Malpertuis

 

Malpertuis by Jean Ray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Malpertuis is a brooding work of dark genius. It is a puzzlebox, a mystery . . . of sorts. A slow, grey carnival, solemn, but unholy, slowly unfolds. The setting, the house Malpertuis, is like a decaying body, with the inhabitants its organs, fitfully straining to beat, to move, to live. But the dolor that hangs over the place and its . . . people(?) is loden with malaise and despair that eventually stifles all attempts to escape the somber veil of thwarted history that is wrapped in the tangled skeins of fate to the point where the Sisters themselves are strangled by their own threads.

The pace is deliciously plodding. There is a strong sense of something that once was, but is no longer. A vitality that has been sapped and bled into a dry husk blown about by the slightest breeze.

It is beautiful and ugly at the same time. But there is little to hope for in Malpertuis. The cursed place was condemned to crumble by the ambitions of the sorcerer Cassave, whose misdeeds and perversities I will not recount here. Even the author (who may or may not have identified with the un-named thief/narrator) is loathe to approach Cassave's sins directly. If the reader is looking for direct explanations and so-called "plot," they will be hard pressed to find anything of the sort.

Ray's perambulations serve a higher (lower?) purpose: to bring the reader into the gothic labyrinthine walls of Malpertuis. Reading the book is, like walking a labyrinth, a meditation, a strange shelter from the outside world, an escape into an inner world both fascinating and excruciating.

At first, I thought I might be entering a Gormenghast-like space combined with Knives Out. It didn't take long before I realized that this was not the conceit that Ray was working with. In Malpertuis, we are not bound by contemporary notions of plotting and novel structure. This is a kaleidoscopic work, a shattered mirror of perspectives and prose. It is deeply fascinating, in this regard, with the "story" being revealed from different points of view, along with different attitudes toward the subject matter. I used the word "vortical" in my notes while reading, and I stand by that description. This is a whirlwind into which the reader is not merely drawn, but yanked with great force, to be buffeted about non-stop by strangeness and unwelcome revelations.

Now, I know I use this argument all the time, but one of my methodologies for evaluating a work is "would the Brothers Quay make a movie of this? Could they?" The answer here is a resounding "yes". The book has had a cinematic treatment, which is its own piece of art, but not nearly as sublime as this amazing opus.

Strongly, strongly recommended! I can see myself revisiting Malpertuis many, many times. But then, isn't that just the nature of the place itself? I am happily caught in its labyrinth!

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Exiting Modernity

 

Exiting Modernity by James Ellis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the record, this page is 590 pages long. For whatever reason, Goodreads doesn't have that information. So know when you are going into this, you're getting a lot.

But a lot of what?

Ellis can be, at times, obscure to the point of inscrutable. But his sometimes frenetic approach also allows multiple points of entry to readers who are constantly beset by the incessant demands of modernity. He uses the weapons of modern capital and consumerist social media against them. What I thought was annoying, initially, I eventually found quite brilliant as confusion resolved into clarity.

Ellis is not as a-political as he thinks he is, but I do think he makes a good-faith effort to try to push explicitly political opinions aside. It's not always clear where his loyalties lie, but there is a strong libertarian streak throughout his work, but thankfully without much of the conspiracy-craziness that so often accompanies that bent. When he's talking about personal freedom (whether of expression or work or goals), he is at his best. At times, Ellis tries way too hard to prove he's an iconoclast, and when he gets "in the way" of his thoughts, he muddies the clarity of his own vision. Of course, I'm certain he'd deride any call to tone things down, but really, the guy needs some editing.

And while his ideas are always controversial and often intriguing, the real test of such a book as this rests in the answer to the question "did it make any meaningful change in my life"? And the answer, in this case is, "yes".

Perhaps it's just in the timing, but this book pushed me over the edge of indecision and caused me to drop Twitter. There were a number of touchpoints leading up to that final decision.

It's no secret, at least to those who read my blog, that I have been contemplating a move away from some social media for quite some time. When I took my trip to Europe in 2019, I largely abstained from social media, and it was . . . liberating. The next year, I read the book Digital Minimalism, which led to a short social media fast (among other things!). I recorded some of my findings in this exploratory phase, including falling in love with blogs all over again. Next, I tried to go with a three weeks on, one week off approach. But that only lasted a couple of months until I was scrolling away again - mainly on twitter - to the point where I actually forgot I had committed to that approach. Much later, I watched the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. That made me wary for a while, and I set timers on Twitter, Instagram, and Redditt (I had already largely given up Facebook by that point). But it was really this book that finally pushed me over the edge to deactivate my twitter account. Why not delete it? Apparently it's really easy for conniving individuals to "take over" your old account if you delete it. So it sits dormant, now. It's been a few weeks now and I feel . . . liberated . . . again. The point of all this is that Ellis convinced me to drop Twitter, and that is not a decision I made lightly. Since I am an author (albeit very part-time) Twitter was the ideal place to huck my wares, so to speak. But I think I'm content to let my content (books, stories, RPG supplements, etc) speak for themselves. I'll keep blogging, as I feel that blogs are a more "meaningful" medium than social media. Besides, I'm done with doom-scrolling. I only have so much time left in life (could be tomorrow, could be fifty years from now, who knows?) and I don't want to be on my deathbed full of regrets because I wasted so much darned time on Twitter.

But social media critique is only one aspect of Exiting Modernity and, truth be told, it's not even that big of a deal in terms of the percentage of pages devoted to it. Much of the critique is aimed at social engineering at large, with media being only a small portion of "the problem". I'll spare you all the details of "the problem," as I agree with some aspects of Ellis's thoughts more than others and, well, you should read this book and find out for yourself!

Ellis' critique of measurement hues very closely to the critique in Technic and Magic, which I read very recently. I consider it an (improbable) and happy accident(?) that I read these one after the other. This really refreshed some thoughts that have been coalescing in my mind for many years regarding what I really want from life, and what I really don't want!

