Dark Matter, Part 3. Synthesis.

The Scientist by James White

Part 1

Part 2

Okay, in Part 1 I noted that dark matter is not directly observable. The reason scientists know that it's there is because something is affecting objects in our space that are directly observable, in ways and for reasons that are understood—gravity draws together, particles get excited when energy is added to the system, spatial expansion pulls apart, etc.—but there isn't anything visible to account for these effects. Dark matter is the name given to these intangible but very real sources of interaction.

If a star is acting like gravity is pulling it a particular direction but there is nothing where we expect there to be the thing that is pulling on it, the star is still being pulled. We just can't see what's doing it. Now, black holes have been offered as a potential culprit here, but the amount of interaction, the sheer volume of interaction that is otherwise unaccounted for would require a truly unfathomable number of black holes, which would probably also lead to a less densely-starred visible universe. Plus, you actually can detect black holes, and they haven't in relation to this, so there's that.

Now, imagine an analogy. Think about driving a car. When you are driving, you are going (most of the time, unless you are a very unusual driver) toward your destination. You cannot simultaneously go away from your destination, right? Now think about driving on a two-lane road. A car is coming from the other direction. As you pass each other, you hear the car, feel the buffet of wind, and its gone, away behind you, heading the direction you came from as you head the direction they came from. You had a moment of interaction, but it was tangible, and even though they were going the other direction along that axis, that car affected yours in a very real way. Had it been a semi, the effect would have lasted longer. If it had been a train (what are you doing driving there, you lunatic?), the effect would have lasted a lot longer. If you were also in a train, longer and more pronounced still! And again, what the hell?

What if?

What if dark matter is perfectly normal matter, that is moving the other direction in time? It still has mass, not anti-mass or something, perfectly normal three-dimensional mass that is simply moving backward through time. Of course, from the dark matter's point of view it would appear that it is moving "forward" in time, just as the oncoming car is moving "toward" the place you left, but relative to us observers on this side of the temporal road, it is moving backward through time. Our matter would act upon dark matter in the same way—not directly observable from that side, but the effects of gravity and such are very visible.

The idea opens up some interesting possibilities. We will likely one day get to a place where we can peek at that dark matter—we may have already, at the Large Hadron Collider, though it may or may not have been interpreted so—and if we can peek, we may eventually be able to jump between the cars, hitch a ride the other direction for a ways or forever.

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Dark Matter, Part 2. The nature of time.

Here's Part 1

Now, here is another concept relevant to this broader discussion. It may be familiar to some of (the two of) you, but here goes. We are used to thinking of time as its own thing. We even split it off from space to reference space-time or spacetime. The problem is, time is not separate but related. Time is a dimension, the 4th dimension. Time is the fourth dimension of space, not a separate-but-related thing. To whit:

• The first dimension is length. It goes in two directions. For this discussion, left and right.
• The second dimension is depth. It goes in two directions. Toward and away.
• The third dimension is height. It goes in two directions. Up and down.
• The fourth dimension is time. It goes in two directions. Forward and backward.

Edit: This incredible video explains this fairly well. Rob Bryanton is apparently a genius, and while I first saw his "Imagining The Tenth Dimension" video  quite a long time ago, I just discovered this video (and his channel--omg am I going to spend a lot of time there) while adding links to this already-written post. I feel kind of like an idiot. Well, not the first time, and certainly not the last. 

See, this is the thing that has taken me thirty years to finally understand. Sue me, I'm a slow learner. Measuring velocity, for example, can be stated as "miles per hour." What is really measured, though, is simply the shift in spatial location. That's it. Since time is only a dimension of normal space, stating "88 miles an hour" is actually describing a simple locational shift. At 88 mph, you will go this far along the x, y, z axes AS WELL AS along the axis of time (for which I will snag the variable q for this discussion). Without the axis of time, you would instantly teleport from one place to another—you would simply blip 88 miles (or whatever), without traveling along any of the axes of space. To borrow an explanation, you would simply jump over the intervening distance to instantly arrive at that particular location. The inclusion of time as another measure of space is the only way to allow travel—actual movement—along the other 3 axes as well. *

Something else to consider: even if something does not move along the x, y or z axes, it still moves along the q axis unless its existence is literally instantaneous. To be fair, it is unlikely that there are many things in the universe that are not moving at all, but things that are not moving in relation to one another are an accessible example. The stupid thermometer that doesn't work out on my front porch, for example. It doesn't move (x, y, z) in relation to the porch, the house, the street or the town, but it, as well as the other things not moving x, y, z, are still moving along q together. Anyway, side note.

