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Archive for September, 2013

Tell Me a Story: On Storygames and Indie RPGs

Posted in Games, tagged , , , , , on September 26, 2013| 2 Comments »

Lately I’ve become very excited by tabletop storygames and also indie RPGs in general. Most storygames are indie, but not all indie RPGs are storygames; that being said, the indie games I’ve been exposed to tend to be rules-light and more focused on storytelling than mechanics.

Storygames often have affinities to RPGs, live storytelling, story structure, and/or improv. As the Story Games Codex defines it, a tabletop storygame is “a type of role-playing game experience with a lesser focus on “My Character” and a greater focus on “Our Story” (meaning the story that all the players at the table want to make).” Since as a role player, I am firmly in the narrativist camp, these storygames are an intriguing new avenue for me to explore.

This past weekend, I had a few friends over to try out the storygame Fiasco for the first time. Fiasco is a storytelling GM-less game that focuses on telling “capers gone wrong” stories a la the Coen Brothers, Snatch, and the Italian Job. You roleplay the story, breaking it into two acts, two scenes per act per player. The game uses six-sided dice as a mechanic for choosing elements for your story from a bunch of charts, deciding whether things go well or poorly during each scene, and determining some twists and your characters’ endings.

In which we make up our characters.

In which we make up our Fiasco characters.

I had a great time trying a system that puts storytelling ahead of mechanics. It was very challenging for a diehard outliner like myself to participate in a game with sixteen scenes that I couldn’t outline ahead of time, but the difficulty was part of what made it fun for me. Plus I am really motivated to play several more times to try to improve my pantsing skills. While Act 1 lagged for us as we tried to figure out what to do, Act 2 really picked up, and the endings were hilarious and satisfying.

In fact, I’m so excited about these games that I’ve compiled a list of games I’d like to try in the future:

1. Spirit of the Century: Okay, I’m actually in the middle of a campaign in this system. It deserves its own post, but for now, suffice it to say that the system is made of awesome. It’s a pulp adventure game tailored specifically for one shots. It does need a GM, however.

2. Microscope: A world building storygame about epic histories. I have access to this game, so I’m hoping to try it out soon!

3. Monsterhearts: I have this on order and I’m super excited about it. It’s a storygame set in a high school where the students are discovering mystical powers (aka Witch, Werewolf, Chosen One, etc.) with a Buffy flavor. I’d love to play a longer campaign to try out this one.

4. Shooting the Moon: A love triangle storygame.

5. A Penny for My Thoughts: A game about trauma and lost memory. (After working so long on The Academy of Forgetting, this game sounds like a great fit for me and my interests.)

6. The Shab-al-Hiri-Roach: A game about competitive and backstabbing professors in a small-town university. I wish I owned tweed, because I would wear it while playing this game.

7. Shock: Social Science Fiction: To be honest, I don’t really understand what this one is about yet exactly. But it references Ursula Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Philip K. Dick in its flavor text, so I want to find out.

8. Polaris: A storygame about brave knights living in a corrupting world. Yes please.

9. Primetime Adventures: An RPG in which you and your friends put on a TV show.

10. The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen: A wagering storygame in which you sit around telling wild stories.

11. Once Upon a Time: A storytelling card game.

12. Gloom: A perverse card game telling the tragic story of a group of misanthropes.

13. The Quiet Year: A post-apocalyptic map storygame. 

14. Winter Tales: This board game is coming out later this year so it’s a little hard to tell exactly what it is. It might be a story-based board game similar to Tales of the Arabian Nights, but it looks like its mechanics are a bit more involved and focused on collaborative storytelling. Stay tuned!

Have you ever played any of the above games? Do you have more games I should add to my list?

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Should I Move to a Cheaper Location?

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , , , on September 24, 2013| 13 Comments »

I got into a conversation today on Twitter about the high costs of housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I was looking at houses for sale in the Seattle area, and they are just gorgeous. They have tall pine trees outside, they have views of lakes or Puget Sound or downtown Seattle, they have huge sheets of glass. A lot of them have three or more bedrooms, and some of them even have basements that you can convert into game rooms (air hockey! ping pong!) and/or home theaters. And they aren’t all that expensive.