I was going along just fine until I encountered the section on Accelerationism, where Ellis drops the casual tone and goes for a jargon-filled philosophical analysis, which people smarter than me are likely to love. For me though, hitting this section was like taking my car to top speed on the autobahn, then encountering a wall of feather mattresses around the curve.

That didn't happen. Well, not the part about the feather mattresses. Though I did have to eventually slow down on the autobahn.

I really struggled with this section, then FINALLY! on page 213, Accelerationism was clearly defined. I would have liked this, oh, 120 pages earlier.

The largest fault of this book is not a fault of content, but of order. The last two sections on Accelerationism should have been put at the beginning of that section, not the end. The way it is structured now might have been true to the order in which Ellis' blog was created, but moving from the specific to the general does no favors to readers new to the material. The last 200 pages or so were an utter slog until the last section on "The Genealogy of Foucault's Numeric Power Structures - Man Under Number," but, then again, I read a lot of Foucault back in graduate school, so that background helped, no doubt. My very slight grasp of Deleuze made the section immediately preceding it almost tolerable, but not comfortable. There are obvious gaps in my philosophical knowledge that I'm trying to fix, but the last part of this book came, well, out of order in my philosophical life. I'll have to reread those latter sections again once I've got more philosophical reading under my belt, so to speak.

In time. In time . . .



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TTRPG Conventions Tips and Tricks

 So you've hemmed and hawed and stewed and thought about one of the oldest questions in tabletop roleplaying: Should I attend an RPG convention?

There's a lot behind that one question and a lot of reasons that answering the questions behind the question can lead to a lot of worry and analysis paralysis. By the time you think you've thought it through, the opportunity to register has come and gone and soon, with it, yet another unattended convention. I know. I've been there. It can be daunting. I'm here to help.

I'm no pro at attending conventions. All told I believe I've attended 18 or so? That's a lot less than many. Some of that has to do with budget, but mostly, for me, it's about time. I have to take days off work to enjoy my favorite conventions, so I burn, in total, about a week's worth of PTO every year on cons. You might not have that luxury. So I'm hoping that what I share here will at least answer a few questions and give you more information so that you can make a good decision of what to do with your valuable time. I honestly wish I had a "coach" to guide me through my first couple of cons, someone who knew the ropes. And I did have people help me along the way . . . a bit. Some of the things I've learned just came through making mistakes and learning from them and maybe getting lucky a time or two along the way. So this is my way of paying it forward.

Keep in mind that this is drawn purely from my own experience. Your experience will likely be different. A gaming con can be a big event, with lots of moving parts. No two cons are ever the same, and that's good! But I hope that my experiences can help to alleviate some fears and might even entice you to join us con-goers.

Why should I go to a gaming convention?

1. Sure, you play elf games. But do you play human games about elves? Going to a gaming convention is an immersive human experience. Be prepared to meet new people, but don't think you have to be an extrovert to fit in. Au contraire, I am an introvert by nature. I recharge on my own, thank you very much. Being around people saps me of energy. At the same time, I'm energized by gaming. I have to admit, it takes a LOT out of me to run a game. But it puts a lot into me to play a game. It's not that I dislike running games, I like running them, but I am always a spent shadow of myself by the time the session is done. So I don't run a lot of games at conventions. One, maybe. Two max. I've run two games twice and it took a full afternoon just to recover. Thankfully, I played games at tables with others who "fed" me. I developed friendships at the table. Real, honest to goodness friendships with people who care about me, who I visit, when possible, outside of gaming. I'll never forget at Garycon back in 2018, one month after my mother passed away (and one month before, unbeknownst to me, my father would pass away) a friend I had met gaming gave me a little tap on the arm and said "hey, man, I'm really sorry to hear about your mother". That moment touched me deeply. I'll never forget that simple act. That would not have happened if it wasn't for attending gaming conventions and developing a friendship with that individual. More on him later.

2. I've developed a standing wish-list for gaming conventions. Whenever possible, I want to play 1 game of DCCRPG/MCCRPG, 1 game of Call of Cthulhu (preferably with the wonderful crew of You Too Can Cthulhu), 1 miniatures game, and 1 game in a system I've never played before. That last one is key, and I've been able to do this at every major con I've attended. I've been introduced to games that I might never have had the chance to play before, games I read about in gaming magazines way back in the '80s, games I had heard of but couldn't play because of proximity to other people playing those games, obscure games, games I promised myself I would play years ago. Some of them lived up to and even exceeded expectations (Empire of the Petal Throne, I'm looking at you), some were frankly disappointments, but I always learned something by trying out a new system and in a couple of case, new doors were opened that I have stepped into wholeheartedly. As I said earlier, I always try to squeeze in at least one miniatures game. I have not found one I didn't love. But I can't afford to just buy gobs of miniatures. So I let gamemasters/judges at cons do it for me. I consider some of the money I pay to attend cons as a "rental fee" for other peoples minis. 

3. As I kid back in the late '70s and early '80s, I idolized game designers. I couldn't afford to make the trip to Lake Geneva to meet Gary Gygax, but I really wanted to. Another one who I really wanted to meet was Marc Miller, designer of Traveller. While I never got to meet GG (though I lived only an hour from Lake Geneva for the last decade of his life), I did get to meet and play Traveller with Marc Miller at Garycon which, ironically, I supposed, is a convention formed after the death of Gary Gygax in 2008. I found Marc an incredibly nice, humble person who paid close attention to each of his players, whom he only knew when they showed up at the table. I admit I fanboyed a bit and told him that I'd been waiting to play at his table since I was 12 years old, and that he did not disappoint. He signed my The Traveller Book and gave me a "nobility" card. It was a great moment. Last year, I was signed up for his Advanced Traveller seminar at Gameholecon, but, alas, he had just spent his strength at an all-Traveller convention a week or two before and had to cancel. I'm hoping to catch that seminar again sometime soon. 

I also had the distinct privilege of playing the AD&D Rogues Gallery "personality" Lassiviren the Dark at none other than Al Hammack's own table. It was an all-evil party of Greyhawk PCs of evil alignment. Hammack had played Lassiviren in Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign, and here I was, at his table, playing his character! Now, one of the stupid magic users decided to cast a lightning bolt at a devil prince, which bounced around the room (did I mention stupid?) and hit the infamous assassin, wiping him out. 

