I just figured out the purpose of this game. It's all about testing your limits. How far would you go? Everything about it is around that motif. What are your limits? Temptations? How far would you go to do something? What are your boundaries? I thought that was really profound.
(Doing Therapy)
MJ, I know what would get me involved in a story really quickly. If I've made friends who need help. My current world, Lauren is going to need protection and help, and you're damn right I'm going to give it to her.
In Dancing Princess, if William, the smith's apprentice had been older, say 17, and after I work with them for a year, HE wanted to go to the castle to save the princesses, and wanted me to join him, I probably would have gone. Yeah, I know, the story is about the verser figuring it out, but that would have drawn me into the fight with the demons.
I just thought (in fact I'm certain) you will find that useful.
(Doing Therapy)
I don't know about that.
See, I'll level with you here: I'm not a good person inside. If I were handed the freedom to act without consequence, knowing that even if I were killed I would never actually die, knowing that, given time enough, I could become a veritable god amongst men... I would be a candidate for the Werser list within my first half-dozen worlds. Playing the game, given the current company and my general will to not creep out, disturb, offend, or psychologically damage those around me in a context where such things do matter... I am holding back. A lot.
So, maybe writing yourself as a Verser, might help you push those limits. See what you would become. But as far as playing it as a game in mixed company... you'll only ever go so far. And it won't be your real limits.
Did you ever see Forbidden Planet? The entire population is destroyed by manifestations of their subconscious. Monsters from the Id they are called. So you're saying that, given enough time, most people would be monsters from the Id? Letting their inner demon out to play? I could see that.
(Doing Therapy)
I don't know about "most people." I can't speak for everyone. This goes back to my Psychology of Immortality rant that I started on the Werser thread.
In "Starsong" you don't have versers, but you do have extreme longetivity. The oldest humans are around 400 years old, and thats not an upper limit. They were just the L1, or Lengthy One's surviving candidates of the first really effective longetivity program.
Many were born in the 20th Century, or the TwenCen as they say it.
A number haven't turned yet, but (stealing from Vinge...some have become habit-ridden--seriously OCD), but of those who have turned there are the saintly and the malevolent.
The saintly (not in the Christian sense, but in the popular sense) are such that people send assassins after them on occasion because Pure Good is hated. And then the L1's drop their face masks, and the assasins see Pure Good, and usually convert, but on occasion go irremdiably insane (If you see the Truth you can either accept it, or go nuts.)
Then there are the few who've survived their own destructive urges who are so full of malevolence that seeing their true face is enough to petrify normal men. I need a better description than that, but imagine someone soaked in evil for the last two to three hundred years. The kinda guy that just looking into his eyes once is enough to give you nightmares for life.
And there's always some way to enforce justice.
In my WAW's, uber-Tad dealt with on two separate occasions Wersers. One was a serial killer he imprisoned in a bubble dimension which had the peculiar law that death did not exist in that universe. So...a padded cell for ten thousand years...
In the other, Tad meets some young verser punks who think themselves bad to the bone, and he's used as a Voice to pronounce a curse of empathy on them.
And of course, Avahur ran into my Canadian Frat Boy Punks who had convinced a world they were Greek gods. He thought it would be amusing to kill them all. He didn't succeed, more's the pity.
What inspired this was that everything about this game is completely backwards to what I would expect it to be. In order to find out if someone will get involved voluntarily, sometimes you have to force them at gunpoint. By doing that, you're pushing their boundaries. To find out what a person will do, you have to push them to the limit of their capabilities. If you just let them go, you won't find out their limits. It's like that saying, people are like tea bags. You don't know how strong they are until you put them in hot water. That's the thing that I had such a problem wrapping my head around.
(Morning After Therapy)
Yes, in a way. To collaborate in writing a good story is the real point of roleplaying games, and a good story necessitates some kind of conflict. By trying to learn more about how your character reacts, it becomes easier to put you in a conflict you will actually react to.
To collaborate in writing a good story is the real point of roleplaying games,...
Be careful about making declarations concerning the "real point" of these games. Take a look at Theory 101: Creative Agenda for some insight into why people actually play. The word "story" can be very misleading in these discussions.
--M. J. Young
I'm reminded of the improv concept of 'Yes, and..."
The idea is, whatever you're given, no matter how farfetched, it's funnier/more dramatic/more fun if you take it and run with it rather than trying to shut it down or redirect it. So maybe you as a person wouldn't get involved, but you as the writer understand that things will be a lot more dramatic if you do, so you take a little artistic license and go with it.
We live and die by our 'yes, and' at Faire.
Say whatever you want, I still say that non-involvement is a good choice for a lot of situations. Maybe not all, but at least some.
For instance, in the novel, Verse Three Chapter One. The last chapters deal with Lauren Hastings and some other versers rescuing a Parakeet person from a group of Raven people. The feeling in the book is that the Parakeet people aren't overly concerned by this. It seems to give the feeling that it was supposed to happen. Perhaps some sort of ritualistic sacrifice to the nesting gods or something. Of course, Lauren and company take off to rescue the errant parakeet.
