394vas - Jinx In Hell - Childhood Memories

Jinx in Hell Childhood Memories Jim Vassilakos ([email protected])

“My first opportunity to trust you,” Jinx says just before she inhales about half of what Furcas did, then follows it with a sip of wine. “In a few minutes, we’ll be without our memories,” he warns, a matter of fact tone to his voice, as though such a state were perfectly natural. Then he takes another sip of the Tabula Rasa before passing it back. “I imagined as much from the name on the bottle,” Jinx nods. “Might I inquire as to the point?” “Oh…I’m just curious about something.” “How long do the effects last?” “Not long…an hour or two, a veritable eternity should Gordo burst through those doors and decide to have his way with us.” “That doesn’t worry you?” “He’s loyal,” Furcas takes another sip of wine. “And even should he prove otherwise, he will have a somewhat difficult time finding us.” With that he gets to his feet, a small wand materializing in his hand. He waves it around in a large circle, a line of blue flame burning in mid-air where the end had passed. Once the circle is complete, Jinx sees that he’s created some sort of extra-dimensional portal. “Come,” he says, picking up their glasses and walking into this new chamber, which turns out to be a small study lit by balls of light which dance near the low ceiling. A long, leather couch is there, as well as lean-back chair, and there’s a small coffee table upon which are stacked a series of thick, metal-bound tomes at one end, and at the other, several sheets of loose parchment and a quill. As Jinx crosses into the chamber, the magical portal vanishes behind her, Furcas taking to the lean-back while motioning her to the couch. “Now what?” Jinx queries, once she’s lain down with her head on the armrest. “Dictation, my sweet,” Furcas motions her toward the paper and quill. “Dear, Furcas and Jinx,” he begins. “You are both at home and safe. If you don’t remember anything, that’s because you just drank some Tabula Rasa. While it dissolves your memories for a time, it also returns them ever so lovingly, so fear not, you will both soon be back to your old, rotten selves. For the time being, however, feel free to relate your lives to each other as they re-emerge from your ragged minds. There are no secrets, here, nor, we hope, will there ever be. Now sign it, and pass it this way.” “If I won’t remember anything, why my signature? …Are you also signing? I’m knowledgeable of pacts, but my knowledge is limited to those spells of the ninth circle and below…I’m not saying I dis—…well…maybe I am, but for someone like myself who has never done this, could you give a bit more information of what it may do?” For a protracted moment, Furcas regards Jinx with all the good humor he can summon. “Just hand it here,” he says. “I’m not done writing yet.”

“Well, then finish writing.” “What is this for?” “It’s a letter.” “I can see that…but why it is only half-written?” “Because you stopped writing to ask me,” Furcas blinks for a moment, trying to remember her question or, for that matter, who she is. Jinx, meanwhile, looks up, the space between her ears bubbling somewhat pleasantly, as though somebody cut open her skull and poured in some expensive champagne. “Where are we?” she finally manages, looking around the study somewhat furtively, her eyes taking in the dancing balls of light at the ceiling, Furcas’ long horns, and the trembling page in her hand just as though she’s noticing it all for the first time. “That’s a very good question,” Furcas replies, getting up and checking the room out. It doesn’t take long before he discovers that there are no exits whatsoever. Jinx, meanwhile, looks at the page in front of her. “It’s no good,” comes the stranger’s (Furcas’) voice. “We’re trapped.” The scrap of parchment in her hand appears to be some sort of letter. It reads: Dear Jinx & Furcas, You are home & safe. If you can’t remember anything, that’s because you drank some cheap wine that some dumb-ass probably pressed from Styx grapes. For the time being Jinx carefully folds it up and puts it in her pocket, quite certain that it might have something to do with her predicament, but honestly worried that the dumb-ass it mentions might be her. “Did you hear me? We’re trapped.” They stare at each other for a long moment, each trying to remember the other, not to mention the riddle of who they are themselves. Finally Furcas blinks, as though remembering something important. “Didn’t you just have something?” “What?” “A piece of paper…it was in your hand.” Jinx finds herself taking the note out of her pocket and handing it to him. He apparently has no trouble reading it, although the words come as slowly for him as they had for her. “Jinx & Furcas,” he begins, and for a moment Jinx can vividly remember her mother holding her close to her breast, murmuring her name as she suckled. It is a fleeting glimpse, but the memory is real—she is certain—and with it trickle a steady stream of thoughts and images, each tangentially interconnected. One of these is of a rainy night, when the others had come seeking shelter in the old tower that her and Mother were

