The Gaming Outpost

I stood in the Plaza of the Peoples of the Perseus Arm (of the Milky Way Galaxy). Ancient dust once sneezed at by the long-dead rulers of the Third Stellar Empire now floated slightly disturbed by the four ATV riders who braced me.



Objecting to the destruction of a rebuilt section of the Wall of Worlds had got me into this situation with a hand laser pointed at me. The four young versers had been using a graffiti marked wall which held the names of over a hundred versers as their jump ramp. So I resolved to try to explain it again to my fine young barbarians, if I got the chance.



The Old Woman on the far side of the Plaza was laughing to herself. She thought they were fools to cross me, Stormlord, Hammer of Tyrants.



“I could shoot, you know that, don’t you? If you ask real nice, and apologize for messing with us. Why we could let you go.” The mocking tone, and the sniggers from the Leader of the Pack, or should I say Herd, left me in doubt as to whether they would indeed let me go.



“I’m a verser; you kill me, I walk another world.”



“Of course you are, we know that. You think we are stupid?”



I did not answer that question as I try to be truthful.



“These are versers as well; your brethren and sisters. They left their names here on this dead world to say ‘We came and we were here.’” I think my melodramatic poetry reached the girl a little bit, but the rest shrugged off their discomfort with a laugh.



“Losers.” One opined.



“Really?” I said in that cooly insulting British way that I had learned in some time and place and universe very far from here. I started pointing at names.

“This one walked a three hundred miles through a blizzard to save a village. That one built a starship that went to Alpha Centauri; this lady stopped the Black Death.”



“Whatever.” One said disgruntled.

“I’ve walked three worlds.” One said proudly. “I can bend steel with my bare hands.”

“Three worlds?” I nodded politely.

“Yeah, this orange grass place, and then a strange Western place where these aliens lived on Earth, but they were just like us, and I was the quickest gun in the West, and then I became a superguy in the place where people ran around in purple and green and all sorts of tights.”



I nodded respectfully. This was not bad, for a complete novice. The big man had not said super hero I noted. Probably because he had been a villain?



Another said to break the mood of respect for his comrade.

“I bet none of them were better than that.”

The Old Woman chuckled in manic glee.

“I bet none of them just looked in a guy’s eyes and went pop with their big gun.”

The Old Woman about fell off her perch on the wall she was laughing so hard. So, the implied murderer turned his laser toward her to threaten her.

“In the immortal words of Paul Hogan, ‘That’s not a gun; this is a gun.” I slipped my plasma cannon out from its position on top of everything in my backpack where I had stowed it.



The sleek, metal curves, and sheer mass of the thing announced lethal purpose in crystaline clear tones. No one on seeing it, would doubt that it was a weapon.



He pointed his pistol at me, and I suggested we all relax. Nervously, he watched me start to lower my cannon, and he followed suit, although he tried to play at jerking his back up. If he had really worried me, I would have shot him.



“That one.” I said pointing to a name.

“Huh?” They were wondering of what I spoke.

“Tadeusz, Stormlord, he killed a trillion people and he looked into many of their eyes as he did it.”

The ring of veracity in my voice kept their doubts to a minimum, but they did protest. Then the girl read the rest of the sig.

“Stormlord, Hammer of Tyrants. The Old Woman, she, she called you that.” Her words came out difficult as she struggled with the concept and with actually using the brain God gave her for more than decoration and moronic quips.

The others were disbelieving until they noticed I had the cannon pointed at them again.

“You know why I killed them? They were inhuman, and I do not mean alien. Without compassion or kindness; genetically bred for war and domination for no reason but to show forth a theory that the Universe was pain. They were an army, the Inhuman Invasion, who would have destroyed tens of trillions of lives.” My voice was soft as I pled for understanding. The group of versers looked at me with the kind of still fright a bird displays before a cat.

“Now, I refused to let them do this. They would not turn aside. The worse part is that most of them were in some sense innocent. They did not choose without coercion and drugs and perversities to be vile, but in the end they were vile.”

“Nice story.” The big guy said. “We understand.” He said to placate me.

“Do you? If you do, then what should I do with you?” The brutal question came out, and I think they finally understood the name of Hammer.

“Hey, you can’t do that, it would not be right.”

“Really? One of you practically confessed to being a murderer of a non-verser. I would not be surprised if more aren’t.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Why not?” I asked with a slight smile on my lips.

“You have rejoiced that you are versers; immune to law no doubt you think. You can kill, and flee your world, and nobody can stop you. It is instructive, what an Earthly writer wrote about the Old West. L’Amour…”

“Hah, it figures that a geek like you would like some outdated loser like that.” The silent until now one said. The others smiled as if his comment mattered.

“Yes, I suppose it does figure that I would like a man who stood for justice. Anyways, he said the Old West let what was inside come out. Some, shrank from the immensity of the Big Sky Country,” Here I looked straight at the Old Woman, and she sadly nodded at the indictment.

“Do you want help?”

“Yes, Stormlord, I cannot seem to break myself out of my habits, I am locked here inside my own sadness, but do not ‘help’, not right yet.” She nodded at the kids, and I understood that they had no doubt terrorized her. Something else moved her as well, but it was not my place to ask her what.

“And in the Big Sky Country some would become good in a grand sense, and a few would become evil because they had no civil society to hold them back any further. But the scum were always outweighed by the decent people.”

They sneered discreetly at my lecture.

Then I could see the bright idea that I had been waiting for appear in big guy’s face.

“Let’s verse out, and leave this jerk behind.” He pointed at the laser, and their sneers broke out in full force. So I snatched the laser from his hand with a quickstep and a lunging hand that my minor league coach would have been proud of.

“As Dizzy Dean said ‘It ain’t arrogance, if you can do it.’” Then I telekinetically squashed them to the Plaza. They wiggled helplessly a bit.



This left me with a problem. I looked about the weary and ancient plaza, and my eyes lighted upon the Old Woman.



“If I kill them, they go to another world to cause trouble there. Innocent people will die. But I cannot hold them here forever.”

“True, Stormlord.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I asked because the name did ring a bell, but it was a bell hidden by the mists of amnesia brought on by my destruction of the Inhuman Invasion.

“It was your name once, and so it will be again. In compassion shall you unleash the lightning to march across the land and the sea. The fires of the dead shall darken the sky. By your will, the Four Horsemen shall ride and roar. They are Jack and Josesph, and Margaret, and Ken by name.”



No spooky wind raised at her words, but I knew them for what they were. Prophecy. I hated it when the gods reached down, and used me to deliver prophecy; I hated it worse when I was the object of that prophecy. But worse, was the promise that piles of dead would again be heaped up by my actions.



It was just too much, I almost let the thug wannabe’s go. This gave one of them the chance to speak.



“How did you know our names, Old Woman? We never told you our names.”



Her surprise was almost comical.

“I, but you, I saw dreadful figures of power riding across the land. Not you…” Her scorn and dismay were obvious.

“Ah, she is just making it up.” The big guy said.

“And as a seal on this prophecy to My Riders, I shall give you gift of pain that will make your eventual Ride all the more dreadful, to you. This is My justice. And to you, Stormlord, as a seal of the truth…”

“I require none.”

“Nevertheless, you shall blow out many candles in the next hour.”

I looked around doubtfully. There was a sign engraved by Michael leading to one of his Foxholes; maybe it had candles in it. Still, I believed. When a deity of the light says “This will happen.” It does; usually not how you expect, but it does.



Then a light shown around the kids’ heads. And they started shrieking.

“I can feel everything you feel.” The big guy announced looking at the girl. “I’m so sorry.” He said with wailing and sobs. The others were similiarly afflicted with empathy. Permanent empathy, I would guess. The Old Woman shot them, and they versed out.

“I’ve been here five hundred years waiting to give you that message.”

I looked at here for a long moment.

“And because, I could not force myself to go out and try anymore. Too many disapointments. I gave up, and let myself become almost an animal. Help me.”

I did. I reached into her brain, and showed her what she thought. She became much more conscious for some time until she could conquer her inner demons. And then I put a booby trap in her brain that would go off ten times. She would have a year in each world before she died. This would force her out of her rut. So she versed out.



