Gamma World and D&D

They raced up the dungeon stairs, torches in hand, wondering what else could go wrong. When the metallic "mummy" named Munafik appeared above, with the "golem" X-1 at his shoulder, the players reacted like any party of adventurers--they attacked!

They'd been scrounging around the "tomb" for a few days. They'd already accidentally awakened an avatar of an ancient war god with the awkward name of "Orbital Planetbuster Laser."

So that was a concern.

They'd also picked up a few souvenirs--trinkets, rings, and talking bits of metal with flashing lights. So when Munafik ordered X-1 to, "KILL THEM ALL," the players augmented their axe strikes and fireballs with a couple plasma grenades and one partly-charged Gravity Hammer!

Yes. At Epic Game Day last weekend, I discovered that scattering Gamma World Omega cards into play can be quite fun, in the right setting. And since the setting was "high tech world that's fallen, with a fantasy world springing up in its ruins," it worked perfectly. And, when I discovered I'd accidentally shuffled an Alpha Mutation card into the mix, all the players had great fun screaming, "Mutant! Get him!" at their compatriot.

My recommendation? Throw some Gamma World cards into your next D&D game, if you're looking to add an interesting twist to your campaign's backstory, that is.

Your Story

Time-Life "Voyage Through The Universe"

Last night I was packing up some books—a bunch of 80s era books on stars, planets, and cosmology—that I haven’t looked at since I was a kid. I pondered giving them all to Good Will, but something nagged me. It took a moment to pin the thought down, but it was essentially: “You’re the kind of person that would own these books, so you better keep them.”

Really? What an odd thought. Who was I trying to impress with my (probably out-of-date) books on stars and planets, if not myself? If I was the kind of person who would own such books, you’d have thought I would have pulled one down to peruse during the last decade. Sure, in a pre-web era, I would have, but knowledge isn’t confined to dead trees any more, and . . . Well, the books ended up in the Good Will box.

That incident and a few other recent events made me realize how much a victim to our sense of “what other people think” many of us are. Have you ever wondered explicitly (or vaguely), “What will people think?” as you pondered doing, saying, trying, or arranging something different? Did the answer to that question influence your action in some way? If you’re a human being, then of course the answer is yes.

But just who are these people we’re so concerned with?

From an early age we’re taught what’s right and wrong. But for every one of society’s codified rules, there are a dozen unspoken guidelines that insinuate themselves into our gray matter. Society teaches us that it’s “right” to comb our hair, to buy a house, to get a 9-5 job, to get married, to have kids, and so on and on . . .

And at some point, we internalize “what people think” into ourselves, so that “society” becomes one more tiny voice in the chorus of personality fragments that make up each of us.

This can be slightly insidious if we don't recognize it, because our sense of ourselves, our very consciousness and self-awareness, is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Or so some people who study language’s effect on the brain believe. If true, then it follows that we not only want to create a story that's pleasing to ourselves, but one that's pleasing to others too. But others do not . . . How can I say this?

Let me put it baldly. For the most part, unless you’re breaking a law or a heart, other people don’t care.

Oh sure, they care, but not to the degree you might think they do. Other people are not you. And unless your particular decision directly affects someone, people in general don’t have to live with (or without) the decisions you make. And trust me, after their initial reaction, they won't give your particular decision hardly another thought until the next time they see you. They’re living their own lives, wrapped up in their own stories they’re telling themselves. As they should be!

Not all the decisions we make are as ultimately unimportant as whether we keep some dusty old books. But the point remains: Make decisions for yourself, not for the sake of what you believe “society” or some constructed version of yourself would have you do.

Also, if you’re looking for some Time-Life books on stars and planets, I know where you can get some cheap.

Changes 2: The Next Thing

As you may have guessed by my previous Changes-related entry, I've got several balls in the air right now. Since I only tossed a couple of them skyward myself, only a few are actually destined to continue to remain part of my eye-defying juggling repertoire. What, you didn't know I could juggle? Well, I can, but let's not get distracted with topics suggested by poor metaphors.

Anyway, I began writing another Forgotten Realms novel outline a few days ago. It'll be my ninth novel, assuming the latest deal memo leads to a contract. I've got some great ideas for it, and it picks up threads from the novel that proceeds it (Sword of the Gods, April 2011).

But so far, it's proved to be more difficult than previous outlines. Which is due to a few things, but here's a big reason: Susan J Morris, the editor of my last six novels, with whom I've developed great trust and a great friendship, is stretching her wings and leaving Wizards publishing for a sorceress position at Amazon! Not to mention several other exciting possibilities she's got in mind.

