My parents forwarded me the video below, they and a great many of our family friends are Latter Day Saints (Mormons). I couldn’t watch the video and not respond back to them (all of them sending the letter below to about 100+ people who had the video forwarded or CC’d to them. As I get replies from them I’ll post their emails and my responses back. If you don’t understand some of what I’m saying, don’t worry I’m just arguing church doctrine with them, but hopefully there won’t be too much of that
The terrible video:
My Response:
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t watch this and not reply to it. The CA supreme court’s ruling was not a whim, it was a very strict reading of the California and federal constitution. The reasoning of the California Supreme court was the same reasoning behind the Federal Supreme Court’s decision used to strike down the anti inter-racial marriage laws of the 1960’s (more info here).
As we all know “separate but equal” by its very definition is not equal. The Supreme Court decided in 1967, “These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”
furthermore the California constitution specifically states in Article 1 Sec. 8 (b) ” a citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens…” the judges weren’t imperialists they were strictly interpreting the State’s and federal constitutions.
I will not participate in a proposition that denies equal rights under the law to a small subset of people, regardless of how I may personally feel about those people’s actions… In fact I will fight against any such proposition as any act which limits the freedoms and rights of my fellow American, limits my own.
thoughts on cutting out excessive internet consumption
Computers can be such a time-sink. You don’t have any idea how much time you spend in front of the screen until you start documenting it… Think a food journal but for your digital consumption. Have I done this? No, I don’t need to, I already know it’s far too much of my time. I’m thinking of moving all of my writing to an analog system, simply because I can’t overcome the temptation to waste my time looking up random bits of information on wikipedia or metafilter. Worse is the useless task of checking my email or RSS feeds every five to ten minutes. These endless small chores eat away my time until I have none left to do the things I actually want to do!
I thought that working at a desk, in front of a computer for 8 to 10 hours a day would fulfill my need to use the device, but as soon as I get home I flip open the laptop and start it up to see just what has happened in the last 45 minutes. I think I, and those like me, need to admit that we have a problem, an unhealthy obsession with the device and the vast information it serves as a portal to. The constant hovering over my computer in the hopes of catching some small bit of information (99% of the time interesting but useless to me) is keeping me from the deep sources of knowledge, experience, culture, inspiration and wonder that fill my small bedroom. My addiction keeps me from my friends and loved ones, worst of all, it is keeping me from myself. I’ve come to believe that the constant search for “self” is largely driven by a small niche of our consumerist culture (the self-help one that leaves you feeling like someone else or no one at all, and the inability to take responsibility for our actions. I believe that we can improve ourselves but that is a topic for another day though…) Back on topic.
The Internet is a useful means, a great tool, but only one of many that we should use in our daily lives. When it becomes an end, when it only serves to keep us enmeshed in it, it is time to step back and reevaluate what it is we are intending…
Best of all though is that the Internet (and computers) doesn’t provide with anything that can’t be obtained in a more “traditional” way. Friends and family can be contacted with the phone, or better yet, through thoughtful written correspondence. Research can be done at your local city, county, or university library. Games can be played on tables and boards. These slower approaches have been eclipsed by the convenience of the Internet, but at the same time much of the cerebral process, the thoughtfulness of them, has been bypassed as well.
Just a thought anyway… There might be more to it than that, I am going to be moving to a notebook, and not just for idea capture, for writing though. I can’t sit at a the computer without being distracted by the thought of something else going on on-line that I might be missing while I write. This destroys flow terribly.
My last Analog Gaming was about two specific games. This one is going to be a little broader, especially when talking about the “Analog part”. This episode of Analog gaming though is about story and choice.
In traditional literature, you get a great story but no choice, and in the majority of great games you are presented with a lot of choice but very little story (this includes Bioshock, and whatever game happens to be your favorite). The earliest time when listeners/viewers of stories were given more choice in a narrative was probably with ancient poets, who could and did tweak their stories to appeal to their audience; we still do this today around campfires and with friends. Plays allowed us to see the action rather than just imagining it, and it allowed the playwrights and actors to put subtle changes into a story or present it in such a way so that it was new and different to their audiences as well. Always, however, the choice has been limited for the reader and the audience despite the fact that most people dream of being the protagonists of their own adventure narrative. How much more exciting would the Battle of Troy been if you had played a part in it? Would MacBeth had ended as it had if you had been the the young Prince’s confidant and friend?
Quest For Glory: So you Want to be a Hero?
Dungeon and Dragons changed all that! Here was a system that put you and a group of your friends into the role of the heroes of an epic medieval fantasy adventure. The 4th wall had been broken but in reverse. The actors were not acknowledging the audience. Rather the audience was storming the stage, the directors chair, and the writer’s box! Dungeon and Dragons though is a fairly simple system: it’s good at telling an action adventure set in a cliché fantasy world with a story that only serves to string together random raids of dungeons for loot, and that isn’t for everyone. The amazing thing about D&D was that it opened a lot of people’s eyes. It let them see that one could build a system in which story telling could spring free-form out of the audience, and, boy, there were a lot of systems to build.
