One of the things that becomes very clear reading accounts of actual pagan religion, is the fuzzy distinction, if not lack of distinction between pagan gods and the idols that represent them. In traditional OSR games informed by Gygax's aesthetic, clerics and paladins might on paper be worshipers of any number of pagan deities, usually in some henotheistic fashion that still was virtually indistinguishable from Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox structure, hierarchy, and praxis (with little regard for theology). Given that it was rooted in war gaming, and the role of cleric or paladin mechanically was to provide a different way to win at murder hoboing, this is understandable.
Be that as it may, looking at the way actual pagans treated their idea of gods was different. The idea of a god that actually inhabits a sacred grove, or spring, or tree feeds into the idea that an idol set in a temple can also be the literal inhabited body of the god. This has a few interesting implications for gaming priests.
1) The god is present where their idol is. Unlike the Judeo-Christian understanding of God who is spirit and to whom idols are anathema, pagans would carry their shrines and idols with them where they traveled, be these the deified ancestor shrines, or the more general national god shrines. A properly kitted out pagan priest should likely have variable levels of luggage with commensurate degrees of value to performing ritual petitions; a pocket idol for day travel and small petitions, a coffer sized shrine for short journeys for moderate petitions, and a cart sized shrine useful for longer journeys or semi-permanent establishment and more serious petitions.
Mechanically, this should probably be reflected in the power or scope of miracles available to be petitioned by the pagan priest, with larger shrines making for either easier petition, or greater powered miracles, or both.
2) Defeating your enemies in battle makes taking their gods (the idols in their shrines) as booty a particularly prestigious trophy. The logic is that if the enemy lost, then their gods were less powerful than your gods, and thus just as the enemy can be captured (if not killed) their gods too can be enslaved. For instance, in Samuel I and II, and Kings I and II, there are many examples of pagan peoples carrying away the gods of those whom they had vanquished in order to display them as servants at the feet of their larger and more prestigious home idols.
Mechanically, this should probably mean that captured gods (idols) reduce the power or likelihood of petitioned miracles. That is exactly why the cleric has reason to adventure with the thief; somebody has to go rescue those idols. The ramifications of this alone are grist for many possible side adventures if not main adventures.
3) Establishing shrines as nodes of power, and colonizing an area with more of your idols makes a region more potent for your god or gods. It may very well be that pagan priests could develop a sensitivity to the piety of a region, and the power level or the likelihood of petitions being granted, and this would provide a strategic value to the cleric in decision making that did not exist before. This could get especially thorny if the adventurers were in a land of foreign gods and their priests have the edge. The very real value in planning ways to corrupt their priests and desecrate their temples in order to tip the scales is a fantastic way to change the pacing and layers of story in a mission. Again, it makes a really compelling context for the priest to adventure in the company of the rogue who can grift the foreign priest into defiling themselves with drink, forbidden food, or other carnal infractions in order to block their access to the power of the idols, which in turn allows an opening to break the power of their temple.
27 October, 2016
26 October, 2016
An Idea for Refresh with Flashbacks in Fate
I was thinking about a way to make mechanics support fiction with Refresh in Fate. The default position is that refresh is filled at the beginning of a session. I also want to make it a reward to the players to actively include flashbacks and backstory snippets that explain their histories and the world they have bumped up against.
Rather than giving refresh in the default fashion, I propose that when a player calls for a flashback, or has a backstory moment that explains one of their abilities, they get a fate point refresh. This can happen at any time in play, but is limited to the level of the character's refresh for that session.
A flashback should be about a learning experience involving the skill, stunt, or aspect the player wishes to use, but can be either an account of success or failure. Though not required, if it includes a shared experience with another PC, that PC also gets a point of refresh. If another PC is brought into the scene, they should give some input as to their part in the experience. The player of the flashback character should suggest something about the scene, the reason the other character was there, and something about a conflict or challenge presented either to them both, or between them. It is the job of the second player to use the "yes, and..." principle to add to the vignette. This is a good time to include things that the two characters can banter or bicker about.
Furthermore, the flashback need not be (should not be) long, but a vignette, and need not give a whole or complete resolution, so long as it shows a point that was pivotal or meaningful to the character.