Someone suggested I look into Omaha, Nebraska, and I found huge houses on huge lots with price tags that seem cheap by Seattle standards…which seem cheap by Bay Area standards. The consensus, whether you’re John Scalzi or Patrick Rothfuss, is that if you’re a writer, it’s best to live somewhere on the cheaper side. Read: not New York City, and not the San Francisco Bay Area. (The happy news is that you live one of those places, everywhere else looks wonderfully cheap.)

It’s a dilemma. For a long time, Silicon Valley kind of irritated me: too much engineer speak, too much social awkwardness, too much busyness competition, and not enough appreciation of the arts. But just when I was beginning to consider a move, it started to grow on me.

Photo Credit: Abe K via Compfight cc

I didn’t choose Silicon Valley as my home; I just ended up here. And once I’d started my business, I was stuck here; while the cost of living is absurdly high, that also meant I could charge more. I looked into moving to Portland at one point and discovered that what I’d save in cost of living expenses wouldn’t equal the amount of income I’d be losing, not by a long shot. I couldn’t afford to move.

Now I can afford to move, but I’ve made dear friends in the meantime, and I’m also more aware of the things I’ve been taking for granted. I like the energy of Silicon Valley. I might not like the culture of the busy, but I do like that people are engaged with projects and ideas that they feel passionately about. I like that people here are nerdy and geeky and care about science fiction movies and maker culture and playing laser tag. (Not to say there aren’t people in many other places who care about the same stuff, but I don’t know as many of them.) I like that a lot of people I know are living full-on lives of the mind. I like that people are liberal here, and by liberal, I mean they are supportive of free spirits and different lifestyle choices and basic women’s rights. Not that it’s perfect (because it isn’t), but it’s a step in the right direction.

Then there’s the weather (it doesn’t get much better than this) and the FOOD. I have the choice of at least twenty different types of cuisine within a fifteen minute drive of my condo. Maybe more. And if I’m willing to drive a little further, I have all of San Francisco to pick from. The beach is in driving distance, the mountains are less than a day away. I can take a day trip to a world-class aquarium or go to one of many excellent science museums (the Tech, the Exploratorium, the Academy of Sciences).

So therein lies my conundrum. I live in a beautiful and vibrant place. It also happens to be really expensive. There’s a push and pull that goes on whenever I consider my options.

Where we live matters. And there are always tradeoffs involved.

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8 Reasons I Love the Theatre

Posted in Arts, tagged , , , , on September 19, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’ve loved theatre for most of my life. I took my first theatre class when I was eleven, and I was hooked. Ever since, whether I’ve been up on stage or sitting in the audience, I’ve felt like going to the theatre is a magical experience.

I try to get to the theatre many times a year, but it can actually be difficult for me to find companions willing to come along. And even as I keep aging, the average theatre audience (discounting school performances and the huge touring sensations like The Book of Mormon or Wicked) is still older than me. A lot older. And while some of that is undoubtedly because of the sometimes steep price tag on theatre tickets, I don’t think that’s the entire story behind the disinterest.

Photo Credit: Bahman Farzad via Compfight cc

So without further ado, here is my list of why going to the theatre is AMAZING:

1. Live performance. There’s a certain special energy surrounding a performance that is in the midst of being created. The role of audience member becomes more prominent as your energy can affect the energy of the performers, and vice versa. Strange things, sometimes amazing and sometimes disastrous, can happen in the middle of a live show.

2. Stagecraft. The technical aspects of theatre are flat-out cool. I love looking at the sets, the costume design, and the props. Some of the things that can be done with lighting are fascinating. It’s possible I fell in love with theatre the first day I got to “fly.” (Although actually, I think it was probably a year earlier when I got to do my own lion makeup.)

3. Less predictable. In some ways, plays are similar to movies: they’re both visual mediums of about the same length that tell a story and can use enhancements like special effects and music to enrich the narrative. But plays, by and large, aren’t as formulaic as most Hollywood blockbusters. They experiment with structure. They experiment with plot. And they sometimes use interesting framing devices.

4. More Bechdel test passes. Women talk to other women in plays about something besides a man all the time. It’s almost like there have been plays written in the twenty-first century or something.