The best systems didn’t focus so much on monsters and far away places but on characters, people, and the roles they played in their world (regardless of settings), here there was choice, a lot of it. If everyone did their job, the result was a great story that was richer, deeper, meatier than most of what you can find on your bookstore shelves.
Some of these great story, character, and ethic-based RPGs were made by White Wolf. Systems like World of Darkness and Promethean are much more than stepping into a dark fantasy world where you have special powers, but where you also explore morality, pride and the burden of knowledge, mortality and what it means to be human. These systems take common and well-known horror stories and turn them into serious philosophical discussions about the human condition, and these discussions are received from on high by an author or game designer. The story springs organically from the players themselves, guided by a Game Master or Story Teller.
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
Many of the earliest video game makers learned gaming around tables with books stack around them rolling dice. They were veterans of Dungeons & Dragons and several other role playing games. These video game pioneers were trying to recreate their experiences on the PC; games like Ultima and Wizardry were early attempts at this, and Oblivion is one of these games direct descendants. Early on in video games, Japanese and Western developers split on how these games should be made. The Japanese decided to take the numbers, algorithms, and charts found in pen & paper RPGs and ignore the story making part. They took all the busy paperwork of the format but ignored the player’s contribution to the RPG formula. The end result of this were games like Final Fantasy, a series that has not progressed much beyond its initial offering (discounting graphics and more complicated number schemes). JRPGs do not offer the player any control in the story, they are merely along for the ride. JRPGs are much more like movies or novels in that sense, in which the player has no control over where the story goes, and characters develop little. When there is character development, it resembles the author’s intents and desires rather than those of the player. This was not what RPGs were made to do! This is a step backwards from the pen & paper version.
Western RPGs have tried to remain closer to their analog roots, or they were until they became influenced by JRPGs and action-adventure titles. Very few games even tried to capture high ideal of analog RPGs. Sierra On-Line’s and LucasArts’ early adventure titles took the idea of a free roaming environment that pen & paper RPGs had and used it as a location for game protagonists, but the player was restricted by the limiting nature of their computer and the game’s programming. While games like King’s Quest, Space Quest, and Monkey Island promised freedom, players were limited by the games parser and the straitjacketing effects of the storyline.
Pen and paper RPGs are so amazing because the players are free to do and try anything once in the game world, and they are responsible for their actions. There are a few games that tried, they tried and failed but the effort was well worth it. They come close. Sierra On-line’s Quest for Glory series is a a great set of games. It was Sierra’s attempt to combine their traditional adventure games with RPGs. These games succeeded so much so because player’s decisions made a difference in the game. There were entire sub-plots that some players would never see if they didn’t take the time to explore their environment – the Rusalka and Domovoi quests in Quest for Glory 4 are good examples of this. They also are on this list because what you decided to play as changed how you’d solve the puzzles and over obstacles in the game. If you were a fighter you had to think like one, using brute strength to progress. Thieves would have to be crafty, and wizards had to use their spells and arcane knowledge. This is what RPGs allow you to do: slip into a role and explore it. Even today you can pick up a video game RPG, and your class is nothing more than dressing for the character it effects game-play minimally or not at all. (Oblivion is a big offender in this regard, it doesn’t matter what type of character you role, you can beat the game with a sword and shield, and some magic scrolls.) Deus Ex was great game that showed how decisions, ethics, morals can be explored in a video game, and just like QFG, how you played your character determined how you would react to the various puzzles and dilemmas the game presents you.
Dark Heresy
Video games still haven’t been able to live up to their analog ancestors. You can have a lot of fun playing Oblivion, Fallout, or System Shock but eventually your going to find a wall, a limit, imposed not by the world you inhabit, but the programmers and designers of that world, because it is beyond the machines capacity to handle or the games. This is not a problem in analog RPGs; you’re free to ignore the just about everything and do whatever you want in the world, and while doing so explore what it means to be good, or evil, friendship, love, greed, corruption.
I’m involved right now in a Dark Heresy campaign. The game is set in a gothic dark future where technology is magic and there is no hope for human existence. The game’s premise is that you are a government investigator of sorts (think film noir, mystery, and sci-fi put together.) It’s a neat setting but early on into the campaign and our group of people are dealing with fundamental issues of trust, teamwork, success, what it means to be human, insanity, corruption, faith, common decency, and the love of Mankind! None of this is anywhere in the books, or in our Story Tellers notes. They sprang from the players and we’ve been allowed to explore them, it’s been one of the most exciting things philosophical discussions I’ve ever participated in and none of us knew we were even having one!
If you’re interested in any of these RPG systems, just follow the links, they’ll take you to their respective websites. Or if you’re looking for something else in Analog RPGs explore the RPG Shop or head to your local hobby store on a weekend and see if anyone happens to be playing, or ask to see their bulletin board, RPGers are always looking for new recruits!