then occupying. Mother had assumed human form, hoping to gain their trust, but they were a gang of bandits, and would have killed both her and Jinx had she not been able to fly into the night. Although shocked at their escape, the intruders decided to occupy the tower, posting a guard, and Jinx can remember waiting in the cold, wet darkness, until Mother finally took her leave, communicating telepathically into Jinx’s mind three simple directives: “Wait, listen, and learn.” Out in the dark distance, Jinx could hear their screams, Mother dispatching them individually, then withdrawing in order to regenerate from whatever injury she had sustained, then returning again and then again, entering from the roof or from a window or, finally, from the front door. When it was finally over, she came and collected Jinx, cold and wet, and brought her to feast on their raw, mangled flesh. It was Jinx’s first taste of mannish blood, and it was good. Mother cooked what they couldn’t stuff in their bellies, intending to preserve the meat for as long as possible. It smelt and tasted of smoke, but it was filling. After that they dined upon mannish jerky and bone marrow. More humans eventually came, seeing the line of smoke in the sky, and Mother invited them to eat, sharing with them much of what was left. Jinx remembers the veiled laughter in her eyes that the humans mistook for warmth and generosity, and she remembers also laughing inside, their morbid fate the punch line to a joke only Mother and she shared. Together, they killed them, each quietly as they slept, and then she turned their souls toward Limbo and whispered for them to rise, and rise they did, bloodstained corpses at her command. She had them stand guard outside, clowns of death at Jinx’s command, her daughter’s playmates and guardians, mute but ever-reliant. As Jinx wakes from these memories, she sees Furcas entrapped within his own, his eyes seemingly glossy with the mysteries of his own, distant past. “I remember my mother,” he says, as though it is the most wondrous thing anyone could say. “Tell me of her.” “You tell me of yours,” he replies. “Difficulties with trust?” Furcas smiles, “I hardly know you.” “Apparently you know me well enough to lure me into your confidence with cheap booze.” “What makes you think the wine was mine?” “I was the one writing the note. Clearly, I would not call myself a dumb-ass…and since you’re the only other person here…” “Hmm…” Furcas’ mind lingers around her logic, wondering absently if perhaps they are mates to one another. “What are you thinking?” Jinx queries, seeing the sudden salivation in his gaze. “Oh, I’m still curious as to why this room has no exits.” “Probably because the exit is hidden. You’ve never heard of secret doors? I had one of those where I grew up.” “Where was that?” “An old, deserted tower…it was once a watchtower, my mother told me. Oh yes…I was supposed to tell you about my mother, wasn’t I? She liked the taste of human flesh. What about yours?”

“She was among the first fallen,” he replies, stopping for a long moment to quiz himself on the very meaning of the phrase. “Her skin was of the purest white.” “My mother was the exact opposite,” Jinx counters. “She was as black as a starless night.” “You, obviously, took after your father.” Jinx blinks, trying to remember her father, or to even remember the meaning of the word. It takes a moment before it comes to her, but within the experience of her early childhood she cannot place any reference to it. “My mother never mentioned him. It was as though he never existed.” “So you two lived alone?” “We lived with zombies.” “Zombies?” “We didn’t eat everyone she killed. Occasionally she would…raise them, make them into servants…protectors. Then she would leave, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. She would come back, and she would teach me things…how to hunt, how to read and write.” “Did you enjoy this?” Jinx thinks for a long moment, trying to remember the times she questioned the use of such knowledge, for there were no books in the tower save for those carried in by the human trespassers, and those were as indecipherable to her mother as they were to Jinx herself. “I liked it when she paid attention to me,” Jinx finally replies. “Wait…there was another instructor. We had captured him. My mother wanted me to learn the language of humans, and so we made him teach me what he knew of it, since he was carrying so many scrolls. He tried to escape a few times, but we would always track him down. There was really nowhere for him to go anyway. The places he called towns and cities, where the humans dwelled…they were too far away.” “What eventually happened to him?” “He…” Jinx squints her eyes, trying to recall the memories. “My mother promised him that when he finished schooling me, he would be allowed to go back to the lands of the humans. She would send him home. So after I learned all that he could teach, she turned him into a zombie and sent him off. She just pointed him in the right direction, and said “Walk!” Furcas can’t help but grin. “I think I like this mother of yours.” “She had her moments.”

