Femen Demonstration

Six members of the activist group Femen pose in front of WOTC
headquarters before rolling up characters and buying equipment.

There was no OSR Art Friday post yesterday, due to this author's desire to express a day of blog silence in solidarity with three Femen members still detained by Washington authorities.

RENTON, WA, December 5 (AP) – Members of the topless feminist group Femen staged a demonstration today against the “anti-sexual prudery” of the new 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons and against “New School” gaming mechanics in general, stripping down to what one activist called “our sacred chainmail bikinis” in front of the gates of Wizards of the Coast headquarters in suburban Seattle. Three members were arrested.

More than twenty demonstrators stood silently for ten minutes with slogans etched in black marker across their chests, such as “Take your Clothes Off My Body!” "Imagine the Hell Out of It!" and “Fight On!” They then unfolded a card table and proceeded to “role play” a game of what one demonstrator called “Holmes Basic”, led by an activist wearing nothing above her waist except a three-paneled cardboard screen emblazoned with the words “Dungeon Mistress”.

A spokesperson for Wizards of the Coast commented, “I have no idea why they are mad at us. For the text of 5e we consulted all the experts on game design and gender equality. We believe our product reflects the latest consensus of people whose opinion we care about. Where did we go wrong?” When informed of this statement, one of the demonstrators held up what she called a “twenty sider” and shouted, “Save or die, Fascist!”

“What’s all the fuss about,” said Sally Layton, a software engineer from Microsoft, who happened to be on her way to work. “5e is the new thing by the dominant company in the industry. That means it must be good. So, why are these women, like, getting naked or whatever?”

“I find it appalling and highly offensive,” said Matt Vickers, another software designer, who was recording the event with a high-resolution video camera.

Irina Gygaxocova, a representative of Femen from the Ukraine, said the demonstration was intended to highlight how the corporate patriarchy intended to keep women out of tabletop gaming by making the new editions as stupid and boring as possible. “1974 was a liberation for us. Soon there was so much to choose, including Warriors of Mars, original Boot Hill and Gamma World. It was a love orgy of freedom that lasted for more than a decade. But beginning with 3e, and even more with 4e and now 5e, they tried to re-enslave us with their rules for everything, $50 core books and sexually repressive art. (Bleep) them! We can now get whatever OSR games and modules we want from Lulu and RPGNow for less than 1% of the cost of a leather skirt.”

Femen calls its form of protest “Hextremism”.

Natalia Arnesoneskva, a Femen member currently serving five years of hard labor in Moldova for possession of a paperbound copy of Labyrinth Lord was more circumspect. Reached for a comment during her weekly five-minutes exercise period, she said, “I support my sisters, but I now feel that edition wars are counter-productive. As long as the game group is having fun, that’s all that matters. I intend to make that point during my next parole hearing.”

Police detained three demonstrators after they refused to remove a banner they had pinned to the company gates. The banner contained the letters “OSR”--thought to be the abbreviation of a political slogan used by Danish feminists. In a press release on their website, Femen stated that lawyers were working to get the three released as soon as possible. “No laws were broken. They’ll be out quicker than the time it takes to fight a melee engagement in 4e.”

Uncharacteristically, the RPG Pundit had no comment.

What is the OSR?

I don't care.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not one of those 'why can't they all shut up and just play?' people. Bloggers can't shut up. Nor should they. But as will be clear in a moment, I'm more interested in describing a type of game or a style of play that we shall call Old School, for lack of a better term. On the other hand, defining the OSR movement--when it started, why it started, who started it, and then of course the inevitable (for some) what went wrong, who led it astray, etc. etc, and so on and so forth--is not my bag. Among other things, I wasn't there. If you were there, that's great, and my sincere thanks if you contributed to resurrecting or bettering Old School gaming in even the smallest way. But in a certain sense (and don't take this in the wrong way) I don't really care about that either. Or rather, I'm not going to swoon because, say, in your opinion Encounter Critical was more important or characteristic of the movement than Swords & Wizardry or whatever. Indeed, if you make that sort of claim coupled with the logical fallacy of claiming that it's true because, well, you were there, that's just going to annoy me. Partly because I'm jealous of you. I'm lazy and usually late to parties anyway.