I've met many RPG "celebrities" (very few of whom claim the title of "celebrity" - we gamers seem to be a mostly humble bunch), some of whom I didn't really like (I won't mention the name, but if I did, you know him and have heard of him a LOT), and some of whom have become close friends. You'll have the same chance to meet these men and women at cons. It might be intimidating, but screw up your courage and just go introduce yourself. I guarantee that 99.9% of them will be glad to meet you and speak with you. Just remember that they don't necessarily remember all the details of things they've done and written that you might remember, and that they might be on the way to some important engagement that might cut the conversation short. Be cool, and they'll be cool (except that one guy).

4. Think your FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) is great? You're probably right. But in terms of sheer quantity of gaming stuff to see in person and purchase from the makers (who are usually more than glad to sign the book/poster/thing you purchase), you cannot beat a gaming convention. Think of it as that market your characters meander through, looking for that perfect sword, suit of armor, or herbal mixture. It's like that, but with dice, books, t-shirts, dice towers, and lots and lots of cool fantasy art. 

5. You won't find more RPG-specific art than at a con. I've been able to meet and shake hands with and, most importantly BUY something from artists whose work I have admired for decades, as well as some newly-discovered artists whom I'd never even heard of. One word of caution: don't ask an artist if they will do something for you without paying them. They need your support, even if it's just in buying a $5 decal or a bookmark or something. They are professionals. Be professional. Don't get me wrong - they love gaming and art and they want to talk gaming and art. But buy what you can. Support them!

How Do I Do It?

1. First rule, try not to be intimidated. Yeah, there are some people who are jerks in the gaming community. But by and large, we are a very friendly bunch. We want to have fun together, and we want to help people have fun together. No one's going to grade your "performance," especially as a player. As a GM, sure, people will judge you. That's built in to leading any group of people. But as a player, the GM, in all likelihood, really wants to help you. In my experience, most con table require no experience in the game being played, or even in gaming at all. And I've noted that at every con game I've been in where a rank beginner is playing, not only the GM, but someone at the table WANTS to help them have fun and understand the game! Don't worry about making mistakes. These are games of the imagination with some semblance of loose structure in the form of rules. Everyone at the table, including the GM, makes mistakes. You will, too. Embrace it as a learning opportunity that allows you to help the next beginner at your table who needs help. Having gone through the same process of learning from errors, you can be an invaluable help to them. Pay it forward!

2. In terms of mechanics of most cons: Yes, you do need a stinking badge. Typically there will be a tiered system of badges (Gold, then Silver, for example) where the more you pay, the earlier you get to register for games. There may be swag incentives for buying the more expensive tickets, too. If you, like me, buy the lower tier ticket, be prepared to miss out on the opportunity to play the most desirable games. The gold ticket people often get those slots before you will - indeed, you pay to play. I don't like it, but that's the way it is. 

3. Don't overplan. Gaps are good. I would recommend leaving plenty of space in between games to eat, use the bathroom, take a nap, and, most importantly, play games that are not on the formal con schedule. In fact some of the best games I've played and run have been "off books" - a spontaneous game in a lobby or an unused room or even in the hallway. First time I played Runequest was in an off-the-books game in the convention center hallway sitting on a pair of benches in a nook where the landline pay phones were. And it was awesome! Some con-goers who have a room will invite others (people they know) to come play a game there. You might be invited to a hotel room game by someone you just met that day at an earlier table. Happened to me, and, again, it was awesome! The great thing about off-books games is that the GM is often running a system that they didn't think would be well-received or that they just didn't want to "perform" in public. The Runequest game, by the way, we played because RQ creator Greg Stafford had just passed away, and someone I had met at the con that day wanted to run a tribute game in his memory. Amazing.

4. After hours games are the best. Don't count on getting much sleep. I think I average about five hours of sleep a night during cons. Some of my favorite, most memorable games have been played at "Stupid O'Clock". Yeah, everyone's a little punch-drunk and rummy from lack of sleep, which makes for a lot of craziness in the game. Crazy stuff happens at night at a gaming convention, when everyone's relaxed and just a little kooky. I have so many memories of late night games that I can't even list them all. I ran "Bunnies and Burnouts" late one night (think Watership Down, but the bunnies were able to kill the band High On Fire and steal their tour bus, drive it into a downtown high-school science fair and cause a small nuclear explosion), I've played Mork Borg in the grim dead of night, I've seen Fetal Kanye West shot in the face with a Bazooka wielded by an evil Pope, I've played an 8th level (!) DCC game with tyrannosaurs whose forelimbs had been replaced with chainsaws - and all of this made complete SENSE at the time. Stupid O'Clock is the BEST time for gaming at a con! Oh, and none of these games are on-books (though you can find on-books games that start at 9 and go to midnight, if you like).

5. Find a forbidden place. This is one of my favorite "secrets" and it will probably get me in trouble. As your walking through the convention center, just check to see if "that door" is open. Then invite some friends in for a quick game in the mechanicals room. Or, see that hotel room with no door on it where they're refurbishing the room? It's 11 at night. No one's going to come by. Go on in and play something there. Just be careful not to touch any exposed wires.

Like I said, I'm probably going to get in trouble for suggesting this. But trust me, it's worth it.

Sometimes it's helpful to just ask a facility's staff member or janitor if they can let you in to an otherwise "forbidden" room. People love to be naughty. But if you get caught, don't rat out the janitor. That's just uncool.