I was left alone on this world with nothing to do. For some reason, I felt like not doing anything. Searching in my mind, did not bring any reason for this feeling. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that it was in the environment. So I unshipped my weapons, and then some scanning devices, and started to study the situation. Perhaps, this might be why the Old Woman had been so lowly?



“Your finest instruments could not detect it.” A voice from across the Plaza said. I turned and a young man with purple eyes sat on the wall. His armour was grey metal.

“What? Detect what?”

“All stories are written, all deeds done; all songs have been sung. At least the good ones.”

I stared at him.

“I, oh, I am the Grey Prince, the right hand of Entropy.” He said in reply to my unspoken question. He played by rocking back and forth on the wall.

“Are you the one you sent the Prophecy?”

“No, he wanted a dead world as a stage to deliver it. We are sometimes terribly melodramatic and all that.”

“Ah.” After all, what could I say.

“You want to help me?”

I agreed based on my general theory of being polite to any god, especially the good ones.

He drew in a breath, and pointed at a pale star. Then he blew it out. The light vanished.

“This is impossible.”

“Magic, my friend. I just raised the bias level of this universe so I could give it a good send-off party. Choose a star, and draw in a good breath.”

I did as I had been gently but firmly commanded. The star went out, and over the next hour we blew out the stars, and then the galaxies.

Finally, we stood in perfect darkness.

“I can’t do it.”

“Do what?” He asked with perfect knowledge leaking into his careful voice.

“Be the Stormlord.”

“But you are commanded to.”

“Then I refuse; you tell, please, I mean, sir, please tell the One who sent the message that I cannot slaughter innocents.”

“Ah,” He paused as I contemplated in the dark the consequences of defying a god. I was pretty sure this Ender of Worlds next to me could kill me for good. No more worlds to wonder at. Heaven here I come, I thought miserably. Of course, that was if they decided to be merciful and give me a quick death. I felt pretty low.

“Who am I, Tadeusz?”

“The Grey Prince, Ender of Songs and Stories,” When he waited, I added. “Right Hand of Entropy, a god of the Light.”

“All true.” And then his face glowed with divine fury. “Now why do you insult me and my friends, and even your Master so?” He hissed.

I stumbled back, and fell on my butt with fear making me unable to speak. After a minute, he calmed down, and reached out a hand to help me back up.

The touch of hand was cool and strong and images paraded through my mind. Ice ages slowly advancing, stars calmly guttering out, an old human dying peacefully at the end of a well-lived life were the images I saw.

“Am I not a good god? Then why would I send you to slay the innocent?” It was obvious that I had hurt his feelings which surprised me.

“But you sent the Israelites to kill the Canannites man, woman, and child.” I protested without much thought.

“Actually, that was not me, but I know of Whom you speak. Is it not true that the desire to murder another human is murder?”

I agreed.

“But what if you did this by mistake? Unknowing your shot flew too far and slew someone? Is that murder?”

I said that it was not.

“Tell me, Tadeusz, you have walked with what you think of as ‘primitive’ people. Tribes, much like the Israelite tribes. To them, are the other bipedals on the land, their brothers? Or are they simply monsters to be exterminated?”

I thought back to several such peoples I had visited. If you were accepted in the tribe, you were human, but if not …

“The Israelites were innocent of murder, genocide and the like because they did not know the others were human. You know, we would not send you to do such a deed. No, you will be sent, but to destroy another army that brings horror to a peaceful land.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be, ‘O ye of little faith.’” I looked up, and in his rueful smile, I realized I had been tested and failed.

“I still do not think I can do it.”

“Why?”

“It hurts too much.”

“Do you know what held the Old Woman here?”

“Yes,” I said as I remembered searching her mind. “Guilt over a mistake she made trying to stop an epidemic. She was tired beyond belief, and she misplaced a vial.”

“Do you doubt that she was forgiven for her arrogance in trying to stay awake a whole week in order to solve the problem by herself?”

“No.” I said for it was an article of my faith that sins are forgivable by the Creator.

“But she could not forgive herself; just like you will not forgive yourself even though there is nothing to forgive. You did the right thing.”

“But I killed a trillion beings.”

“Yes, you did. How many do you think I have killed?” The embodiment of the Good Death said to me with a flicker of anger.

“It’s your choice as always, Tadeusz, you are forgiven in the Courts of the Heavens, but you will make your life a hell if you do not realize this forgiveness in your life.”

He and I paused, and the light of his face went out.



“Time for you to go.” He said with kind firmness as if escorting a late staying guest out of his house which was an apt enough comparison, I suppose. It was his universe, I guessed. I drew in a breath as I thought about what he had said, and then something occurred to me in a flash. I blurted out a request.

“One thing, the Wall.”

“Yes, that suits, I will relocate it to another universe. Goodbye.”



And I fell out of that universe with the sound of a scroll of music being wrapped up behind me.



Tadeusz

  Running a role playing game is a very demanding sort of activity.  The referee, or dungeon master, storyteller, game master, universe king, or whatever you would call him, has to do many things at once.  It is clearly not a task for those who cannot, in a non-physical sense, walk and chew gum at the same time.  Somewhere in your mind, you’re keeping track of who all these people are in the present scene, where they are relative to each other, what else is visible (or present invisibly), and what is happening.  For all the active non-player characters, you have to know what they would be thinking, how they would react as the scene unfolds, and what options they have.  To complicate it, you also have to be somewhat aware of the people who are not present, in terms of whether they are doing something that matters, and whether they are likely to arrive.  There are many undercurrents of plots and themes being balanced, as each character well-drawn has his own story, only intersecting with this one where it matters to the player characters.

  You also probably have a great deal of paperwork in front of you.  There are probably game books, scenario descriptions, character sheets.  In addition, most referees are creating more papers as the game progresses, making notes on what is happening, marking changes made to the scene, and otherwise keeping track of details as they unfold.

  Beyond that, there is the wealth of knowledge which the referee either knows or can find at need.  Every character has abilities on which they primarily rely, but also other abilities they seldom use which the referee has to understand and apply the moment the player decides to bring them into the game.  This knowledge base is present, part of everything demanded of the referee.

  Most games also have at least some math, if only the addition of a couple of numbers.  Referees may find themselves adding numbers in their heads while looking up particular rules for a current action and carrying on an in-character conversation as a non-player character, all while attending to what people are doing and where they are standing.  It is a mind-boggling effort at times.

  The best advice anyone can give for how to improve your abilities as a game referee is to practice it by doing it.  There is nothing exactly like it, and only by practice will you improve.  It’s been likened to driving a car, in that eventually much of it becomes automatic, and you only have to think about it directly when in an unusual situation.  I cannot say that there is anything you can do that will make you a better driver that is better than driving; and I cannot say that there is anything you can do that will make you a better referee that is better than refereeing.

  Yet driving simulators improve driving skill; thinking about driving helps, and riding a bicycle can help.  There are, in a sense, exercises you can do that will help you become a better driver, apart from driving.  I’m going to propose that there are exercises you can do that may help you become a better referee.  I’m also going to suggest one, something I do that I think helps me think better, which on the surface might not seem so obvious.

  The next time you’re watching a movie in the theatre, stay for the credits.  I know people will be pushing past you; I know that there’s some guy in the projection booth who’s hoping everyone will leave so he can turn on the lights and start cleaning up.  Ignore them, ignore him.  You paid to see this movie, so don’t cheat yourself out of the credits.  Besides, there are movies which put something at the end of the credits that’s worth seeing, taking a cue from a few Disney films.  Don’t rush to the parking lot or the bathroom (well, if you need to rush to the bathroom, all right–but plan on staying for the credits next time).  Let the credits run.  Stay in your seat.

  As the credits run, read them.  Read as many as you can, as fast as you can.  You’ll find that much of the time they move too fast for you to catch them all; I think Kermit the Frog was right–those are there for the family members of the people listed, who know where to look for the name of their loved one.  But if you make a serious effort to read, you’ll learn to skim, to read faster, to understand concepts without mentally pronouncing the words.

  Yes, you can get the same thing from an Evelyn Woods course or other speed reading training.  Speed reading is a valuable skill.  You don’t have to stay for the credits to learn it, and probably can learn it elsewhere more efficiently.  But that’s not all I want you to do.

