[Weekly Words on Women] Watching the World Turn Upside Down

As most of you know, I don't tend to get passionate about a whole lot. I try pretty hard to be even-natured and talk about things in a fairly rational way. I don't let too much rile me up, and I avoid the shenanigans you can count on from my co-author, SinSynn.

I'm going to play by some different rules for this series, which I had planned and sketched out well before last week's web explosion on gender, bias and sexism.


Over the next few weeks, I will be looking at access and control some more, along with the gaming community and how women are viewed and treated. I'll probably discuss how we got to where we are today, and ask a lot of questions. 

Last time, I talked about control and access in regards to women's sexuality. This time, - let's talk about women's rights. I'm specifically looking at the way the world is changing and how control and access is being challenged, especially via religion and politics (at least in the US).

Quick Internet Hobby Fix....Aaaaaah. Good.

Hey, folks, SinSynn here.

A buncha stuffs has happened over the last couple of months that has led me to get significantly LESS hobby time than I'm used to.

*Writing a murder/suicide pact and going to find Lucy*

 
Here's a list:

- A gentleman driving his car down the Ultimate Rival's street has a seizure, and crashes into the gaming garage, wrecking it.
Insurance companies are still bickering about it. Estimated time until repairs begin: two months.
Seriously, this happened.

-The weather has gotten good, and the lure of 'hanging out on the block' has been too great. 
Shaking out the winter doldrums is a time honored SinSynn tradition. Combine this with the above, and not a lotta 'hobbying' is getting done.

-I had three FoW tournaments scheduled for this month, but two of them were mid-war. 
After spending some time reviewing the books, potential lists, etc, I came to the conclusion that mid-war doesn't really interest me, and bowed out.
Late war tournament on the 28th...Let's see if I can stop flitting about the neighborhood long enough to paint stuffs.

-The Crazy Lady I Live With is on her 'spring cleaning' trip, and I pretty much hafta follow her around and rescue my stuffs from disposal. 
Should I leave for any extended period of time, I'm pretty sure everything I friggin' own would be 'cleaned.'
-_-

Despite all of this, and some other annoyances like having to re-format my computer after a meltdown (all my tentacle porn! Noooooooooooo!), I'm a hobbyist, and I have an addiction.
...Good thing there's the Internet, where I can grab a quick fix.

The thing is, I don't have a hobby store to bum around in. Also, I don't have a single friend that games other than the Ultimate Rival. Not tabletop games, not video games, nuthin.'
Over the last couple of years, I've gotten more social, and I've made many friendly acquaintances via the Hobby. They all live an hour or more away, by car.
How can people live where there are no subways? I cannot unnerstan' dis.
0_o

*231st and Broadway in da Bronx, NYC. My stop <3*

The lack of proper 'gaming' in my city, considered by many (especially myself), to be the greatest city in the world (and it is), saddens me. I can walk twenty steps in any direction and get literally whatever I want (legal or otherwise), but I can't play a friggin' wargame.
Excuse me while I make this face:
-_-
Really, New York?
....really?

I buy my hobby stuffs offa da internet, too. I probably spend almost as much of my internet time on the WarStore as I do watching porn or obsessively stalking Megan Fox.
DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!
The porn is free, at least. Nyah.

I suppose we all go through lil' phases, where life grabs us by the boo-boo, and we drift away from our models a bit. Waddayagonnado, amirite? Stuff happens.
Right now, I'm enjoying a bit of quiet time, since the Crazy Lady is out on dog walkies. Maybe if my hobby desk hadn't been 'cleaned,' I would be working on something.
Blah.

So here I am, typing a post (and yes, riffing and sharing my woes), and grabbing a quick Internet hobby fix.
Mmmmm....Dust Tactics unboxing at BoLS....
Delicious.
:D


Dammit, she's back...gotta go.


Until next time, folks- Exit with catchphrase!

-SinSynn

"I Roll to Disbelieve"

I said this somewhere pretty "normal" the other day and the person I said it to not only "got it", but they laughed as well. It struck me as just a little odd and made me wonder- has being a geek transcended our culture that much?

Is this a sarcastic remark or a social commentary on the state of gaming-indoctrinatedness our culture has become?

Will Wheaton and George Takei (and to some extent, William Shatner) have brought out a fairly popular and almost ubiquitous familiarity with that which is nerdy. (Check your Facebook and Twitter feeds- they are likely full of reposts/retweets of these guys' materials.)

Is this a good thing? Am I over estimating the impact of 'geek chic'?

Didn't Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World rock the theaters last year?

I'm having a hard time dismissing the fact that being a dork is not as bad as it used to be.

Ancillary to this thought is the "+1".  While we do have Google+ and Facebook that have helped these ideas along, the premise of adding a level is pretty intrinsic to games and gamers. But I hear and see "+1" all over the place- even on 'normal' websites- career advice blogs, cooking blogs, and dating sites.

Geeks have even come into sitcoms. I mean, damn near everyone knows who Sheldon Cooper is, and Stan Lee is some sort of pop culture hero...

I don't know what happened, but somewhere along the line I stopped being so "out there" and became mainstream... or

I roll to disbelieve

[RPG] Are We Being Punk'd?!?

Last night was the restart of JR's Hellfrost campaign. Before game, he had emailed all the players and laid out how things were going to start and asked if we had questions. There wasn't any discussion on the list or any indication that the scenario was out of line, so he got things ready on his end and we showed up.

I had no idea what I wanted to play, and had thrown out at least 2 ideas prior to showing up at game session last night. Finally in a fit of desperation and mirth, I looked through the Savage Worlds Deluxe book and decided to alter a template.