6. Take care of yourself. Sleeps out the window, but take a cat nap between games, if you can. Be sure to hydrate! Drink lots of water (and know where the nearest bathrooms are). Be sure to eat. I've gone for long stretches forgetting to eat, then wondering why I'm getting cranky. But really, drink water - lots of water!!! Also, step outside. Seriously. Get some fresh air. Even if it's a few seconds in the dead of winter in Wisconsin - get outside for a few minutes. You need to breathe. Another thing: scout the bathrooms. The proportion of bathrooms versus people is likely WAY too low. Those places are going to get trashed over the course of the convention, so know where ALL the bathrooms are. Last year at a convention that will go un-named, I sat in a stall that was fairly clean, full of TP, good to go. In the stall to my left, I could hear another person doing his business. I heard that familiar clatter from the TP dispenser that one always hears in a public bathroom. The clatter got more and more frantic, then spilled into complete panic, followed by "OH DEAR GOD!" - I hope that guy isn't reading this because I stifled a laugh, finished my business, and abandoned that poor soul. Hopefully he made it over to my stall, which was amply stocked with TP. I didn't stick around to find out. I promptly evacuated. It wasn't my finest hour.

What Cons Should I Go To? What Do You Recommend?

1. This might surprise people, but I have never been to Gencon, so I can't really speak about it. One of these years I'll get there at least once. But the idea of 60K sweaty nerds is not appealing. Even if I had been, I wouldn't try to tackle that one in this paragraph. I remember when I was in grad school I had a graduate seminar on Genocide. Charming topic, let me tell you. Every day we walked out of that class feeling like there was little hope for humanity. However, we never, and I mean NEVER tackled the Holocaust. It was just too big of a subject. And, given the evil in the world, we had plenty to talk about in that class without mentioning the worst of the worst. My point, poorly made, is that Gencon is too big to be tackled in a paragraph. It's its own thing. I'd love to hear about others' experiences in the comments, however. 

2. Garycon, which takes place in the spring in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, is probably my favorite con in terms of who I see there and the mix of games. You'll find a lot of "old school" games there, as well as a few newer games (some of which really hew to an "old school" feel - Mothership, for example, or Dungeon Crawl Classics). It was hear I sat down at Marc Miller's table. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think attendance is somewhere between 1-3K people. Here you'll find a fair amount of after-hours games going on, and I'm usually in one or more over the course of the witching hour. It's at Geneva Commons, which used to be the Playboy Club years ago. It's got a lot of character, and the lobby is very comfy. Food at the restaurant is pretty decent. Now, I will say that I've encountered a fair amount of speed bumps there. One year the event registration system completely collapsed and a lot of people did not get their choice of games, even though they were ready literally at the second event registration opened. Then I got the song and dance that "hey, we're just amateurs here, we don't make any money." Utter BS. I know how much I paid and I know how many people were attending that year. They could have hired a consultant who knew what the heck they were doing, but they skimped and everything came crashing down. They've improved by moving to tabletop events, but I'm still pretty bitter about that one. I've also seen several issues with tables being double booked, though not this past year. All that said, it is a great time, with great people, and I now that Luke Gygax, who runs the thing, is responsive and has made a LOT of improvements over time. It's just going to take a while to lose the sting of past years. Anyway, I do love the old school feel there. One year, they had the original painting from the 1st edition DMG on display, along with all the original little brown D&D books, as well as an original 1st edition copy of Empire of the Petal Throne, all just sitting out at a table for you to look at. I thought "this is incredible - here are books and a painting that are worth literally thousands of dollars, out in the open and everyone who comes by to look a this table on the side of one of the gamerooms is respectful and knows better than to touch, even though none of this is under glass or guard." Made me proud to be a gamer. And if it's your first time at Garycon, be sure to take a moment to pay your respects. Out in the main hallway upstairs you'll find a chair and desk with a DM screen and Gary's original Hawaiian shirt that he wore while DMing, along with a picture and placard dedicated to him. I honestly cried the first time I saw it. Real tears. It was touching. Go pay your respects.

3. Gameholecon takes place in Madison, Wisconsin, each autumn. When I lived in Madison, I literally walked to this con, as the Alliant Energy Center in which it takes place was about a 30 minute walk from my house. The Alliant Center is, well, a convention center. It's not nearly as cozy as the old Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. But it is extremely well-organized and run. Volunteers are pleasant and helpful, and the whole operation just hums. You'll find a lot of old-school RPGing happening here, but you'll also see more contemporary systems like Savage Worlds, Numenera, and so forth. the D&D Adventurers' League gets its own room, and there is a Magic The Gathering con-within a con there, as well. Food is adequate inside, but if you go outside, there's bound to be three or four food carts, which is where you really want to get your food, trust me. The convention center is also attached to the Clarion Suites, which used to be more for open gaming, but has been encroached on with on-books games as Gameholecon has expanded. Overall, there's a more formal feel to Gameholecon than to Garycon, but I think this has to do with the Alliant Center shutting its doors at night, whereas Geneval Commons, as far as I can tell, is pretty much open, at least in the hallways and lobby, 24/7. 

4. If meeting in person isn't your thing, for whatever reason, there are virtual cons available that are a lot of fun. The Cyclops series of virtual cons, run by Goodman Games, is a great example of what a virtual con can be. I've attended a couple and rather enjoyed myself. Now, there is a caveat: because I had met many of the people I played with in person at Garycon and Gameholecon, there was a much more personal connection. However, I've played in virtual cons with total strangers and enjoyed the heck out of myself. During the height of covid, for example, Garycon and Gameholecon went fully virtual. I was able to play MERP, which I had wanted to play since I was a teenager, and having that game online was actually really helpful, as the GM had plugged all kinds of algorithms into Roll20 such that one did not need to go through the convoluted math inherent in that game. The computer did all the crunching for us, and having looked at the rules a few times, I can tell you that the game would have been sluggish were it not for our automagic calculations. Note also that both Garycon and Gameholecon have a virtual element, so be careful when choosing events that you choose the right type. I accidentally signed up for a virtual game last year for Gameholecon, but thankfully found my error a few weeks before the con. So I bowed out of that and let someone else take the slot, since I was attending physically. 

5. Sometimes, you'll find gaming conventions that are not gaming conventions. For example, a few years ago, one of our local science fiction conventions, Oddcon, added a game element. Sessions were small, with very few people, but I was able to game with a couple of noteworthy people in the DCC community that I knew and we introduced a few total strangers to the game and had a great time. So keep your eyes on other, more local conventions that might not advertise their game aspect well. You might be surprised!