  While you are reading, you will undoubtedly notice that there is music playing.  Reading is a left-brain function; it is about processing information.  Music, however, is a right-brain function.  What I want you to do is, while you are reading those credits as intensely and quickly and completely as you can, listen to that music.  Don’t allow yourself to tune it out.  Tune it in.  Hear the melodies, feel the relationships between the notes and the interaction of the lines.  Give as much attention to what is playing as you can.

  But don’t stop reading.  Read and listen at the same time.  Do both as much as you able.

  You will find as you progress that your attention drifts between the two.  That’s all right; just don’t let it drift too far.  Don’t stop reading, don’t stop listening.  If you note that you are not as attentive to the music, focus back on it; if you note that you are not understanding anything you read, pay more attention to that.

  So it seems I am asking you to do two things at once.  Yet a few weeks ago as I watched the closing credits of the latest Star Trek film I realized that this is not so.  I’m actually asking you to do three things at once–as I was, at that moment, doing, reading the credits, listening to the music, and analyzing the process, the exercise, as it was progressing.  You, too, will be doing three things at once.  You will be reading and listening, and watching yourself do both so you can keep them in balance.  It was then, while I was reading credits as fast as I could and trying to absorb the music that was playing behind them, that I began forming this article; it was then that I recognized the value in harnessing our minds into several tasks at once as practice for running games.

  I suspect that it will help you.  I’ve gotten better at it over the years, and I think it has helped me.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

I woke with quietness resting heavy on my ears. A city slicker will call the country quiet, except when the crickets sing. This was the silence of an enclosed and dust-laden library, but sunlight fell weak upon my face.



Opening my eyes, I saw the worn Centre Tower composed of carbon torracrite, almost indestructible, by the finest engineers and artists of the Third Stellar Empire. The High Veraimaine Period, a flowering of art and thought midway through the empire’s life had given birth to it. Then the tower had loomed over history for several thousand years as its spatial and spiritual center of gravity.



I knew this because being an inveterate reader, I had learned their lingua franca, and studied the histories they engraved in the base of the tower.



Looking over to my left, despite the familiar sensation to my right, I saw the Ruined Wall that bounded the Plaza of the Peoples of the Perseus Arm. It was a low wall with each of the thousands of bricks coming from a different world.



Much later, another group had repaired a section of the wall with local brick in order to use the space as a corral for a four-footed herbivore the signs in the dust and stone seemed to say. It was there that the messages, or graffitti ran.



No one sentient and nothing larger than a small beetle had lived here for thousands of years, except for versers who wandered the ancient ruins of a continental city. And so the versers felt compelled to say “I was here” in the face of this awful entropy.



“Baron Coranado/She Who Is Gold did research on the local indigs, a copy is under the nearest solid red building” More directions followed.

“Wolfkiller will find you Lord Shasdo.” This was written in a broken High Elvish that somehow radiated menace.

“Magus is my name.” I recognized these right off.

Next to them was told ‘The Alchemist visited here’, but not in those words. Instead in Dar Koni script, the words “I built Umak Tek” appeared which to those of us who had knowledge of this experienced verser was as good as a name. These were the same words over the gate of the frontier stockade of black plastic on the orange grass plains of Naga World, and engraved by the same hand.

Umak Tek was a place of legend in verser tales; other places such as this Rebuilt Wall, the many ships by the name Mary Piper, the EdGe oF mADneSs CAfE’, Menlo Park, Ba’Kegn, the Hunting Lodge in the Rocky Mountains DMZ, Claude’s Corral(the somewhat affectionate nickname for Claude’s spy hq), the robocafes all pop up in conversation, but over and over its Umak Tek that gets mentioned when versers gather and chat.

Then with dash and flair a simple “Whisp!” completed that yard-square segment. There were some twenty similar yards of wall to be seen.



I stepped over four yards to my right, and put my hand down on some words.



“Tadeusz, called Ghost, the Hammer of Tyrants, and Stormlord visited and studied here on his seventeenth world.” I suddenly remembered the time I had spent here. Many weeks studying trying to understand the local language in order to find out what happened, and then to pick up some cool toys which did not happen as they were all broken by millenia of disuse.



A few sections of the repaired wall were broken down which hurt me to see that.



I turned, and looked at the Old Woman. She crouched like a vulture on the other side of the plaza waiting for me to speak. She was a verser, I could tell.



“What has changed, and how long has it been?”



“Ah, Stormlord, nothing has greatly changed. There are more of us here now than all but a few times that I recall. We have an almost colony of versers. And it has been five hundred years since I saw you, give or take a decade.”



“You have lived here all that time?” I inquired gently. She nodded, and I felt pity for her in her stained rags, and weakness of mind and heart.



It was then that I heard the roar of four-wheel buggies coming my way. Quickly, scooping up my stuff, I felt for versers, and sensed them as the buggies rode over the top of the wall, and came thumping down into the plaza. Whooping the five versers surrounded me.



The buggies were an advanced form of ATV four-wheeler. You could lift one with your good arm, and command it to fold with your voice, and then use your other arm to slip into the handy backpack strap provided.



Ultra-lightweight materials, liquid turbine engines with frictionless bearings, and it was all powered in its resplendent fluorescent yellows and purples and greens by the solar cell paint that dazzled the eyes.



They revved around me with their turbines whining, and I waited for them to tire of their game. The group did not; instead they zoomed their engines up to mount the wall again.



I considered increasing the friction coefficient of the interior of the engines, but that would probably destroy the whole plaza. Instead, I scooped the machines up in the air with telekinesis.



This did not bother the crew, except for for one. They dove with grace, or floated off by means of tk themselves, or kicked in a belt jet, and the last just jumped so that he went thud when he hit the ground. They left their squirming compatriot who was the weakest airborne.



“Hey, like that was not cool.” The girl protested.



“Why are you riding on the wall? Don’t you know that over a hundred versers, many famous visited there. Many of these people…”



A snort cut my lecture short, and with hip insouciance they advanced. I let the machines down.



“Lol, guy, who cares what those losers think?”



“Some of those ‘losers’ are my friends; they have done things you cannot comprehend.”



“Ooh, comprehend. Big word there; sure us peons won’t understand that one.” A difficult, and awkwardly graceless man said. He was trying to imitate a cooler person than him.



Embarrassed, the crowd told the guy to shut up, and he refused. So they shot him with a laser blaster. He versed out. I was appalled.



Then the leader turned the gun toward me; more precisely, he signalled his lackey to do it.



“Better not do that, child, that is the Hammer of Tyrants you cross.” The Old Woman warned cheerfully.



Tadeusz

I came to this world six months ago. I landed with another scriff induced head ache along the North/South border of Vietnam near a Viet Kong training camp. They had taken my weapons but hadn’t found me. A few hours later some Green Berets and Montagnard irregulars were moving toward it. They accidentally set off a captured claymore and had snipers bearing down on them in no time. With two wounded compatriots and no way to get out I couldn’t just sit there.



I stole some rather caustic cleaning supplies from the camp while troops were out trying to deal with the Green Berets. Mixing some them together in large stew pot, it sent off fumes into the bunker, which made up most of the compound. I lit a match and all that was left after the flash was a sink hole and twisted stumps around the blast crater. I got my weapons back.



I introduced myself as a fellow American to the astonished soldiers. I asked them not to report my assistance and back at HQ they paid my way under the table to Hong Kong.



In Hong Kong I made some quick bucks by starring in martial arts films. Bruce Lee is amazing on film, but even greater when you meet him in person. I made it to London through some mutual friends and a job as a body guard for a British business man.



London had changed much since its Roman days, but I could still find my way around some of the streets. It was there that I had that eerie some-is-watching-you feeling when a verser is around. I parted amicable with my employer and followed it until I reached the



I had self-admitted myself three days back. Let me tell you, it is very fun to be a mimic. Three days of juggling fake mental illnesses and I had them guessing left and right with no room left to write in my file. I figured I could take my time. Right about the time the Major walked in I asked for the release forms and gathered my bags, which had been sealed in boxes (luckily…because they would have put me in steel reinforced concrete room if they saw what was in there).



A slender and wiry man came marching into the lobby with a PPK service pistol and a very relieved expression. He turned and seeing his face was both a joy and something of a horror. The sunken cheeks and fierce eyes said more than wrinkles and liver spots ever could.