So what is Old School? Just to be scrupulously fair, balanced and non-confrontational, let's discuss that question partly in reference to an entity we'll call The Man. Also for the fun of it, and very uncharacteristically for this blogger, the following 25 propositions will be asserted briefly, with little extra detail or explanation.

1. The Old School is not The Man.
2. The Old School wants you to do the imagining. The Man wants to imagine things for you.
3. The Old School treats you like an adult (even if you're a child). The Man condescends to you (even if you're an adult).
4. The Old School wants you to roll up a character. The Man wants you to build one
5. The Old School gives you 100 pages of rules (or 25 pages of rules with multiple columns and really tiny print). The Man gives you 400 pages of rules and 500 pages of description (see 2. above).
6. The Old School's text is difficult to read because the text is small. The Man's text is difficult to read because there's an image overlaying it.
7. The Old School wants to kill you (often or at least sometimes). The Man wants to hold your hand through 29th level.
8. The Old School wants the wandering monster to be randomly determined. The Man wants your solving a puzzle to be randomly determined.
9. The Old School isn't 5e. The Man wants you to think that it is. (If you disagree, that doesn't make you a bad person. I hope we can laugh together over a beer sometime...at how wrong you were on this issue.)
10. The Old School doesn't want your money, or at least doesn't want very much of it. Or when it does, it gives you a really nice collectors edition that you will always treasure (even if you get it two years late). The Man wants to sell you multiple 'Core' books at $50 apiece, and then wants to sell you additional 'Core' books with numbers added to them--'Core Book 2', 'Core Book 3', and so on--for $50 apiece. It will also cost you an additional $50 to have your hand held through 9th level (not including the battle mats).
11. The Old School wants you to become a hero. The Man lies to you that you already are one.
12. The Old School speaks Chaotic. The Man speaks Abyssal.
13. The Old School defines you by your actions. The Man defines you by your character sheet.
14. The Old School wants you to explore dungeons. The Man wants you to explore your character's sexual preferences.
15. The Old School is sexy. The Man is a sex theorist.
16. The Old School offends you (sometimes). The Man is offended by you.
17. The Old School wants to see what happens. The Man wants to plan things.
18. The Old School loves your unpredictability. The Man hates it.
19. The Old School gives you good art, sometimes even great art. Or at least it wants to when it can afford it. The Man wants to pawn off tacky looking videogame-like images on you as art, thinking you won't notice.
20. The Old School gives you art that stimulates your imagination. The Man gives you art that stimulates your torpidity.
21. The Old School is C.L Moore. The Man is Katherine Kurtz.
22. The Old School is a brilliant amateur historian repairing shoes in his basement to provide for his family. The Man is a $400,000 Kickstarter.
23. The Old School embodies diversity. The Man preaches it.
24. The Old School wants you to make choices. The Man wants you to be part of his story.
25. The Old School is you and me. The Man is too. Or it's who we're tempted to conform with or suck up to. We don't have to.

Fight On!

Thought for a Saturday Afternoon

Seeing someone try to defend the strange hyper-clothed prudishness of the 5e Player's Handbook on the grounds that it now makes D&D acceptable to play with their young child made me want to introduce an alternative (though faithful) definition of prudish:

Prudish: Taking such offense (real or feigned) at uncovered skin that one utterly loses sight of every other relevant thing.

'Daddy, I know what I want to be now."
'Yes, honey?'
'Can I be a transsexual devil-spawned warlock who made a contractual and romantic pact with Belial to offer him human sacrifices in return for magical powers?'
'Sure, darling, as long as you keep your knees covered.'

C.S. Lewis was right, more than sixty years ago (and how far we've come since then):

It's a bent world.

The Good, the Bad and the Clothed

I am of course referring to the art of different versions of Dungeons & Dragons--0e/1e, 4e and 5e.

Yesterday I argued that the cover of the 0e supplement Eldritch Wizardry, which features a fully nude figure, presents an interesting contrast with the art of the recently released 5e Player's Handbook, which features 100+ human and humanoid figures, virtually all of whom are almost fully covered, head to toe, in a manner that suggests rational outdoor attire in cold weather conditions or an irrational fear of sun poisoning.