Further Thoughts on Politics in A&E: I feel that I should apologize for some of my remarks last issue. Regardless of concerns over accuracy, using such words as “arrogance”, “hypocrisy”, and “immaturity” were clearly beyond the bounds of polite discourse1, and as I am always, seemingly, erring on the side of incertitude, it is remarkable to me that they fell from my fingers onto the page. In short, I think it better to simply start again. So here 1

I don’t know when I’ve written a thought more laughably obvious. Granted, this thought is, in itself, a bit two-faced, but, as is often the case, my thoughts are divided against themselves. That is to say, I am of two minds on this topic, and therefore to make myself more fully understood, I must write on it yet again.

is what I think and, perhaps as important to understanding my point of view, why I think it. When I started contributing to A&E some years ago2, of course it was impossible not to notice the political discussions. For the most part, I paid them little heed, as much of the time, it seemed to me, what was at issue was some minor historical footnote.3 Quite naturally, I think it is arguable, I didn’t see what all the history and politics had to do with gaming, and having little interest in the topics then under discussion, I simply abstained from discussing them.4 If you were to ask me, during this period, if I was for or against politics in A&E, I think I certainly would have answered that I was against the politics. I remember feeling this way at the time, thinking to myself that all the political discussions never seemed to go anywhere except that the participants would often get snippy with one another, and occasionally, from some minor spark, a flame war would erupt, and I can remember shaking my head, thinking that we’d all be better off to focus on producing gaming material...that A&E could thereby be much improved, that the content could be much better, more useful, and that every page could be jam-packed with material of value to roleplayers. Aside from contributing write-ups from the Jinx campaign5 along with various other articles, I also started contributing a series of articles on a science-fiction RPG that I was trying to develop.6 In working on this RPG’s near-future setting, I had to confront the question of what could happen in the near-term politically, as well as economically, technologically, and socially. I had to start addressing such topics as world population growth, social decay, government debt, peak-oil, the environment, rapidly advancing technology, globalization, and the clash of civilizations, just to name a few. Hence, I started writing some essays addressing what I initially viewed as a few the issues immediately at hand,7 and I also started scrounging around for various books on the topic of the future and what it might be like to be living in it.8 2

Apparently this unholy incident occurred in A&E #297. Granted, history is in the details. 4 It would appear this was an uncommon moment of sensibility on my part. Actually, I abstained from commentary generally for quite some time. Perhaps it is also worth noting that I also dropped the name of my zine after about two issues, as I thought the table of contents would be more useful if each contributor simply entitled their zines with some phrase describing their primary focus for that particular issue. In this way, I imagined, A&E might more closely resemble the prototypical magazine with articles by the authors each focused on various topics. 5 Starting in A&E #316. 6 It is still tentatively entitled Ragamuffin. See A&E #s 298, 307, 310, 312, 313, 315, 317, 337. 7 See A&E #356. 8 I finally got around to writing a few book reviews in A&E #s 359 & 361. I’ve also recently been reading a few more books that relate to the future: A Short History of the Future (2nd edition) (1992) by W. Warren Wagar (highly recommended), America Alone (2006) by Mark Steyn, The Coming Economic Collapse (2006) by Stephen Leeb, America’s Financial Reckoning Day (2007) by Charles Coppes, and Our Earth: Global Warming—The Evidence (2007) by Peter Murray. Also worthy of mention is this month’s (July 2008) issue of Popular Science, with its articles “Green Megalopolis” and “10 Audacious Ideas to Save the 3