An author-editor relationship is a partnership. And I've had a great partner in my worlds-of-make-believe these last several years. I'm grateful I got to experience it. I wish Susan all the luck in the world with her new ventures, and I'm sure she'll succeed brilliantly in whatever she sets her hand to. I could say more on the subject, but I'd run the risk of becoming maudlin.

Anyway, the fact remains: This novel outline will eventually find the desk of an editor I've never worked with before. And I'm a little trepidatious about that. I mean, what if my new editor is the sort of person who would frown on me using the word 'trepidatious?' Because, I'm not even sure it's a word, and you know, some people are picky that way when it comes to published content.

Alright, big breath. What did I just say in my previous Changes entry? Oh yes. Suck it up and rely on another talent I like to believe I possess: The ability to roll with change while looking for new opportunities in the upheaval.

And besides, when it comes down to it, I'm excited to write this next scene. I set it up in the last novel, just so I could introduce a character that'll be the perfect foil for my main character Demascus. Oh yeah, plus . . . Well, I probably shouldn't spill all the beans on that one. What I should do is get back to that outline.

Stay tuned for a 3rd chapter in the Changes series of blog entries, which will hopefully prove to be the last (Changes-themed) one for a while. Too many changes too quickly, and the juggling act runs the risk of ending when someone gets a ball in the eye.

Visqueen

I watched a lot of bands this last weekend at Bumbershoot, but missed the one I most wanted to see: Visqueen. Darn it!

My consolation prize is that I just got to watch fellow Wizard employee Mark Price's video that he directed for Visqueen.

Take a look at the video!

Visqueen 'Ward' from Heath Ward on Vimeo.

Changes

Unlike Harry Dresden in his latest escapade (Changes), I still can't cast even the simplest magic spell, no matter how long I stare at the piece of lint on the floor and command it to, "Dance, you stupid piece of lint!"

But like Harry, I've seen changes come my way lately. Such as the death of my dog Hektor. That was a devastating change, one I'm still adjusting to. But as I recently noted somewhere else, when you you tip over the apple cart (or it falls over unexpectedly), sometimes the fruit rolls a lot farther than you were expecting.

And sometimes, people around you decide to tip over their apple carts too. Pretty soon, before you quite realize what's going on, you've got an apple-lanche on your hands!

Which is how I'm trying to look at things; with a bit of humor, and an eye on new opportunities even as things that I'd gotten used to shift and slide about. I've said before that people have a hard time with change, and by people I probably meant myself. Conservatism is in our genes because nature taught our ancestors that if you find something that works, it's probably a good idea to stick with it. But we haven't lived on the savannah for a considerable period of time. If we can get past our innate resistance to change (or weather what's thrown at us in the short term), we can try on a whole raft of new opportunities.

So, yeah. I'm not actually going to bore you by listing out all the changes I'm going to suck up and make the best of, at least right now . . . not until I've gone ahead and followed through by actually making the best of them.

Writing this blog entry is actually a step in that direction, see? Oh, yeah, plus it's a way to test out the RSS feed on my new web page/landing site on the web: www.brucecordell.com; do you like the new design?

Ok, back to work. Where'd you go, you cheeky little fluff of lint?

Hektor

We lost our dog Hektor this morning. I miss him more than words can express. He loved us without reservation. 

Probably the one creature on this earth that wholly loved me with so little expectation in return.

Gen Con Author Wisdom

I attended Gen Con this year as a civilian, in the sense that I wasn't required to show up for any official Wizards function. Despite that, I was super excited to sit on the panels of a few seminars, such as the Forgotten Realms seminar, the Gamma World seminar, and several others.

But since I attended Gen Con on my own and since I'm also an FR author, I am able to treat the trip as a business expense. For instance, I joined fellow FR authors on a couple different occasions for various author-related events, and was able to hobnob with the likes of R. A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, Richard Lee Byers, Jaleigh Johnson, and Erik Scott di Bie, as well as the FR Novel Line editor Susan J. Morris.

I'm not certain how much authorial wisdom was distributed, but it was certainly very nice to swap stories of both Faerûn and the real world face to face.

Wait, I did garner one piece of wisdom: if Bob Salvatore is playing a thief in your game of D&D, watch your backpack.*



*As Larry Elmore learned in the celebrity game of D&D that Chris Perkins DMed.

Planning and the Primate Brain

It's forgivable we're not long term planners; it's the primate brain default. But now that we know that, let's figure out how to plan around it!

Alright, perhaps that does sound paradoxical on it's face :-). But no, we really can plan around our short-sighted urges. Like, if you know that you can't help but eat the Dorritos in the closet, don't buy Dorritos so they're not in the closet in the first place. Maybe you already do things like this; what you're doing is not succumbing to your base "you" but instead making room for the you-you'd-like-to-be.