So, for example in play, suppose a character is lining up a tough long range shot at an enemy, and the player needs a fate point. They may call for a flashback at that moment. In the flashback, they describe how they were out hunting with their friend (another PC) before their adventuring days. The deer is in the sights, but it is a hard shot, and the character mentions how they were both very tired, hungry, and annoyed with each other by that time. The other player, following the "yes, and..." principle, keys in on the annoyed bit and says in the flashback, "you'll never make the shot." The first player describes how they squeezed on the trigger, breathing out "damned if I don't...". The flashback ends. The GM passes over a fate point to each player.
This is good, since it allows an ambiguous ending to the flashback that gives both players something to work with. The second player can decide that the shot missed, using that moment for their character to say "it's too far. We can't afford for you to miss this one", which invites a response, tense, cocky, or otherwise. Or they may choose the generous route, and offer "good thing you finally learned how to shoot" which still invites a response, whether banter or bickering, such as "yeah... too bad you still haven't". Roll. Spend fate point. Be awesome.
Rather than giving refresh in the default fashion, I propose that when a player calls for a flashback, or has a backstory moment that explains one of their abilities, they get a fate point refresh. This can happen at any time in play, but is limited to the level of the character's refresh for that session.
A flashback should be about a learning experience involving the skill, stunt, or aspect the player wishes to use, but can be either an account of success or failure. Though not required, if it includes a shared experience with another PC, that PC also gets a point of refresh. If another PC is brought into the scene, they should give some input as to their part in the experience. The player of the flashback character should suggest something about the scene, the reason the other character was there, and something about a conflict or challenge presented either to them both, or between them. It is the job of the second player to use the "yes, and..." principle to add to the vignette. This is a good time to include things that the two characters can banter or bicker about.
Furthermore, the flashback need not be (should not be) long, but a vignette, and need not give a whole or complete resolution, so long as it shows a point that was pivotal or meaningful to the character.
So, for example in play, suppose a character is lining up a tough long range shot at an enemy, and the player needs a fate point. They may call for a flashback at that moment. In the flashback, they describe how they were out hunting with their friend (another PC) before their adventuring days. The deer is in the sights, but it is a hard shot, and the character mentions how they were both very tired, hungry, and annoyed with each other by that time. The other player, following the "yes, and..." principle, keys in on the annoyed bit and says in the flashback, "you'll never make the shot." The first player describes how they squeezed on the trigger, breathing out "damned if I don't...". The flashback ends. The GM passes over a fate point to each player.
This is good, since it allows an ambiguous ending to the flashback that gives both players something to work with. The second player can decide that the shot missed, using that moment for their character to say "it's too far. We can't afford for you to miss this one", which invites a response, tense, cocky, or otherwise. Or they may choose the generous route, and offer "good thing you finally learned how to shoot" which still invites a response, whether banter or bickering, such as "yeah... too bad you still haven't". Roll. Spend fate point. Be awesome.
21 October, 2016
Man Against Nature in Fate
In an interesting discussion on G+ Fate Core page, the question of how to "fight the environment" came up. The setting in question is a zombie apocalypse world, and after some discussion, here is my take on a man vs. nature (or un-nature) challenge.
I'm a fan of Zombie fiction like Dawn of the Dead, World War Z (book not movie_) or The Walking Dead not because the zombies are the villain (they are pretty boring for that) but because a zombie apocalypse strips us naked and forces us to confront inexorable death with grace and humanity, or with savagery and terror...
Of course the zombies of the apocalypse are part of the environment, as often as they are directly an opponent, properly done.
Consequences are a mechanic that supports us understanding what the cost of our choices successful or not, is in the fiction. As such, I would argue that the zombies themselves, as a practically endless horde, make consequences a moot issue.
Stress is about the near misses or the things that could have cost us but didn't. It's alternatively a way to pace conflicts, but as a pacing mechanism without consequences or the ability to take out the opposition, is no different than scoring successes in a challenge or a contest. So mechanically, again I would say stress for the zombie horde itself is a moot issue.
