re out with your friends is just plain rude. It’s the same at the gaming table — we’re gathered to be here together, not to sit here individually checking our Twitter feed. If you want to sit in your social media bubble, do it somewhere else.
  2. It’s beyond self-centered. Just because my character isn’t in the limelight and it’s somebody else’s turn to act, I get to switch out and do something else? Seriously? Why exactly are you getting together with 3-6 other people to play a game if all you give a shit about is your character’s rolls and shining moments? If I were older and more curmudgeonly I’d say this is a perfect example of how entitled and self-centered the millennial generation is, but instead I’ll just glower and tell them to get off my lawn.
  3. To me, it’s a sign that you can’t really be bothered to be there, and/or that you’d rather be tweeting about what you’re doing than actually taking part in what you’re doing. Which, I know, is life these days — we don’t go to events to enjoy the event, we go to events so that we can take selfies of ourselves attending the event so that… I dunno. I don’t get that, which is probably another sign of my lack of hipness with the times. (Which my use of the word ‘hip’ just confirmed.)

I also know that responding in any way to what could just as easily have been a troll on some random forum is largely pointless. I don’t know the chap in question, he might just want to be provocative (because I’ve never done that, nope), and I just happened to come across some Twitter friends’ responses. If it’s a troll, responding is useless. If it’s a generation thing, responding is equally useless because we have the cellphone-grafted generation that prefers to read a thing on social media than to be at the thing and we have the pre-cellphone generation that still understands what it’s like to attend a thing and not just for the sake of filming it on your iPhone — and never the twain shall meet.

It’s ironic. Not so long ago, I was of the generation of young assholes that were destroying all that was good and kind about the world and the reason we couldn’t have nice things. Now I’m the one complaining about the young whippersnappers.

Except in this case, I’m right. If you’re going to attend a tabletop game (or a virtual tabletop game for that matter), ask if it’s ok to use your phone or tablet or whatever. Some GMs won’t have a problem with it. I sure as hell will. And if it’s not OK, then don’t pout, don’t sulk (no matter how good you millennials are at the whole passive aggressive thing), just fucking put your fucking phone away and BE AT THE THING like a normal human being. Show some interest in someone else other than as a link to your own coolness.

In short: don’t be a dick.

 

 

Looking one’s best when dead

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OK, so I’ll admit the new Demon Hunters do look pretty cool.

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And as far as leaving a stylish corpse goes, I can guarantee you that I’m really good at leaving a corpse, at any rate. The pre-Legion demon invasions are in full swing and I’ve spent a (relatively) quiet afternoon going from one to another and getting some new gear.

And dying. Lots and lots of dying. The fact that I’m not really bonded with my character yet, that she’s melee, and that I’m throwing myself at the bad guys like the stubborn guy in that Kids in the Hall sketch might have something to do with it, not to mention the fact that some of those demons do a lot of damage.

If you want serious leveling coverage of this event, go read Stargrace’s blog. Me, I’m just a tourist.

Finally and utterly a propos nothing, I have almost 700 screenshots in my WoW screenshot folder. It takes forever to load. I should probably archive some of the older ones or something.

That’s it. Move along. Go! Shoo!

Sensory Integration whaaa? #MentalHealth

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I originally posted this on Facebook and thought that was more than enough exposure, but I have a feeling that reaching out to others (and emulating the courage I see in folks who do it routinely) about this mental health thing might be helpful for me, in some weird ‘I don’t quite get it but it seems to have some Zen-like benefit in there somewhere’ kind of way.

And as someone who made it FORTY-SEVEN FUCKING YEARS without a diagnosis (OK, maybe 42, I remember being 7 and having issues with sounds and textures, lights and emotions), if posting this sparks any kind of recognition in even one other person, it’ll be worth it. Because as the smart young lady over at Eating Off Plastic says,

I’m almost certain nobody that has this condition actually enjoys it

 

True dat.

Everyone has some kind of sensory sensitivity, or certainly everyone I’ve ever met. But please don’t confuse that with Sensory Processing Disorder (or Sensory Integration Disorder, which I somewhat prefer). Crank ALL your senses, including the emotional ones, up to 13, 24/7/365 (yes, even while asleep) x 4 decades and then let’s talk.

And I’m high-functioning. God only knows what it’s like to have this and not be. On the other hand, my very high-functioningnessabilityation is probably to blame for my rather elevated* levels of anxiety, but oh well. We’re dealing with that.

So here’s the text of the Facebook post, shared a bit more widely than the close family and friends I target over there. Now please excuse me while I go hide under a rock and pretend I didn’t do this.

Long post about my mental health incoming.

Today I had my last permitted consultation with the amazing and wonderful Cognitive Behavioral Health lady at the 377th Medical Group in ABQ. An hour later my referral to UNM Neuropsychology (which had been languishing on the desk of my newly-promoted-to-Captain Primary Care Manager [aka Doctor for Euros]) came through, so that will be the next step.

I am still rather uncomfortable discussing all this, even at the remove offered by Facebook, but wonderful CBH lady says it’s fine if I want to share and not unhealthy, so here we are, just to keep my friends and some family updated.

It seems my sensory integration issues may be at the root of pretty much everything that’s eating this Gilberta Grape, though it took 4 decades to get a diagnosis. Even the vertigo. Certainly the anxiety, and possibly the self-esteem issues (which are way worse than most people know because, as usual, ‘high-functioning’. Am starting to really hate that term).

And I may be further on the autism spectrum than I thought, given that I never expected to be on it at all, even on the cool, look-at-all-these-smart-people Asperger’s end of it. As a single example, turns out my issues with feelings (having them, expressing them, dealing with them, doing anything other than pretending they’re not there and can be intellectualised into something else) are not uncommon on that spectrum.

It’s all very, very weird. The diagnosis fits like a shoe you never realised you were wearing, or maybe like a shoe you’ve spent 40 years pretending you weren’t wearing. So it makes sense, but it’s weird. I’m not quite sure how to deal with it. I can’t just ignore it because it won’t go away and it’s affecting my life so negatively right now that I must choose to do something about it.

The next step (see how the shoe metaphor works for me here) is UNM’s neuropsychology department, assuming they accept my case, and Occupational Therapy for what I’ve got. Whatever that really is. It’s difficult to get information as someone diagnosed in adulthood because most of it is aimed at kids, but I’m digging out resources here and there.

And I’m not alone out there. Which is helpful, in a distant kind of way. Here’s one really fun blog that is more baldly honest about *ulp* feelings than I could be in a million years. [See Eating Off Plastic link above. Come on, scroll back. You can do it.]

* I originally wrote ‘insane levels’ but then I figured that wasn’t terribly sensitive. Because I care about that – actually no, I don’t, but I do care about not calling myself crazy. BTDT, it’s not healthy.