5. Meaty themes. Many plays deal with deep and interesting subject matter. Various plays I’ve seen this year have dealt with: the ethics behind cloning; the process of grieving a dead spouse and moving on; dysfunctional families, mental illness, and secrets; feminism; and the sacrifices made in the name of doing what you believe in. To list just a few.

6. Great dialogue. Most plays rely heavily on dialogue to tell their story. And the best writers have it down: Snappy exchanges reminiscent of the screwball comedies of the ‘40s, passionate and hilarious monologues, quirky character tics, the works.

7. Fabulous humor. I laugh more and louder while watching certain plays than doing pretty much anything else. There is a lot of dark humor and dry humor done in the theatre today, as well as more old-school slapstick if that’s your thing.

8. Transformative experiences. When I’ve seen a good play, I walk out of the theatre a different person than when I walked in. I’ve been challenged, I’ve thought about things in a new way, and I’ve often had a very emotional experience.

What has your experience been with theatre? What makes you love it? What has turned you off about it?

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Not All Happiness Advice Applies to You

Posted in Personal Development, tagged , , , , , on September 17, 2013| 1 Comment »

There’s been a spate of recent research and popular science writing on happiness and what affects it (and what doesn’t affect it). I find this research to be fascinating stuff in its own right, and often a great leaping point. I write about it a fair amount, but I don’t think of what I’m writing to be scientific.

I actually think I write about philosophy. The philosophy of happiness, if you will. I use my own personal experience, the personal experience of others, the philosophy of others, and scientific studies that show certain trends, and I put it all in a blender, and you read the results.

I want to emphasize, though, that I don’t think that what makes me happier will make everyone in the entire world happier. If having a more fulfilling life is something you’re interested in, then collecting different viewpoints and ideas is one way of pushing forward your own quest. Maybe some of the theories and ideas I talk about will inspire or resonate with you.

But when ideas about individual happiness are presented as scientific fact or a fait accompli, then the issue becomes more confused. Which is why I was really happy to read the recent Scientific American blog post by Jamil Zaki entitled “Psychological studies are not about you.” Dr. Zaki decries popular science writing that implies that the studies cited are about individuals. Indeed, he says:

“…Psychological studies… can tell us about how changes in behavior (again, think generosity) might affect the well-being of whole populations…. Most sciences—including psychology—are much better suited to these broad applications than to telling any one person about their life.”

This is because psychological studies mostly involve groups and use statistics. So their findings focus on large-scale trends as opposed to the individual. For example, on average, people may increase their happiness by a certain amount if they engage in gratitude practice. But you as an individual might find that using gratitude practice increases your happiness a lot more than that, or alternately that is doesn’t have a very strong effect at all. Neither of those things make you at all strange since the study in question was talking about averages over a certain population.

Then of course there are the controversies where there are differing points of view. For example, there is a theory of happiness called the set point theory of happiness, or the hedonic treadmill, that states that people have a predetermined happiness set point. There have been a few famous studies, one that looked at people who had been paralyzed and ultimately returned to the same levels of happiness they had been at prior to injury and another that looked at lottery winners that returned to their pre-winnings level of happiness.

But now there are studies showing that this isn’t always the case: that indeed, sometimes people who win the lottery do have increased happiness over a period of time, and sometimes people who divorce do have increased happiness afterwards. There are also examples of individuals having permanently decreased happiness levels. There is more discussion about the forty percent of happiness levels that aren’t controlled by genetics but by intentional activity. And even if the set point theory of happiness is statistically present over a large population, that doesn’t mean it will necessarily apply to you personally. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

Which isn’t to say that reading about these studies or about other people’s personal anecdotes or philosophies can’t be enlightening and helpful. Just as with writing advice, we’re allowed to take whatever works for us and throw everything else away. We each get to learn about the unique combination of what makes us tick and make decisions based on that self knowledge.

What advice about happiness and fulfillment hasn’t worked for you? What advice has?

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The Crappy Person Cycle

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , on September 12, 2013| 7 Comments »

The blog post that I have found to be the most influential on my life is James Altucher’s How to Deal with Crappy People (and its follow-up How to Deal with Crappy People Part 2).

I don’t remember when I read it, probably a couple of years ago, and it was a revelation to me. Just the bare fact that there are crappy people who exist and we’re allowed to acknowledge this as truth was amazing to me. And that we are actually allowed to do something about it besides silently suffering? Wow. Heady stuff.