Now, if you were to draw 100+ figures in different and varied contexts and situations, and they were all nude or close to nude, that would suggest a preoccupation with, well, nudity. 

But  if you were to draw 100+ figures in different and varied contexts and situations, and they were virtually all fully wrapped and draped in clothing that exposed very little skin whatsoever, that would also suggest a preoccupation with nudity, though a preoccupation of a different kind.

Back in the day, some would have called the first sort of preoccupation perverted. Then and even now, many would call the second prudish.

I owe use of the second very apt term to the astute comments of Paul Go. (See his comments on Google+). Note that 'prudish' is very often not defined as having a marked aversion to sexuality per se, but as a tendency to just be offended in general, or to be offended by nudity (defined in a neutral and not necessarily sexual way). A prude would for example be affronted by a prominently displayed loin cloth-attired Christ hanging from a crucifix. He would want to cover Him up.

Last night I said the 5e clothed thing was 'weird'. But tonight I'll accept that its prudish.

There are many who like 5e for a variety of reasons. Even many 'OSR people' seem to like it. It's understandable that if you like it, you're probably not going to like some upstart blogger calling it prudish, especially since these days, 'prudish' is thought of as about as bad a thing as, well, 'perverted' used to be.

That doesn't mean it's not true.

Now, two sorts of counter-arguments were given. The first was what we might call the moral argument:

1. Whatever else might be said, the art of 5e is morally preferable to, say, the John Norman, Frank Frazetta, chainmail bikini, women-exist-only-to-be-put-in-positions-of-peril (preferably while naked)-in-order-to-be-rescued-or-eaten style of fantasy art. That's sexist. it also doesn't give our daughters good role models.

The second is what we might call the practical argument:

2. The art of 5e more accurately or realistically represents what player characters actually look like, given the rule mechanics coupled with the equipment lists--in terms of armor, clothing and accessories--of the game. Whatever else one might say about the women (and men) in Frazetta paintings, they're not attired in the way any rational player would dress his or her character.

In what remains of this post I want to dispose of these arguments. Do not misunderstand. I'm not unsympathetic to the underlying views or motivations expressed in each. Indeed, I think they're reasonable.

But that doesn't mean they succeed in saving 5e.

1. Disposing of the first is easy. It's not an either/or choice. Just because you think that it's weird that very little skin of any kind is shown in the 5e Player's Manual, doesn't mean you want everyone to be nude, or all the women to wear chain mail (or non-chainmail) bikinis, or role-playing games partly intended for kids to sexualize our kids or provide bad role models for our daughters (or sons) or whatever. Selecting the cover of Eldritch Wizardry as the starting point of the discussion doesn't mean I want restrained nude women on sacrificial slabs to be the model for all of the art of the market leader in role-playing games. I can't even believe I have to say that.

2. The second argument or claim has two problems. First, the initial premise is just nonsense. 5e art is not more 'realistic'--in any of the meanings that term might have. The mechanics of these systems do not require that 5e (or any of the e's) mandate full body coverings for virtually all characters. They just don't. Should fighters often wear full plate armor? Of course. (And, incidentally, the 1e Player's Handbook has more depictions of full plate than 5e.) But do fighters ever take their plate armor off? Do they ever relax, at taverns and the like? And of course, aren't there other classes where armor is either not worn or not that important? Yes, yes and yes.

Exhibit A is the 5e Barbarian, above. For most of the various editions of D&D, barbarians were often the half-naked guys. They are, after all, barbarians--uncivilized and uncaring regarding the usual norms. They don't have access to effective armor or they prefer not to use much of it.

This is not only a fantasy trope, but also has reasonable historical grounding. Here's an excerpt of the text from the great Avalon Hill wargame, Caesar at Alesia:

The Gauls were an altogether fearsome lot. Many wore long red and blond hair and mustachios in tight braids. Their horrendous battle-cries were literally stunning. The warrior males of a family often linked themselves together with rope so that whether they prevailed or perished it would be together. Some GauIs, attacked without garments of any sort but with their hair and beards worked into fantastic shapes with a mixture of grease and pitch.

