The Power of Good over Evil

I was rereading some of the more recent entries in the archives of The Order of the Stick. I came across the strip in which Durkon was talking about how being 'good' can be just as alluring as being 'evil.' And I found myself thinking about that. I'd like to share my thoughts on that topic with you now, if you don't mind.

Again, I know this isn't strictly game related, but it is sort of game-adjacent, especially if we're talking about roleplaying games. Even though I'm not fond of Dungeons and Dragons and other games based on that system, the fact that it is such a ubiquitous game means that the concept of 'good vs. evil' (especially in games that use those sorts of alignment systems) is a pretty frequent occurrence.

Before we get started, though, I want to make sure we understand what the terms 'good' and 'evil' mean. It's important that we all are working from a common ground if this bit of navel-gazing is to be at all productive. So this is going to be a little uber-philosophical for just a moment.

If you're ready, then here we go.

Hype in the Board Games Industry

It's late in February, and I still haven't done a 'Best of 2018' article. I did that last year for the best of 2017, but I chose not to do one this year for several reasons. Perhaps the main reason is because I was so focused on doing the 10×10 challenge in 2018 that I didn't have as much chance to play many of the new games that came out that year.

But another big part of the reason is because most of the games that came out that year didn't look interesting to me.

I tend to be hype-averse. If something gets really hyped, I'm likely to avoid it. I don't even always realise that I'm doing it; it just happens. As one example, I'll tell you about my experience with The Hunger Games. A good friend of mine recommended the series to me back in 2011. She told me a quick overview of what it was about, and it sounded like something I'd find interesting. I was waiting for a time to be able to pick up a copy and read it.

But before I had a chance, the release date for the first Hunger Games film was announced. All of a sudden, the internet was abuzz with people who were dying of anticipation. The vast majority of people were talking about how they couldn't wait to see the film! And the next thing I knew, I had lost all interest in reading the book or seeing the film.

Collapsed Games

Remember a few months ago, when I mentioned that I was going to be streaming a Changeling campaign over Twitch?

That didn't last very long. We had a total of two actual game sessions. And it became apparent to me during that time that I was the only one actually invested in the game.

I could sit here and wax poetic about the reasons why the other players weren't into it. I could gaze at my navel and ponder whether they really were invested, and I just couldn't tell. But the fact is that gaming is my creative outlet. Especially when I'm GMing. It's not just a hobby for me. It's how I express myself.

I've said it before, but it's very true. Some people paint. Others write. Some compose, perform, and record music. I even know people who express their creative urges through creating board games and card games.

I run game sessions.

A Followup to Last Week's Entry

Last week, I posted an entry about Kickstarter. Specifically, I was talking about how some projects are on there because it's a new company (or perhaps just an individual) who has no way of bringing their idea to fruition without crowdfunding. Other projects are there as a way of gauging interest; some creators put their ideas on Kickstarter to see how many people are willing to back it, and if the project doesn't reach its goal, then it's probably not a viable product.

But there are quite a few people who use Kickstarter only as a way of funding a project without having to spend any money themselves.

By the way, for those of you who are curious, Conspire managed to get funded with just hours to spare. They finished at 101%, beating their goal by a mere $101. It was close; I wasn't sure it would make it. I was actually checking in every 20 minutes or so to see how they were progressing.

Anyway. Whether or not a creator truly needs the money is only one consideration in deciding to back a project. Another factor is the stretch goals (for those of you who don't know, a 'stretch goal' is an extra something that will happen if the project reaches a certain goal). A perfect example is the Order of the Stick Reprint Drive. Rich Burlew, an independent artist responsible for The Order of the Stick webcomic, wanted to get his older books back into print, but didn't have enough money to do this on his own. He wanted to reach a goal of just under $58,000 to bring volume 3: War and XPs back into print.