I was quite literally JOKING when I decided "hey, a pirate sounds cool" and adapted said character template for play. I asked if boating would be helpful, and JR's reply was pretty ambivalent, so I discarded "boating" as a skill in favor of something else.

AND the scenario involves a long boat ride. Just my luck, heh.

JR's games are known for being just a little "over the top", but with serious themes and interesting plots. We're hacking away at the situation, with ridiculous jokes and laughter, when things went suddenly WEIRD.

The main NPC is hiring the party to travel from X to Y. The trip is a good solid 2 months of road time, and goes through some interesting and possibly not-so-friendly territory. We're negotiating our fee and the NPC is a right cheap bastard- so he's been tough to bargain with. Our group doesn't have a face, but we're doing our best given the situation. A member of the party decides to try to negotiate for a guide to be sent along with the group. The NPC is not interested.

NPC pretty much says "hey, I hired you guys to do this job. How you do it is up to you, but I am not giving you anything other than what we agreed on."

And here's where we get Punk'd.

The member of the party who wanted the guide just stalls. He essentially sits on his idea and won't let it go- no matter what JR or any member of the group says. He also refuses JR's offer of another character- it's all or nothing for this guy. It gets pretty heated- the rest of the group does not understand why he's doing this, and then he breaks out of character and is in essence, trying to bully JR into doing what he wants.

JR is trying to figure this out -on the fly. He genuinely and truly wants EVERYONE in his game to have a good time, and this one holdout is causing major friction on that point. JR had no intention of sending or running an NPC, and certainly doesn't want to reward this player for refusing to compromise in any way. But he also doesn't want to tell a player, "get lost". JR (and the rest of us) are kind of sputtering, trying to figure out what to do. Things come to a dead stop- which is another thing JR hates to have happen.

After a few minutes of "what the heck is going on", two members of our group sort of try to ignore it and move the plot along. I am honestly considering leaving the game because I am just not sure I want to deal with this guy's shenanigans. The other guy at our table is notoriously quiet and is typically not saying a word. JR is trying to herd the holdout back to the plot. And it's really, really awkward.

At this point, TheDude takes JR outside for a few minutes. I decide to make a different character for a variety of reasons. I make a guide- but not to placate the guy with the demanding attitude, but because the group genuinely needs someone with some road skills. One of the PC's uses party funds to "hire a man" and tada, I'm not a pirate.

JR comes back from his pow-wow with TheDude, and we are firmly shoved back to the story.

I'm playing Lannar, a plainspoken, loyal and honorable guide. Lannar is also a male, and well- I am not. I have very obvious lady parts, and there are more than a few misspoken "she" or "her" comments. So I adjust my "name tag" to say "dude" underneath my name. My "boss" adjusts HIS name tag to say "also dude" which adds some desperately needed levity to a very weird situation.

I'm going to stop here and say it. I said it to JR and I said it in front of the offending person. But not this plainly. Here it is, laid out.

I have NEVER seen anyone do that, ever. I have NEVER seen anyone break character and DEMAND something from the GM in such a petulant, disrespectful and juvenile way. 


I've seen (or heard about) some serious "dick moves", but this one takes the cake. I started playing RPGs as a bratty 12 year old that wanted to be catered to- but nothing I did even comes CLOSE to this level of insanity. I've heard of people stopping the game to tell the GM, "hey, you suck" and quitting. But I have never seen a guy basically try to bully the GM into doing what he wants like this before. 


I am firmly in the camp of "the GM is in charge" camp, so this one really broke my brain. I honestly and sincerely do not understand this guy's point of view or reasoning and it just baffles me as to why he would do this- and feel justified doing it. 


There was absolutely no remorse, no backing away from the position, no sense of hey, maybe I am wrong. He just sat there like he was perfectly in the right to expect his requirement to be met and damn the rest of us if we didn't agree. 


I'm worried about the party dynamic from here forward given that this guy has shown his hand that he is willing to derail the whole group to get what he wants. I'm hoping that we have a better handle on how to address it from here on, but I don't want to deal with that again. It was truly and honestly unsettling, and a little infuriating. 

I want to be clear that JR didn't do anything wrong in the setup, in playing the NPC, in being clear about what was happening. He was fully in charge at all times until the guy just derailed the session. 

I don't want to put JR on the spot.

I would like to hear- how would YOU have handled the "derailment"?

[RPG] Where Is Your Safe Place?

This is a rumination borne of several recent posts and (for me) almost-posts.

Do you ever have those? Those situations where you want to post something, but hold off for whatever reason? You know, the "close call"?

I have had a couple in the past few days. I know I'm not the only one- at least one or two of my real life friends have blogs, and I know they have restrained themselves from writing what's "really going on" for fear of hurt feelings or other situations like that.

I'm personally struggling with this sort of situation. I've always intended my blog to be a way to connect with the gaming community, and I work hard to avoid excluding someone because of that. But I also have a strong sense of ownership- it's MY blog, and I'll talk about what *I* want to. If someone doesn't like it, they don't have to read it.

(At least, that's what my 10 year old self argues any time I want to post something that might not go over well.)

That sort of attitude doesn't solve the problem, but it certainly gives you a lot of freedom.

I have to ask myself if I WANT freedom, or if I want the community I am working so hard to build. If my answer is community, then certain things I might post will just not go up. As I said, I'm not the only one with these feelings.

GMs probably experience a little of this- I can imagine it can be hard to dissect a game gone awry online  if any of their players read blogs. It can be tough to talk about preparations, villains, problems or anything "negative" if your players blog or read them frequently.

If you can't say the things that are on your mind because you're worried about upsetting someone, where do you turn? Where do you let off your steam, and let out your frustrations?

What is your safe place?