Archive for the 'Rants' Category

No new books this week, no real music to review, not much at all actually. I’ve been, once again, attempting to overhaul the website and get things into a more manageable order. I really should write more on here, on the wiki, on the books, everywhere, but lately that’s been a difficult animal to tackle.
If I never mentioned before I have ADHD. Pretty bad, really. I was actually only officially diagnosed a week or so ago, but it was pointed out to me a couple of years before that. Actually, after going through 5 hours of interviews and testing, it was determined I’ve probably had it my entire life. That’s probably why I did so poorly in high school. For those of you who’ve never experienced the antagonizing glories of Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder I’d say imagine being distracted. Say you’re talking to a friend and, oh, a low-yield nuclear device goes off a mile or so away. Likely you’ve completely forgotten what the conversation was about, or even what the hell you were doing and have an immediate sense of anxiety over just about everything. Now, take away the bomb and repeat the scenario, only replace the bomb with any train of thought. Let me give you an example of what goes through my head while I work on Wielding the Ether:

Alpha line affinity – they used to be called line affinities as they were supposed to relate to the lines on the model, back then they were all different and everything had chambers – like a chamber in a dark, stone-worked room for casting ritual magic – rituals being determined by the characters method such as vocal or hand gestures – the hand was the first magic system I wrote in which the fingers related to different aspects of sorcery – which would be hell on me as I have arthritis – particularly on cold mornings – the cold snap has damn near killed my plant, which Cassie said would get better, but I’m still worried about it – and nosebleeds, those came back on me with a vengeance (-draw blank-) Anyways the alpha line affinity is going to have some new aspects to it that allow the caster to (how would I work magic as it appears in various forms of novels and whatnot into the system?) – to actually wield almost any form of ethromantic casting based on alpha alone with the proper adjustments (similar to the magic the characters develop in Last Days campaigns, as I did in that one Mike ran back when I was still married – there were awesome trees outside that apartment – no sun in the eyes – I need to get some goggles for amtgard and remake my weapons for weight distribution variations)….

Now, dear readers, imagine for a moment that I did not script that – that it was true train-of-thought writing, without the least bit of exaggeration. It’s true, I probably should cut that down, but that was an actual bit of thought written out. Funny thing is, I didn’t write half of it – my hands simply don’t keep up well with that sort of writing. I have to grind my way through existence like this. Now, here’s the kicker – this is not fun. There are a lot of folks out there who run awesome trains of thought, but they have some semblance of control over it – I don’t and it’s gotten worse. It’s very difficult for me to get still (likely I will have gotten up and paced about 3 or 4 times before this is written) or get anything done without it taking a week. So when I’m working on the website, what might have taken me about a day will take a week’s research and about 19+ hours to do for about what amounts to 2-3 hours of actual work. This is the way I live, and, to sum it all up, it was pissing me off.

For instance, at Amtgard (google it if you don’t know – it’s a combat sport/LARP sort of thing) I get tripped up fighting one person – I lose way more often. If I get faced with 3-4 I find I do a lot better. All-in-all, every small task seems to become exceedingly difficult. I would have updated the forums, the wiki and this site far more often if I didn’t get up then come back and scrap what I was writing. So I’ve decided, if I can ever get around to doing it, that I’m going to try the better living through chemistry approach and get some Adderall or something and see if perhaps I can do anything in a reasonable amount of time. Until then, the best way to keep me here is to post everything. It’s not a gimmick – I forget about my own site. If you ever have a question about seven13, CoE, role-playing design or gaming in general (or anything for that matter) let me know and I’ll answer it to the best of my ability – provided you don’t mind a very lengthy, tangent-ridden explanation that involves the word “whatnot” repeated several times per paragraph. That’s my word that means “there are several more ways I could explain this, but that would be even more redundant than I’ve already been.” I think the word sums it up well. So, until next time, I’ll be continuing to try and write, work a 9-5, run my campaign, update the site and see my kids as well as show some attention to my girlfriend when I’m not acting crazy and whatnot.