As I understand it, they also sometimes painted their naked bodies blue. How’s that for a cool 5e character?

But not that guy above. Except for the axe, I see his type at Starbucks every morning.

What about 5e game mechanics? Well, barbarians have a skill or feat (or whatever it's named) called 'unarmored defense'. Sure enough, the barbarian above does not seem to be wearing much armor save perhaps light leather. His arms aren't covered by armor. They're covered by...

...a long sleeved shirt.

That's just one example, but it could be multiplied 50 times.

The second problem is this: Let's assume that obsessive body covering is more 'realistic' (it isn't but let's assume it is). Does that mean that the pictorial representations must track that precisely? Well, the history of, say, science fiction and fantasy paperback book covers say No. Those of us who read such stuff have all had the experience of reading a novel or story where the cover doesn't quite match up with what's described. (Ironically, the Conan stories are a great example of that--as was noted in the Google+ comments by Jeffro Johnson's sharing of yesterday's post.) Is that phenomenon sometimes silly? Of course.  But does it also often make things more interesting, romantic and, well, fun? You bet.

What's wrong with fun?

The Most Pointless Table Ever

This is of course taken from the new 5e D&D Basic Rules.

Make them all different (1e) or make them all the same (0e) (my preference), but why make some the same and some different but only by a really teeny amount? What is the purpose of it in terms of player choice, play balance, the aesthetic of the rules, realism, getting players more immersed in the fantasy world or, well, just making things fun?

Contrast:

Everyone begins with 30-180 gold pieces to seek his or her fortune.

with

We mean to comprehensively and accurately describe this alternate fantasy world for you. It's important for us to get it right, and it's important for you to get it right. The average amount of funds that different character classes start out with is similar but not precisely so (due to how the economics of the fantasy world work out, or whatever). The average amount is the same for Clerics and Fighters and the same for Rogues and Wizards, but Clerics and Fighters have slightly higher averages than Rogues and Wizards. In practice of course this doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but still it's important for us to get it right, and it's important for you to get it right. Here is a chart  that explains it.

Unfair perhaps, but that's how it appears to me.

I have no idea whether the table was lifted from 4e or 3.5 or not and I don't really care to check. But it's just another example of ill-thought out (or overly thought out) clunkiness.

The Towering Castle Beneath the Stormy Night Sky

Pop quiz: match these opening lines to the above games--the new "5e" D&D Basic (2014), Lamentations of the Flame Princess (2012), Swords & Wizardry Complete (2010) and Dungeons & Dragons (1974):

TREASURE and glittering gems; dark places beneath the earth where monsters dwell; magic circles, pentagrams and pentacles; runes of evil import, and iron-banded doors of mouldering oak; wizards of vast power, living in their isolated towers above black seaside cliffs; great-horned demons in their bloody lairs; massive stone idols with jeweled eyes and hieroglyphic pedestals, carved in the distant eons before the young civilizations of humankind; strange and glowing orbs, floating in the air above rusted metal grates leading to deeper levels of the underground passageways…

It is about flying carpets and cursed blades, about hooded priests gathered for unspeakable rites in their forgotten temples; it is about adventure and about perilous undertakings, forcing back the evil creatures of Chaos from the borderlands of embattled civilization; it is about battle-scarred warriors and deadly sorcerers…

Being a Referee is like being an artist, a manager, an accountant, and that crazy old guy that lives in the park that everyone avoids because he’s always talking to himself, all in one. Although hopefully you won’t be talking to yourself. At least not while anyone is listening.

