Longer ago than I like to think, in the summer following my first year of college, I took a job as a security guard at a nearby university.  The lieutenant on the swing shift was a recent graduate of that school, and during the summer took the time to come around and get to know what we liked and didn’t like.  After all, there were many different sorts of security posts at a university.  Someone had to sit out in the main parking lot and keep an eye on the cars.  Each of the dormitory areas had its own guard shack, for someone to be available for situations that arose there.  In the administration area a guard walked from building to building periodically punching a key to prove to the insurance company that the place was being watched.  At the dental school someone had to be at the desk, leaving briefly once an hour to check the gauges at the boiler and the morgue, and there were a few other quiet spots where no one was seen for hours but a security guard had to be there.  The temperaments of the numerous guards who filled these spots also varied.  Some wanted to be somewhere where they could chat with students.  One particularly liked being out in the parking lot, as far from people as he could be.  I was one of the few who really preferred a quiet spot alone somewhere, where I could pray, and read whatever I brought, and get a bite to eat when I was hungry.  This lieutenant made a point to find out what we all preferred.

  Then school resumed, and although this job had been nearly half an hour from home, it was maybe two blocks from my school, so it was convenient to keep it.  Of course, school mattered more than keeping some security job.  Sure, the money was nice, but I didn’t need the money–I just liked having it to spend on musical equipment, presents for people, recording tape, food, and books.  Determining that the lieutenant seemed quite willing to keep me on those quiet posts where I could do my homework between rounds, I said I would stay on into the fall.

  However, something changed.  I don’t know whether it was the influx of large masses of students; the lieutenant said that the students were all out to get us so frequently it sounded like paranoia.  Maybe it was merely that after three months on the job he was settling in to it and not worrying so much about impressing the boss; maybe he thought that a tougher stand would impress the boss.  It’s possible that something happened of which I heard nothing.  Perhaps it was just his true colors shining through.  Whatever the cause, he began throwing around his weight.  Wherever you preferred to be, that’s where you would not be stationed.  If you didn’t like being with the students, he put you in the dormitories.  If you didn’t want to be alone, you got the parking lot.  If you wanted time to do something, you were given a walking post, but if you had nothing to do but sit on your hands you would land at a quiet desk with nothing to do.  Everyone hated him very quickly, but he insisted that we had no right to complain and no reason to expect a post we liked.

  I was stubborn.  I wasn’t going to let him beat me.  I put on my best smile and made the best of things.  My homework slipped a bit, and I found less time in my day for the things I wanted to do, but wherever he put me, I did my best–and I made it clear to him that he wasn’t going to break me.

  One day I arrived at the office without my hat.  This was not usually a big deal; during the summer no one had worn hats, and although there was a much stronger emphasis on them once school began no one had ever made an issue of it.  As I entered the office, he looked at me.  “Where’s your hat?” he demanded.

  “Oh,” I said, surprised; “I must have left it in my room.”

  “Go home.”

  As I walked out of that office, I realized something about our quarrel which had not occurred to me before.  I was fighting at a disadvantage.  My adversary not only had a stronger position, he had the power to change the rules whenever it suited him to do so.  This was not only not a level playing field, it was not a reliable one.  I went home.  The next morning I stopped in to see the day lieutenant, gave him my uniform, and informed him that I wasn’t going to fight with the evening lieutenant anymore.  He was quite aware that I needed to be posted somewhere where I could do my homework, and had promised that he would accommodate that when school began.  I didn’t need the job.

  Not quite a decade later, Lech Walensa was in the news.  For those too young to remember, or for whom old foreign news all blurs together, Walensa was the most visible leader of the labor movement at the Gdansk shipyard in Poland.  He began pressing the government to recognize greater rights for the workers, to improve working conditions, and more, and it splashed into the international news.  The government attempted to appear reasonable, to negotiate, to work with him at first; but then everything changed, and there were warrants out for his arrest.  He was detained, imprisoned for reasons that were never quite clear in the media.  Labor took one step forward, then two steps back.

  I remembered my fight with the lieutenant.  Walensa, as I, was up against an adversary who had the power to change the rules of the game at any moment.  It was not a game he could win, and for that very reason.

  All this comes back to me now because I’ve realized that I have the power to make some of the rules around here, in this house.  It’s Saturday, and moments ago I reminded my son that trash has to go to the dump.  It’s his job; he gets out of a lot of other jobs around here because he takes the trash to the dump.  His response this time, while typing in his online multi-user dungeon game, was that if it had to be done I had better do it.

  I don’t think he understands the situation.  I’m wondering whether to cancel his Internet service (the line on his computer is separate from mine).  It occurs to me that I should insist that he give me his car keys, since my understanding was that he would have them so that he could take trash to the dump without bothering anyone about it, and could use the cars within reason for other things.  I gave thought to informing him that we couldn’t afford to continue paying for his college tuition, and that this would mean he was no longer covered under the health insurance; and that if he wasn’t going to school, he should get himself a job and find a place to live.  He doesn’t understand how dependent he is here.  This is not a negotiation between equals.  It is a power struggle between someone who has the ability to change the rules and someone whose only choices are to play by the rules or quit the game.

  It’s a very uncomfortable situation.  It is uncomfortable for me, at least; and I’m sure it could be uncomfortable for him if I started pushing back.

  It is uncomfortable enough that I want to advise you to avoid creating such situations in your gaming groups.  In many games, and in many groups, power is focused on one person.  It is frequently the case that the host of the game is also the referee; this means that one person has tremendous power to decide the way the game is going to be played, because if you don’t like it there’s little recourse other than not to play.  Even worse are those situations in which the referee is beholden to one of the players, and does not have the ability to rule fairly because that player is threatening, however subtly, to end the game if things don’t go his way.  My advice is to walk away from these games.  Obviously someone has to make decisions; but when there is a power struggle and one of the parties has the ability to change the rules or end the game, it’s time to find a different game.

  Incidentally, Lech Walensa won.  It was an expensive win; he was jailed several times, and vanished completely for a while with the entire world wondering what had happened.  Eventually his efforts, supported by uncounted others, brought down the government.  He was a remarkable man who paid an unreasonable price for a precious object, and he succeeded.  If it’s important enough, you can win those power struggles, as long as you’re willing to sacrifice everything else to do it.  My job was not as important than that; neither is forcing my son to go to the dump.  Your game is not that important, either.  Keep your friendships.  Find another game.

  Next week, something different.

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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.