Blue Moon Aurora

This is a blog I wrote for the failed Gleemax experiment in April of 2008...  

Last night I was visited by the Ghost of Gaming Future.  It was a frightening experience.  I woke suddenly from fitful sleep to the sound of strange noises coming from the basement.  Fearing it was the kids up to no good; I put on my robe and slippers and set off to raise hell with them.  As I descended the steps, I felt a cold chill in the air and what I saw at the bottom of the steps froze me to the spot. 

Hovering alongside my gaming collection was the hooded figure of a man, though I knew immediately he was no mere mortal because he was weighed down by horrible chains that hung beneath his cloak.  Bound to each chain were dice, miniatures, battle grids, and RPGs that no one plays anymore. 

Once I regained the power of speech, I managed to stammer: “Who are you?”

He spoke in a quiet and whispery voice, “I am the Ghost of Gaming Future. I have come to show you the error of your ways!”

“So you are undead, a ghost?”

“Well, actually, I’m closer to an outsider when you consider my special abilities and flavor text.”

“Oh, so I guess a fiend of some sort?”

“Please, don’t worry about it.  I’ll be fully written up in a D&D Insider article in about three years.”

“Really - OK, so, why are you here again?”

“I have come to show you the error of your ways!  I have come to show you your future!” 

“Well, I’m thinking maybe not tonight, you know...,” as I was speaking the Ghost of Gaming Future reached out and grabbed my shoulder and into the future we went. 

There was a flash of light and though I still recognized the basement of our house, the scene had changed.  There was a larger television in the room and the furniture had been rearranged, but my gaming collection was still where it had been. I looked closer and saw that the shelves had some new additions.  I noticed Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG, which had the subtitle, D&D 3.975.  There was White Wolf’s new Yahweh RPG, which according to the back just cuts to the chase and has PCs play God right off the bat.  Margaret Weis Productions’ Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along RPG was on the shelf as well as D6 Harry Potter, produced by West End Games.  Then my eyes fell upon a collection of 4E books, including the PHB I, PHB II, PHB III, PHB IV, and PHB V. We must have been transported to at least 2012 or 2013.

The Ghost of Gaming Future floated to my side. “We are in your future. The year is 2014!” 

“2014! I have so many questions! Like, like... Ah, right! Did they make a sequel to Serenity?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t that good.”

“Really?”

“Well, not as bad as the Rifts movie, and far better than the Monopoly and Candy Land movies, but without Wash there was a little chemistry missing with the crew.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.  So how bad was the Trek movie?”

“I don’t wish to discuss it.  The whole Brokeback Mountain approach with Kirk and Spock was wrong.”

“WHAT?! You have got to be kidding me!”

“Sorry, the future is painful.  Anyway, your family is gaming upstairs.  Come up with me that I may show you your future!”

I stood rooted to the spot. “Oh My God! I have Kirk and Spock burned in my brain!  This is so wrong!  I mean, not that there is anything wrong with that... but still!”

“OK, OK, sorry about that. Here, I'll give you some good news. Jar Jar is killed in the Star Wars television series by Boba Fett.”

“Really?”

“Yes, he gets blasted out a window and falls over a hundred stories to his death.”

“OK, that's better.”

“Ready to go upstairs?”

“Yeah, let’s get this future thing done with.”

“I followed the ghost upstairs and I saw my family sitting around the dinning room table.  My future self was sitting behind a laptop with no DM screen, and my wife, daughter, son, and two other girls I didn't recognize were sitting around the table, each in front of a laptop.” 

“My first thought had nothing to do with gaming. �So who are the other two kids?”

“The ghost hedged. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“Damn it, we don’t adopt kids again - please tell me we didn’t adopt more kids!”

“That’s not important. We are here for the gaming.”

“You know, you are really starting to piss me off.”

The ghost looked pretty pissed himself. “Deal with it; I am like ten CRs over your level.  Now look at the gaming of the future!” He gestured at the table, the chains clinking ominously.

I looked at the table more closely and saw that everyone was focused on their own laptop, each one displaying a computer program that showed maps and various creature images.  Kind of cool, but I realized no one was talking.  Everyone was typing their responses into their computers. 

I was confused. “Are they playing some MMORPG?”

“No, this is 5E D&D.”

“I thought we were playing 4E?”

“No, 4E is so 2013.  This is 2014 and 5E is run online, there are no books.  DMs submit their adventure outlines to the WotC Dungeon Master Program, which runs the adventures, perfectly, without any of the mistakes or biases of human DMs.” 

I studied my future family again dread beginning to grow in my mind. “They don’t look like they’re having fun.”

“Fun is not the goal.  Perfectly balanced play without the distractions of roleplaying, creativity, or non-linear thinking is the goal.  5E is the perfection of tabletop roleplaying.” 

“That sounds horrible!  Why would I be DMing this crap? This is not how I do things.”

"I tell you that this is your future! It will be how you do things unless you correct the error of your ways!”

The irrefutable certainty of his words rang in my ears. I fell to my knees before the ghost. “Yes, yes, I will change! Just tell me what to do!  I don’t want to become obsolete - I am a GM! Please, tell me Ghost of Future Gaming - tell me what I must do!”

The ghost regarded me solemnly, waiting until my wailing had ceased before intoning his words of wisdom. “Remember that fun comes first. Remember that technology is there to assist the GM, not to replace the GM!”

“Yes, yes, I know this, what else?” I wrung my hands in desperation.

The ghost considered for a moment. “Really, that’s about it. Oh - and also don’t let your players force you to sign the contract with WotC to provide DM oversight.  That is really where you messed up.”

“Ok, so I will –,” and suddenly I awoke with a start in my own bed. 