Everything in our experience, everything in our existence, has been continually moving in one direction along q. We are continually, constantly moving forward through time. Effect follows cause. Consequence succeeds action. Just like, if you drop something, it falls down, so too do we continually "fall" forward through time. If gravity pulls down, then what is the mechanism for this direction of travel along time? I have suspicions, but only that, so I won’t go into it here. The point is that we move in one direction through time, but as a dimension, time has two directions. This is the entire principle behind the idea of time travel, after all, either speeding up travel forward or allowing travel backward.

Next up, part 3, where I try to bring it together.

* The Time Machine (1960) had a fair explanation of the concept of time as a dimension. It was still a bit thin, and the movie itself is pretty awful, but it tried to explain the idea that time is a measure of space more directly than Doc Brown did. It also explains a couple interesting homages/easter eggs in the Back to the Future movies, but I digress.

 

Dark Matter, Part 1. Gravity and stuff.

Image courtesy of CFHTLenS

There is a growing interest in the concept of dark matter and dark energy in astrophysics. Initially, I was skeptical, as it sounded too…well, fantastic for a real concept in science. It sounded like they were just making shit up at this point instead of simply saying "we have no idea."

Of course, as the years have passed, scientists' understanding and communication regarding dark matterand energy have increased dramatically, and now I get it. Not the math, mind you—I'm an anthropologist, not an astrophysicist, and there are reasons for that. I get the broader picture, a sense of the physics involved.

Dark matter and dark energy (which, like matter and energy, are merely two states of the same thing, and which I will abbreviate here on out by just referring to dark matter, though I mean both) are not directly observable, hence their monikers. A quick explanation:

Stars are incredibly massive objects. Even our sun, which is fairly modest in size, is unfathomably huge, and the stuff it is made out of is remarkably dense. All the naturally-occurring elements we know of were created, through fusion, in the hearts of stars, and those elements, and probably a lot we've never encountered, are still inside those stars. This is why the planets, even huge, far-flung ones like the gas giants, stay in orbit rather than slinging off into interstellar space, never to be seen again— the planets' own mass and inertia keep attempting a straight line of movement, but the star is so massive that its gravity counteracts the planets' tendency to shoot off in a straight line, and keeps them perpetually falling in toward it. Think about it a minute: Earth is a gigantic chunk of iron that is 93,000,000 miles away from the sun, sailing along at 67,000 mph (108,000 kph), and the sun is still so massive that the earth keeps falling towards it, and has for billions of years. Just. Think. About. That.

Objects this massive have a measurable effect on other objects that are even many light-years away. Stars and clouds of loose interstellar dust and debris all tug and pull towards one another. Inertia, stellar winds, ejecta, and the expansion of space push them apart. Collections of objects this massive—from star nurseries to full-blown galaxies—have an even more pronounced effect through the aggregation of all this mass and energy in relatively close proximity.

All of this can be measured, particularly now, since Hubble and Kepler were launched into orbit, eliminating atmospheric interference. I don't know all of the details (again, anthropologist), but I know that some of it involves measuring subtle shifts in emissive energies (which, if I'm not mistaken, serve as something of a fingerprint for galaxies, if not individual stars, though maybe those too), and some of it involves watching how the light from a more distant star or galaxy is bent ("lensed") as it passes by nearer objects. The effects of gravity are also observable by the interactions between masses in space—Star Trek: Generations played heavily with this very idea.

Tomorrow, part 2, where I discuss time.

Choice. Part 1?

Choice is the driving mechanic of ATOMIC.

A choice, by nature, revolves around conflict, internal or external. Choice is evident when there is uncertainty in a situation. Do I drink my water now, or ration it? What perk should I pick up? Do I wait to see what this guy has to say, do I shoot him in the face, or do I hide until he goes away? There is uncertainty in any of these questions, concerning short-term vs. long-term benefit, motivations, potential, choices between things with very few common factors, even the future. Making a choice is different from solving a problem, which is about calculating the most beneficial course of action, about answering the question "correctly." All other factors being equal, do I take the gun that does 3 damage, or the gun that does 5? is a problem to solve, not a choice.

Choice is impossible without a clear idea what is going on in the world around you, but, like life, you generally don't have all the information. If you have all the variables clearly laid out, you are making a decision, and that isn't what we are aiming for here. To this end, here are a few things that should be common to most games of ATOMIC, and ideally, most RPGs in general.