It makes more sense to address the horde part of the apocalyptic environment as an obstacle to be overcome, and that you can create advantages on. An advantage you create mechanically may be "Hacking the Horde to Bits" with your chainsaw in the fiction; your Zombies! approach vs. the player's Fight skill. Likewise, PCs can create an advantage like "rickety barricades" with the Twinkie shelf and the ice cream freezer mechanically, which in the fiction prevents you from using your Zombies! approach till you have overcome their barricade. That all works out neatly mechanically with little fuss, and reflects the fiction perfectly. The Brick can still do all the fighty stuff while the Brainiac does the crafty stuff, and it would just be as created advantages mechanically even though in the fiction it would be hacking the zombies to bits with garden tools while the other is fixing the car.
MURRAY'S FULL SERVICE AUTO STATION
Aspects:
Decrepit Zombie-Infested Gas Station
Broken Glass And Debris
Collapsing Veranda Roof
Scene Goal/Murray's: Hinder and Devour the Living
Scene Goal/PCs (Pick One):
Scavenge fuel (3 victories) - Applicable Skills: Notice, Investigate, Survival, Crafts, Drive. Tasks: Find gas can and siphon; find a vehicle with fuel, siphon fuel.
Scavenge a working vehicle (5 victories) - Applicable Skills: Notice, Investigate, Survival, Drive. Tasks: Find vehicle keys; Find matching vehicle; Scavenge Fuel (as above).
Scavenge a part to fix a vehicle (7 victories) - Notice, Investigate, Survival, Crafts, Drive. Tasks: Find needed part; remove broken part; replace part; scavenge fuel (as above).
Zones: Behind the Service Station; In the Service Bays; In the Convenience Store; In Front of The Service Station
Skills/Approaches:
- Zombies! (+4): Can Overcome, Create advantages, Attack, and Defend. The behave like Romero Zombies, slow, mindless, tireless, hungry.
- Hazards (+3): can attack and defend. This is strictly reactive, and cannot create advantages or overcome, but can harm or hinder direct actions by characters who move through, or interact with the environment (other than zombies).
- Notice (+2): Can overcome, discover (CAA), or defend. This assumes the area has active agents to notice things - e.g. the endless hordes of Zombies. You use this to make active agents (zombies) become aware of characters.
- Scarcity (+2): Can create advantages, and overcome. This represents the lack of, or requirement to have to improvise for characters to find the resources they need. You use this defend against character's attempts to find things they need.
Stunts:
- No Straight Paths: Murray's gains a +2 to Defend with Hazards when Heroes move from one Zone to another to Attack.
- Wake The Dead: adds +1 to Zombie! for one scene on a successful create an advantage roll with Notice when and if loud noise, bright lights, or recklessly obvious movement draws attention in Murray's. Yes it starts small, but is open ended as a zombie horde grows. Reckless parties could find themselves in a sea of hungry dead...
- That's Not The Item You're Looking For: Murray's has a +2 to Scarcity when creating the advantage That's Not The Item You're Looking For after the Heroes think they have found the item they were searching for.
Game of Death - an October Challenge Game, Mostly About Punching
http://dcugames.blogspot.com/2016/10/game-of-death-first-draft.html
This is the first completed game for my October challenge. The month is two thirds done, and I have learned that it is very hard business to try to create a game a day. I might try again in a more modest form with a game idea seed a day next time... we'll see.
But here it is, a complete, but simple game. It uses a decreasing resource management mechanic, with two different die resolution mechanics used in a hybrid tandem; a die pool for gaining successes, and a die target number mechanic for determining binary pass/fail success.
Having put it out unplaytested, it is sure to have problems that need to be addressed, but it should be fun (though brutal).
I have about half a dozen other half done ideas to choose from next. Hopefully, I can get the rest out by the end of month!
This is the first completed game for my October challenge. The month is two thirds done, and I have learned that it is very hard business to try to create a game a day. I might try again in a more modest form with a game idea seed a day next time... we'll see.
But here it is, a complete, but simple game. It uses a decreasing resource management mechanic, with two different die resolution mechanics used in a hybrid tandem; a die pool for gaining successes, and a die target number mechanic for determining binary pass/fail success.
Having put it out unplaytested, it is sure to have problems that need to be addressed, but it should be fun (though brutal).
I have about half a dozen other half done ideas to choose from next. Hopefully, I can get the rest out by the end of month!
05 October, 2016
When Consensus Is Wrong...
There are times that a wave of consensus demands that you comply with the latest invented ideology of the day... and in those times it is necessary to refuse to comply.