That's where the book ends. I would expect, in the next novel, all out war breaks out between the Parakeets and the Ravens. The versers interrupted their ritual sacrifice. Nothing good can possibly come of that. If they had done nothing, one parakeet would be sacrificed to the nesting gods, and life would go on. Now, they saved one, and brought forth Armageddon. Good choice Lauren......
Interesting idea. From Bob Slade's perspective, though, it is unfortunate that that is not what happens.
Lauren and Bob manage to stick out the winter together in the beginning of the Old Verses New (the second novel), but then she tries to fix her broken disintegrator rod and blows herself out of that world before the parakeets return. Bob does not have his own thread in that book, which is the book that introduces Derek and ends--well, where you are, on TerraNova Habitat. Only you're in the place occupied by Joe Kondor in the book, so it will be interesting to see whether your skill set is good enough to replace his as the story unfolds.
Bob returns in the beginning of For Better or Verse, pretty much avoiding the Parakeet People because they are all agog over his exploits and he really feels like Lauren and Joe deserve some of the credit--he wants to brag, but he wants to brag to peers who have similar stories, not to peasants who treat him as some sort of mythic hero. He takes a bad fall in the spot where the previous Autumn his mention of his alliance with the Caliph of the West Wind got the trio passage across the wind-swept chasm--and instead of smashing on the rocks below lands in the border supernatural on the steps of said Caliph's palace in the clouds. Reunited there with two of his earliest companions in the verse, Filp and Shella, he is sent on a rescue mission in yet another universe.
The sparrow people in those mountains don't really number many more than the parakeet people in the valley, and Slade killed or crippled thirteen of their best plus their wizard-priest, and Kondor got most of another twenty of their trained soldiers along with their reptilian dog-like attack beasts. It will be at least a few years for the sparrow people to grow and train enough fighters to bring force to bear against the parakeet people--and they must be fairly frightened by the strange supernatural warriors who attacked them and killed their snake-god. It may be a while before the sparrow people again think of the parakeet people as fodder for sacrifice.
--M. J. Young
Yeah, but what if they had gotten in and out without crippling the sparrow people? Then war would have broken out. I know you're the author, but be honest with yourself. What else would a primitive tribe do in that situation?
With Slade still there, I think he'd have said, "Bring it on", and taken down their army pretty quick--might even have trained some of the parakeets in less peaceful arts.
And besides, once your enemy has manifestly been visited by strange gods who can kill dozens of your people without trouble, and can appear from nowhere and vanish in an instant, are you likely to push them again?
--M. J. Young
Yeah, but what about when Slade is NOT there anymore? At best, you'd probably have a Hatfield and McCoy style feud going on. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but I believe it was Ben Franklin would said "Better to be a pessimist than an optimist. The pessimist looks for the worst, and when it doesn't happen, he is relieved. The optimist looks for the best, and when it doesn't happen, he is disappointed." (Paraphrasing, not a direct quote)
(Doing Therapy)
Ah, but when bad things happen to the optimist, he always sees that good will come of them, and when good things happen to the pessimist he's always certain that it will go wrong.
--M. J. Young
Well, personally, I don't really care if the glass is half empty or half full. I just drink whatever happens to be in the glass.
(Doing Therapy)
And the engineer says the glass is twice as large as it ought to be.
Mine was meant more metaphorically. Why be pessimistic or optimistic? Just accept what you've got and use it in the best way you can.(IE, drinking whatever happens to be in the glass.)
(Doing Therapy)
The Shintoist militarists of Japan were extremely warlike, but with sufficient persuasion they became extremely peaceful. Part of this was persuasion, part was cultural change, and part was the most warlike types got themselves killed off.
Violence and the response to it is not a simple thing. Level one violence tends to breed an equal amount back. Level two, much more back as the responder tries to overwhelm the attacker. Level three, often brings no response back as the attacker instantly overwhelms the defender who then becomes passive. Level Four, and the defender may flee, but counterattack if given no choice ('even a rat will fight if cornered'). Level Five, and most people will fight back because this is the point where its die or fight. Level Six, and a lot of people will simply give up. The Maccabees held out against the Romans until the Romans built a ramp. The Maccabees probably knew that crucifixtion was the likely end,a nd so they took poison.
The response to violence is like a twisting snake. First its one thing, then another.
The sparrow people lost many of their best fighters to an unknown force. How do they know the enemy can't summon them again? In a few years, they might start probing and pushing, and if the parakeet people reveal weakness the whole cycle might start again.
This is one reason why appeasement is a bad idea. It reveals weakness, and weakness is enticing to thugs whether they are on your street or at the United Nations.
My 'Twisting Snake Theory'....I've worked a bit on a theory of violence. Much of the common place understandings of it are far too simple or inaccurate.
Like the saying 'we're only creating more terrorists' is not necessarily true. At Level Two, we might be. At Level Three, we probably would not be.
Of course, I think we're doing Level One with a healthy dollop of 'Lets' be friends'.
This is one reason why appeasement is a bad idea. It reveals weakness, and weakness is enticing to thugs whether they are on your street or at the United Nations.