Those first spoken words seemed to change his whole expression to one of joy, “I’m a verser, Major.”



“Indeed he is,” I said, “I just arrived here. And I sensed one of us, and thought I would drop in for a visit. What are you doing here?”



“Just passing through. Look, guy, the Major has a problem. The Evil Empire is trying to strangle goodness and apple pie. You think we could help him?,” Eric said.



“Hey wait a minute. I still do not know you are not a Russian spy,” the Major said.



“Him, the Hammer of Tyrants? Ha, ha, ha, you gotta be joking.”



I didn’t wait around for him to get the confused look off of his face so I threw him over my shoulder and walked out the front door. Security would have stopped us by the Major was polite enough to flash his credentials and allow us to pass. Outside the grey of the London sky parted and the Sun hit the dust bitten asphalt of the warehouse district.



I was glad to leave the pale plumb linoleum floors and bay windows behind. A flustered Major (who gave us his last name of Clark) pointed toward his Land Rover and we departed.



I started off, “Major, obviously your government has been studying this for some time. Let me just give you the abbreviated version of how this tuff got here. We are transients between worlds. We are infected with a substance that doesn’t allow us to fully die. It only lets us travel to another world once we reach the point of death. We happen to collect things from world to world. We were born into a parallel earth that was ahead of yours. Let me answer your other questions ahead to time. Yes, we can show you how to use all of it. No, it won’t all work. Equipment reliability varies from world to world. Physics.” Clark gave a grunt and Eric handed him his pistol back.



We arrived at a non-descript warehouse thirty miles outside of London. There were four average looking security guards in a small booth that straddled a chain-link fence. As soon as the Land Rover pulled up the stepped out. The regularity of their steps gave them away as British Marines and flashes of machine pistols hidden from plain sight confirmed it. Eric chimed in, “Hi boys. Mind if you just pull it round back while we go eat.” Even the Marines, who were leery of Eric and I, cracked a brief smile at that one.



Inside they had the piles of Eric’s equipment set out on tables, tagged, bagged, and catalogued in large paper ledgers with schematics and drawings. They had set up an ad hoc indoor firing range with was riddled with small blast craters from Eric’s various weapons. Small digital trinkets with small entertainment value were treated like holy relics in this place. A couple of dozen technicians whispered behind us while they circled this field disjointed memorabilia.



“This way. There is something else for you to see.”, Clark said.



In a separate enclosed insulated lab sat clear-acrylic tanks with full grown white males in alcohol preservative. Before the tanks were the same type of utilitarian tables with Russian-style uniforms (no patches or tags on them) and personal effects.



“These bodies in the vats were members of a new Russian Spetsnaz unit operating out of Siberia. They killed several of our SAS and MI:6 teams in ways that shouldn’t be humanly possible. We opened them up and found their organs were more or less modified. We came across Mr. Ashley’s equipment and we wanted to know about it. We think the Russians might be far ahead in some areas.”



I had the first look at the autopsy report. The changes were subtle, but very carefully balanced. I could tell off the bat that the modifications were for pure physical boots, temperature resistance, and redundancy. Eric had a look and said, “Yeah, this isn’t Russian at all. It’s the same style of the bio-Syndicate on Tanlus 3. They loved their efficiency. What do you think David?”



“I’m with you on that. The problem being is that mods obviously haven’t been done by a master bio-sculptor which means its probably a verser. Clark…er…Major, any more info?”



“Just one name we have. The lead scientist there. He goes only by Gavin.”



My blood chilled…

Welcome to the second article in the series. It’s been a long time coming, but good things are worth waiting for. The first thing I am going to introduce the acronyms OTL (our timeline) and ATL (alternate timeline). These two acronyms will make it a little more expedient to distinguish between our timeline and the alternate timeline.



During Lee’s administration the 15th Amendment ATL was passed (modified OTL 14th Amendment). It is at the bottom of the article if you want to read it.



When we left off lat time Mexico was entering the Union. Events like that don’t just happen so we should touch on that event in more detail.



Seeing the writing on the wall, Britain and Spain pulled their forces out when they heard what Maximilian had done. Only the French had kept their forces in the country during the fighting. However, Maximilian’s invasion of U.S. had left the French government was simply dumbfounded, unable to decide on what to do. Yes, the forces were there to support Maximilian, but they were there to make sure debts were paid, not to clean up his mistakes. Juan Ruiz de Álvarez was immensely grateful for American help in overthrowing Maximilian, and was afraid of French retaliation. The French forces had largely stayed out of the way because



In the first month after victory Juan Ruiz de Álvarez and his forces set up a new provisional government in Mexico City. The Conservatives and Military under Maximilian were either dead or imprisoned. This left Juan Álvarez without any competition for power and left him as the most powerful and popular man in Mexico. Thus all Mexican states gave at least nominal support to the provisional government.



The one factor that really gave him worry was the uncertainty of the French government. French military forces still sat on Mexican territory and could be mobilized at any time.



Juan Álvarez saw their only hope lying in the Americans once again. President Lee strongly supported the new government and the U.S. had at least polite diplomatic relations with the French. The problem was that President Lee wanted to withdraw most of the U.S. forces because he felt uncomfortable having such a large standing army in peace time. Juan saw only one option, annexation.



The provisional government was parliamentary, which gave a balance between central control for stability issues and democratic function. Lee reluctantly supported annexation and promised to lend his name to it when it came before congress. In turn, the provisional government wrote constitutions for the Mexican states in assembly line fashion. Mexican land owners, the powerful class in Mexico, agreed to this when they heard that Lee would support annexation.



With a severe want of change and manifest destiny fever passing through Capitol Hill, Congress loved the idea. And with Lee’s absentee support (he was still in Mexico) it past with a majority through both Houses and Lee’s signing off the bill was sent back by courier. With a little U.S. diplomatic goading the French withdrew their forces in resignation.



The majority of U.S. forces were sent back East ahead of Lee and a small entourage who has stayed behind to tour frontier towns. While camping out in Arizona Chief Cochise, of the Chiricahua band of Apache, captured Lee while he was off guard. Here is a description of Chief Cochise:



“In his day, Cochise embodied the essence of Apache warfare. But he was more than just a warrior–much more. He was an Indian who so loved his family, his people and the mountains in which he was reared that he would fight fiercely to protect and preserve all that was Apache. There can be no question that he was capable of unspeakable cruelties and violent acts of revenge upon innocent whites. The fact that Cochise was terribly wronged and misunderstood and forced to witness the disappearance of his homeland and his people perhaps cannot, in the view of history, justify everything that he did. Still he represents, probably as well as any single figure, a people’s natural resistance to the invasion of their land.



The warrior known as Cochise will enjoy forever a giant place in the history of the American Southwest. In consistently heroic fashion, he occupied his place at the head of his threatened people through the violent years. His physical skills were so extraordinary that those skills alone would have conducted him to the head of his Chokonen band. One American frontiersman who knew him well insisted that Cochise ‘never met his equal with a lance’; another frontiersman claimed that no Apache “can draw an arrow to the head and send it farther with more ease than him.” And we have many eyewitness accounts to testify to Cochise’s prowess as a horseman. During one furious encounter on horseback, an American scout tried over and over again to dispatch Cochise, but his efforts were all in vain, for the Indian ‘would slip over to the side of his horse, hanging on the horse’s neck.’



Yet it was more than his strength and physical skills that inspired the warriors of Cochise. The Chiricahua chief had often expressed his great regard for those who displayed two attributes: courage and devotion to the truth. Nobody exhibited both more persistently and dramatically than did Cochise himself. His courage in skirmishes and battles is now legendary. He always led his men into combat and was frequently the central figure throughout the fight. One American officer reported that ‘many efforts were made to kill Cochise who [led] his mounted warriors’ in several charges.



Always during an engagement, no matter how chaotic and confused, Cochise managed complete control of his men. ‘A private soldier would as soon think of disobeying a direct order of the President as would a Chiricahua Apache a command of Cochise,’ one observer declared.



The warrior-chief also respected and much admired bravery when it appeared in his enemies. One reason that his friendship with General Howard and Lieutenant Sladen developed so quickly and so firmly was that they had the “courage to visit him when to do so [might] have caused their death.”