Truth is not a thing defined by particular men in particular times and places... Truth is that which does not change with time, and defined by something higher than mortal men. Stand with that.
04 October, 2016
Rewards Schemes In Game Psychology
Was reading about a study that measured results of performance based on intrinsic and extrinsic reward schemes HERE.
The short of it is this...
People were relatively happy to solve puzzles for free because of intrinsic motivators.
Adding an external motivator (cash payments) increased how many puzzles they solved. Yay!
Subsequently taking that extrinsic motivator away tanked their motivation and reduced their performance to less than it was originally. Boo!
Offering an external reward and then taking it away is sometimes worse than never offering it in the fist place. It’s something psychologists call “the overjustification effect” and it has been found in various other studies as well.
Whether an external reward will trigger the overjustification effect depends on a few things. The person must be intrinsically motivated to start with, then she must start receiving an external reward that gradually takes center stage in her mind. It also helps if the external reward comes at first as a surprise.
Another factor that’s important is whether the external motivator is seen as controlling and even manipulative rather than simply informational. It matters if a game tells you “Hey you aren’t playing right if you don’t aim for this achievement.” That’s controlling and hurts intrinsic motivation. But if it tells you “Hey, you’ve been doing your thing and that earned you this achievement” that’s informational and should increase intrinsic motivation.
The short of it is this...
People were relatively happy to solve puzzles for free because of intrinsic motivators.
Adding an external motivator (cash payments) increased how many puzzles they solved. Yay!
Subsequently taking that extrinsic motivator away tanked their motivation and reduced their performance to less than it was originally. Boo!
Offering an external reward and then taking it away is sometimes worse than never offering it in the fist place. It’s something psychologists call “the overjustification effect” and it has been found in various other studies as well.
Whether an external reward will trigger the overjustification effect depends on a few things. The person must be intrinsically motivated to start with, then she must start receiving an external reward that gradually takes center stage in her mind. It also helps if the external reward comes at first as a surprise.
Another factor that’s important is whether the external motivator is seen as controlling and even manipulative rather than simply informational. It matters if a game tells you “Hey you aren’t playing right if you don’t aim for this achievement.” That’s controlling and hurts intrinsic motivation. But if it tells you “Hey, you’ve been doing your thing and that earned you this achievement” that’s informational and should increase intrinsic motivation.
October Challenge... Harder Than I Thought
SO, I set a challenge for myself on the 1st to write a game a day just as a brute force method of priming the creative pump.
It used to be so easy... alas!
But as I look at it, I have had the second thought that there are 24 hour RPG challenges (like THIS for instance) that are described as a designer's triathlon meant to push the limits of creativity in design, fiction, and layout, and these only happen once a year.
And I blithely thought I would do 31 in a row.
SO I have decided to be a bit more modest in my plans, as one of the designs I spent some hours with this weekend past kept bogging me down with the perfection monster. As such, I will strive not to be concerned if there is a complete game per se every day, so much as a vignette of a game. I suppose that much of what I will expect would count as a subsystem of a game.
But, there it is... Art and Fear... quality comes out of quantity.
It used to be so easy... alas!
But as I look at it, I have had the second thought that there are 24 hour RPG challenges (like THIS for instance) that are described as a designer's triathlon meant to push the limits of creativity in design, fiction, and layout, and these only happen once a year.
And I blithely thought I would do 31 in a row.
SO I have decided to be a bit more modest in my plans, as one of the designs I spent some hours with this weekend past kept bogging me down with the perfection monster. As such, I will strive not to be concerned if there is a complete game per se every day, so much as a vignette of a game. I suppose that much of what I will expect would count as a subsystem of a game.
But, there it is... Art and Fear... quality comes out of quantity.
01 October, 2016
Art And Fear
Some years back, I read the book The Artist's Way, which is a program for creativity through writing discipline. It was useful to me a couple run throughs, and one of the key points is that creativity comes from the discipline of just writing... good or bad... every day.
I read Art and Fear more recently, and the authors related a story about a college art class in which the professor split the students into two groups. The first he would grade on one project alone for the whole semester, but it had to be completely perfect in every way. The other group he graded solely on quantity; they had to produce something every day, even if it turned out terrible. What the professor found is that even though the second group produced a lot of crap, they also produced as a group, the best work by the end of the semester, even though the other group was expected to.