Creating an Adventuring Party

'You all meet in a tavern...' so runs the cliched beginning of a great many roleplaying games. Even those that aren't set in a fantasy setting still have the PCs meeting up in a similar location (a dive bar for Shadowrun, just as an example). This trope is so overused and so well known that there are counter-tropes starting to show up. One example is the Giant in the Playground (the website where the Order of the Stick webcomic is hosted) forums, where some participants have sig files that read '78% of DM's [sic] started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.'

I honestly don't remember how I started my first campaign. I'm not even sure what my first campaign was. It may have been that game of TSR's Marvel Super Heroes. But I could be wrong.

Regardless, even if the adventuring party didn't start in a tavern, the existence of the trope points to a specific phenomenon within the gaming world: PCs who begin the campaign as strangers. This is by far the most common way for games to begin. For most of my early gaming experiences, this was the norm. In fact, it was so much the norm that when my gaming group started playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse, we ignored the pack rules.

Miniatures

When I was very young, I watched a movie called E.T. I'm sure you've heard of it. I remember a brief scene in that film that involved some people sitting around a table with 3D models of tunnel walls, talking about arrows in the chest and undead creatures casting spells. For a long time, I thought that that was what Dungeons and Dragons was: an elaborate board game with a lot of parts.

When I grew older and finally learned about what D&D really was and how it worked, I realised that all of that stuff on the table wasn't necessary (for that matter, in my experience, most players don't mess with that level of paraphernalia; they just place figurines on 2D maps). Some players prefer that level of detail, but others are content with mere verbal descriptions.

As a Storyteller/Method Actor, I didn't feel a great need for miniatures. On occasion, when we got involved in an intense combat, it would be necessary to give players a somewhat more exacting description of where the characters were located in relation to each other, and to the items in the scenery (trees, buildings, cars, etc). Normally, I would just mark the places on a piece of paper. If it was available, I would be fancy by making use of a dry-erase board.

Success and Failure

Thanks to the glory of the Order of the Stick, I have just learned of the existence of the Edition Wars. If you, like me, are one of the few people in the gaming world that doesn't play D&D, then you won't know that apparently there are heated debates raging across the internet about which edition of D&D is better. Personally, I don't care; if I'm going to play a fantasy game, I'd rather play GURPS.

Anyway. In googling the Edition Wars to find out more about it, I encountered an argument between two players. A minor point of the argument was one debator was saying that he feels that in 'modern' gaming (as he calls it), there is too much of an assumption that the players will succeed. He feels that at no point is there consideration that the players will fail. This is a problem primarily because the players, under the belief that the GM will not allow them to be unsuccessful, enter situations that are too risky for them to handle.

This is an interesting viewpoint. I don't know if it says more about me that I've never made that assumption, or if it's just proof that I'm an 'old-school' gamer. But either way, it seems like a silly assumption to make.

Deities

Here's an interesting concept: gods. Most often, this shows up in fantasy gaming, where clerics have divine powers (often including the ability to cast certain magic spells) granted by their deities.

Most games don't give much thought to how exactly this works. Do these gods exist? If so, do they all exist, or do certain pantheons exist while others are simply the imagination of their followers? If more than one pantheon exists, how do they interact?

I think that the most elegant analysis of this conundrum is the cosmology created by Rich Burlew (ok, heavily borrowed by Rich Burlew from many already existing sources) for The Order of the Stick. If you read his entire oeuvre, you eventually learn that "in the beginning," so to speak, there were four pantheons of gods who created the world. Their inability to co-operate resulted in the slaying of the Gods of the West (based on real-world Greek gods; Zeus, Hera, Athena, Ares, &c.). The remaining pantheons (North, based on Norse mythology; Odin, Thor, Loki, &c. -- East, based on Babylonian mythology; Marduk, Isthar, Tiamat, &c. -- and South; based on Chinese mythology; the "twelve gods" include Dragon, Rat, Pig, Monkey, &c.) thus agreed to stay in their respective areas and not interfere directly in the regions of the other groups. This is why clerics are important; they can be the agent of their gods in other places. Later, the goblins and elves developed gods of their own too, who were grudgingly welcomed into the celestial realms.