And Cochise scorned a liar. He held to a simple philosophy about the truth: ‘A man has only one mouth and if he won’t tell the truth he [should be] put out of the way.’ He clearly had a great instinct for the truth and a keen capacity for distinguishing deceit and falsehood. All Americans, with but a few notable exceptions, he distrusted out of both instinct and experience. This distrust of Americans prevented him from revealing much of his career to inquisitive whites. He remained honest to his creed as he steadfastly refused to discuss the past. If pressured, he would simply say, ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ “



For more information look here:

http://americanhistory.about.com/library/prm/blcochise1.htm



Cochise’s first response was to vent his rage on Lee. He unloaded bellowing insults while waving a knife in his face. As the hours passed Cochise calmed enough to see the understanding on Lee’s face. Lee began sharing what had happened during the War of the States (ATL) and what had recently happened in Mexico. Both shared memories and finally both men cried.



Public worry has risen as Lee was several days late to his scheduled destination in another frontier town. It was there that Lee made a landmark speech on the conflict with Native Americans. In it he stated the obvious; that they were equals and that any further trampling of their homelands would stop. From there he headed straight for D.C. and called an emergency session of Congress. There he presented a bill he had drafted call the Indian Rights and Land Act, which asserted Native Americans as U.S. citizens under the 15th Amendment (altered version of 14th Amendment OTL), granted them ownership of all remaining lands that all tribes in the U.S. occupied (accounting for their nomadic lifestyle), and recognized them as large townships separated by tribal bands. The States could lease land from the tribes and then sub-lease it to settlers. The bill also created a “pot” into which all the States could willingly put in money for common use in paying for leases. Land ownership could only be transferred with the agreement of an entire tribe.



Controversy broke out across the U.S. over the bill. Settlers and frontiersmen blasted Lee for not protecting their interests. Southern Dixiecrats, unwillingly to entirely give up old prejudices, gave some armchair criticism. Various State and Territory Governors didn’t like it at all. Lee responded simply, “They were here before we could ever conceive of this land mass and now we shed their blood claiming we have some right to it.” That tended to silence mouths pretty quickly. And support for the bill wasn’t small either. Many Northern businessmen, former leaders of the abolition movement, prominent Black Congressmen, famous former slaves, and several of the Southern Gulf States (Mexico OTL) lent their support to the bill.



Chiefs like Red Cloud and Cochise were asked to speak before Congress as they initiated hearings on the matter. Their testimonies were published in virtually every paper that had room. And it was their testimonies that shifted the balance and allowed for narrow passage of the bill.



All of this happened over a rather quick period of nine months. Lee would go on to see the Native American tribes vote in state elections, the industrialization of the Southern Gulf States, and a dizzying array of private efforts to end poverty and break corruption in Eastern cities.



While America was a frothing sea of change, Europe was not far away from its own change…





ATL 15th Amendment:



Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Any person who is subject to any law which abridges the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or are deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law may bring suit in the Federal Courts for reversal of any abridgements or deprivation of life, liberty, or property and for restitution of those deprivations. All persons which are citizens of the United States may also bring suit in the Federal Courts for the reversal of any denial of equal protection of the laws within any State or any subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.



Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.



Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

  We’ve reached the end of another quarter.  Game Ideas Unlimited has existed for ninety-one weeks, twenty-one months, seven quarters.  True to our pattern, this week we offer a look back at the past quarter, briefly summarizing (and linking) what we’ve covered, and hopefully fitting it together in an idea of its own.  Think of it as one of those annoying television series episodes that are constructed entirely of clips from previous episodes, but which have some kind of story or point that almost redeems them, and then remind yourself that this article is free.

  Let us begin with our look back.

79. Attention talked about the ability to switch on our awareness of what is around us, distinguishing a heightened level of attentiveness from a superior sensory ability as character traits.
80. Trust discussed this aspect of relationships, the notion that we have confidence in some people and not in others.  It raised the question of whether your game characters are trustworthy, and whether others trust them; also, whether your character trusts people he sensibly would trust, or whether the people he trusts are known for their betrayals.
81. In Transition we looked at worlds in flux, at those moments in history, past, present, and future, when the world is undergoing rapid change.  Wars, technological advances, collapsing governments, and cultural shifts all make for powerful backdrops to ongoing campaigns, giving player characters more to do than crawl dungeons.
82. Partnership discussed the difference between working together and working together, that is, the idea of being together while working as opposed to dividing your efforts to achieve goals by attacking on multiple fronts.  These are presented as alternative problem solving strategies for party play.
83. Language talked about the strengths and weaknesses inherent in speech, not merely generally but from language to language.  It was noted that each language is better at discussing certain ideas and worse at others, depending on what mattered to the people who originally spoke it, and that these communication issues can matter in play.
84. Invention, the child of necessity, takes the spotlight as we consider the act of problem solving.
85. Control was actually about fear, about those elements that make fear real, both in reality and in games.
86. Prophecy gave some insight into ways to use predictions of the future within game stories.
87. Culture asked, “Can you say ‘Shibboleth’?”  It looked at the player characters as foreigners, people removed from the familiar and facing the difficulties of understanding a new home and the people who live there, and of the complications that come from always being recognizable as not from around here.
88. Graffiti gave a different idea on decorating your dungeons.  People have been scratching their names into everything for as long as they’ve been able to write.  Adding such useless inscriptions to the walls of your dungeon or your space station makes sense.
89. Opportunity Costs found a game idea in an old sermon based on an accounting concept:  the notion that no one has enough resources to do everything they would want to do, and so choices made to do one thing usually mean that something else is left undone.
90. Can’t is a word my wife, at least, hates; but it is a truth about all of us that we have our limitations, those things we cannot do, whether for lack of skill or emotional baggage, and having characters so limited makes them more realistic.

  In introducing this article, I commented that we had such retrospectives once every quarter, in every thirteenth entry in the series.  I do this for a number of reasons.  For one thing, even I find that it helps to be reminded of where we’ve been, of what was said.  It is easy to forget what I wrote last week, and some of these stretch back considerably farther than a week ago.  So a quick review of topics is helpful.  For that matter, you might want to go back to the last review article, Reports, to see the subjects covered in the previous three months, and from there you can work back through the articles that preceded it.  There is, of course, an article index here at Gaming Outpost, but it lists articles in a well-organized but not very useful alphabetical sequence.  These summary articles provide the sequence, along with some idea of what each was about, and so serve as chronological indices.  It is also certainly true that I publish these summary articles free to give the many non-members who visit this site a glimpse of what their membership would buy them (for better or worse).

  I don’t do them to get a free article out of them.  You might think that a motivation, considering that at this point in the article I’ve written around eight hundred words of nothing new.  Perhaps that (and budget concerns) is a motivation for those television episodes that use spliced footage of previous entries to fill time.  It is not a motivation here.  With each look back, I attempt to find some idea that makes looking back fit the overall idea.  It is the case, however, that part of the motivation for having these regular glances in the rear view mirror is that we’ve always done them.  It is expected.  It is a pattern.  Perhaps few would notice if the season-ending piece didn’t come; yet I would notice, and the rhythm of the series would be disrupted.

  It is that aspect that I put forward this week as an idea worthy of consideration:  that life has patterns, a regular rhythm that cannot be ignored.  Day and night move forward, always the same despite being different.  Our company, Valdron Inc, takes its name from a world and a city in a game which has been played around this world, run by E. R. Jones, a world in which chaos was normative.  In his effort to achieve true chaos, he had designed a randomized calendar based on the appearance of seven moons whose crossings had no patterns and yet were predicted by the sages.  If you made inquiries, you could find out what month would come next; but it was determined by dice when the information was needed.  Still, crops grew, rains fell, days and nights passed from one to another, snow came and went, and one of my characters once quipped, Even in Valdron, the seasons are lawful.  There is regularity, recurrence, repetition in the world in which we live; it is necessary to life.  The worlds we imagine may be very different; yet for life to thrive, they require their own patterns, their own cycles of time and life.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

Bit late this week with my article, sorry about that. Instead of boring you all with tales of why I’m late I figured I’d just get into it right away.



Mark showed us some interesting info in his article Can’t. Mark talked about the Flaws or Disadvantages that a character might have which limit his ability to do certain things. I thought I’d take this is a slightly different direction and look at the times when your GM tells you that “You can’t do that.”