And, on a grander scale, if evidence shows us that complicated systems always eventually fail (which evidence does indeed indicate), don't get caught up in the "but everything's been going fine for years" groupthink. This is complacency, and being complacent means you're institution or company probably doesn't have contingency plans in place to deal with a problem that WILL eventually come to pass in time.

In the micro and in the macro, humans have brain systems designed for immediate action and reward. So let's take steps both in our personal lives and in our society to avoid bad situations and foresee potential for disaster. Who's with me?

Follow Raidon Kane

Wouldn't it be cool if we could interact with our favorite novel characters in real life? Well, short of a schizoid break or some sort or reality rip that seems rather unlikely, all things considered, I bring you the next best thing:

Follow and interact with Raidon Kane on Twitter. Raidon is the character appearing in four of my D&D novels. Experience events inside his head as events draw toward the finale in Key of Stars!

You can find the Twitter feed here; just hit the FOLLOW button:

bit.ly/raidon

Bacon Sandwich in hand vs. Logic

The web article Science, Reason, Critical Thinking, and Bacon Butties is an entertaining read. More importantly, it highlights how even those of us who try to lead lives according to values we've established through reason and critical thinking can fall short, especially when the smell of bacon hovers in the air like the promise of ambrosia.

I too "ate the bacon sandwich" for severals years after knowing the rational arguments why I shouldn't. But over time, eventually, I finally made the switch to a veggie lifestyle, with only a few falls from the wagon since.

On the other hand, I only did so because the argument took on an emotional component, one that appealed to my heart instead of my brain, or at least both in equal measure. So I'm afraid I still don't know that if in the face of a bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo sandwich, purely rational arguments alone would have finally swayed me.

Anyhow, upon reading the article, it looks like the author is going to come down like a hammer on people who refuse to accept overwhelming evidence (in the initial case, on evolution). But keep reading . . .

A snippet:

[...] I came across an anecdote about an educated, seemingly rational person who simply refused to accept Jerry’s overwhelming evidence for why evolution is true.

Living in a country where evolution is only a controversy amongst the hard lined religious fundamentalists, who do their best to stir up a controversy, it’s hard to understand why so many people can reject such solid science.

And so on.

Red Lines

So, check out the two red lines.

The one at the end of the hall is longer than the one in the foreground, right?

Wrong! Get a ruler and measure each one. On the computer screen, they are exactly the same length.

Yes, your brain is lying to you. Isn't that amazing?

For an explanation, check this out. The explanation by Phil Plait also describes the illusion of why the moon looks so huge on the horizon.

Space 2099

Here's what I'd do if I was given the job of coming up with a new treatment for Space 1999, a show that lives on in glorious nostalgia in my memory. No, I haven't seen an episode since I was eight. I don't see that as a problem, do you?

First off, the title. That's easy: "Space 2099." Note the clever timeline advance, given that we're well past 1999 and the Moon remains safely in orbit.

In my update to the 70's classic, the moon base still goes a-wandering. However, instead of being torn out of earth's orbit by a massive nuclear detonation (a nuclear blast that strong would obliterate any artificial structure on the Moon), and instead of being propelled by this blast to a series of other solar systems in a period months (a nuclear blast that strong . . . well, you get the idea), the moon base slips between parallel dimensions.

Whata? Here's the new backstory: The cosmologists have gone through a couple of generations of particle accelerators since the LHC. The newest version requires a mass in excess of 7.30 × 10²² kilograms in order to function. Turns out the Moon is slightly larger than that. You see where this is going? Yep, a moon base is built to oversee the operation of this newest generation atom-smasher. And everything goes swimmingly, until the fatal accident that destabilizes the moon, and sends it on a tour of wacky parallel earths.

This also helps explain why most of the "aliens" the scientists meet in any given episode are essentially humanoid in nature, if not completely human. This compatibility allows for a broad range of interesting stories. Not to worry, this doesn't mean that any given alternate earth can't be ruled by sentient, flesh-dissolving slime molds or something else very alien (even actual Earth-conquering aliens), but this way there's even a chance for romance to brew.

Which brings up the Maya character; in the original series she was a shape-shifter, and the breakout character as far as my eight-year-old self was concerned. In my 2099 treatment, Maya is not an alien per se, but a resident of an alternate earth. She joins the staff much like the character in the original series.

Indeed, if this were to be a mere one-shot movie instead of a series, I'd make Maya the central character, with the main plot of the story revolving around her and what her ability to shift shape really means.

It goes without saying the effects will be updated for the modern sensibility. If we can't afford Avatar in quality, I'm sure we can achieve at least Battlestar Galactica standards (the latest version).

And ... well, that's where we'll leave off for now.