That is something that I find helpful if I can hold on to it.
I am going to try to set a challenge for myself with that idea in mind.
It is October.
For this month, my goal is to try to write a mini game every day. I will give myself the leeway to go back to previous games or previous ideas and re-skin them, or re-imagine them if something really interesting comes to mind, but the point is to try by virtue of quantity, to find something good in the lot... to capture creative inspiration hiding in the clutter.
We'll see how this goes!
I read Art and Fear more recently, and the authors related a story about a college art class in which the professor split the students into two groups. The first he would grade on one project alone for the whole semester, but it had to be completely perfect in every way. The other group he graded solely on quantity; they had to produce something every day, even if it turned out terrible. What the professor found is that even though the second group produced a lot of crap, they also produced as a group, the best work by the end of the semester, even though the other group was expected to.
That is something that I find helpful if I can hold on to it.
I am going to try to set a challenge for myself with that idea in mind.
It is October.
For this month, my goal is to try to write a mini game every day. I will give myself the leeway to go back to previous games or previous ideas and re-skin them, or re-imagine them if something really interesting comes to mind, but the point is to try by virtue of quantity, to find something good in the lot... to capture creative inspiration hiding in the clutter.
We'll see how this goes!
28 September, 2016
Action Pacing In Play
I really find long action scenes in play, to be tedious. By which I mean, against a real clock by a real table in real life, and where a play session may only allow as much time playing as the time to watch a movie or two or a few binge episodes of some TV show... I don't want action to take more than the same five or ten minutes (at most) of those action scenes.
OK, so give a little extra room for verbal description, but really, the days in which a set-piece action scene takes two hours is just too long.
Gen Y and Millenials do a lot more gaming online in whatever, and lots of indie gamers do youtube play sessions to which they refer in discussion posts. I really have only watched Wil Wheaton's Table Top episodes before, and they are genuinely entertaining, largely because of the magic of editing. I decided to look at a youtube play session by one of the big names associated with Fate the other day. I really like this guy's thoughtful essays on game play and game design, but I couldn't get through more than 10 minutes of his action scene, due to the pacing.
Now much like golf or tennis, playing is more interesting than watching. But from that, I have several thoughts.
One of the attractive things is the open, free-form narrative nature of action. I love that. Codified formally as overcome or create advantage actions (and attack and defend), you can do everything that is otherwise made in really crunchy lists in, for instance, traditional D&D. But I don't want to have to memorize lists, I just want to do whatever I can think of in context of the moment, and then want to forget it mechanically. My favorite action scene in a game ever, was a fight in which I was mechanically outclassed by two opponents, and alone. I had to think of creative ways to use my environment to tip the scales in my favor, which the rules did not explicitly address, but the GM was flexible and we made a great Jackie Chan kind of action scene. Fate, with create advantage actions and aspects has this baked into the mechanics.
The problem arises when the rules are stated naked on top of the narrative. Looking at the video play session, I see the thing that I want to avoid. I think that he was doing this partly to demo and explain the mechanics, but I want a more seamless way to get past having to state "that sounds like you are being Forceful", or "that sounds like a a create an advantage". Furthermore, it occurs to me that one thing that seems to be done in Fate games, is overtly making a logistical issue of writing out the aspects on a card, when in more traditional games such things are stated and otherwise just tracked and forgotten as required. This is related to the same problem I have with the whole multiple die rolling resolution in whatever game, which is to say that it breaks rhythm and thus drags out pacing.
I don't know how any of the core designers of Fate play at their tables, but other designers have put forward other alternatives like Jadepunk's quick duels method which is essentially a contest rather than a conflict mechanic. However, Lenny Balsera did make this observation on the Fate G+ forum:
The most important of those is, having the GM roll dice actively increases the swinginess of a conflict scene, which a lot of people perceive as a feature. Having your opponent always present a static difficulty reduces a lot of the variability from round to round, makes outcomes and fate point spending more predictable, etc. So that's basically the trade you make there, added chaos and added handling time vs. less chaos and less handling time. My preference is, if we're gonna agree to engage a system specific to having conflicts, to push in the direction of more chaos.