– Ashe

OK, so you can call me a weirdo if you like or a sap or whatever, but I got giddy over my insects this morning.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a decent sized colony of red Paper Wasps living on the balcony at my apartment. Now, this isn’t generally something to get excited about. In fact, for most of my life, I’ve been pretty freaked out by wasps and other flying, stinging instincts, this owing itself to being stung many times as a child in the same sitting. I mean, I generally would freak out if a wasp was anywhere near me.
For a while I had a colony near the balcony (these were classic Texas red wasps, big red-bodied, red-winged ones) and they got too aggressive so I sprayed them out. After the spray went down, a lot of the colony members were coming back, getting the poison and dying slowly…Now I know I’m a big bad zealot of Khintana and all, but perhaps in her wisdom (and with a little help of my girlfriend Cass) she decided it was time I learned a lesson about harmony with the bugs and whatnot. I must admit that it actually gave me a choke to see those wasps coming back only to be poisoned and watching them die, and it’s the gods’ truth that I felt damn bad about it after, to the point of trying to shoo them away from going back.
About a week later another colony (red with black wings) moved in and started building a nest actually on the balcony, this time in the upper corner near one of the support beams. Now this wasn’t going to fly folks (no pun intended) and my instant urge was to knock that nest down and the two wasps there and be done with it. I suppose it was the fact that I had so viciously annihilated the other colony and watched them die slow that got me here, so I decided to let this colony be for a bit and see how they behaved. It wasn’t long after that they started multiplying…just flying in from everywhere to join up and whatnot, and I noticed that none of them ever really came near me. Also, the bugs seemed extremely laid-back for flying insects: most of the time they barely seemed to work, just hanging about the nest or sitting still on the pole nearby. For a while there my fear still had the best of me and I would simply not go out on my balcony, but I wouldn’t kill them either.
By two weeks later the colony had jumped to 26 wasps who were there most of the day. Several would hang about building the nest while the others would sit simply on the pole as if in conversation. At night all of them started lining up together like sardines on the pole to sleep. By the time all 26 were represented I didn’t bother to avoid the balcony at all, they simply didn’t bother me…often, they would move a bit when I came outside. I got quite attached to these wasps, more than I would have ever thought possible and I would often watch them build early in the morning and count them at night to see if they were all there…if one went missing, I must admit I worried about it.
This is odd for me folks to a great degree. I mean you’re reading about a guy here who is a very serious hater when it comes to wasps. Now here I am watching these guys, saying hi to them when I come out and worrying if they’re alright when they go away. I also no longer turn on the light on the porch at night except to count them, because it wakes them up. That’s pretty weird folks, but there’s a lesson in all this and maybe even a point.
Just a few minutes ago I went outside to see the wasps and check The Plant (a member of the Broken Doll crew and my only pet – the wasps are not pets they are roommates), and low and behold the colonies eggs had hatched. Flying about the pole gathering point and the group on the nest were a bunch of little wasps full of energy, whizzing here and there and bumping into the big ones who seem to be moving about a bit more today (perhaps they are excited). It made me smile; made me smile real big at the fact that there really is magic in this world that a lot of people don’t notice. I know, I know, people say that sort of thing when discussing human children, but I found it with bugs. I’m no entomologist and I’m not a huge fan of bugs to begin with, but I had to stop and think that I helped to some degree provide a safe place for this colony and perhaps that makes up for what I did to the other one.

Now, I know likely there is a chance they may get angry or protective now that the young ones are around and come after me, but I’m giving them their space for the time being, and even if they do sting me (or attempt to) I’ll be damned to the Twelve Towers if I’m going to kill them. I suppose I learned that creatures are what they are and that we are generally the ones now who are disrupting their world. It took a balance to really emphasize that for me.

So be good to your bugs, folks, they all serve some purpose and we all share life. If you think this one’s cheesy, that’s fine, it really is a bit cheesy, but then again, you can’t get too much more geek than me kids – I write role-playing games for a living.

From Denton, TX 15 August, 2006

- Ashe

I think one of my favorite things about working with Broken Doll Studios is how much fun my job is. Not the tiring pouring over Ashe’s wordy and often redundant explanations, but rather testing the system and pushing the limits for dramatic story-telling. Our most recent bi-monthly games have involved a dual-running between myself and Mr. Ashe. These have also included a rather healthy growth of experienced gamers, bringing much to the table. By much I mean, CHAOS! It is quite amusing, however, to see how they mesh with the world that we’ve created and watch them attempt to tear apart our pre-written storyline… or complete lack-there-of. Sure we get ideas, but we’ve always run player-driven campaigns. Most of the occurances outside of the actions of the PCs is spur of the moment (or ‘out of the ass’ as I prefer to put it). Todays less than wordy advice… if you can’t plan the perfect story, just roll with it like some sort of sweet and painless laxative of lush environments and colorful characters for your players to frolic with.

Perhaps one of the greatest downfalls that’s been known to befall our crew is our inability to remained focused on the tasks at hand. This is actually a pretty common fault amongst American youth, one that is often attributed to ADD and ADHD, but really just goes along with short attention spans which is a part of our lives granted to us through a constantly evolving media-rich environment. However, the laziness on our parts brings up my own rant, which I hope to be far shorter than the usual author.

People rarely look back upon their lives and measure it by standard methods of time, but rather utilize adjacent events in order to establish what time in their lives that occured. I use this example to bring your minds to the subject of goals. Take for example, the last time you went to a concert. It could have been last weekend, last night, or maybe a few years ago. In any regards, this was in a certain part of your life when you were working for a particular goal. Maybe you were trying to focus on education, writing a book, sketching out a cartoon series, or just figuring out what the next step may be. What makes people great is their constant striving towards goals, be they long-term or short-term.

Obvious examples of long-term goals spring to mind such as finishing school, starting a family, publishing a role-playing system core book, etc. These are what I call ‘the bitch goals.’ Think about it… how often have you married yourself to an ideal of a long-term goal, only to lose interest after a few weeks or months and set it on the back-burner. I know from personal experience that there are many books that will never be published in print that have already completed themselves mentally. In retrospect, I think I do the world a great service in this regard. On the other hand, I’ve finished college (twice).