• The GM will give you whatever information is necessary for you to make meaningful choices. This does not mean the GM will detail things to an excruciating degree, only to the extent that you can make informed choices. This can be a balancing act, and the GM is sure to louse it up occasionally, but generally speaking, you won’t be bombarded by walls of exposition, but you also won't have to imagine you are in an endless white room, either.
• The GM will not just hand out information that is not critical to a basic understanding of the situation. If you are hunting for clues, for instance, the GM will have provided a description of the area (or person), and it your job to investigate more closely. Ask questions, experiment, use your skills, it's up to you.
• The GM will not tell you information you would not be privy to in your character's position. You won't be able to tell what someone is thinking or what their motivations are and you won't be able to predict the future. The GM won't tell you what lies behind the locked door unless your character has a reason to know such a thing.
• The GM will use your character's knowledge (measured by skills and general IQ) as a guideline for helping you assess probable outcomes of your actions if you ask. If you contemplate making a 30-foot leap between skyscrapers and you ask the GM how it could go, s/he will probably tell you that you will get a very brief, instructive lesson in human aerodynamics and become a permanent part of the landscape below. The GM will not simply volunteer this information. You need to ask, otherwise it is assumed you are thinking through the process on your own.
• There will be a good bit of discussion at the table. Not only is this the normal activity of a role-playing game, in ATOMIC it is also a way to engage everyone at once. This is not an invitation to argument, nor to senseless debate about minutiae. This is about collaborating in the construction of a cool story, and it is in everyone's best interest not to be selfish or steal the spotlight or argue about "what the rules say." Saying it right here: If a rule gets in the way of everyone having a good time, ignore the rule. This is a game, and we are here to have a great time, and while some people really enjoy debate or even argument, most people would prefer to do something else.
• The choices you make matter. The wasteland has a long memory, and a million stories to be told or discovered. No adventure in ATOMIC is so sacred as to force you along a particular path to resolution, or even to pay it any heed at all. No location or person is so important that you can't blow them to kingdom come. You choose who and what is interesting to you, and see what comes of it.  GMs: This is not a sideways method of encouraging you to punish players who kill off your pet NPCs (and why do you have those anyway?!) or just won't bite on your quest hooks. DON'T DO THAT. You shouldn’t be selfish or steal the spotlight, either.

 
Daniel Floyd and James Portnow have been a huge influence in the design process for ATOMIC. Here, they discuss choice, its nature, and its place in games. Here is a newer treatment of it on Penny Arcade. The context is video games, but the concepts carry over into RPGs, and particularly (like I just noted) into ATOMIC. 

GM Rewards

Dragon's Lair by Tim & Greg Hildebrandt

While I will mostly be posting things with an ATOMIC bent, hopefully some of my ideas translate to other tabletop RPGs, too. I will try adjusting descriptions away from specific ATOMIC rules when I discuss them here.

 

The players in ATOMIC gain skill points and experience to improve and diversify their characters. They gain fame and cultivate contacts, find loot and make names for themselves in the wasteland. Rewards are an integral part of the process of doing the stuff of adventuring.

But the players aren’t the only people playing the game.

Most GMs think the rewards of world-building, creating a memorable session and hearing players talk about for years to come is plenty, and they’re right. It takes a certain kind of person to master a tabletop game. However, wouldn’t it be fun if players could reward the GM in-game for surprising them in an unexpected way, or when they discover how all the plot threads come together, or just for doing something uniquely GM-cool? Glad you asked.

When you, the players, think the GM has done something cool, give the GM a poker chip (or some other token that won’t easily get lost or eaten). Now, don’t do this just because the GM lets you get away with something or has to pull a deus ex machina to save you from your own stupidity—that’s just manipulation. A GM should get a chip when s/he surprises you, awes you, fascinates you, deepens your immersion or just makes things more fun for everyone at the table.

That’s it! Well, okay, no, that isn’t it. The GM hangs onto chips until s/he has 5 or more, enough to purchase assorted Mayhem, Mishaps or Miscellany (or M) of their choosing.

So if the GM designs the whole world and what happens in it, what’s the point? The point is to create GM agency by giving them one-shot tools to bend or break rules without the players holding it against them. Think of them as Get Out of Bitching, Free cards, if nothing else.

Each M can only be chosen once, and can only be used one time unless specifically noted otherwise.

Encore Performance

Bring back one killed NPC or boss of your choice. No explanations, no excuses, no need for backstory. And the NPC is pissed about it. Bonus to attacks. New loot, though!