Yeah, Turn the other cheek usually just gets you hit harder the next time. I define it thus, The Bible says "Turn the other cheek" it DOES NOT say what to do after you get hit the second time.
The sparrow people lost many of their best fighters to an unknown force. How do they know the enemy can't summon them again?
How did Lauren and the others know that whatever god/deity/higher power the sparrow people were making the sacrifice to wouldn't wipe them out? Yeah, it's a bit contradicting, but I still think Lauren was wrong to do anything there.
So, then, I'm stymied as to how the book should have ended. I seem to have a few choices.
- Speckles is not taken; Lauren, Slade, and Kondor stay with the parakeet people until they head south along the river. Probably the trip is not dangerous, so they summer in the south and return in the spring, and the story dribbles into nothing.
- Speckles is taken, but Kondor insists that they should not interfere with the natural order of the world, so Speckles is killed, and the main characters leave with the parakeet people as before. It's the same petering out of the story, but that the versers look like nobodies who have all that power but are helpless.
- Either of the above endings can be tweaked by having the versers stay by the lake and face the winter. Probably they survive, and are still there in the spring, but nothing interesting happens.
- Boy, it was a mistake to come to this world, and you should have had the gather somewhere else.
At some point, the story has to define one side as the friends and allies of the good guys, and get the reader to identify with them somehow, even if it is only that someone with whom they identify values them. Then tension has to be created. The problem I had with Kingdom of Ashes is that I didn't like anybody at all, and so no tension was created because I really didn't care if they all died. Lauren cared whether Speckles died, and although Speckles was a very minor character from the perspective of the reader, I would hope that the reader cared enough about Lauren that Speckles' life mattered.
Maybe I'll send you to that world sometime, and see what you do.
--M. J. Young
Maybe I'll send you to that world sometime, and see what you do.
I'd probably eat the parakeets.
You train the parakeets to be pikemen, and engage the sparrows in a set-piece battle....
Ya know, the pessimism vs optimism. I don't care if the glass is half empty or half full, I just drink whatever happens to be in the glass. That means accepting things as they come and dealing with them.
Case in point, yesterday, my car broke down. I had to park it in a tow away zone, because I couldn't push it anywhere else. As I was leaving, I said "Either it will still be there tomorrow or it won't." I wasn't worried about it. Either it would be there or it wouldn't. Either way, I would have to accept that. The optimist would be certain the car would still be there. The pessimist would be certain it would get towed. The former would be disappointed when it was towed, the latter would be worried about it all day. I just accepted that it could get towed and went on with my life. When I got back there, the car had not been towed, and started immediately.
The glass isn't half full or half empty. Just drink whatever is in the glass. That's the way to be.
I'm just the opposite. To me it doesn't matter if the glass is half empty or half full; the glass is someone else's.
So nothing is your problem?
No, everything is that bad, that I have no glass at all.
Well, you know what they say. "Eat a pound of horse manure first thing in the morning, and nothing worse than that can possibly happen to you all day."
Ya know, Osevens, you were talking about how you would become if you were truly a verser. How your evil side would come out. I think you're right. I think a lot of people fear punishment. However, let's face it, a verser can get out of any conventional prison with a simple razor blade, if you catch my drift. Where's the punishment? Once I realized that, I decided that my character is going to let his inner demon out to play, at least a little. I think you're right, it's what would happen.
(Doing Therapy)
See, I think that if I suddenly had all this power, I would want to be the hero. I would want to be admired, and I would want to be able to make the lives of others better.
--M. J. Young
I see your point MJ. However, in my case "Letting my inner demon out to play" would be actually pulling the trigger when the MP pulls up....
(Doing Therapy)
Me, With all this power, I would want to help people too, but I would do so covertly. I dislike being the center of attention.
See, I think that if I suddenly had all this power, I would want to be the hero.
"I didn't know a book was going to be written, I didn't know a movie was going to be made. I didn't want to be called a hero, I just wanted to live."
Fernando Perrado, member of the Uruguayan rugby team which crashed in the Andes mountains. (See Also, the book and movie "Alive") He led the expedition through the Andes mountains which led to the rescue of his friends. He was "That Guy". He didn't want to be a hero, he just wanted to live.
I'd want to be the hero too. Don't get me wrong, if I could develop cool powers, I'd use them to have fun, too, but a decent part of what I'd do would be toward helping others.
For me, I don't think there'd be much temptation to go do awful things, because removing external punishments doesn't do anything to take away guilt. If I did something awful, I'd have *forever* to let it gnaw at me. Not fun.
However, let's face it, a verser can get out of any conventional prison with a simple razor blade, if you catch my drift.
I don't know about that. Even in the Multiverse, death isn't exactly an easy out. I've died only 4 times so far, and each time it was very painful. Most times, because it was a psi or magic botch, at least it was quick. Actually doing yourself in would be pretty horrific, and you'd have a while to regret it.
Also, who's to say that you always *will* verse to the next world? A character may be pretty sure of that, but not completely certain. That kernel of doubt would make versing yourself out even harder. Plus, even if you are certain you'll verse again, no matter how bad a world is, the next one could always be worse.