6. During the height (or lows) of Covid, I became convinced that if the epidemic continued at the same pace, the larger cons would break up as people created and ran private or invite-only cons. I had hopes to do this myself, but when the huge victorian house I tried to buy fell through (long story), my hopes were dashed. I fully intended to run Call of Cthulhu games for around 50 people, but, alas, it wasn't to be. I still have dreams of running something in my back yard one summer. Larry Hamilton ran a con out of his garage the year before last, I think, and I came within a hairs-breadth of attending, but wasn't able to make it. I still regret that. I believe he had something like 15 people in attendance and he literally held it in his garage. Sounds perfect to me. This past week, I attended a private con put on by a fantasy artist whose work you've likely seen (especially if you play DCC/MCC). It was a small gathering - nine people at the height of it. I saw people I haven't seen for many years there, which was awesome. Given the crew there, was absolutely insane. We played DCC, of course, several rounds of The Red Dragon Inn, TMNT (my first time! We played skater camels!), and a game in which everyone rolled up characters from a different system and all played in the same game (it worked, but I'm not sure how - I had a Classic Traveller ex-Marine, if you must know), and lots and lots of conversation about game theory and gaming in general. It's like getting together with your friends for D&D at your parents' place, except it's bigger, you're bigger, and it's at your friend's place, not his parents place. Without responsible adults there, I guarantee hijinks ensue. And that's why we're all in this anyway, right? There will be another one in September, and I am going to do everything I can to make it there.

CONclusion:

Well, I hope this is at least nominally helpful to you. I'm certain many people will comment and tell me that I'm wrong . . . and, to be honest, they're right. Con-going is a very personal experience. I'm certain I've forgotten key points of advice, my critique might be harsh in some regards, and I might be wearing rose-colored glasses in others. If you've been to cons, I'd love to read about it in the comments, good or bad. Hopefully this can become a sort of clearing house for people's thoughts on conventions (or reasons why they don't want to think about them). Lastly, I'm biased. I love the few cons I attend. I've made lifelong friends through them and played some of the most memorable games of my life in them, as well (ask me sometime about my first experience playing Star Frontiers at Garycon. You probably won't believe me even if I told you what happened in that game.). So I encourage you to screw up your courage and give it a shot. And if you do so and run into me at a con, I'd love to meet you. 

See you at the table!

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House of the Nine Devils

 

House of the Nine Devils by Johannes Urzidil
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I write this review, I am listening to Lech Jankowski's "Pause in Shadows" from his album Street of Crocodiles . This is done with intent, as I want to set the proper mood for this review and felt that Jankowski, whose music has been used by the Brothers Quay, echoes the Central/Eastern European tradition in his music. Though Jankowski is Polish and author Johannes Urzidil was a German-Czech-Jewish writer born in Prague, I see some tenuous connections. Jankowski's music, as I have said previously, has been used by the Brothers Quay. The Brothers Quay filmed a short based on Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles, Schulz has been called "The Polish Kafka," and Kafka and Jankowski knew each other and spent time together (along with Gustav Meyrink). So pardon my syncretism as I create my own little artificial Central European world in my head. I live here, so I get to make the connections.

The artifact-qua-artifact of this Twisted Spoon Press book is solid. The hardcover is elegant, with a silk ribbon spilling from the headband for convenience in marking pages. It is just the exact right size for a book, in my opinion: 5.5" x 7.5" and about .75" thick. It really sits in the hand perfectly. The cover, a negative photo of what I presume to be the titular "House of the Nine Devils" is understated, but complex enough to draw one in. I will definitely be buying more Twisted Spoon books in the future, especially at the price point. That's a lot of great book for $23.00.

And what about what's inside? Let's explore. I should begin by saying that, while I bought the book thinking it was fiction, the autobiographical elements tell me that it's not. Or, if it is fiction, it is extremely well-realized. One feels immersed in Urzidil's life throughout. For those who despise non-fiction, I say give it a chance. You'll find that often, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction, and there is enough of a dose of strangeness throughout to whet the appetite of those who love "The Weird".

The title story, "House of the Nine Devils," tells the uncanny tale of a house that might have been the residence of both Faust and Tycho, or maybe neither. A mysterious visitor and his portrait appear and disappear, and the house itself may be the cause, but maybe not. We are never quite sure and this unsurety places the story somewhere between quaint mystery and unsettling frisson. I was reminded, ever so slightly, of the strangeness of Danielewski's House of Leaves. A fabulous start to this volume!

"Vacation in Flames" is far more beautiful than the title indicates; even sublime. Childhood innocence is somehow betrayed and upheld at the same time, with a profound and moving respect for beauty being the tie that binds. It is a haunting tale, but in a light, lovely way, a gentle haunting, if you will, with an ephemeral character who may or may not be a ghost. This story will stick with ne for some time to come.

It was with "New Years Commotion" that I began to suspect that the book was not fictional. I'm still not completely sure if "New Years Commotion" is autobiographical or not. The narrator claims so, but is the narrator a fictional entity or Urzidil himself? Regardless, the author has captured, quite effectively, something that has happened to most of us: being a child who has lost something and is desperately searching for it, along with the many little steps of experience that come with that.

"Porter Kubat" threads its way through Bohemian society among military officers, ballerinas, porter-messengers, and a young man who becomes entangled by his own guilty conscience in a labyrinthine societal maze of which he has little understanding. Like others in this volume, it is a tale of waning innocence, of the shocks of life, all enmeshed in Prague's streets, theaters, and barracks. A sublime story.

"We Stood Honor Guard" is not a story, but a powerful essay (clearly non-fiction) on the causes of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The relevant argument holds relevance to any historical or contemporary empire, including the one in which I now live: The United States of America. This is critical to "keeping things together". Simple, yet genius.