Also, having the GM roll actively engages the GM in the same kind of economy management stuff as the players, and forces some of the same prioritization, and I think that tension is an important one in Fate play. There's more of a sense of being an equal participant—as the GM, you also have a limited number of FPs, and depending on how your rolls go, you're gonna have to make some decisions. How important is that opponent, really? Should I concede now and take my licks to build resources for the next scene? Etc.
The most important of those is, having the GM roll dice actively increases the swinginess of a conflict scene, which a lot of people perceive as a feature. Having your opponent always present a static difficulty reduces a lot of the variability from round to round, makes outcomes and fate point spending more predictable, etc. So that's basically the trade you make there, added chaos and added handling time vs. less chaos and less handling time. My preference is, if we're gonna agree to engage a system specific to having conflicts, to push in the direction of more chaos.
Also, having the GM roll actively engages the GM in the same kind of economy management stuff as the players, and forces some of the same prioritization, and I think that tension is an important one in Fate play. There's more of a sense of being an equal participant—as the GM, you also have a limited number of FPs, and depending on how your rolls go, you're gonna have to make some decisions. How important is that opponent, really? Should I concede now and take my licks to build resources for the next scene? Etc.
Which is interesting. The important elements are 1) the swingy uncertainty of contested die rolls vs. a less swingy single roll bell curve; 2) the chaos of more rolls and thus more chances for a missed success; 3) the more active competition of the fate point economy on both the GM and player side. The cost of doing business this way, is more time on the play session clock.
So this equation is essentially: Uncertainty + Chaos + Balanced Competition = Fun (vis a vis Fate conflicts).
It seems to me that perhaps if the thrill of uncertainty, and the illusion of chaos (or a different kind of chaos), and the balanced competitive element can be mixed, perhaps by reducing the second, time on the clock can be reduced by simplifying mechanics.
...hmmm... how then to change the chaos, and yet reduce the mechanics?...
More precisely, how to shift the mechanics to some kind that does not actually require stopping in real time to manage the mechanical transaction in order to preserve the conversational narrative pace?
How can you get the chaos and pacing of say, the card game War, or Pit, or at very least Mau?
So this equation is essentially: Uncertainty + Chaos + Balanced Competition = Fun (vis a vis Fate conflicts).
It seems to me that perhaps if the thrill of uncertainty, and the illusion of chaos (or a different kind of chaos), and the balanced competitive element can be mixed, perhaps by reducing the second, time on the clock can be reduced by simplifying mechanics.
...hmmm... how then to change the chaos, and yet reduce the mechanics?...
More precisely, how to shift the mechanics to some kind that does not actually require stopping in real time to manage the mechanical transaction in order to preserve the conversational narrative pace?
How can you get the chaos and pacing of say, the card game War, or Pit, or at very least Mau?
25 September, 2016
Is An Unexamined Thought Worth Endorsing?
I have a very conflicted view on the value of social media for a number of reasons, but one is that so much of human communication is only apprehended through non-verbal means making about 70% of the message lost when received by text alone. Another, is that there is so much more of it, that such communication becomes careless either by the sender or the receiver, or both. The quantity of data consumed by social media users had further become as much about sifting signal from noise, and thus actually thinking critically about a message is often lost on knee-jerk reactions, categorizing the message, and thus for expedience also all further messages from that sender, and then the sender themselves as noise. We discard thought and people for convenience. So while I see the value of not embracing Ludite conservatism, I also am continuously reminded of how poor so much social media communication can be.
Case in point... I discovered recently the page of a game designer who makes some of the coolest games in my collection. I love his stuff. But I made the mistake of commenting on one of his posts that had nothing to do with his games and was instead about an issue that he felt very sincere about, with which I happened to disagree. Being neither rude or aggressive, I merely questioned his assumptions in a polite and reasoned fashion, asking what his criteria were for his point of view. I was rebuffed instead with the statement that that was not an issue he wished to address.
The next post on his page was about this exchange with what I think he believes to be adequate evidence to prove his point. Here is what he said (italic) and my thoughts on his follow-up:
Today someone told me that they didn't believe in privilege.