Short-term goals are far more common. Maybe you want to save up to buy that new video game… beat said video game… write your favorite detergent company to express how much you love their product… you get the idea. We like these because, as the name implies, they’re much closer to our grasp. Regardless of the length, there are still levels of difficulty between tasks. Maybe you want somebody’s attention on you in a romantic sense. Insecurities and social heirarchy can play a devastating role before anything is even initiated. My advice: Just smile and tell yourself, “Yo bitch I may be ugly, but at least I ain’t got no money!”

It takes a lot of heart, motivation, and dedication to live up to your goals, but it makes the events along the way all the sweeter. Ghost recently told me that, although we don’t all have the natural talent to succeed at things and/or do them well at first, there’s nothing that can’t be improved if you keep working. So that’s my rant for the week. Just keep telling yourself that you’re a badass (even if you suck) and keep with it. Inevitably, you’re going to improve… and once you reach the ability to tackle your goals with your head held high, the impossible seems a lot closer. I’ve got faith in you, go out and take the world for all you want

-Felix Out

And once again folks it’s time for Ashe’s Sunday rant. Whaddya know, It’s actually up on Sunday this time. This week I think I’ll discuss social interaction, living and experience (points).

The human being is a social creature; an animal defined by interaction and social placement if you will. A lot of folks wonder if this is particularly related to upbringing in society or if it is an inherent factor, which, of course, brings up the whole nature vs. nurture psych thing. But that’s not really what I’m getting into tonight. Tonight it’s connections, interactions and secrets.

Let’s face it, the human being is a social creature. It’s not really arguable. I mean, even if you’re stranded somewhere for years eventually you just start talking to yourself and that part of yourself takes on conflicting personality traits. We need social interaction, we need to feel that we are a part of something. Whether it’s a group of friends, a working community or society as a whole, there’s something in each of us that longs to verify our own existence through the presence of others. But therein lies the secrets contradiction.

People hide things. All our lives we do it. There seems an equal need to possess secrets. Whether these are memories, regrets or dark aspects of our personality they seem to equally verify our existence; they often make us feel that connection with ourselves. To share a secret (not a little playground secret, a true one) is something that can be dangerous and liberating all at once. Take PostSecret for instance (postsecret.blogspot.com) – these folks send in postcards with a secret they’ve never told anyone anonymously and bear it for the world to see. There’s something about sharing a secret that’s so deep you can never let it go. Secrets have power, terrible power sometimes. They’re things that create the mystery of who we are as people. Most of these are often the result of our lives interacting with others. Thing is, it’s the combination of interaction, sharing, and keeping things to oneself that creates a person in a thousand different ways. You never really know anyone. Hell, most people don’t even know themselves that well.

Consider for instance, me, Christopher Ashe, owner of Broken Doll Studios, designer of Seven13 and the Cycle of Existence. A lot of people who read this have talked to me, interacted with me, and therefore I exist in their mind in some way. But none of you really know me. Some of you know my name, but I have a few of those, some of you even know me very well. But in the end the version of me that you know is a concoction of your own perception, created by the interactions we’ve had and the opinions you’ve formed of me and who I am. But most importantly, in your mind, I am a version of you. This is an interesting point to make.

As we move through life, we may learn things, maybe even many things. We will meet people here and there. But all of these things can be based only on what we know about ourselves, because that is the way we relate to others. We can only compare our feelings on a subject to try and understand the feelings of another. We can only compare our opinions and ideas to try and understand those of society or the world around us. This is often why people are closed-minded. They simply don’t have much to go on and aren’t interested in learning further, so they can only go off of what they know. Open-minded to me doesn’t mean more intelligent or even particularly more open, it means more objective. I’m a really open-minded person. The reason for this is I take what I know about myself when examining others as a small piece of information rather than the full basis. I use it to relate rather than to define. There’s the kicker – define. People often define things by the way they see things. More often than not this is the case in interaction. A person doesn’t really know they do it; they simply do. This is the main reason that people often utter the phrase “you think you know a guy” or “I had no idea she was capable of doing that”. In point of fact, you likely did. You simply didn’t want to go that far, too look past the things you yourself would do or how you want a person to be. Here’s a good quote for you:

“I don’t exist when you don’t see me
I don’t exist when you’re not here
What the eye don’t see won’t break the heart
You can make believe when we’re apart
But when you leave I disappear”
– The Sisters of Mercy, When You Don’t See Me

Hell of a line from a good song. Inevitably, we will never really know the people we interact with. Everyone has secrets, and a person can only go with what they know. I was married for 4 1/2 years and I realized after it all fell apart that my wife really didn’t know me that well. It’s quite possible that my current girlfriend of around 9 months knows more about me already. It’s really difficult to know yourself. It’s true, I’m not making that up. In some way we all hate ourselves and we’re all capable of just as much negative as we are positive. Looking into those dark places can be the most difficult trial a person will face. But the great game of interaction, friends and relationships is not to know the person. Face it, you never will. The great game is trying to put as many of those fragments of perception together that you can. And to do that, you have to put your pieces together as well, even the jagged, broken ones.

From Denton, TX 19 March 2006

– Ashe