Poker Face

Is he lying? Is he telling the truth? Who knows? For one day, you do not have to tell them if an NPC is lying or not. Watch ‘em squirm.

Redundant Systems

If the players kill an NPC or boss too quickly for you to show them off properly, roll 1d4. The result is how much of a check interval passes before it stands back up, at full health, but slightly weakened. Don’t use this if combat took half an hour or more to play out—that’s just sadistic. Players gain a little XP or other minor reward when this second combat is over.

Forewarned

Somehow, they knew the players were coming. You don’t have to figure out how. NPC combatants cannot be surprised or subject to cheap shots and have higher defense for this combat. Players suffer equipment damage or loss of supplies/henchmen/vital fluids, but gain double cash and supplies. If they live.

How’d They Get One of THOSE?

Bad news? An NPC in a random encounter is equipped with a heavy pristine weapon (in ATOMIC, a pristine weapon is extremely rare and generally powerful--on par with a +5 weapon in the world's most popular RPG, not the kind of thing to toss into a random encounter, typically). 

Good news? The PCs can have it, if they don’t wreck it first. Or, y’know, die.

(GM, are the players gone? Good)

Bad news? The self-destruct countdown begins at 10 seconds!

Genre-Bender

When you roll a Special encounter on an encounter check, it can be any type of creature you want—specifically, from another sort of genre or game entirely. Optimus Prime? Red dragon from D&D? Introspective vampire that operates along Storyteller rules? Cyberpunk mage from Shadowrun? Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland? Check. If using a creature from another tabletop game, have that creature use the rules from that game and try your best to make it work!

You do not need to justify the encounter’s presence or extrapolate it any further in the campaign. Players receive 100 XP from this encounter (in ATOMIC, encounters don't usually grant XP), and probably should get at least a memento of the occasion (loot, achievement, even a perk).

Gamist

When the players are traveling, instead of using a map, pull out a board game that uses dice. Travel takes one trip around the board (so obviously, it needs a board where you can do that). You take the first turn. Whenever you and a player are on the same space, make an encounter check. Ad-lib interesting encounters for landing on special spaces, and establish one or two spaces that will give you a chip each time anybody lands on it.

Afterwards, have each player make a LUCK check if they wish. Success means they permanently gain +1 LUCK, and a critical failure means they permanently lose -1 LUCK.

Notice in each of these examples (except Poker Face), the players get something out of it, too. This keeps the Ms from feeling like arbitrary punishments, and (in theory, anyway) encourages the players not to be too stingy with the chips unless the GM is being boring, nor too generous with the chips because the Ms can ramp up danger and/or uncertainty kind of a lot.

Overland Travel Without Hexcrawling

A Tomlin Art Company postcard of my default ATOMIC campaign region

Travel doesn't have to be skimmed over in ATOMIC. In fact, it is far better if it isn't. But if the players have the whole wide world to explore, how can you make their choices meaningful? How can it be not a question of picking a compass direction, heading out, make a few random encounter checks, and they're there? How can you travel down a road with nothing happening until the dice clatter and the GM says, "Up ahead, coming around the curve of…" Zzzzzz.

Hm? Oh, sorry. Overland travel has always been fraught with so much promise that is so hard to deliver. Every GM I have ever known (including me!) has had such a hard time making the wilderlands as interesting as a dungeon I was beginning to think it couldn’t be done, particularly without maps laid out ahead of time. Which got me thinking…

Think of the wasteland like a dungeon map. The reason a dungeon is easier to run interestingly is because, in a dungeon, everything that is in there was put there by the dungeon's designer—meaning the author or GM that made the thing, not the mad wizard or whatever backstory the dungeon has. Thing about the wasteland, though, is that it is no different.

Think of it this way. Towns and other known (either by players or NPCs) locations are like dungeon rooms. The roads (including waterways and other trails) that connect them are like passageways in a dungeon. Anything and anybody you encounter on the road or at a given location is still put there by the designer. Could the players say they want to look for schnozzberries and you hadn’t even considered berries? Sure, but ATOMIC's rules allow a good deal of player agency to answer that kind of question themselves with skill use (actual gathering, not knowledge-style checks). When you look at it like that, it makes things easier.

Encounters on the road can be conducted just like random or wandering encounters in the halls of a dungeon, but the difference is that the players will be able to see things on the road from a lot farther off  (generally), often at a distance that allows them many more approaches than would be possible inside a dungeon.