Then I read this article last week on The Problem of Being Too Nice (an issue I’ve written a little about myself). And I realized why receiving permission from that James Altucher article to call a spade a spade was so important.

Here’s the problem. If you come from a certain background, a background that generally includes at least a few influential and crappy people (usually but not always involving a dysfunctional family), then you become more likely to attract other crappy people. You turn into a Crappy People Magnet. And you’re so used to being around crappy people, and dealing with them, and having crappy things happen, that it all becomes normalized. You assume everyone is like that, and it’s all on you to make everything work out anyway. You can’t tell who is crappy and who isn’t. They just all blur together into an incoherent pile of people.

Photo Credit: jessicalsmyers via Compfight cc

With so many crappy people involved in your life, though, things never stabilize. There always seems to be stress and drama. You’re so rarely getting what you need that you get more and more tired. It takes all your energy to keep your head above water. And the worst part is you might eventually become a crappy person yourself. After all, it’s not like you’re learning healthy behaviors.

As a young girl, it was strongly instilled in me that everyone else was good and I should tolerate most behaviors. Even now I find writing about crappy people to be really uncomfortable. The people pleaser in me wants to make a million excuses for them. But the fact is, there’s a real difference between being an imperfect human who makes mistakes sometimes and being a crappy person. Maybe the crappy person is only crappy to some people. Maybe the crappy person won’t always be crappy. Maybe the crappy person has extenuating circumstances. It’s good to be compassionate. But…

It’s even better to take care of ourselves first.

I know there are plenty of happy people out there who mostly know other good and happy people. I am so glad they exist because they are excellent role models for those of us who have more of a struggle. But this post is not for them.

This post is for those of you who do have crappy people in your lives. This post is for those of you who need permission to call a spade a spade. This post is for those of you who might need to make some difficult decisions in order to take care of yourselves.

There are people out there who are kind and care about what you need. And life without so many crappy people? It isn’t perfect. There are some things about it that are sad.

But it’s also like being able to take a full breath of air for the first time.

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How to Overcome Fear

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2013| 7 Comments »

This summer I went to a workshop about dealing with fear, and I left it feeling disappointed. The teachers didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already known. They kept using examples that either weren’t really about fear or that were about being afraid of public speaking. So it wasn’t a talk geared for me.

Apparently fear of public speaking is the second most common fear in the United States. But to me, it just doesn’t seem like a big deal. I get nervous ahead of time, and I over-prepare, and I don’t always do a good job with it. But it’s so much better than having to sing operatic arias in a foreign language I don’t actually speak that contain high notes I can’t actually hit from memory and then have my performance critiqued in front of a group of fellow singers. That’s what I spent my college years doing. Which was still better than actual auditions.

So one way to manage fear is to do something a lot harder, and then easier things might not seem so bad. Another way is to do whatever you’re afraid to do A LOT. So basically you’re practicing your way out of fear.

But really I was disappointed in the talk because there is no easy answer. Whether you’re afraid of speaking in public or dying, uncertainty or being treated poorly, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. And I wish there was. Fear is such an uncomfortable emotion. It can both hold us back and make things a lot more miserable even as we trudge forward. It can warp the nature of reality itself, making things that might be true seem like they are actually true. And it can make us physically ill in a variety of ways.

Photo Credit: Funky64 (www.lucarossato.com) via Compfight cc

I have spent a lot of time being afraid. And ultimately it’s always the same thing that pushes me through.

Belief.

I remember once as a student, I was walking towards the music building where I had an audition. I think I was sick (I was almost always sick), and I already knew I wasn’t going to get the part. I thought to myself, Why are you even bothering? Why don’t you just go home? Why are you doing this to yourself?

But the answer was clear. I had decided to do this. I believed this was what I should be doing, even though I felt awful and I was really nervous and I knew I wouldn’t get the part. I had a vision of what I wanted my life to be, and this crappy audition experience was a part of that. So I went, and I did the audition, and I didn’t get the part, and I moved on.

Belief is still what gets me through fear. I fix my eyes on my idea of the future, and I clench my jaw, and I do what needs to be done to give myself a chance of getting there. The fear is still there, making things harder, making me pause and ask myself why I am putting myself through such difficulty. But I believe in my vision, and I hold onto that belief as if my life depends on it.