The question of why the Francisco-Josephinian era (including the brief reign of Charles) actually came to an end repeatedly elicits all manner of possible historical, political and other explanations, enough to fill up thick books and which, taken on their own, may ring true, but that nevertheless mean very little. For they are only symptoms of an overall attitude. And this overall attitude in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was characterized by utter lovelessness, by the absolute lack of kindness or the willingness to ever do anything for anyone except oneself, by the indescribable callousness and selfishness of everyone. It was the ignominy of an all-embracing mutual lovelessness that ultimately destroyed that era. And if one objects that selfishness is fundamental to being human, is a part of our individual social and political nature, the answer to this is simple: it's exactly what ruins human beings and empires, what has always ruined them, and what will keep on ruining them in the future, however rich or powerful they might happen to be at times. As Heinrich Mann once so magnificently expounded during the First World War, this was what ruined the Second French Empire, what ruined czarist Russia, Wilhelmine and Hitlerian Germany, Britain's world empire, the list could go on and on, backwards and forwards, as long as it is selfishness that underlies the political rationales ostensibly causing these collapses - ostensibly because empires do not fall apart due to external causes but begin to crumble from within. These may be truisms. But, as Goethe once remarked, we have to keep on repeating the truth, since the falsehoods all around us are constantly being repeated as well.

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, everyone hated and no one loved. Everyone sought their own advantage, no one was willing to make a sacrifice. At best they made a deal and cheated their way around it. How was such an empire supposed to hold together?

A long, seemingly meandering coming-of-age story, "The Last Tombola" starts on the most banal of notes, a father's request to his 13-year-old son to deliver a letter to the father's superior. The story "jumps," then ends on an unexpected note that colors the entirety of the story, flipping a switch on that reveals highlights and shadows from the previous 29 pages. It's done naturally, as well, without artifice.

In "The Assassin," Urzidil's encounter with Gavrilo Princip, who changed world history by triggering the events that led to World War I and hence, World War 2, etc.) turns from a chance encounter of morbid curiosity to a rather erudite philosophical analysis of world events and those behind them. Frankly, his implications are horrifying when one thinks of Trumpism, not because of Trump himself, but because of the impetus behind him, the bleak social fuel for the Trump movement's engine.

Again, I don't know if Urzidil is writing fiction or memoir here. But "A Night of Terror" in which he and another soldier spend the night in a friend's apartment hiding from police will stick with me, either way. If it's a fictional story, I wish it was real. If it's truthful, then truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. Perhaps it lies in that strange limnal zone in-between, much like the narrator.

"One Last Deed" takes place in a real-dystopia: Nazi-occupied Prague. It's a dark reminiscence punctuated by the light of laughter. Old enmity turns to new friendship and provides a gift from the past, a gift that Urzidil would have liked to forget, a gift that ultimately saves his life. This is a powerful, good story about being human.

"Step and Half" starts and spends most of its pages and energy in describing Urzidil's relationship with his step-mother, recounting her acidic personality and comical mannerisms. I won't say what "Half" represents, but I will say that the story takes a melancholy and poignant turn once this element is introduced. This has caused me deep introspection.

Resignation, melancholy, and triumph swirl around "Paternal Prague," and I am struck by the vision I have, while looking into that whirlpool, of my relationship with my own dead father. Though I haven't had Urzidil's self-same experience in life, I read about his relationship and feelings toward his father, and I understand him clearly, as if we had inhabited the same emotional space for a time.

The collection (translated into English for the first time, incidentally) is profoundly moving. I had bought the book largely because I am hungry for more work by Central and Eastern European authors in translation. I am being fed. Well fed.

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Reading Challenge 2023

 Since 2015, I've participated in the Goodreads reading challenge where one sets a goal for how many books they will read in a year. Your reading results are tabulated as you complete a book. In previous years, my totals have been:

2015  Goal: 25  Read: 68 (to be fair, I read a lot of graphic novels that year)

2016  Goal: 15  Read: 31

2017  Goal: 17  Read: 27

2018  Goal: 18  Read: 32

2019  Goal: 19  Read: 40 (starting to sense a pattern here . . .)

2020  Goal: 21  Read: 37

2021  Goal: 25  Read: 36

2022  Goal: 24  Read: 25

So my average goal was 20.5, average read was 37.

For 2023, I have set my goal at . . . 

10.

Yes, 10 measly books. "You must be getting old," I hear you say. While true, that's not the reason. "You must be busy with other things". That's . . . not true. Not really. I had a lot more going on in previous years, to be honest. 

So why only 10 books? 2 reasons.

1. I want to be writing more. I'm currently working on a novella, and, frankly, it feels good. I love the rush of writing. And while I've never fully stopped writing for an appreciable amount of time (three or four months, but that was before I started keeping track of reading goals), I don't write as quickly as I used to. At one point, I was cranking out a significant short story every couple of weeks. Now I tend to write longer stories (the novella is my favorite length to both read and write), so I need more time to write more material. Besides, I'm more careful about editing and crafting than I was, say, 20 years ago, and that editing and crafting takes, you guessed it, more time. 

2. I have some challenging works ahead of me. As I write this, I am in the middle of Heidegger's Being and Time. This is not a minor work. I also have, staring at me from the shelf, Joyce's Finnegans Wake. I've read excerpts from this before, but never the full work. And given how Ulysses was, I'm expecting this to be an uphill climb. Proust's Swann's Way is also on my shelf and, well, you likely know the reputation of that one. Meditations on the Tarot is another thick one squatting on my book pile. That brick is going to take a while to get through. Now, I'm not guaranteeing that I will read all (or any) of these books, but they are physically present on my shelf and I've been wanting and meaning to read some of them for a long time.