Granted, my first political essay in A&E was probably as early as A&E #314, but you must forgive me, as this was the issue immediately following 9/11. I was in shock, and so I felt that I had no choice but to write about it. Likewise, it wasn’t until A&E #350 that I really started writing comments as a matter of course, and once I did, I already had a lot of politics on my mind,9 politics that needed an outlet into what I believed was, for the most part, a forum of intelligent, kind, thoughtful individuals who generally accept each others differences and are tolerant of each others perceived faults. Of course, I’d already witnessed a good flame war or two. I knew that you weren’t all saints. But I also knew that you were smart, that you came from many different parts of the world, from different backgrounds, and that you were all gamers, which, for whatever reason, I tend to value as meaning that you might perhaps have an open mind, at least to some extent. So, therefore, needless to say, I began merrily and foolishly trampling into politics, easing my dismal mood by expressing it to all of you.10 Needless to say, once we began discussing the world and our differing historical perspectives, a few members got rather annoyed. Patrick was one of them,11 and Joshua another.12 Robert Dushay accused me of inconsideration in trying to use A&Ers to help develop the SF setting’s background13 to which I, of course, heartily pled guilty, but out of the many things he wrote that were particularly worthy of note, he added that all that we had discussed and that I had read and began to condition myself to potentially believe were merely possibilities, not certainties. He wrote, “Don’t mistake your choices for the certainty of how things must be for all settings, which your original post appeared to do, which is what set off this hot thread in the first place.” To which, I replied: “My apologies to everyone over this political digression, by the way. I’d rather discuss all this Planet,” and various shows on The History Channel, such as “Crude” (originally an Australian documentary, see http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude) and “Dogfights of the Future”, which is about the near-future of military aviation. 9 This, it would seem, is evidenced by my rather bizarre essay in A&E #351 as well as the sheer volume of my political remarks in A&E #352. Let us chalk this up to the election pressure on a wellmeaning if indecisive voter. As I think Lisa remarked to me in A&E #352, I was writing in order to think. 10 Indeed, the more that I learned, the more pessimistic I became (if such a thing were even possible). This reminds me of something Jinx’s player said to me. He teaches High School English, and one of the essay assignments that his students can choose to undertake is to analyze and write about the near-term prospects and probable future (in their own estimation) of the United States and of human civilization in general (or something like that). He tells me that almost without fail, one can tell which students are undertaking this particular assignment by the droop in their postures, the sudden looks of worry and pessimism upon their faces, the sign that they are becoming aware of the awful world around them and that they are becoming steadily more depressed as their research forces them to learn about the many serious problems that the country and our world face. 11 He made what I can only assume was the full extent of his annoyance known to me in A&E #357. 12 Also in A&E #357, Joshua pled that political discourse in A&E should be at least held back to a dull roar. 13 See his comment to me in A&E #359.

in terms of what this science-fiction setting will be like rather than in terms of what the world will end up being like, but, at least when one is shooting for some degree of realism, it often becomes difficult to separate these two concepts. Nonetheless, I’d like any further discussion along these lines, if there is to be any, to be purely dispassionate if at all possible. I’m no longer trying to grind a political axe here, and while it would be nice to bat around these ideas just for the sake of thinking about them in greater detail, unfortunately, I really don’t see how we can prevent the conversation from becoming hopelessly political. It seems to me that this whole subject just cuts too close to home, so with that I’ll be happy to drop it if anyone here feels that it is off-topic.” 14 And, at that point, I basically put this science-fiction setting back on the shelf. I moved it to the back burner, to not coin a phrase, and I wrote a few more articles of only passing interest before my life suddenly became very busy, what with the 2nd job and the various pressures pertaining thereto. I did try to stamp out a few of the brushfires that my political comments had probably helped fuel,15 but for the most part, the discussion we were having, imperfect though it was, was essentially shut down for the good the APA. Although I was disappointed that we had not made further headway, the whole exercise left me considerably richer in terms of ideas and ways of looking at the world. I wasn’t angry with Lee, as I knew that the two-page rule was probably for the best, and I wasn’t angry with Joshua, as I could remember feeling much the same way that he felt. But I was possibly annoyed that discussing politics, particularly with the explicit aim of developing a near-term SF-RPG setting, should engender such a backlash, whereas, before, politics had been discussed in A&E with no discernable gaming-related aim for dozens if not hundreds of issues, and flame wars had come and gone over issues far less consequential.16 Nonetheless, as I said, my life had gotten busy. For nearly two years, I attended solely to the petty details of life along with a new career, of sorts, or at least an extension of the old one. I followed along with the APA intermittently, and I was gladdened with the arrival of Ty Beard.17 I had flirted with the idea of writing a series of Traveller-related articles,18 and so the addition of a Traveller-zine to A&E sorely tempted me to return. The fact that I didn’t return immediately is a testament to just how busy I had become. So when I finally did return,19 and I witnessed Brian Misiaszek essentially warning Ty to knock it off with all the 14

A&E #360. See my comments to Joshua and Marco in A&E #359 along with my comments to Paul Mason and Brian Misiaszek in A&E #360. 16 Brian Rogers informed me in A&E #392 that the great brouhaha with Robert Rees was apparently over their differing opinions of Everway, which might be important to some people…it might even be important to me had I ever played Everway and had an opinion on the matter…but really…was it all worth it? I mean, we’re talking about a game, for heaven’s sake. 17 A&E #380-b (the true #380). 18 One of them, “Six Recreations for Traveller,” appeared in A&E #355. 19 A&E #389. 15