One of the things that players hate is being told their character can’t do something. The only way to make it worse is to not explain to them why they can’t do it. To help a GM out, most of guidebooks tell us not to tell a player they can’t do something, let them try. Sure they may fail, but let them try anyway. While I find this advice is good, I don’t think it works all the time. Sometimes you have to tell the players they can’t do something, or that something they normally can do isn’t working. The trick is in how you tell them.



If a player has a power/ability/etc that allows him to do something, there is a good chance that eventually they will run into something that will render that power useless or ineffective. Sometimes there is an obvious explanation for why that is happening. If Superman were to see kryptonite he’d know exactly why his powers were failing, but if there was no kryptonite in view it would be harder to understand. These situations can be very frustrating to players as unexplained loss and failure is hard to take.



Another frustrating situation for players can be found in some published adventures. In the Tomb of Horrors adventure for AD&D there are a bunch of traps and situations where the players will automatically be hit and take damage no matter what kind of protection they are using. No saving throws either. The frustration felt here is compounded if the character dies or is incapacitated because of the event. The hard bit for the GM is that he isn’t shouldn’t tell the players anything about why something is happening – At least not directly.



If the players have no way to divine the how and why on their own, they can only work with what they can see. If we directly tell the players the how and why we give them very powerful info that they normally should not have access to. This info can often sway the outcome of the adventure by allowing the players to circumvent situations that they normally could not have gotten by.



My solution is to be a Descriptive Clue Dropper. Instead of coming out and saying “You can’t do that” give a description of what happens when they try, with the description containing a clue as to the how and the why.



“As you open the door, a spear suddenly launches at you, too quickly for you to move… (rolling dice)…The unnaturally sharp weapon pierces your armor and does 24 damage!”



By using the words too quickly for you to move and unnaturally sharp we have given a clue to our players that things are outside the norm and thus non-normal effects are possible. Thus if the spear is able to penetrate magic armor and spells it must be due to something about it that allows this to happen.



Sounds like a simple thing to do, but it’s very critical. As you know, the players can only see what you tell them they see. Simply handing out damage or effects is actually going to create more work for you than if you take the time to put a few descriptors on events. The players want to get into the game, and these kinds of descriptions during difficult times are key.



On the other side of the screen, players need to understand that they are not going to know the how and why behind everything that happens to them. The GM is going to do his best to give a good description, but as players we need to realize that sometimes we just can’t figure it out right at the moment. My advice for players on this is not to argue but to ask questions.



If you are told your power suddenly doesn’t work ask questions. No use in arguing with the GM, that’s rude and useless. Assume there is a reason why and investigate. What did it feel like when it happened? Is there physical or mental effects connected to it (stomach pain, blurred vision…)? Are there any signs in the area (symbols, writings, colors) that are out of place? Did the GM remember that your power was a gift from a lawful diety?



Fact is that sometimes the GM isn’t sure what kind of descriptor clues he should give, and he’s not going to remember every aspect of your character so don’t be afraid to help out. These questions will give the GM a chance to give you some info that might help you figure out what is going on. Questions like this are also signs of good roleplaying skills – showing attention to details and helps to keep the GM on his toes. Which is always a good idea.





Well, that’s all from me for now. See you in the Forums!

I had been confined to the Sanger Home for the Mentally Unfit due to two factors. The first was that I was found laying by a street(a typical aftermath of versing out is versing in at a semi-random location.) And my notebook, of which this is a sample, spoke of crossing the multiverse, of working miracles, casting spells, and other wondrous things. My pampered puddy-tat of a doctor did not believe in wonder. He did believe in Research Subjects.



It took me a fatally long time to decide to break out of the dreary room I was held in. The tyranny of manners can kick in at strange times facilitated by the expectation of my ‘good’ behavior. But eventually, I began busily using an unscrewed chair leg as a lever to pry the bars off the window when my keepers came back. So close, if only I had started sooner.



They were appalled and impressed. So they put me in an ‘inescapable’ strait jacket, doped me full of a chancy chemical cocktail that did strange things to my thoughts. It was as if I was standing outside myself at times, and could only watch. They locked me in a barrack room with a dozen other unfortunates. I was the only one so confined, but the others knew better than to help me.



Time, weeks, passed and I finally heard my doctor had taken a summer cruise to Europe. He would deal with me when he got back.



It was not as bad as all that. Days sometimes went by with only a minute of true awareness and conscious choice. I drifted and mentally frayed at the edges a bit in the process.



In a way, this was a vacation from responsibility. It was an excuse to have a month long pity party. So yes, I needed to relax, but in other ways it was truly demonic. The Light wants integration, wholeness, soundness of mind, and I was starting to crack apart just a little bit.



Noting this I began to do little things to pull myself back from the brink. I’ve always hated crunches, but there are few exercises you can do in a straight jacket while laying down. Soon pumping legs and half jumping jacks(minus the arms) were supplemented by bending over and touching the floor with my head.



This entertained and alternately freaked out the others, and so Authority came down to put a stop to it. But they could not stop me from the isometric exercises. I laughed the day I ripped the strait jacket with my expanding muscles. Unfortunately a nurse was there in the barracks room, and they got me another jacket which they reinforced.



The exercise helped clear the mind of drugs since I sweated the poisens out of my system(which got me a most uncomplimentary nickname, but you can’t have everything.) And to my relief, I started sleeping more than an hour at a time. Probably one of the best things to do for the truly insane is a long dose of sleep; on the other hand, sleep deprivation is an effective method of inducing madness. The varying drugs they gave us often forbad sleep.



I tried to protect the others as I could, but little could be done especially since I was temporarily so weak of mind myself. Still logic puzzles to enforce rationality, prayer to soothe the heart, and role-playing games to encourage healthy dreams and exorcise dark thoughts had some good effect.



It was winter, and I found that my doctor had gone straight from the boat and been transferred to a higher post as a director elsewhere. My request for information made them aware that I was not being ‘doctored’. It occasioned quite a flurry, and proved the wisdom of keeping one’s mouth shut.





My new doctor was much like the old one except a bit younger and more nakedly ambitious.



He came to similar conclusions helped along, I am sure, by a phone call to the first doctor for advice.(Never think for yourself when you can swallow pre-digested pablum.)



So we talked, and he tried different drug therapies, and he denied that I had any items brought with me. (The paperwork was lost, or someone out there liked my plasma cannon as a toy for his kid. Luckily, the tech bias was low enough that the safety mechanism, a rather intricate device with an AI shard, would not function in this world.) I got irritable as the local scholars on whatever Earth or alien place is reading this could well understand. And what with the conditions, I was not at my best by any means.



So he prescribed new and heavier drugs, and I fell back into stupor. Mad thoughts swam out of my heart as I lay there moaning occasionally. I tried to escape, and so they punished me by putting me in solitary. That did not bother me as the constant screams of the inmates had been worse. In fact, in there I started to pray in earnest. Despite the drugs, my mind gradually cleared enough that I could resume my exercise.



So when they came to release me, I did a wheel kick, followed by a crescent kick, and then led them on a merry chase through the hospital. I stopped to read a paper by the front door in shock. I had never really intended to escape; by now I was socialized to living here.



“A Day That Will Live in Infamy.” The headline read. They took me back in with some sympathy in this reminder of our collectiveness, and tossed me back into my briar patch. The patch was solitary, of course, which had been my goal for my “escape”. Meanwhile, outside, the Allies defended civilization and Christian values against monstrous barbarism.



Time passed, and a new doctor came in. He was a bluff, and chatty fellow with a new treatment that would set me right in no time.



Electro-shock therapy. I fought it with the intensity of a madman, and the skills I had picked up on dozens of worlds. If a detachment of police cadets had not been conducting a tour that day, and if my chains and jacket had ripped more fully, I would have won free that day.



I still remember with satisfaction, the sight of a wide hallway almost covered in white jackets.



“That’s one way to escape.” I said smirking. “Flatten all the keepers.” Then the boys in blue arrived, and even then it took me a while to go down. Terror can do that to you.