ONCE UPON A TIME, long, long ago there was a little group known as the Castle and Crusade Society. Their fantasy rules were published, and to this writer's knowledge, brought about much of the current interest in fantasy wargaming. For a time the group grew and prospered, and Dave Arneson decided to begin a medieval fantasy campaign game for his active Twin Cities club. From the map of the "land" of the "Great Kingdom" and environs — the territory of the C & C Society — Dave located a nice bog wherein to nest the weird enclave of "Blackmoor", a spot between the "Great Kingdom" and the fearsome "Egg of Coot". From the CHAINMAIL fantasy rules he drew ideas for a far more complex and exciting game, and thus began a campaign which still thrives as of this writing! In due course the news reached my ears, and the result is what you have in your hands at this moment. While the C & C Society is no longer, its spirit lives on, and we believe that all wargamers who are interested in the medieval period, not just fantasy buffs, will enjoy playing DUNGEONS and DRAGONS. Its possibilities go far beyond any previous offerings anywhere!

The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ROLEPLAYING GAME IS ABOUT storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. It shares elements with childhood games of make-believe. Like those games, D&D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

It's a pretty easy quiz, obviously, for people who have read or played these games or who know a bit about the authors or the historical context. And for anyone paying attention, the point of the exercise should be immediately clear. Only one excerpt uses the term "imagination" (and if you count the variant, "imagine", it mentions it twice) yet the prose in that piece is without doubt the least imaginative (and the dullest and most boring) of the four.

The precise character of the selections differ somewhat of course. One is an attempt to get you excited about the game in question by immediately transporting you into a fantastic world. Another is a sort of self-deprecating and funny introduction to how to "run" a game. The third is an all-over-the-place and quirky piece focusing partly on the historical circumstances of how the game in question came to be created. And the fourth is of course a straight introduction. Are the first three authors Nobel-Prize winning stylists? I don't know. Perhaps not. Who is? But they--Matt Finch and James Raggi--are (or in the case of the late Gary Gygax, were) damn good "amateur" writers who felt it important to start the text of their rules right off with strong, interesting adult prose--even though they knew that children were a big part of their audience (okay, maybe Raggi doesn't write for children, but still). I don't know who the author of the D&D Basic excerpt is. And even if I did spend a few seconds to investigate, I imagine that the opening text to one of the flagship games of a major game company is somewhat of a joint effort. The point is not to criticize or blame any particular person. The author (whether or not the text was modified or overseen by others) is undoubtedly a talented game designer and probably a pretty good writer. (He has a good paying job doing this and I don't. And there is probably a reason for that.) But that doesn't absolve the text.

It's terrible. Boring. Clipped. Unimaginative. It reads like one of those excruciatingly awful high-school history textbooks that have had all the color leeched out to avoid offending anyone and to make it understandable to readers in the lowest tenth percentile, or perhaps a book report written by an intelligent 7th grader who has mastered the rules of grammar, but has no particular desire to make her writing particularly interesting or exciting (it's only a book report).

Well, after all (so the counter-argument goes) it's a mass-market product. There are certain things they have to do and that are expected given the economics and their market niche and the corporate culture that they are a part of, etc., etc., etc. You're naive if you think otherwise. Well, putting aside one obvious retort to that--must all prose intended for the "mass-market" be insipid?--even if that were an explanation or a justification for why it happened, that doesn't change the fact. If you thought my prose was insipid, and I told you that the reason for that was because I was promised a million dollars if I would make it insipid, that wouldn't change anything for you. That wouldn't or shouldn't make you any more likely to buy or even pay attention to my product.

Does it matter? After all, it's only a game.

Yes. It does. 5e D&D Basic asserts that it is at the pinnacle of role-playing games. It builds (so it claims) on the experience gained in the design, writing and play of the previous four editions and three generations, forty years and literally millions of players. Thousands of hours and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into its development, and the best they can come up with is:

[Dungeons & Dragons] is about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

The dull, completely unimaginative prose is one way that contemporary "D&D" smothers the imagination of its players. There are other ways that it does this, of course. But this as good an example as any.

D&D 5e Basic Rules: A Random Review

As most of you probably know by now, the free download of the Basic Rules is available here.

In the spirit of the OSR I thought I would write a review based on random tables. Grab a six-sided die and enjoy!

1. COMMENT ON THIS SAMPLE EXCHANGE:

Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles?

Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations?

DM: Make an Intelligence check.

Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply?

DM: Sure!

Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.

DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?