non-gaming comments20 (which, as I’ve stated, I was enjoying immensely along with his Traveller material), I felt that I had to respond. After all, Ty was apparently in the middle of developing a near-future setting involving, as its central premise, militant Islam taking over the world.21 I immediately saw a parallel between what he was doing and what I had been attempting to do roughly thirty issues previously. Granted, Ty was not approaching the readership with a questioning mind but rather with one that was dead certain of the confrontation that awaits us. Needless to say, this didn’t make him popular. Then, Louis, who shares many of Ty’s concerns and who often discusses politics in his zines, was told to be quiet in absolutely no uncertain terms, 22 and this was really too much to bear. After all, Lee had made a rule, a sort of compromise, if you will, and while one side of the fence was adhering to it quite diligently, debating each other within the bounds of the two-page rule, the other side apparently thought nothing of telling the conservative half of the political debate to knock it off. I don’t think I would have reacted had their comments been directed at everyone who was discussing politics.23 It is perfectly acceptable to me that members should make known their desire for the two-page rule to be modified. However, what I could not tolerate and will not tolerate is a selective attack against certain members based on their ideology. Perhaps this is a personal foible on my part, but whether there are liberals attacking conservatives or conservatives attacking liberals, I have the tendency to become quite agitated if either side is being treated unfairly…particularly when it comes to their right to say what they think. Hence, rightly or wrongly, what I read made me angry. It touched a nerve, perhaps also in part because I had allowed myself to be silenced before my temporary absence from A&E. And although Ty and Louis weren’t steering the political discussions toward a similar end (the design of an RPG setting), there could be no doubt that the discussions themselves would, at some level, help them organize and detail their thoughts, as, I felt, was the case for myself. So I wrote what I wrote,24 and I have little doubt that some will find it offensive. Having said that, I have to also say that it would be acceptable to me if Lee were to modified the two-page rule, say making it a one-page rule, or a half-page rule, or a quarter-page rule. If she thinks it would benefit A&E to do this, then she should do it. My only concern is that everyone operate under the same set of rules and that whatever space is allowed for political commentary be tolerated, however difficultly, by those who would prefer not to see it. After all, it is difficult enough to maintain a polite and productive political discourse without having various 3rd parties snipping at your heels because they 20

This occurred in Brian’s comment to Ty in A&E #390. See Ty’s “Commonwealth Campaign Timeline” in A&E #385. 22 See Joshua’s remark to Louis in A&E #391, about which he was still unapologetic as recently as last issue, A&E #393. 23 Joshua’s comments in A&E #357 had been of a general nature, and I obviously thought them appropriate enough to pay them heed. 24 Indeed, this was hypocrisy on my part, as I had written against “writing while angry,” and here I was doing it. 21

perceive your conversation as being off-topic. One might liken it to playing tennis while under attack by a pack of yipping, rabid, blood-thirsty Chihuahuas.25 So that’s the essence of my point of view, but having been on the other side of the fence, I now need to turn toward the members who are engaging in political discourse and address them. Somebody here once said to me that in A&E it’s not okay to argue why the real world is going to turn out a certain way, but it is okay to say why some makebelieve world turns out a certain way. In short, people say, but art shows, and so that is perhaps what we should be doing (those of us who are so inclined). If we feel strongly about a political issue, we can write an adventure, a character, a setting or some sort of essay that epitomizes whatever issue we happen to feel very strongly about. For example, if you believe that Islam and The West are destined to war, write a setting (ala Twilight 2000) that shows what happens and puts the characters into the middle of it. If you believe that the moon landing was a hoax or that Castro killed Kennedy, write an adventure set in the 1960s, explaining the whole thing and putting the characters right in the middle. If you think that peak oil and world population will conjoin to create a valley of death for all humanity,26 write a setting where this happens, where political pressures caused by declining living standards, resource depletion, and environmental degradation all conspire to create a perfect storm. Saying it is easy, but showing it is hard. It takes a great deal more attention to detail, and one must focus one’s thoughts toward creating something useful for gamers. What a pain in the brain! But it can be done, and so that’s what I think those of us who would like to discuss politics ought to be doing. I’m reminded of a short article that I wrote for A&E #360 on “Growing Up in the Future” where the player learns about the setting that his character inhabits by playing through a series of childhood scenes. Childhood scenes, I believe, are one of the things that most RPGs seem to just gloss over, but they are critical for establishing character. I am imagining something similar to the character generation rules for Classic Traveller, where you roll to see what happens and what skills are learned during a particular term of service. This sort of generative system could be adapted for writing scenes of childhood. One table could exist for various attributes and/or skills, another for various elements of the setting, and other for various personality tests of the character, and after you roll some dice, the GM starts the ball rolling by constructing the opening situation, and then the player has to take it forward, making a decision that will, in theory, help define his or her character. As for the “elements of setting,” these will, to some extent, have to include the current state of affairs as well as information on what happened, historically, to cause this state of affairs to come into being, and there might be different, conflicting interpretations that mirror the political divide in our own society. I’m reminded of Heinlein’s Lt. Col. Dubois who, in Starship Troopers, explains the downfall of western civilization.27 The reader, along with 25

Now, that’s a sport I’d pay to watch! See footnote #17 in my zine in A&E #363. 27 Some called Heinlein a Nazi, perhaps not knowing that at one time, politically speaking, he’d been pretty far to the left. Regardless of the sureness of his view at any particular point in his 26

Rico, is being indoctrinated into a way of thinking, and I think this is much more powerful than simply making a political argument. It’s subversive and unfair, in a way, because it doesn’t invite the reader to respond, as would the standard, run-of-the-mill polemic, but rather simply states its argument as the gospel truth within the internal logic of the setting that the author has constructed, thereby rendering the argument less assailable. Likewise, when I think of near future settings, particularly ones that entail some form of world government, there is this very large question mark in my mind over what will be the method of indoctrination of children, and, more to the point, will it be more or less uniform throughout the setting? I am reminded of Hitler’s famous quote, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future,” a thought that Orwell illustrated in Animal Farm, where Napoleon took responsibility for the nine puppies that would latter comprise his death squad. Huxley took it even further in Brave New World, showing not only how the children were being indoctrinated but also how, even prior to birth, they were being specifically formulated, so to speak, to occupy certain pre-arranged niches in the society. Imagine growing up in such a society, not necessarily the society of Brave New World, but rather any sort of society where you are a cog in the machine and your purpose has been, to a large degree, pre-ordained. I think that this is probably a difficult, if not impossible, task, conditioned as we (supposedly) are to the notion that human beings are inalienably free, and that without freedom, existence is essentially meaningless. I wonder what it might be like to play in a Traveller campaign deep in the heart of the Imperium as a young noble who is given to the notion of freedom and democracy and who spends the better part of his efforts combating all the evils inherent to absolute rule, while still managing to not step upon so many feathers that he loses his position. Yet, I have never heard of such a campaign, much less actually played in one, nor is there any likely rationale, for any such noble would likely be persuaded by the self-serving argument that those of his class rule by some form of “divine right” (theistic or otherwise), and that this is as it should be, because democracy on the large scale has proven itself to be historically unworkable (or so, I imagine, would likely go the thesis). And regardless of whether you’re on the left or the right, you could fathom historical rationales that would drive this point home, such as the failure of capitalistic democracies to deal effectively with resource and environmental issues or, on the political reverse, their failure to deal, in a timely and decisive manner, with growing existential threats of an ideological nature. “Growing Up in the Future” of A&E #360, in particular, sparked notions of how a dominant AI might organize the planet, and what sort of catastrophe might lead to its seizing of power on behalf of humanity, putting itself as the custodian of a “Mother Race” to which it owes its very existence but which has proven determined to blithely commit mass-suicide if left to its own devices. How would life, his mind and spirit were open enough to keep searching, and so he tried on different, opposing views, and I think it’s this questing for the truth that caused him to insert social commentary into Starship Troopers (in my opinion, it’s the best part of the book).

such an AI explain history to the child (human or otherwise) with which it is charged? What sort of worldview would be thereby imparted, and to what degree would humans have a seat at the table in terms of choosing their own destiny? Once again, I don’t want to be accused of trying to get A&Eers to do my development for me, but I think that this is the direction that I’m likely to move, developing such a society using my own skewed perspective as a basis for how it’ll all fit together, and I’d just like to encourage the others who find themselves drawn in by worldly politics to do this same sort of exercise. Work on a setting or settings that show us your political leanings without simply telling us what you think. From Ty and/or Louis, in particular, I’d be curious to see a setting that centers on Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations or Steyn’s America Alone, complete with adventure nuggets on ways that the players can take part, and it would be illuminating, I think, to read a scene of some father or mother trying to explain to his or her child why history went down this road and what it all means for their future. All of the above are just my three or four bits, and, once again, my apologies not only to those who I inadvertently offended but also to those for whom my remarks of last issue were deliberately intended. My word choice was totally unhelpful, counterproductive, and inflammatory. However, this whole discussion does bring to mind one final thought, one no less confusing to me and one that is also potentially inflammatory if taken in the wrong way. Throughout A&E, for the many issues that I’ve contributed, I rarely if ever feel a strong sense of the campaigns that you run. Simon Reeve’s highly detailed Triune Realm setting, extensive to the point of confusion, was a close shave, and Lee & Lisa have presented many write-ups from their campaigns, although these appear to be the CliffsNotes versions rather than the actual “fictionalization” so to speak.28 Also, Louis has written a fair amount about his Ergodika campaign,29 and Ty has written somewhat extensively about his Traveller campaign, focusing on various aspects in different zines.30 From most of the rest of you, I get lots of pieces 31 but rarely anything ongoing, and I’m not talking exclusively about write-ups per se, but also about just a series of articles on a particular campaign—here is where we went, and this is what we saw: maps, challenges, and loot, so to speak. I don’t mean to complain, but all politics aside, I wonder if any others have this sense that A&E could be and perhaps ought to be much more than it presently is.