I woke with electrodes at my temples, and surrounded by furious and bruised attendants. The shock went on for some time, and when I was dumped back into the cell, all the gain I had achieved by my prayers over the drugs, and over the rage was gone. The ‘therapy’ took nothing ill, and only robbed me of my strength. Successive shocks finished the procedure. And I was the test boy to be sure; the attendants never forgot the beating I had handed them.



Finally, with drugs and shock, I went over the brink. Raving, cold, murderous are only words until you live them. The crew let me be; my doctor stopped treating me after I nearly cut his throat with a glass shard I punched out of a supposedly unbreakable window. They just doped my food very heavily, and kept me locked up in solitary 24/7 which I have to admit was wise of them.



Time does not heal all wounds, but it is a remarkable physician. Certainly better than any of the learned quacks I had met here. Time passed, and eventually, I grew bored and inquisitive. Bored of my self-pity, and vindictive dreams of vengeance, and the whole thing, I was ready for something different.



It occurred to me that if I really, really tried I could suicide out of here into another world. But, there was a little uncertainty in my mind if I was really a verser, and down deep, I knew that I was not fit to be let out of this hole.



So, I started asking the guards questions. Russia had just exploded a nuclear bomb, and one of the guards was a political type who tried to convince me of the virtues of Marxism. I got him to get me healthy, undrugged food produced by a local farmer, one of the proletariat. And I excerised my mind by asking him questions which forced him to slowly confront the reality of what he supported. Eventually, I think he became a famous neoconservative writer after his conversion to anti-communism. But in that day, he was my outside world.



I began praying and exercising again. It was different; I was more patient and relaxed about the whole thing.



Then he told me a horror story about an insane inmate back in the early forties. It was me he talked about. Then he said I supposedly died, and haunted the place. In a way that was true.



Taking advantage of the Sixties’ liberalization, I applied for permission to leave. They studied me, and said that I could not be the prisoner of 1938 since I was not old enough. Well, a verser is effectively immortal; we do not age.



I lost my temper, but this time I held onto my sanity. The trips through the lands of madness had helped me. It is not a voyage, I recommend to anyone, but like almost everything it had its good side. It defused some deep-seated issues buried in my soul. I was calmer, and saner than I had ever been.



Due to my protestations, they brought the first doctor back. He was old, and worn, and up for a Nobel Prize. And with frightened eyes, he denied that he knew me. I understood that I was a threat to everything he had committed his life too. I was an inconvenient fact, a wonder, an obstacle on his road to glory, and a man instead of a rodent.



“Remember what my notebook said about meeting gods and God? Well, me lad, they are real, and unlike me, you are not immortal. I’d spend some time getting ready.” I spun and walked away disapointed and disgusted.



They put me back in company in a room, and my crime was to claim to be the Prisoner of ’38. I tried to lie, but all the solitary and the prayers had burned away the skills needed for a good face. I told the truth by instinct now.



Group therapy was kind of amusing, and Primal Scream therapy was just fun. The drugs got more subtle. And I was able to block any attempt to get me under the shock again. But they just would not listen. A certain irrationality seemed to have invaded the culture. My former Marxist, former attendant, and still friend had been a symptom of this. You could not reason your way out of anything, because reason was fundamentally mistrusted.



Anger grew again in me, and I fought it with my old standby’s but not all that enthusiastically. It, anger, gave me something to do. Still, I had times where I lived in Heaven. The proper attitude can make of a horror show a joy. And the new building built in the early seventies was very nice.



So, I was becoming locked in by habit. I was living here, so I must continue living here, world without end, amen. This fed a quiet depression which went to fuel a slow fire of anger.



And then things changed. A man, not a male, but a real proud guy who was living life like he wanted to live it walked in my room. He had on a military uniform, and he saw me, and then disapointed studied my face.



“Sorry, sir, wrong information.” He nodded with genuine courtesy, and prepared to leave. I begged him with my tone to stay, and offered to help. Out of kindness, he did so.

“I’m looking for a Mr. Tadeusz. This was his property.” He held up a PDA, my PDA, and I checked my verser sense for my stuff, and it was mine. I practically cackled for joy. There was other scriff-touched stuff out there, but I ignored it focusing on this one thing, this PDA.

“But he is an old man. Not really sure how old, fifties or seventies. We want to ask him some questions about this very interesting device.”

I asked timidly if I could see it, and he took in my extremely inoffensive manner, and he let me touch it. So I brought up a screen, loaded a program, and played full color (yes my PDA is a little better than what I could get at home. You ought to see my watch.)Pac-man for the first time in ages.



“How? It took the research guys a month to figure that out.”

I smiled cryptically, and shook my head.

“Two conditions, Major Morton. I want to be released from all confinement, and I want a gun.”

He took a step back, and said with some promise in his voice that he would see what he could see. It was suddenly too much; others had promised me in this nasty world, and others had failed.

I lashed out in a pointed finger jab at his solar plexus that folded him like a bulletin, and his gun was in my hand and pointed at his skull.

“Go ahead, kill me; you’re a Russky spy aren’t you. Killed the old man, and waited for me, didn’t you?”

I paused for a long moment wondering what to do. My anger had betrayed me.

“Two more conditions. I want a Big Mac, and you can take me to headquarters, your hq.” Then I let him go, and hopped out of bed. The naked longing in my voice for a McDonald’s confused him. We left the room, and soon enough, I came upon my latest doctor.

Not even wanting to stop myself, I pointed the gun at this somewhat more solid, but still pretty flaky incarnation of my torturers.

“I should kill you, since 1938 you have held me prisoner.” But I did not shout the words, I simply whispered them and the doctor never heard me. I put the gun up. The crowd parted before me, and I was at last sane enough to walk out of there.



Major Morton stared at me in surprise. I could see him trying to fit me into a logical pattern with his keen mind, and he was plainly at sea.

“I’m a verser, Major.” I said as we walked out the door of my hell.

“Indeed he is.” I heard a voice from the lobby behind me. I turned, and a massive man stood from his chair with tattoos covering rippling muscles. His ample duffle bags were filled with suspiciously gun-like shapes.

“I just arrived here. And I sensed one of us, and thought I would drop in for a visit. What are you doing here?”

“Just passing through. Look, guy, the Major has a problem. The Evil Empire is trying to strangle goodness and apple pie. You think we could help him?”

“Hey wait a minute. I still do not know you are not a Russian spy.” The Major interjected. He had been quite nervously eyeing my friend. I was one thing with my muscles atrophied, and decked out in my hospital gown, but this guy looked like an advertisement for SOF magazine.

David laughed.

“Him, the Hammer of Tyrants? Ha, ha, ha, you gotta be joking.”



Tadeusz

  I’m back at the hospital.  Surely you remember it–the same hospital in which I found myself when we talked about Stitches seventy articles back.  Indeed, it is the same boy who has brought me here, the one who brought me here so many years before when he fell off the bed, and again when he sliced his hand trying to get into that plastic package (the one I said ought to have the Consumer Product Safety Commission label, Warning:  Cannot Be Opened).  This time he has broken his leg, just above the ankle, jumping on a trampoline.  He’d have walked to the car if we’d let him; in fact, I suppose he did, although he leaned heavily on several people who kept trying to convince him to let us carry him.  It’s a nasty break, which will keep him here for a few days while they schedule surgery and make sure they’ve got it put back together right.  Meanwhile, I spend most of the night sitting in the waiting area of the emergency department by myself.  His mother (the nurse) and his girlfriend (the hand holder) both came, and they trump me for visitor passes.  Mercifully I brought something to read (I expected that my part would be driving and sitting by myself); the details of the injury will come to me later.

  It is those details, as they come to me, that catch my attention.  The doctor, the nurses, even the girlfriend speak of what they saw on the X-ray, of efforts to turn the limb to try to align the bones, of the pain the boy refuses to acknowledge.  As I hear, I cringe.  A shiver runs down my spine, and an involuntary quake passes through my body.  I can’t listen to this; I can’t talk about it.

  Don’t misunderstand.  I’ve been in the midst of my share of emergencies, medical and otherwise.  You can’t have children and not rush to hospitals once in a while.  When it’s happening, I manage to maintain my calm, and execute the proper procedures within my knowledge and ability.  I have no trouble doing it.  I just can’t talk about it.