Alignment

Hello again. Today, I found myself thinking about alignments. Not all games use alignments (in fact, depending on how you define "alignment," I've only played two games that use an alignment system at all), but they tend to be a focal topic in many discussions of gaming. The most prominent example of this is, of course, D&D, with their system of "good versus evil" and "law versus chaos." I will assume that if you're reading this, you already know how that system works; if not, it's easy enough to google it. The only other system of alignment in the practical sense that I've played has been in Changeling: The Dreaming where your character belongs to either the Seelie or the Unseelie court.

In fact, it was in part the misunderstanding of Seelie vs. Unseelie that started me thinking about this subject. Many people who are unfamiliar with the Changeling system make the mistake of equating Seelie with good and Unseelie with evil, when that is not the case at all.

But how exactly does one define "good" and "evil?" This is a topic that I have discussed with friends in the past, and only one thing has become certain: there is no objective measure of good or evil. The terms are completely subjective; what one person thinks is evil, someone else will think of as good (or perhaps even as neither). But almost as important, the good/evil spectrum can be mapped out along many different lines.

Hack and Slash vs. Storytelling

For those who don't know, I haven't been able to do any gaming now for over two years. Moving to a new country can have that effect; I haven't yet been able to find anyone to game with over here. There's been talk about gaming via Skype, but that won't be for a while yet. It's kind of frustrating at times.

But it has given me plenty of time to analyse and think about gaming in more general, abstract terms. Especially since I recently acquired the second Order of the Stick prequel book, Start of Darkness. Reading that made me want to reread the entire series, which I've been doing. And as I read that story, I'm struck by the intense plotline.

For those that don't read it (and I highly recommend that you start), there's the good guys (the titular Order of the Stick), and then there are the main bad guys (the lich sorcerer Xykon and his goblin lackey Redcloak). But then there are the secondary bad guys, the Linear Guild. Then we have other key players, like the paladins of the Sapphire Guard, and the Thieves' Guild in Greysky City. Not to mention loads of bit players, like the oracle of Sunken Valley, the Cliffport City police force, and the bandits of Wooden Forest.

Realism

Welcome to another week of the Game Dork's Gaming Corner. Today, I'd like to talk about a realisation I had while rereading The Order of the Stick for about the 27th time.

Many of the jokes in that comic revolve around idiosyncracies in the rules. The characters frequently make fun of the Attack of Opportunity rules in Dungeons and Dragons. They have often poked fun at experience points and the level system. These jokes are common topics of humour and/or complaint amongst gamers. People often complain that the rules system isn't realistic.

And yet it occurs to me that they're playing a game in which you take on the roles of elves, dwarves, orcs, and gnomes, encountering goblins, trolls, dragons, and umber hulks, fighting them with swords, magic spells, magic rings, and arrows.

I've mentioned this before, but I still find it quite amusing that people can get so upset over what they perceive to be flaws in the rules, or variations in the rules, or deviations from the rules... and so forth.

Board Game Reviews - The Order of the Stick: The Dungeon of Dorukan

Welcome to another week of the Game Dork's discussions of gaming.

This week, I introduce an activity that I expect to do on occasion: board game reviews. To start with, I was thinking once about the way that people review movies, and it occurred to me that what these reviews are doing is saying, "I liked this movie because..." or "I didn't like this movie because..." but that does nothing to let me know if I'll like the movie! Shouldn't we find a more objective way of reviewing things that will actually tell a reader if that reader will like it? So I have endeavoured to do just that.

Thus, I present to you, my system for reviewing board games. Hopefully, this will enable anyone who reads to decide whether or not they would like the game, without having to rely solely on my opinion. Using this system, each game will be rated on the following charts (you can always click on the graphic to see a larger version of it that's easier to read):

So this week, we start with The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan.