Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – Dungeons and Dragons is in the news, now what will the christians do?

If you are of an age like mine, you remember Dungeons and Dragons, and the fit that some Christians took about it back in the 70s. This is of course when they were also taking a fit about rock music and other things too, including predicting the end of their world with their sadistic little fantasies.

They took it upon themselves to lie about the game, and the players and lied to their own people to scare them deeper into their cult. The Jack Chick tracts were notorious, with their claims of suicide, etc. Here’s a video about them:



Well, now D&D is back in a big budget movie and it seems that it isn’t nearly so bad now for at least some christians. The younger ones don’t remember the hysteria, it seems, and I’m guessing that the older Christians hope no one remembers how their lies failed. It’s always embarrassing when your cult’s claims are shown as the nonsense they are.

Here’s a christian review of the movie (which is out on March 31st). And the wiki entry for it, just in case you are curious.

What the Boss likes – Bloganuary – one of my own questions “What most influenced your adult personality?”

I don’t’ think WordPress is doing suggested questions for weekends so I made up one of my own, or rather my spouse did.  “what most influenced your adult personality?”

For me, it was having someone support me, aka my spouse, and role-playing games.  I could try out being brave, having an opinion, being a leader, etc all in a safe space where things weren’t “real”.  It made a HUGE difference for me and I am so glad.  I owe a lot to Dungeons & Dragons and my gamemaster husband.     

What the Boss Likes – G4’s new filmed D&D game, Invitation to Party

I’ve played various table-top role-playing games for years.  Now its become a thing to make videos of those games and show them on various sites like youtube, etc.  

I’ve watched a bit of a few and found them generally unwatchable since my gaming style is not being murder hoboes (a term to describe characters who do little other than kill things and other characters and take their stuff).  I did take the time to watch an entire episode of one on the newly reincarnated G4 network here in the US.  It is an officially supported game by Dungeons & Dragons aka Wizards of the Coast aka Hasbro (yep the big toy manufacturer), called “Invitation to Party”.  You can see the first episode here.

Spoilers commence.

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Rather than having a party made up of classic character types – fighter, thief, cleric and mage – we get a warlock, sorcerer, bard and rogue (which is generally like, but not always, a thief).  And rather than having humans, half-elves, elves, we get a dhampir (half elf, half vampire), a reborn (someone who is dead but still walking around), a human, and a rabbit person, something called a harengon. With that, all I can think of is the six-foot tall green meat-eating rabbit, Jaxxon, from the early Star Wars comics.

ah, back in the day….

All of the characters seem to be some variant of evil in alignment too, which seems to be required for the scenario which is that criminals who are going to be executed are recruited by a leader of a big city to find evidence for a plot to replace other leaders with duplicates (quite an important plot for third level characters).  Said leader has no problem with them killing their way out of the city’s prison, which makes her alignment seem very questionable. 

She also has not one way to control these characters and have them actually complete the mission.  They have nothing to gain from the mission other than some minor requests for money, or property. 

Now, that being said, the actors are pretty good.  I call them actors since the patter between characters is suspiciously smooth for a supposedly live game.  Sometimes the dialogue is outright hilarious. 

There is also the strange thing that low roles are nigh non-existent in the dice rolling. I’ve never seen so many 20s (the best you can get in order to succeed at a action) rolled in such a short space of time.

It wasn’t an entirely wasted evening, but I have to wonder about the choice of story and characters if Hasbro wants this to be an introduction to D&D and role-playing.  Evil characters, in my experience, are limited and tedious.  When I play, I want to be the hero.  I just can’t see these characters growing to be heroes.   

What The Boss Likes – More music

Yep, I’m a 50+ year old caucasian gal who like metal.   Shame I didn’t discover it until recently.

Just got a new job so I’m busy getting used to that.

official POWERWOLF website. New Album “the Sacrament of sin” out in Summer 2018 Powerwolf – Wikipedia

I’m also a gamer, tabletop RPGs.  Dwarven Metal is a thing: Wind Rose (band) – Wikipedia Wind Rose | The Dwarf Kingdom (windroseofficial.com)

 

What the Boss Likes : a story long in the making

So, I’ve finished a story I’ve been working on for…. oh 10 years or more.  I figured I needed to finish something since I’m depressed, tired and generally pissed off about a job that I interviewed for and then the employer decided that, at 3:30 on a Friday, they had to “rethink” the position.

It’s a sword and sorcery story, the beginning of a long possible set of stories about D&D characters we played long ago that I am very fond of.  It’s nothing original, but not much is.  It’s how you do it, not how original it is.  It’s loosely based in the Forgotten Realms, but my husband’s version.  Some names are the same, a lot of details aren’t.

If you are interested, you are welcome to read the 42 pages I wrote.  If not, no harm no foul.  If you like to do some critique, I welcome it.  If you are just out to be mean, trust me, no one is as hard on me as myself.  I won’t be impressed.

Here it is.

Oh and read this too.  It’s for free on scribd if you subscribe.

Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – where I show just how nerdy I am when it comes to magic and religion

And now for something completely different.

I tinker at writing sword and sorcery fiction. The milieu allows for some interesting thoughts about how gods and magic and mortals interact. This is a snippet about how gods, religion and magic work out. The setting is a pair of classic D&D type characters (mage and thief) in an urban fantasy world.

“What gods are in this world?” Myridian accepted a cup of coffee with a nod. “I understand that Katherine and Nightchild are shaman which would be akin to what we have in our world, being able to heal with magic, but do you have priests? Temples?”

Slim sat back, the street samurai exchanging a glance with Nightchild. “Hmmm, well, there are some people who still believe in gods, if you mean really powerful magical beings that control the universe or some crap like that. I’ve seen them on street corners screaming that the world is going to end and their god is the only one that can save everyone. I don’t know much about the idea.”

“A single god? An odd idea. We have many, each with a certain sphere of influence.”

“The monotheistic idea lost a lot of steam when magic came back.” Nightchild sipped at her coffee. “A lot of your average wageslaves will think that since I’m a shaman, I worship a god or gods or something like that, thanks to media making up all sorts of shit on how magic works. But really, I work with Cat, and Cat works with me and we usually have the same goals in mind. What Cat is exactly?” She shrugged her shoulders. “The stories have them being always here, my theory is that they are basically Platonian ideals that have manifested agency and can affect reality in ways mortals can’t on their own.”

Slim chuckled. “And there are some that worship the dragons, but we know they can be killed, so they aren’t what I’d call a god; Azatlan does this, the crazy bastards. Cults spring up all of the time, usually in some rathole where they end up killing themselves for their beliefs. How the heck do you know all of this stuff, Nyen?”

Nightchild pulled out a tablet. “Just curious, you know, like a cat. As for priests and temples, those aren’t looked upon kindly much here in Seattle or most civilized areas. A couple decades ago, when magic started to return, the ones with priests and temples and their one true gods ended up making a fair amount of earth into deadlands, when they started throwing nukes around. They were all sure that their god was coming back, but they found that their religions weren’t getting the magic that others were. That made these idiots jealous and *that* gave them the cause to be attacking each other. Good for the rest of us that sane governments flattened the countries that started the mess before the whole world went up.”

“Nukes?” Ahri looked up from wiggling a feather for a kitten’s amusement.

“Imagine a light so strong that it burns so hot that it incinerates people, so fast that it burns their shadows on walls, the few walls than can stand a blast that can pulverize near anything, and leaves in the center an area of glass so poisonous that you get near it you die because your flesh ends up dripping off your bones.” Slim shuddered. “That war scared everyone so much that pretty much no one even things of using such things anymore.”

“And this is the world we’ve been sent to. What if the demon gets something like that?” Ahri shook her head.

Myridian returned his companion’s gaze. “Then we must not fail.”

So that’s my take on why monotheistic religion fails in a world where magic comes back. This is based on the role-playing game Shadowrun (magic, automatic weapons, megacorps. (I do the pink mohawk 90s version) and a lot of other urban fantasy novels and RPGs that have magic. A lot of RPGs do their best to ignore real world religions, since idiot conservative Christians will take a fit, and they already think that Dungeons & Dragons is satanic. One notable exception is “In Nomine” where angels and demons are fighting on earth, and that can be quite a bit of fun to play.

In this fantasy world, there are no monotheistic god showing that they exist, just like in our world where none can show they exist. I do wish we did have magic. Wouldn’t rush hour be different? 😊

What the Boss Likes – Dungeons and Dragons….and Pat Robertson making a fool of himself again

dark-dungeons

 Good ol’ Pat is beating the drum about Dungeons and Dragons again and how this game has “literally destroyed people’s lives”.   Ah, Pat, we can always count on you for a good lie for Jesus! I’m sure that Pat is feverishly pawing at his Chick tracts (absolutely ludicrous Christian tracts that tell a number of pitiable lies about anyone Jack Chick doesn’t like. He’s a KJV-onlyist TrueChristian who really really hates Catholics). Chick is sure that D&D tells people how to cast “real” spells.  Damn, for playing it for over 20 years, where’s my fireball?!   You can read the histrionics in the tract here. For shame, Jack and Pat. All of that false witnessing, because anyone who has actually played D&D knows that you never have.  Tsk, putting your supposed eternal souls on the line to lie about a game.   By the way, Dungeons and Dragons is now owned by Hasbro through their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. So, you know, ooooooh scary!  🙂  

For those not of the nerdish persuasion, Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game; you create a character and then it’s a game of make-believe. And not like the video game version of RPG.  In pen and paper D&D, you can create just about anything as a character, not limited to whatever the game designer put in.  You are limited by what the “Dungeonmaster” says can fit into his world.  He’s the author of the story line and often the author of the entire gaming world. (D&D isn’t limited to classic medieval fantasy a la Lord of the Rings) .  The DM is any other characters yours might meet, he’s the weather, the monsters, etc.  Essentially the DM is the creator of conflict in the narrative: man versus man, man versus nature, man versus society, and if he’s good, places your character into situations where it’ll be man versus himself.  My husband, an excellent DM if I do say so myself, loves to do those last two.  It’s nice, and a right pain in the ass sometimes, to have an English Lit major creating stories. His games aren’t “Open door, kill monster, take treasure.”  Oh no, we have to deal with moral ramifications, like if orcs have souls, can a half-demon be good, is it better to do the good thing or the lawful thing……  My theist audience should be amused to know that I occasionally play priests.  It’s one thing to believe in a god that actually (in the gaming world) does something.   Continue reading “What the Boss Likes – Dungeons and Dragons….and Pat Robertson making a fool of himself again” →