What I actually did was question his assumptions about what it means vis a vis an assertion of offense he made about a game design. "Privilage" as it was used by him is a term with particular meaning in intersectional social/political theory. I know very well what intersectionalism states to be true, I have studied the philosophy underlying it, I frequently read intersectional media for insight, and I still happen to think that it is philosophically flawed at the very foundation. More on this below...
He continues:
Today, on a day when an unarmed black man waiting by his broken-down car was gunned down, murdered by police who were supposed to help him, to protect him.
This is a statement of some of the facts, and a misstatement of others in the Terence Crutcher shooting in Tulsa. Before addressing them in turn, the first big problem is that this poster quickly judged the situation without all the facts or context, and demonstrated a prejudicial preference that privileges the intersectional narrative over all others. Further facts not mentioned are these:
1) Officer Betty Shelby was en route responding to a domestic violence call when she happened upon Crutcher, not in his vehicle which was stopped in the middle of the two lane road.
2) There were some number of 911 calls just before that by people reporting Crutcher's erratic behavior, shouting that among other things his SUV was going to explode.
3) His behavior was assessed by officer Shelby as being consistent with the erratic behavior of someone on PCP (she did not know a the time but a vial was found in the SUV).
4) Crutcher was non-compliant with the demands of the officer, who then called in backup.
5) When Crutcher approached his SUV while refusing to comply with several officers, Shelby claimed she shot because he was attempting to reach inside the vehicle after having been reaching in his pockets before.
6) Video footage appears to show that at least the driver's window was closed, and possibly the rear window as well.
So without prejudiced conclusions, we can judge in light of the facts that the officer did have reason to be more suspicious of the motorist based on his behavior than usual, prompting a reasonable amount of caution which merely continued to escalate, based still on his behavior. We can also conclude that there was insufficient evidence to warrant deadly force, especially in light of the fact that one of the other officers had drawn a taser rather than a firearm, which she could have also done.
The poster also failed to note that the officer has been suspended from duty, and charged with the felony of first degree manslaughter. He also did not note that this was in the same town that a deputy that was allegedly insufficiently trained for the job was also convicted with felony manslaughter for the shooting of Eric Harris. These facts suggest if anything, that the overall tone of law enforcement in Tulsa is not institutionally racially biased against black men in Tulsa, is not protecting wicked officers, but is actually pro justice in their actions. We may speculate that there are some training issues that need addressed. The poster used the term murder rather than manslaughter, I suspect in haste. It does not prove that he is willfully deceptive, but suggests at least a moment of lazy research in his attempt to offer support for the intersectional view that he feels passionately about; but it is not excusable if his goal really is justice rather than self serving political outrage. More on this below...
Today, the day after the Republican candidate's son tweeted out a white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee meme.
This has nothing to do with Tulsa, or with police issues in general and the questionable intersectional assertion that there is an institutional oppressive bias by police (especially white police) against black men in America. It does not bring any actual salient facts on the Tulsa issue he used as an example, it ignores or is oblivious to such facts as the research that shows statistically, white police are far less likely to shoot black suspects than Hispanic or black officers are.
But if we assume this is an attempt to provide another piece of anecdotal evidence to bolster the assertion of validity of his intersectional view, I would have to point out that the meme in question is the Skittles meme, which mostly does not support what the poster asserts it does. The meme text states, "If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem." The poster asserts that this is white supremacist. There is no evidence of this. While the color of the Skittles in the bowl invite a snarky response, there is in fact no assertion in the meme of a preference of any kind to any race. The poster further asserts that the meme is anti-immigrant. Again, there is no statement whatsoever about immigrants in the meme, and if we reasonably assume that it is supposed to follow Trump's stated policy view on immigration, he has generally stated that he supports immigration from anywhere as long as the immigrants are vetted for security, and do so legally. Trump does say a lot of other wacky things (oh, so many!), some of which he has changed his mind on, but this is a pretty consistent policy position in a pretty sparse field of stated policy positions. The poster finally states that this is anti-refugee. To some degree it is. However, in context with everything else Trump has actually said, he has further noted that he wants all refugees to be vetted before being allowed to come onto our soil. This position is predicated on the fact that:
1) there are a good many documented posts by terrorist organizations that they are actively seeking to insert agents onto American soil under guise of refugees from Syria, and
2) it is well known that there are multiple terrorist organizations who actively seek to harm Americans, and American interests that have received support from incompetent administration channels operating in Syria.