When the players find an intersection, signs may give an indication of known destinations, or looking down the roads can show the players, "well, it looks like the cars on this road have been dragged off to the side for merchant traffic," or, "that road winds down into a canyon," or, "this other road isn't much more than a dirt trail, and oh look, there's a corpse strung up from a telephone pole there." Both methods make their choice meaningful, because they have information with which to make the choice—it isn't just a crap shoot.

However, unlike a dungeon, which has access channeled and blocked off by walls, the wilds are wide open. Roads are passageways that simply are not constricted by the laws of negative space. They are built and used where they are for similar reasons, though, generally regarding the surrounding terrain. This was the best place for a road in this stretch of the great outdoors because it is naturally the easiest going. There is no reason the players cannot to go cross-country rather than follow a known path. Here is the second place meaningful choice comes in. As noted above, there are reasons roads are placed where they are, so going off the road automatically means the party will be moving more slowly. They are going to be exploring.

Exploring

Exploring the wasteland or wilderness doesn't have to be defined by maps ahead of time (though a map to track known locations is handy for you, GM, so you can keep track of things visually). When the players decide to strike out across the unmapped places, think of this: these stretches of wasteland are still enclosed by roads and other known boundaries like mountain ridges or coastline. Even if the roads haven't been in use since the War, they are still there and still connect the places that were known before then. It isn’t trackless—just unexplored. These boundaries make running through the wastes easier by parceling out the terrain. These chunks on the map are analogous to secret rooms, but in ATOMIC, we call them blanks. Blanks, by definition, have no predefined locations in them. They are truly terra incognito.

A blank should never be empty, but it shouldn’t be overcrowded, either. Figure out a reasonable number of features (critters, locales, or events) for the space. Compare it to known locations on your map, if you're feeling lazy or pressured. When you follow the steps below, don't go above this number unless you have an awesome reason to have more. Less is generally more, but some is better than nothing.

Over, Under, Around, or Through

When the players leave the safety of (currently in-use) roads, use this simple concept: over, under, around, or through.

Come up with an obstacle whose most visible means of bypassing is one of these (note that this should never be the only way, just the most obvious…to you, anyway). An obstacle is something that requires at least some effort or time to overcome. It could be a toppled skyscraper, a toxic slough, a raider camp, a thorny line of scrub thicket, a crevasse, a minefield, whatever. Describe the obstacle (they have to be informed!). Unless the choices the players make warrant more or less time, if they have a jetpack, for instance, or if all of their legs are broken, or unless you have a solid idea of the obstacles' scale, assume it takes them 30 minutes to traverse (encounter check!), and on the other side, roll 3 features (or the number of features in the blank, whichever is less). Each rolled encounter should be at a manageable distance and have visible clues to its nature once the players are past the obstacle, giving them a meaningful choice again.

If they proceed, they then choose one, investigate it, and when they leave to press onward (either to check a different feature or try to move deeper into uncharted territory), ask again:

Over, under, around, or through? Rinse and repeat. The players can do this up to the number of encounters you figured out for this blank. By imagining the 3 random encounters as 3 directions from start, you can track (on your map) where, generally, they are heading. This changes the nature of this movement from slow travel measured in mph to choice-driven exploration. Will they eventually get somewhere? Of course! A lot of places! But if you don’t know where you're going, you can't really get lost, can you?

If they want to get back to town or something, they can retrace their steps or make checks to find another way to known roads or locations.

Old World Blues

You know, it's interesting how and why someone who has taken a break from blogging decides to come back. For me, traditionally, it requires a certain level of intellectual (or, more frequently, emotional) reserves, and often, some external impetus, something I feel a need to share, and tonight, at 2.36a, here I am at the keyboard, about to do just that.

Please understand this won't be particularly pithy (I expect), not terribly insightful (I imagine), and possibly less coherent as time ticks by and my body wonders why I don't love it anymore. This is going to be...well, a little bit of a game review, but any of you reading this likely know how my brain works, so you know that it likely will wander from the topic soon enough.

I just finished the third DLC (downloadable content, referring to the distribution method for an expansion) for Fallout: New Vegas, called Old World Blues. OWB has been around for a couple years now, but this is my first go at it. I want to talk about it because it is an excellent example of storytelling and game-crafting done terribly, beautifully right.

Your hosts when beginning Old World Blues.