My wife beside me had a worried look on her face and asked me what I was screaming about. In a flash, I realized I was back safe in 2008.  I couldn't help laughing in relief. My wife seemed annoyed by being woken up and then laughed at, so I decided to not explain what had just happened to me. I lay in bed, thrilled to have been given a second change, and determined to change my ways and save my gaming future.

This is something I wrote during the 2008 primaries…

Figuring that there is a possibility, (however remote), that one of the three candidates (Clinton, McCain, and Obama) may find themselves campaigning before a group of gamers, such as at a convention like GenCon, I have decided to help them out by providing a stump speech: 

I. Introduction:
Let me begin by thanking everyone for taking time from their gaming to join us today.  I love gaming conventions and is my favorite!

Yes, I am a gamer!

Gaming has not only been an important part of my life, but it has become an intrinsically important part of America.

Last week I met Joe Smith in Pennsylvania who told me a sad tale involving a TPK during a 3.5 game of D&D.  Apparently, the DM sent a very old red dragon against a party of 9th level characters, who didn’t even have a healer.   It was a slaughter and the group broke up shortly thereafter.  Joe was in tears and I cried with him.  I hear stories like this all the time on the campaign trail; and this is one of the reasons I am running for President.

II. Insert Candidate’s Platform:
Clinton
Experience is what makes a good GM.  I have been GMing since I first ran my old law firm through the Tomb of Horrors back in 1st Edition D&D.  I admit I slipped away from roleplaying for awhile, but when I found myself with free time as First Lady, I returned to roleplaying.  I was the one running the RPG campaigns in the White House.  Bill is a little too Monty Haul as a GM so if falls to me to provide the serious gaming.  I was the one who introduced Bill to Vampire the Masquerade and it was under me as DM that Chelsea leveled up her 2nd Edition invoker to 32nd level after she turned Elminister into a ferret and used him as her familiar until she retired her character when 3rd Edition came out.  

In the Senate, I took over the late and great Senator Moyniham’s GURPS campaign which I still am running once every other week.  Due to the campaigning sometimes we have to do it online, but the game must go on.  And yes the story about me TPKing the Republic leadership during a game of Castles & Crusades is true, but I assure you it was not partisanship.  Minority leader Mitch McConnell just needs to remember to stop talking trash to dragons.  

So ask yourself this: when at 3 am your group has a rules question you want answered, who do you want to take that call?

If Joe Smith’s DM had called me at 3 am, I would have been able to prevent that TPK.  I would have been able to tell him to make that red dragon younger and for the DM to give the party a NPC cleric to help them get through the fight.  This is experience.  Senators McCain and Obama don’t have this type of experience and this is why I am the best candidate for President.  

McCain
I am proud to be a conservative D&D player.  I share with you all the most basic of gaming principles: the DM is always right. Yet, even though the DM is always right, a good DM needs to be guided by conservative principles. As I was taught by my first DM, President Ronald Reagan, a DM always rolls in the open and never fudges to save players from their own foolishness.

Senator Clinton and Senator Obama wish to change your gaming system from 3E to something new, but I am here to tell you that I only support 3E. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama wish to increase the amount of XP you need to go up levels, but I tell you that I will make President Bush’s house ruled XP reductions mandatory for all gaming systems.  I will also make sure that all federally appointed DMs will follow the example of conservative DMs like Justices Alito and Roberts who let the dice fall as they may and use published adventures in accordance with the original intent of Arneson and Gygax.

I am also the only candidate who will leave game design to private industry where it belongs. My opponents in the other party wish to have us cut and run from 3E and d20 because of political expediency.  I intend to persevere with the best gaming system in the history of gaming. 

If I had been Joe Smith’s DM there might still have been a TPK, but that’s how it should be.  I don’t fudge, but the players would have known that their deaths were fair.  Reagan had TPKs left and right back in the day, but everyone came back to the table, because he was fair and let the dice lie as they fall.  I will do the same thing as President; I will give it to the American people straight, just like I do with my players.  

Obama
Change is what this campaign is all about.  Every primary we win and every new face that comes to our gaming table is sending a message to all of America: change is coming.  Seven years of President Bush’s failed 3E campaign has done tremendous harm to this nation; this, combined with MMORPGs, has changed the roleplaying industry.  To preserve roleplaying we need a new kind of leadership, not a return to the broken policies of yesterday.  We can’t continue to be divided between players and GMs; we need to come together.  We need to remove the screen to free our games.

Critical to this is the need to pull out of d20 and get our players home to systems that encourage quicker and more engaging play.  From what I have seen from various reports from D&D Experience, I feel that 4E is part of the change that is needed.  This is only part of the solution, but change is powerful and 4E represents the most powerful type of change: streamlined rules and increased player options. I have been a critic of 3E since the beginning.  I have been playing independent RPGs since the introduction of 3E.  This is different from Senator Clinton who talks a lot about her other gaming experiences but ran the Congressional RPGA network as well as the most popular 3E Eberron campaign in the Senate.  Senator McCain still plays a 2E campaign with racial level limits and THAC0.  

I have been against 3E and a supporter of 4E from the beginning.  Senator Clinton supported Senator Reid’s resolution condemning the cancellation of print versions of Dragon/Dungeon, but I supported the move to digital.  Change can be difficult, but it also holds the promise of a better tomorrow.  

I feel for Joe Smith.  I have lost characters to TPKs before.  It is hard.  It is even harder when the TPK causes the group to break up.  But what happened to Joe was not the result of poor DMing, but due to the intrinsic flaws in the 3E system.  So I tell Joe: join my campaign and together we can herald in 4E which will help solve a lot of these problems with new rules to make it harder for PCs to die and to help GMs design better, and more balanced, adventures.

III. Conclusion
I wish to thank you all for this opportunity.   It is my hope that together we can make America better.  Thank you, and may you always roll critical hits.  God bless America and God bless gamers.