28

See my comment to Lisa in A&E #350. He’s also given me the actual rulebook. 30 It’s ironic, I suppose, that the two A&Ers who were told to be quiet, politically speaking, are also two who have shared so much of their roleplaying campaigns. 31 Some of these pieces have been quite outstanding, such as (just to name two off the top of my head) Patrick’s Riley’s excellent character write-up of Ingrid Atherton in A&E #349 and Brian Misiaszek’s Ball of Confusion in A&E #351. 29

Comments on A&E #393: Paul Cardwell: re Aging Gamers: Three quarters of a century? Wow. Comparatively speaking, I’m merely a pup. Myles Corcoran: re Brass Lizard: Absolutely beautiful. A tip of the hat to your wife. re Wolf Age: Very cool. I enjoyed the civs as well as the spirits. What’s the surprise? re Louis’ jokes & the Marathi: Perhaps I simply enjoy phidiphid and phisphis more than you. Let’s just chalk it down to a personal defect on my part. Lee Gold: It’s a painful thing for me to suggest, seeing as I enjoy Ty’s political comments as much as I do, however, if you are serious about controlling political commentary and the amount of non-gaming discourse that results, then given the recent flak that both he and Louis have received over including politics in their zines, maybe you should consider modifying the two-page rule and changing it to a one-page rule. Regardless of whether or not you do this, however, I think that perhaps you should make it clear to the membership that this space for politics, however large or small you decide to make it, is not merely a limit but is also a right of the individual members to exercise, and so it should not be attacked simply as being off-topic so long as people are staying within the bounds that you have set. Joshua Kronengold: ryct Louis and my reply: Yes, that was a bit of ramble on my part, but I wanted to let you know exactly how I felt about your comment (angry and disappointed) while still responding in a friendly way. It didn’t come naturally, and perhaps, as a result, I was even more wordy than usual.32 In any case, I hope I wasn’t too insufferable in conveying my thoughts & feelings. I did notice that you decided to ignore part of what I wrote, but perhaps that’s for the best, as Louis has requested that the matter be dropped. Back to gaming… re Jinx in Hell: Yes, my collaborator is under the impression that this unholy mess is somehow publishable. Granted, a lot of unpublishable crap does somehow get published, but this, I think, is pushing it quite far. At any rate, as far as Jinx’s Vacation goes, the three scenes that appeared in A&E #s 390-392 are in chronological order. They took place in the old Judges’ Guild world, on Map 12, down in the southeast corner of the map. What happened was that Jinx (prior to ever entering Hell) used a device given to her to escape a rather deadly situation. This device could take her anywhere in the multiverse, but the destination would be entirely random. We rolled some dice, determined that she’d landed somewhere in the mortal realm (the prime material plane), and so I counted the number of heroic fantasy RPG settings I had on my book shelves, rolled some more dice, and this is where she ended up. I love having these sorts of random devices in the campaign, to where the dice and a desperate decision on the part of the player can completely change the entire course of the plot. Jinx stayed awhile, getting to know this new world, and eventually developed some attachments. Hence, 32