  As I muse on this, it occurs to me that probably I could never have been a doctor.  Even with the shield of technical terminology to defend against thinking about what is really happening, the thoughts of injured and infected body parts is not something I can handle.  I worked my way around high school biology to avoid slicing up small animals, precisely for this reason; and I managed to take a college biology class which was more about issues than organisms.  Helping my wife through nursing school, I managed to memorize the twelve cranial nerves, to grasp what little was known of the disease process of Alzheimer’s, to understand nursing practice–but it was always theoretical.  I can sit still as they stick a needle in my arm, but I can’t listen to my wife wax eloquent about finding the veins from which to draw the blood without cringing.  I know quite a bit about medicine; but I can’t discuss it in practical terms.

  I’ve often heard it said that you can do anything you decide you want to do.  I’m going to tell you it isn’t true.  Over the course of my life, I’ve learned that there are a lot of things I can’t do.  A large part of success in life seems to stem from recognizing what you can do, and figuring out how to use those abilities effectively while staying clear of the things you can’t do.

  What came out of this, apart from some personal insights, was a thought about character abilities.  Going back to early days of Dungeons & Dragons™, many players complained about classes, about the requirement that their characters were specialists.  Why can’t you have a clever thief who does a lot of magic and fights as well as the king’s best knight?  Why can’t your wizard use a sword?  Without defending the detail, let me suggest that the concept reflects not merely something of the milieu (which it certainly does) but something of the nature of people.  There will always be things I can’t do, whether because I lack the talents or for other reasons.  Indiana Jones can’t handle snakes; for his father, it was rats.  There were rats, there, Dad, was enough to tell the elderly amateur archaeologist that he would not have liked to be present when his theory was proved true.

  Most games miss this.  One set of skills might cost a character more than another, as being more difficult for an individual of their background and abilities, but in the end they can learn whatever they want to learn, be whatever they want to be.  Perhaps that’s necessary for heroic play; but not all of our play is intended to create such dynamic heroes, and that which doesn’t often falls into the same mold.  We don’t want to limit the expression of a character concept, so we fail to create ordinary human limitations on the characters we devise.

  Some games do provide a way to build such flaws into your character.  In the gaming world, they’re called disads, short for disadvantages.  Yet the resounding complaint is that these things never make a difference in play, but are instead used to build stronger characters by spending the points gained from such minor troubles on major improvements.  Thus the character has dandruff and is afraid of spiders, but has incredible combat abilities.  The disadvantages never matter.

  The best answer to this problem is that referees need to observe the disadvantages and weaknesses their players’ characters take.  As someone has said, any player who takes a disadvantage is in theory asking that play move that direction so it will become involved.  The tracker knows you went this way because he follows the dandruff, or the genetic examination of the dead skin you dropped behind is going to give your identity to the villain–and your only route of escape is through the lair of the giant spiders.  If you’ve got limitations, they should be part of the play at some point.

  After all, a good part of the challenge of real life is overcoming your limitations.  There is every reason to think that the drama of a good game can similarly reflect this kind of struggle.

  In life, I’m a generalist; in games, I tend to push my characters toward generalization as much as the game allows.  Yet I think it’s valuable to include in character concept those humanizing factors, those limitations, that are best expressed in the words, I can’t do that.  It’s more realistic, even when it feels restrictive.  All of us who are old enough have found something in life that we can’t do.  Accepting that our characters, like us, can’t do some things gives them a dimension many otherwise lack.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

I woke confined about my arms, roughly lifted into the back of some crude internal combustion engine, and we rattled down rough roads. I only had the gouged wooden walls in the stinking and dark space in the back of something like a paddy wagon to give the space interest. There is only so many times you can visually trace out scrapings on wood before boredome sets in.



With a squealing of brakes which made me nervous, we stopped. I disembarked helped by two stout men in brown who were remarkably incurious. My attempts to start a conversation were futile. They dropped me off in a room with a linoleum tile floor, a metal radiator by the paned and institutional window. The window was high above the ground, several stories high, and subtly barred on the inside.



Gloom pervaded the room, and my soul. I took the time to examine my arm confinement, and found that it was a crude form of a strait jacket. To entertain myself, and to prove I was a responsible person, I shucked the suit. Then I sat at a desk, and studied the room. It was plain and well-put together and dismal in the extreme. I did nothing to suggest that I was an undesirable person. The only question in my mind was what type of gathering place had I fallen prey of?



Sanitorium, Asylum, Hospital, Gulag, Camp, and a half-dozen other words with their undesirable possibilities paraded through my mind.



Hours passed, and then the locked door opened to reveal a man in a white lab jacket with two goons, er, assistants behind him. His wingtip shoes, and smooth air let me know he was rich and pampered. I distrust those who get their positions of prominence and look pampered. It often means that they did not really earn it.



“Ah, Mr. Tadeusz, is that eastern European? Fascinating name.” He said as he waved my diary which chronicled the events since I and the madwoman William of Orange turned a star into a black hole to destroy an invasion force. I nodded in polite acauiescence.



With a disaproving frown, he took in the neatly folded strait jacket.



“There are rules in this institution, Mr. Tadeusz. We must insist that you follow them.”

“After an hour, the risk of developing cramps necessitated my removing it.” I replied as dryly as I could. The need to develop some status consumed me, because I was afraid of what happened to those without it.

“We are the doctors here, Tad. You are the patient. Remember that.” He bestowed a casual-to-him warning on me that chilled my blood because of its complete denigration of my views being important.

“And this institution is?”

“Sanger Home for the Mentally Unfit.” I gulped at his reply.

He walked about the room, occasionally peering at me.

“Obviously you are an educated man, Tad, but in ways that makes my job harder because you may feel it needful to resist the process of making you sane. This notebook is filled with the most arrant fantasy.

‘I am a worldwalker, cursed and gifted, to live in worlds until I die, and then continue in another material world, ad infinitum. I shall fight the good fight, and find my way home.’

You have issues with going home, we shall explore that.

‘The demon loomed over me, and with Merlin’s ring of might I called down lightning from the heavens to electrocute the evil monster.’

Violent, paranoid fantasies of this sort are hardly helpful. Also, this obsession with destroying evil seems rather simplistic. This ‘demon’, if he had been real, was likely sick, and he needed the practise of modern pschyiatry to help him.”



I ground my teeth together. The worst and most revealing of it was that the story of the demon was not mine. This ‘doctor’ had not caught on to the fact that I was recording an event told to me by Baron Coranado. And I highly doubted that ‘modern pschyiatry’ could do anything to help a demon of the Fifth Circle other than provide new targets for it to practise its sadism on.



“So what year is it?” I said as genially as I was capable of. It must not have been very successful because all three of them looked at me slantways in slight trepidation. Trying to smile only made it worse. So I waited until they regained their nerve.

“That is another thing, in this notebook, you claim to time travel.”

It was not really time travel. Such a trick is possible, but almost completely useless according to the Martian terraformer. It was travel between different worlds. And worlds had no temporal relation to each other.

“Something like that, yes.”



He must have understood my condescension, but the man was not really all that sharp. Maybe he could recite the textbook(or deftly cheat), but beyond that, hmmph.



“1947 Anno Domini which means …”

“I know what it means, In the Year of Our Lord.” I interupted peevishly, and he smiled in his first happy smile of the morning. For he had gotten me to diminish myself.



He moved toward the door.

“We will get you set up in a room soon enough.”

“What for?” I asked which was a stupid question. “I’m not insane.” I protested.

“According to this you are.” He tapped the notebook. “Fact is you have a large array of mental disturbances; even I think some brand-new ones.” He said the last with relish, and I groaned inside. I was his ticket to research fame and glory. If he believed in God, which the colorless rodent probably didn’t, he would be singing praises to Him for sending me to enhance the doctor’s career.



“Look, I can show you…”

“Tricks with quarters and finding them? Simple magicians stuff.” He dismissed the ability of a verser to find his stuff no matter where it went.

“Besides,” He added, “Your stuff got shipped off to storage.”

I checked and I could over the course of a few minutes feel it move its vector. He was right.

“Well then blood, my blood, I can track it down, and …”

“Stop, stop! You are not going to injure yourself. I shall have to add a diagnoses of incipient masochism to your problems.”

I gaped a bit, and the doctor and goons swept out of the room.



Tadeusz