I'm Baaack + Class Based Dystopias

Let's see...

The PhD thesis is in.

4 years, 289 pages x 6 copies. Just printing and assembling it took a day.

Next up, work put me on a sabbatical till April. I've signed an NDA and am happy to close that chapter of my life.

If any of you are thinking of doing a PhD, let me say this:

Think again.

Especially if you are married. That supportive spouse will come to resent the time you spend away, and hate how absent minded and unhelpful around the house you've become.

Super especially if you are working to pay your way through. Your job performance will suffer, coworkers and supervisors will hold your feet to the fire more than workers not doing a PhD. If you can, keep it on the QT.

So anyway, back hopefully to blogging, gaming, and generally enjoying life more than I have in recent memory.

Here's my inaugural post as a free man and doctor of philospohy. Very in keeping with my thesis on discourse:



Class Based Dystopias

Ever wonder why there are still kings and queens in the D&D world. If player characters are so powerful, why don’t members of the 4 classes rule every nation?

(PS: I know many D&D products have PC classed NPCs as rulers, this is just a thought exercise with delicious implications).

The answer is that the power corrupts and makes their society inherently unstable. Any nation ruled by a player character class is a dystopia that ultimately comes to a bad end.

Each of these societies has characteristics which can be divided into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Ruler: Cleric.

Government: Theocracy.

The Good: Priests cast a level higher! Pray sincerely and miracles happen!

The Bad: You’re either with us or against us. Priests of other gods cast as one level lower, save at - 1 vs holy magic of our god.

The Ugly: Inquisitions, burnings, holy wars. This type of nation usually ends when the witch trials and inquisitions get out of hand and people leave the cities, where they are retaken by vegetation in a few years. Or else, they pick an illogical religious war with neighbors, who band together to wipe the floor with them and place a secular or at least non-fundamental regime in their place.

Examples: Berserk by Kentaro Miura

Ruler: Fighter.

Government: Dictatorship.

The Good: Can levy double army size. Arms and armor can be had at rock bottom prices.

The Bad: Violence is always the answer. Everyone is armed or guarded and ready to thrown down at any moment.

The Ugly: To the victor go the spoils, to the loser go pillaging, rape, mass mutilations or beheadings. This type of nation usually ends when the great leader is bumped off by another, or when neighbors band together to send an army or a group of murder hobos to take out the dictator and replace them with a non-PC class figurehead.

Examples: Game of Thrones (? dunno, haven’t seen TV since I started the degree…)

Ruler: Thief.

Government: Kleptocracy.

The Good: Anything can be bought, for the right price.

The Bad: Watch your purse every second.

The Ugly: Assassination is the solution to every problem. Usually such a nation ultimately devolves into a nation of beggars living in the ruins of once nobles cities as thieving skills are not passed or as teachers are strangled or poisoned off.

Examples: Nadsokor (Elric series), Thief Town (Adventure Time)

Ruler: Mage.

Government: Anarchy.

The Good: Potion shops, wand & staff ateliers, flying castles, it is all here, and at rock bottom prices compared to other places.

The Bad: Mundane, non-magical folk become the underclass. Killing them isn’t even a crime.

The Ugly: Monsters, monsters everywhere. Chaotic creatures are drawn to this place, and welcomed with open arms. Eventually the Tarrasque will show up and eat the place whole, or demons will infiltrate the ruling structure and turn it into a hellmouth or warp the kingdom to some shadow plane. Within a generation it is a myth or legend become cautionary tale.

Examples: The Shadow Plane (Elric), Sigil (Planescape), Wizard Town (Adventure Time)

OSR 30 Day Probation – 25 to 29

25 Fave Magic Item

A well-played Runesword is without doubt my favorite magic item. I stress “well-played” because all too often rune weapons are run poorly by DMs who don’t want to strip away a player’s agency. Taking Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer as the model for the runeblade, we see that making the hero a pawn of fate is exactly what a runesword is intended to do. This is why in D&D runeweapons had their own Intelligence and powers the DM was supposed to keep secret from the players and use to undermine and manipulate them. The French rpg Bloodlust actually has the weapons themselves as characters, while even games like Stormbringer and the old Palladium FRPG had better depictions of the duplicity and menace of rune weapons. Basically, if a player is happy to get a rune weapon, you’re running it wrong.

26 Fave Nonmagic Item

Iron spikes, how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways:

Stopping doors for sleep at night

Or opening them to let in light

Dropped down a well to gauge a fall

Tapped in at intervals for climbing walls

For picking locks with DM’s permission

Or thrown to get rust monster attention

These examples are but a few

Of the reasons why I do love you

27 Character You Want To Play in Future

I’ve never sat down and just played a mage. This is partly because I dislike the vulnerability at lower levels, and partly because I find the D&D spell system an unwieldy and Byzantine nightmare. I figure that although my impressions are correct in general, I may have missed out on some insights by not having given the mage its due. I guess that’s my New Year’s resolution – play a mage in the next game of D&D I sit down at.

Whenever that will be. Sigh…

28 Character You Will Never Play Again

Probably a ranger, because although I love the IDEA of the class, the execution always leaves something to be desired. Either his outdoor skills are useless in the dungeon, or he’s out of his element in the city, or on another plane, etc etc. I once played a ranger who was a failed druid, and that is now how I always see rangers – nature lovers who were just not good enough to unlock the mystical bond with nature they needed to protect it.

29 The Number You Always Roll on a d20

Thirteen or twenty, rarely anything in between. Sounds like my life – some unlucky setbacks, no major fails to date, and the occasional big win.

Hoorah!

30 Day Challenge 3 & 4

Day 3 - Favorite Class

This is a toughie, since I normally play an Elf, who are either multi-classed or are their own class. I guess in a pure-human campaign I've always gone for Ranger. Maybe it's my upbringing in the wastes of unknown Labrador, or maybe the coolness of Aragorn, but Rangers are eminently playable. Even when transported to an urban environment, they become like Frazer in 'Due South', an in tune survival expert who always pulls through on their inner strength. Quite the opposite of Thieves, who exploit others' weaknesses.

4 Favorite Gameworld

Has to be the Young Kingdoms of the Elric novels. I've played in the Realms, Eberron, and Mystara, but they've never seemed real to me. That said, an AD&D 2e game I played in Lankhmar felt right, so maybe I just find gameworlds stemming from fiction more appealing than those made for a game. Truth to tell, although I started playing with D&D, Stormbringer RPG was my first true love. I've never played, just GMed, and the emulation of the bleakness of the early novels hits me as just right. I'm almost tempted to do up a D&D retroclone in the YK based on the old Melnibonean Mythos from Deities & Demigods and the godawful d20 Dragonlords of Melnibone. Maybe send any profits to Mike to make up for the screwing he got from Chaosium & Mongoose.