Shudder…

when it came time for her vacation from Hell, this is where she decided to return. Brian Misiaszek: ryct Ty and my reply: Since you are emphatic that your comment to Ty was intended in the spirit of friendship rather than censorship33, I will take you at your word, however, please bear in mind that my comment to you was similarly intended (dead French philosophers and all). John Redden: re Lee’s Space Game: Your PC was sucked up where?! re Politics & Insults: We appear to see things similarly, however, not completely so. You write, “Some of us like to game in the near and far future where the dark grind of political economy is very real… Opinions (…) on religion, economy and politics thus actually become gaming material.” One of the really interesting things I’ve found about A&E is that there are an awful lot of smart, wellinformed people here, and no matter what I think I know about various things, there are usually a few A&Ers who know quite a bit more and who will correct whatever misconceptions I may have, and this is enormously helpful from the standpoint of setting design and in particular from the standpoint of near-future setting design, because, as you intimate, so much of the real world comes into focus in near-future settings. Granted, different well-informed people often will have opinions that are heavily slanted by their respective world views. I think it was Paul Cardwell who said that if you want to get a clear picture, you have to tap many different sources. You can’t just rely on one newspaper or one news station. You need to seek news and opinion from different perspectives, and this is particularly necessary in the United States where so much of our news is domestically-oriented to the point of myopia. Hence, it helps the prospective nearfuture RPG designer to discuss the world with people of different political perspectives, particularly people who understand RPGs and what the designer is trying to achieve. A&E, being an international publication, ought to be ideal for this purpose.34 You also write, “…if someone writes: ‘John Redden is a fucking Communist”, this is a direct insult and Lee has every right to delete it from the zine.” 35 Every right, perhaps, but I think Lee is wise not to censor inter-member insults as this opens up a rather slippery can of worms. At one time, after Joshua got annoyed about all the politics in A&E,36 I began nursing the idea of starting some sort of quasi-APA dedicated to political discussion so that A&Ers would have some place to take their political

discourse. In the back of my mind was this question of what to do about participants directly insulting each another, and I imagined then that I might do exactly what you suggest, which is to just delete or otherwise smooth-over the offensive comments before going to press (or to at least ask the offender to edit it himself). However, upon later reflection, I came to the opinion that this introduces a bias, no matter how subtle, and that members might rightly take offense at their insults to one another being deleted or otherwise edited. I mean, first of all, what exactly qualifies as an insult is a bit of an open question. For example, I took offense to Brian Misiaszek’s comment to Ty Beard in A&E #390, but, in actuality, it’s quite a stretch to interpret what Brian said as being an insult. It is, in all probability, my own hypersensitivity to the notion of censorship along with my profound enjoyment of Ty’s political comments that triggered my reaction. Witness the fact that nobody else reacted the way that I did, nor did anyone besides me comment on Joshua’s comment to Louis in A&E #391. Hence, for whatever reasons, I’m the odd man out.37 Furthermore, some insults are so deliciously vile that to not utter them would be a crime against humanity. I think of Churchill, whose insult to Lady Astor is legendary. He famously called his political opponent, Clement Attlee, “a sheep in sheep’s clothing.” Clearly, while all insults are insulting (at least, presumably, in terms of their initial intent), some are masterworks, and to edit them, a defacement of art.38 The bottom line, I think, is that people are bound to take offense to some comment for a whole assortment of reasons which may or may not be justified in the mind of the “average person”, and since this “average person” test is a bit of a quandary, I think that Lee has made the right choice by not getting involved as a content editor. Let the members police themselves. It results in some needless, heated verbiage and perhaps a few misunderstandings, but it also gives members the freedom to choose their words with the knowledge that they must be their own editors. Some will take the high road as a matter of course, and other, regardless of how we might implore them to do otherwise, will insist on the lesser path. But if we were not given the freedom to fail, then that means we never had the freedom to choose to do right thing of our own free will, and, just as importantly, it also means that we never had the opportunity to correct ourselves when we do, inevitably, screw-up. We are, after all, merely human, and I think that this, especially, is something that we should all endeavor to remember.

My past A&E submissions are at:

33

What you’re saying, in effect (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), is that you were not intending to silence Ty’s political comments, but rather that you feared that other readers might be offended by his politics and thus might not read his zine, and so to protect him from this unfavorable outcome, you wanted to warn him that his political comments could potentially cause offense and might result in fewer readers. Hence, in your mind, you were doing him something akin to a favor. Okay. 34 However, for reasons that were not initially obvious to me, it turns out that it isn’t. 35 Except, of course, if it’s intended as a compliment. 36 A&E #357.

http://www.esnips.com/web/Alarums

37

I’m not saying that I’m wrong…just odd. Note that it was also Churchill who purportedly wrote that “The venom of a man’s enemies is a measure of his strength,” something he probably thought to be true because he had such a wealth of enemies, no doubt due, in part, to his talent for insulting his follow man…and woman. 38