3. Most importantly: I am hoping to do some thematic readings this year, which means re-reading many works I've already gone through, as well as some I have not. For example, I have Kenneth Gross's Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life on my shelf, as yet unread. I am very excited to read this one alongside a re-read of Victoria Nelson's outstanding The Secret Life of Puppets, as well as a re-listening to an episode of my favorite podcast, Weird Studies, in which the hosts interview Nelson. With these two pieces, I will re-read The Quay Brothers' Universum, The Quay Brothers The Black Drawings, The Journal of the London School of Pataphysics, #21, and Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets, and I will be sure to re-watch Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers. I anticipate that I will revisit two RPG posts I've made here, as well: What's in the Quay's Wunderkamer? and Experimental RPGing: Help, Opinions, and Insights Needed! Part I and Part II. All of this work, then, will "count" as only 1 read book for the year. And you can see that this is a months' long endeavor, in all likelihood. I have another, similar deep-delve planned for Gaston Bachelard's On Poetic Imagination and Reverie (thanks go to my oldest son for gifting this one to me for Christmas), which is new to me, and Gary Lachman's Lost Knowledge of the Imagination, a re-read, with a potential sidestep into Fiddler's Green Our Bogeys, Our Shelves. Yet another set will center around Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie and David Peak's The Spectacle of the Void, both of which I've read, though I've never reviewed Fisher's book fully, though I did riff off of it in one of my more . . . morbid posts. In any case, you can see the dilemma here: For every "new" book that "counts" toward my goal, there will be anywhere from one to five books (plus a podcast episode, a Blu-ray, and a lot of thinking and writing on things TTRPG) that I will need to complete.

Mind you, I'm not complaining. Not at all. But I suspect my book reviews and blogposts will be more spread out over the year than usual. On the other hand, I'm hoping they'll be more thorough, well-thought out, compelling, and useful to readers. This also means I probably won't be on social media nearly as much (that is also part of my goal here), so if you have a google account, follow me so you can be apprised of those times when I am posting something. I don't want to hide, and I love the interaction, so please, post comments and I'll be sure to respond!

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Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality

 

Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality by Federico Campagna
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had high expectations for Technic and Magic, since it had come so strongly recommended by my favorite podcast Weird Studies. I was excited for the prospects the book held, but I must admit that, at first, the setup felt a little . . . pedantic? For some reason, the Ralph Bakshi animated movie Wizards seemed appropriate to the opening salvoes of Campagna's analysis. And while I do love that movie, I did not want to simply read a book that was a rehash of the overly-simplistic "technology bad, magic good" argument. Also, I am often suspicious of works that explicitly or implicitly identify themselves as Marxist or Neo-Marxist critique, mainly because these forms can so often be idealized and lacking nuance. But in this case, I can see the utility of these arguments because of the natural mapping of scientific to economic power structures and people's blind faith in those structures. Honestly, I felt the book was largely apolitical, or at least dismissive of both liberal and conservative attempts to subsume interpretations of "reality" under their respective rubrics. Not directly dismissive, but passive, really. I honestly didn't feel like Campagna was concerned with politics here. Or at least, he barely nodded in that direction. This is a book about an individual's view of and participation in "reality". If anything, it's a touch anarchic.

Campagna's outline and explanation of the basic structure of Technic's version of reality felt well-reasoned and organized. Of course, that's easier when one realizes that Technic's overarching "power" comes from the use of linguistic strictures as a way of describing and categorizing . . . well, everything. The logical extreme of the argument is that "if it can't be explained in words, it's not real". I'll leave it at that, but there Campagna does an excellent job of breaking down how this "power" (this is my word, not his) radiates out to encompass all aspects of the way we think about reality. And before you go asking "what is reality," I'm not going to go over it, as Campagna takes an entire chapter to describe in detail what he means, and I'm not about to transcribe an entire chapter of a philosophical work. He wrote the chapter so I don't have to. Sorry / not sorry.

i worried that the second half of the book would not provide some practical examples of alternative paradigms that can provide some kind of escape from the Technic-al world. Without this, this text becomes sheer nihilism, with an especial emphasis on how we are trapped en masse. If one were to finish the book halfway through, the end result would likely be deep depression. Campagna laid out the skeletal structure of the "Magic" reality system, and I was skeptical if he could clothe those bones with flesh (the unsubtle reference to Ezekiel is intentional, by the way).

The arguments on the Magic side seemed a little more subtle, a little less cogent than the arguments about the structure of Technic. Can we think / work our way into a Magic reality? Can we even picture, clearly, what a world outside of Technic would look like? I hoped so, but I had my doubts that Campagna could effectively lead the way.

The main reason for my distrust while reading the second half of the book was that the biggest weakness of Campagna's book was a lack of examples. Perhaps he felt that pulling discrete data out of context was too "Technic" of a move, but a couple of case-studies would have gone a long way in more fully understanding the theory that is the kernel and the whole of his "Magic" proposal.

However, in the last chapter, through the use of "Secret," "Initiation," and the "As If" motif, Campagna gives some hints (though not outright instruction) as to how one can begin to implement Magic reality while living in a Technic world. This saves the book from the pile of pseudo-philosophical texts that present all the problems, but provide no solutions; or, at best, they present the need for "further exploration". But this is not what I came here to seek. Thankfully, Campagna does provide some starting points for a new way of thinking, a magic way of thinking.

It must be said that "Magic" here is not about illusion, but there is a strong element of the trickster throughout this last section. It is more, however, about tapping into the ineffable in the way that only you, as a "self" can. This is strongly opposed to the Technic view of the individual as a cog in the machine of ever-more efficient production and becoming. It is about Being, not Becoming.

Campagna ends on a hopeful note, albeit an open-ended note. As with all difficult texts, the reader is left to ponder what is presented and start on the path to reaching their own conclusions.

I think this book is necessary. It's not a utopian piece, at least not on the societal level. In fact, Campagna makes it clear that Magic is just one more way to contextualize reality beyond that of Technic. And while he doesn't, alas, provide any other concrete examples, he has shown a way (though not the way) to reconstruct reality, along with a roadmap or intellectual structure of how one might find their own way. He's taught us, as it were, how to fish. It's up to us to outfit ourselves and find the best places to drop our nets.

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Get to Know Me! TTRPG Edition

 Okay, let's do this thing . . . This is as of December 2022. Things might change in the next . . . days? Weeks? Months? Anyway, here is a snapshot in time in relation to me and my relationship with TTRPGs;

1. It was a toy store in the lower level of Southroads Mall, Omaha (maybe Bellevue?) Nebraska. Can't even remember the name of it. My mom had bought me the AD&D PHB (1st edition, of course) for Christmas, 1979, and I bought the Holmes box set there, along with Dragon Magazine #33 in 1980. The first *gaming* store I bought something at was Aircraft Hobbies, Bellevue, NE, where I bought The Traveller Book in 1981. 