In classic form, when you leave the Mojave to start the DLC, you awaken with no idea of your geographical location, and no idea where...well, certain things have gone off to. It takes little time to meet your hosts, and you are turned loose in a new sandbox absolutely filled with cool locations and a lot of humor. OWB is an homage to pulp-scifi movies of the '50s and '60s, and it takes a lot of those wonderful tropes and runs with them. 

Okay, so this isn;t really going to be a review. Lots of those out there already. Onward, then.

OWB is, hands down, the best expansion for a game I have ever seen. If it was a game on its own, it would be fun, but (of course) far too short. As it is, I still spent something like 20 hours in the Big MT, and didn't do probably half of what there was to do. It is a sandbox, completely open for you to explore in any order and direction you wish, it has an explanation why you cannot leave (greater than "It's a really fucking long way home and you're too lazy to go back right now," like so many), and it has many layers of clearly-defined goals that you can pursue as you wish. 

The personalities are fantastic and painted in caricature, and that is necessary in the interactive environment of a game, else the hordes of people you meet just blend into the same boring shades of grey. Not fifty of them, don't get excited, sheesh. The things you can do are varied and interesting, the humor is campy, but there is also this very serious undercurrent, a message the Big MT (say it aloud and you'll sound just like you're from New Vegas!) is trying to teach your character, but also trying to teach you. It ties into a much larger story that encompasses the entirety of New Vegas, its DLCs and, truth be had, the Fallout universe itself.

While the Mojave can often seem rather impersonal, the Big MT (and truthfully, Dead Money and Lonesome Road, too, and not coincidentally those are the DLCs most closely associated with OWB) is deeply, almost disturbingly personal. I developed attachments to the personalities and locations of the Big MT far more than I expected, especially as none of them travel with you or do the companion thing, exactly. There was a sense that I--my courier, my wasteland wanderer--was important, and that is a feeling that is often missing in any game without feeling heavy-handed ("We are telling you that you are important! Prophecies have been spoken! You are destined!" Blah blah fucking blah boring). You tease this knowledge out of the DLC, you piece it together bit by bit, slowly growing a larger view of what is going on in the world and how...if not yet why...you are so critical. It is subtle, and it is a thing of wonder.

Ultimately, the thing that tells me OWB is fantastic is how I felt when I finally had the chance to return to the Mojave...and when I got there, I was sad. Sure, I can go back to the Big MT whenever I want, and many of the friends I made there will be waiting for me (and all of the enemies I left in peace, too), but the Mojave seems so...foreign to me now, and I already find myself longing for the bizarre retro pop-sci unreality of the Big MT. OWB will always be a chapter I play whenever I play Fallout: New Vegas,  because in all the Mojave, I finally found a place where I could say, "My god, I'm home."

5/5, if you're wondering.

Life Gets in the Way

I know blogs traditionally get a bit mired in the summertime, anyway, but for regulars and visitors I feel the need to clarify--this blog is not dead, it's just that life is getting in the way at the moment. More looks at gaming, ATOMIC and random artwork will start popping up again as the dust settles.

Sketchbook

In an effort to redesign the realms of fantasy, here's a cyclops making a threatening roar.

I Create, Therefore, I Am

Creation has a particular energy. It can be catalyzed by outside influence, it can be channeled any which way, but there is no denying that the energy comes from within the creator. Inspiration of any stripe, whether the head-spinning altitudes of love or the blood-soaked sorrows of despair, serve merely as the trigger ready to unleash the whole thing upon the canvas of the creator's choosing--paint, dance, pencil, garden, auto, sex, game, poem, song, research, what have you.

My current canvases are pencil and paper, the word processor, and the game. Drawing and writing are sort of self-evident, and the day will soon come when I can explore other canvases, but tabletop gaming is something that may need elaboration.

Role-playing at the table with a group of friends is a collaborative work of art. It is a sort of cooperative storytelling, which has been a fixture of human history that has largely been lost in America. We joke and talk about the rest of our lives as we sit at the table, but we also tell a story, of characters we grow to know and love and hate, facing a world that is even more uncertain than our own while allowing more decisive actions than we can usually take in the world of electronics and red tape. We grow legends in these game sessions, vicariously living in a world that, for many, can become as familiar or even moreso than our own.

They are legends because they do not simply cease to exist when we leave the table. Their stories live on, in our imaginations during quiet moments, during conversations of remembrance, and when telling others of the daunting tasks faced and overcome by (or occasionally, which overcame) our heroes. Each player becomes tied to the others through this ancient rite, and it grows our hobby and grows us as creators of this amazing experience.