Die	Result
1	A clear presentation of the current state of the art in RPGs. Thank the goddess we’re not living in the 1970’s anymore.
2	I skip these sorts of things.
3	I wanted to write something but I just failed my Intelligence check.
4	That this is featured on the first page of text does not auger well.
5	The above is an example of ‘New School’ roleplaying at its dumbest.
6	That one of the female characters is named ‘Riva’ brings up bad memories.

2. OVERALL THE RULES ARE:

Die	Result
1	Way too complicated.
2	Not complicated enough. Bring on the full $40 manuals!
3	Appropriate for the 'Basic Game'. It will lure novices in.
4	A precise simulation of reality down to the tiniest atom.
5	Fascinating! I've always wanted to act out a fantasy story. Now I understand how to do it!
6	Way too complicated. But then again, I've had a few drinks.

3. IF I WANT TO, CAN I PLAY A DWARF WHO IS NOT 'DWARF-LIKE', AT LEAST ACCORDING TO THE TWO PAGE DESCRIPTION OF 'DWARF-LIKE' RACIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS, ATTITUDES TO THE OTHER RACES, ETC?:

Die	Result
1	No.
2	Yes.
3	That you even ask shows that you are a reactionary.
4	Yes.
5	Only if you make your Constitution check modified by your Arrogance score.
6	Perhaps, but only after private consultation with your DM.

4. IS THE ELF TRAIT 'MASK OF THE WILD':

Die	Result
1	Evocative.
2	Confusing.
3	A further sign that Elves are a bit magical.
4	Silly.
5	Cool.
6	Cribbed from 50 Shades of Grey.

5. PERSONALITY TRAITS (IDEALS, BONDS AND FLAWS) ARE:

Die	Result
1	Boring and too new school.
2	An enhancement of role-playing, and isn't that what it's all about?
3	Appropriate for the 'Basic Game'. Freudian analysis only comes with the Advanced edition.
4	Confusingly presented. Are they chosen or randomly determined? The rules are unclear.
5	Fascinating! I've always wanted to act out a fantasy story. Now I understand how to do it!
6	Way too complicated. But then again, I've had a few drinks.

6. COMMENT ON THIS TEXT:

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Correllon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example...You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, or a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide.

Die	Result
1	I'm sorry, what is there to comment on?
2	Whatever, as long as the all the NPC Elven chicks have lesbian tendencies.
3	Oh, please. Must we have this in a game written primarily for children?
4	Yes, we must, and the author of the above statement is obviously a homophobe. There's no place for that in the RPG community. Take your hate and go home.
5	Personally, I've always felt I was a bearded man trapped in the body of someone who can't grow a beard.
6	Perhaps, but only after private consultation with your DM.

7. IS THE LIST OF 'TRINKETS':

Die	Result
1	About the only thing worthwhile here.
2	Too random. What if you end up with a bad one?
3	Too simple, without description or explanation. It's not clear how to DM it. Will the Advanced edition have rules telling us how to use these in play?
4	Cool.
5	So old school that it almost seems out of place.
6	Cool.

8. DO THE 0-HIT POINT, DEATH AND HEALING RULES SEEM ANY MORE 'DANGEROUS' THAN 4E:

Die	Result
1	No.
2	Yes.
3	Extremely unclear. Mixed signals are sent.
4	No.
5	Probably not.
6	No, and that's another huge problem with this game.

9. IS THE PRESENCE OF A MAGIC MISSILE SPELL THAT AUTOMATICALLY HITS:

Die	Result
1	New school.
2	Old school.
3	Heresy.
4	A carryover from the original game that has no deep significance whatsoever.
5	A good thing for all M-U's to have, if they have a spare spell slot.
6	Pretty damn powerful considering that in general you get one 'dart' per level. (Though in the context of the relatively high hit points and other special powers of PC's and Monsters in this game, is it really that great? I have no idea.)

10. WAS THE AUTHOR OF THIS REVIEW:

Die	Result
1	Fair and balanced.
2	Unbalanced.
3	Mixed. It depends on how the dice were rolled. Hence the 'Random' title.
4	Predisposed.
5	Inebriated (but what else is new?)
6	All of the above

Fight On!