So I guess if I were to give a workshop on overcoming fear, I’d explore how to create a vision strong enough to withstand whatever fear can throw at us. I’d look for some exercises to promote self esteem, because in order to believe in a vision, I think we also have to believe in ourselves. And I’d talk about how to take care of ourselves and handle rejection and disappointment and failure and other obstacles in a resilient way that allows us to keep moving forward.

How do you overcome fear?

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Not everyone is cut out to work for themselves, and that’s okay.

Posted in Life, Society, tagged , , , on September 5, 2013| 10 Comments »

I really like James Altucher’s blog. I disagree with him some of the time, but he usually makes me think, whether I agree or not, and I appreciate that. Of course, one of the challenges in reading his blog is ignoring his heightened rhetoric. (Heightened rhetoric is great for blog traffic, but it makes ideas harder to talk about.)

My friend pointed me to the recent James Altucher post “How to be a Slave.” Its main point is that if you work for someone else, you’re trapped and getting a bad deal: you’re losing all this money you could be making in the company’s overhead and paying your boss’s salary, and then also you have to sit through boring sexual harassment seminars and dress a certain way and act a certain way. So you should go work for yourself and be free.

But it’s not that simple. First off, there is a trade-off working for a company vs. working for ourselves, and it depends on our individual personalities and circumstances which one we’ll be more comfortable with.

Working for yourself or the Man? (Photo Credit: Alan Cleaver via Compfight cc)

If you work full-time for a company, you often get paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick days) and access to cheaper and sometimes better health insurance. This is part of your compensation package, so yes, you’re paying for it, but it’s nice to have vacation days and good health insurance, so it might be compensation that you want. If you receive a salary, you know about how much money you’ll make this year. On the other hand, there’s also the possibility you could be laid off. You have an imposed structure to work within, which some people find quite appealing. Overall, people at companies are perhaps less self-directed, but the amount of self direction depends from job to job and company to company.

If you work for yourself, you do not get paid for time you don’t work, and health insurance is more of a problem (although we’re all crossing fingers it will get better in January). Basically you have to earn more money to make up for the alternate compensation methods you’re not receiving. You have complete control of your time, but this can be a double-edged sword. The amount of money you’ll make in a year tends to be more variable. You can’t be laid off, but your business might do poorly. My favorite part of working for myself is that ultimately, the decision-making is up to me. But some people don’t like calling all the shots; it can be a lot of responsibility.

In addition, it is simply not true that if you work for yourself, you automatically can spend all your time the way you like or dress the way you like or treat people like crap because they’re the opposite sex from you. It is true that you can avoid a certain amount of red tape, wasted time and money, and procedures that are inefficient and ineffective. But many people who work for themselves have clients/customers, and in order to be successful, they have to cater to these clients. I couldn’t dress like a slob as a music teacher, or no one would have hired me. I had to do tasks I didn’t enjoy to keep the business running healthily. I always tried to be polite, respectful, and professional in all my interactions with my students. If I hadn’t done these things, my business would have failed. Sure, I had more choice, and that was fabulous. I didn’t have to deal with policies that had no purpose. But I still didn’t have the leeway to consistently make poor decisions.

The irony is that even though I disagree with many of the arguments in that article, I have done what it suggests. I have never had a full-time salaried position. I like being in control of my time. I like working for myself.

But what I would like to suggest is that different people need and want different things. Some people will thrive working for a company, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Other people will do better working for themselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that either. Some people will go back and forth between the two. If you’re miserable, by all means change things up.

But if it doesn’t work for you, you don’t have to live somebody else’s dream. You get to create your own.

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I finally joined the crowd this weekend…

Posted in Life, Science fiction and fantasy, tagged , , on September 3, 2013| 4 Comments »

I just got home from WorldCon in San Antonio. I’m tired and I think I might be coming down with a cold, so my brain is not cooperating with interesting thoughts tonight.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, I hope they’re right.

In which I ultimately can't resist and take my turn on the Iron Throne.

In which I ultimately can’t resist and take my turn on the Iron Throne.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to my wonderful weekend!

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