Rambling

Just a few things on the mind today...


On a Pale Horse
Long ago, I was introduced to Piers Anthony with Xanth books. I didn't really like them. Oh, reading a fantasy novel for a book report was nice, but... yeah... puns have never been my thing. That pretty much turned me off to Anthony's work. So having his name come up in a recommendation recently made me wary, but will to try it.

It proved a good read. I think I probably didn't read it in the best mindset for it, as I've been questioning my own place rather too much this week, but the book itself is entertaining and manages to be reasonably thoughtful in a good way as well. I can see how several things in this book would further appeal to tashiro, though I find the power of fate (and Fate) to be disturbingly overwhelming.

It was pointed out to me as an example of fiction with magic and technology developing side-by-side. And, within the context of the story, it does that reasonably well. It does not, however, provide adequate weight to convince me that both can work smoothly long-term. It's said in the book that "anything magic can do, technology can, and vice versa." Very literally, that might be true, they function and develop so very differently that they really aren't comparable. Oh, you can replace "airplane" with "magic carpet," but there's no technological analogue for most of the magical stones depicted.

Magic, ultimately, is still too much a shortcut. It goes from concept to accomplishment. Technology, meanwhile, follows a more organic evolution where capabilities increase over time until an end result becomes possible - or something is discovered by accident. In order to design a world where both run in parallel and are equal, you'd probably have to codify magic to the point where... it stopped being magic.

Roleplaying
I've considered several different things on the topic over the week, driven sometimes by Tashiro or by the Campaign Mastery blog. At one point, he mentioned missing a particular campaign of old, which in turn reminded me of a quote:

... When I look back, I can still remember the casual "anything is possible, anything goes, anything might happen" energy that my first campaigns had - and I can't help contrasting that with the more restrained games that I am now running.

I may be a better GM now than I was - I have decades more experience and education - but that doesn't mean that my campaigns are actually better now than the old ones in every way - they aren't. More substantial, more intellectually interesting, even more creative in some respects - but not better. ...

I... sort of feel that way myself, though in a much more general sense even than just gamemastery. I did have fun early in my GM "career" with games that had a lot less depth and detail than those later. And while those details appealed to me over time, I can't necessarily say I enjoyed the later games more.

But I've always been drawn to the GM position by story. If there isn't a story I want to tell, running a game doesn't hold any real appeal. That isn't to say that I value the story above all else and will railroad things to my whim (though I probably have done that at times), just that the story is what gets me into the game as a GM, much in the same way that a character gets me into the game as a player. As a player, when I'm not "into" my character, it's very, very hard to be into the game. And that's why when someone says "oh just run this!" my response tends to be "meh" at best unless it's something that actually captures my attention and imagination. And usually, but not always, the ideas that interest me most come from my own head, not others'.

But while I feel a good RPG campaign has a good story, good characters, and room enough for both to work, that's not easy. An elaborate story can easily become too much of a burden and characters can make it hard to enjoy things by either being too willful or too passive. In the quest to run a world that's plausible and detailed, the game itself can readily become too laborious to enjoy. That's part of what made the recent Warrior, Rogue, and Mage games so fun for me - I approached them with the mindset that they were one-off games, with no expectation of anything beyond the moment. The simple dungeon crawls have been shallow, but perfectly enjoyable.

And yet, intellectually, I crave something more lasting and deep. Why is satisfying both wants so difficult?

I think, in part, it comes back to my "jaded gamer" mindset. And I'm not sure what to do about that. It makes it hard to be surprised by movies, books, or games. Some moments of dramatic impact are reduced to cliche in my mind, and I just don't get much out of things that feel so overdone. But it's not like I can excise experiences from my memory until all that appears new to my eyes. I can't flip a switch and focus only on the now, though I may be drawn in to brief moments of that now and then. There are people who have been into games and fantasy and such for a lot longer and harder than I, surely they're not all as burned out? ... As yet, I have no idea what can be done about that, much less what should.

WoW
The estimates of a November 2nd release for Cataclysm seem... frightening close since there hasn't even been an official announcement yet, especially if they're holding that back until Blizzcon next month. But they want to release it this year and time is growing short. Various news of changes that are coming are starting to get me excited for it.

The Lich King taunts. I still want to at least get the raid achievement for Zul'Gurub before that goes away (which is doubly annoying as I've missed a couple trips in there recently). Operation: Gnomeregan was cute, but short and didn't accomplish much on its own.

This week, I found that the Alliance on our server actually held Wintergrasp during the mornings a few days in a row. Odd, that. So I decided to poke around a little and collect some elemental fires. Usually, I avoid the PVP of the place, but I figured I'd take a chance and get some materials. One day, a Horde hunter jumped me. After a lot of hectic running around, he managed to run the heck away, but didn't come close to finishing me off. Today, a retribution paladin decided to try his luck. The first time wasn't even close - kind of sad, really. After I'd moved on from his corpse, I checked my Recount and found a full third of the damage I had taken was from his passive aura. He came back for a second time around while I was there, and that was closer. He might even have won if not for my Ardent Defender proc.

I see a certain irony in this. Protection paladins aren't really well-designed for most straight-up PVP. Our burst damage is so limited that I don't think anyone would purposefully play the spec unless trying to fit a specific niche (flag carrier, etc.). I think, perhaps, that leads to PVPers who aren't accustomed to fighting protection paladins and don't realize our whole purpose is to be hard to kill. Even if you win - and it's been a long time since any single Horde jumping my main managed that - we're all tough gristle and armor, hardly worth the effort. ;)