2. Probably the one I created in the mid-90s: Glamwell. It was a haberdash of Greyhawkian baseline, with a strong dose of Tekumel, and elements from Jorune. I still have all the notes. I even created my first website (now very defunct and no longer available) for that world. It was gaudy as heck and I loved it.

3. Lassiviren the Dark, from the AD&D Rogues Gallery, made a strong impression on me as a kid. In my adult years, at a gaming convention, I sat down to play an all-evil PC game with Alan Hammack as DM. I was the first one there and so he let me pick from the characters. I saw Lassiviren and said "Oh, heck yeah, that's who I want to play". He said "That's who I played in Gary's campaign". Good thing we were on the same level as the bathrooms because I nearly shat myself. I had completely forgotten that he, Al Hammack, had originally played Lassiviren. So I got to play the wily assassin for that game. Well, until I (or Lassiviren) was killed by a bouncing lightning bolt that our lead mage had stupidly cast in the inner chambers of an arch-devil. Way to go. Needless to say, we all died horrible deaths, but Lassiviren was the first to go. And I couldn't have been happier!

4. The first TTRPG I bought directly from the creator was Black Sun Deathcrawl by James MacGeorge. Now I game with James online on Saturday mornings and have been to a concert with him. Good times. 

5. I honestly don't know. It's a toss up between Gamma World 1st edition, AD&D 2e, Classic Traveller, DCCRPG, and Call of Cthulhu. I honestly don't know. 

6. Pheelanx Durrowphael: My entirely chaotic (and, to be honest, borderline chaotic evil by the time that campaign finally fizzled out after five years straight) 1/2 elf Magic User / Thief. He had a penchant for wild magic and just all around chaotic action. If it caused chaos, he was totally in the deep of it. As a result, he got caught up in the blood wars in a limited way, for instance, grabbing a fairly powerful devil (not and arch-devil, though) and dragging him (via teleport - but that's a different story) into the Abyss, to abandon him there once he had attracted the attention of several demons in the area. My DM took the idea of the Deck of Many Things and created a Wand of Many Things, which combined ten different tables of variations on the Deck of Many Things. He would use that wand a LOT, which got him in serious trouble a few times and got him out of serious trouble more than once. That many random results gave a lot of leeway for chaos, and Pheelanx loved every minute of it. It's a wonder he survived, but somehow, he did . . . barely. 

You'll note that some of his stats are preternaturally high. This is the result of using that Wand of Many Things so many times. I think he embraced chaos so much because, as a rule, he was very, VERY lucky!

7. As a rule, if I spend money on a TTRPG, I play it. Life's too short . . .

8. Favorite TTRPG for its art: Has to be Skyrealms of Jorune. Wow. Just wow. Incredible art. 

9. Favorite TTRPG for its writing: The Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper Rulebook, Chapter 10: "Playing the Game". Everyone who runs any TTRPG of any system at all should read this chapter. I think I learned (and re-learned) more about running a game reading this than the previous, oh, 25 years or so of advice I had read before it. Yes, it's that good.

10. I have not yet played a journaling game, but I recently bought and reviewed Thousand Year Old Vampire, so I will be playing it, maybe this next year. 

11. I've played more hex crawls than I can number. But I prefer point crawls over hex crawls. 

12. I've designed many dungeons. I've published and sold a few of those dungeons. 

13. Outside of doing historical fencing with metal swords and daggers, no. But I have done rapier and dagger matches. Got kicked in the nuts the first time I did that and learned really quickly that historical fencing is not a sport, it's COMBAT!

14. See Wand of Many Things in section 6, above. Best. Magic. Item. Ever.

15. I played a really flirty thief character in the last Greyhawk campaign. He had . . . relationships. Um, yeah. 

16. Certain designer? Not really. I'm pretty loose and free with who designs what. If I like it and I think I can use it, I'll buy it. If not, I won't. 

17. I try to play a new TTRPG at every con I attend (usually I get to Garycon and Gameholecon each year). I'd like to play Vaesen in 2023. Tried to get in on a game in 2022, but they sold out quickly!

18. I'm going to answer the question I wanted to be asked here: What is the most memorable confrontation you've had with a villain in a TTRPG? The flirty thief I mentioned in section 15, above, Ryn was his name, was going through Return to the Tomb of Horrors. That is one tough mofo of a module, let me tell you! Anyway, we were squaring off with some Death Knights (yes, plural). We were getting pounded pretty good. Ryn had been saving a Potion of Gaseous Form for an outright emergency, and this was it. But rather than slink away while the rest of the party died, he made one last desperate attempt, a do-or-die proposition, to save the party. I asked the DM if gaseous form would allow me to enter a small hole, say 1/4" in diameter or so. He agreed, so Ryn, in gaseous form, snuck into the nostril of one of the Death Knights (who did not realize what was happening and failed his save and Magic Resistance rolls), then, once he had wiggled down to where the chest cavity was, shut off the effect of the potion. Ryn literally exploded the Death Knight from the inside out, essentially piercing the thing with his pair of magic daggers. The Death Knight was wearing platemail, so Ryn suffered substantial damage, but managed to hold on with just a couple of hit points left. And that was the end of the Death Knight. True story!

19. I don't know what this means. Yes, I have bled before. Sometimes profusely.

20. I was introduced to TTPRGs indirectly by one of my dad's friends named Bill Walters, in 1979. He actually gave me a copy of the Steve Jackson metagame "Rivets," which I became enamored with. Before he had a chance to get me to play a TTRPG, though, we moved from San Vito AFB, Brindisi, Italy (where Bill and my dad were stationed) to Sartell, Minnesota to live with my grandma while dad was getting cross-training. While in Minnesota, I discovered and bought the Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album. We then moved to Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska. A few months later, Bill was reassigned to Offutt and, with my mother's permission, he whisked me off to play D&D with a bunch of people 2 - 3 X my age. And the rest is history. 

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