There is a credible threat from Syria to America, even if the choice of metaphor by Trump Jr. was grossly clumsy (and it was). But a clumsy meme does not actually prove any institutional oppression or privilege vis a vis intersectional theory... only that the analysis was clumsy, or that it was dumbed down into a straw man argument, and that some people took it seriously anyway.
I read articles like this one and I think, "How can anyone living today be paying the least bit of attention to the world and believe that privilege is imaginary?"
Because articles cited as such are very poor evidence of the validity of intersectional theory. One can believe that prejudice does occur in America (I certainly do), that oppression happens among humans (it most definitely does), and privilege exists in human societies (without doubt). One can well believe these things and still not believe that intersectional theory accurately understands any of them (I assert it does not) even if I am actually willing to respect the people who hold the views as I challenge the idea to be discussed. I just happen to find that my invitations, no matter how humble or polite, are dismissed. My experience has been either that the supporters of intersectional thinking actually want to avoid genuine discussion in favor of incredulity or outrage that fits their view, or (sadly) unproductive agreement that intersectionalism is just liberal whining, which may or may not be true, but is ultimately ad hominem and not helpful.
Football players taking a knee during the playing of a song are raked through the coals, vilified and lambasted, while police murder black men and routinely get away with it. That's privilege at work.
In the first case, while I might think Kaepernik is a twit for doing what he is (I do) I and his critics
1) also have a right to freedom of expression every bit as much as he does, and
2) predicate the opinion on the proposition that he is applying his expression with poorly thought out assumptions, and
3) am not advocating that he and members of his organization or race should be killed.
Furthermore, the poster seems to again be lazy in
1) his understanding or his use of the assertion of murder (vs. manslaughter), and
2) his misunderstanding or prevarication of the fact that officers who actually did commit a criminal breach of trust and authority have been punished.
It's time to start fixing our broken country, friends. And we can't do it with our eyes closed.
I respectfully agree with the poster on this. I likewise respectfully disagree with his diagnosis of the problem, because I question who actually has their eyes more open to the situation. Furthermore, while I am fully persuaded that he is sincere in his feelings that something is wrong, I am disturbed by what appears to be a disinterest in admitting that perhaps, just maybe, he might possibly have not grasped the situation as fully as he seems to assume, nor does he seem to feel that anyone with a challenging opinion could possibly have anything legitimate to offer to the discussion. He suggests that he has his eyes open, and that those who challenge his view do not. Where is his evidence though? I see a pretty thin thread to hang his assertion on, which I to date, have found overwhelmingly typical of intersectional doctrine...
Edit: this subject is important to me, and I take it very seriously. If you want to chime in with a clever, pithy remark, consider that doing so isn't helpful. I will delete such comments. If you want to tell me how privilege isn't real and that all this social justice malarkey is overblown, know that I consider such remarks to be actively harmful and I do not feel an obligation to give you a space to say such things. I will delete these comments too.
...and there you go, my friends. Not only does he not want to critically examine the evidence he offers, but he does not want to examine any evidence anyone else offers that does not fit his view. He is so committed to the view, that any discussion is by default assumed to be harmful and will be summarily censored. I get the principle of not feeding trolls, but I was not trolling. I did bring up the question on his public space, which I could have predicted to end thus, but gave benefit of the doubt because he is otherwise an intelligent and creative fellow from the small window I've seen through his game design discussions. Politics make people often commit to lazy thinking and bad ideas though...
It does bother me that the intersectional assumption automatically demands that I either agree, or else prove myself actively committed to oppression, racism, sexism, bigotry, and phobia; that I cannot possibly take the issues of policing, or community violence seriously or reasonably; that I can summarily be judged to be wicked because I differ on the analysis of the problem. This is bothersome further because it seems to be a view held by so many of the designers that I think are really cool and creative, who I'd love to have thoughtful creative discussions with. But I suspect, based on a pattern of behavior from some of the most forward who adhere to that view, I likely won't be allowed the opportunity because I am in the "other" camp... that group that the intersectional community is quick to accuse of the sin of "othering" others based on biases and unreasonable prejudice, yet hypocritically is so quick to condemn without bothering to even listen.
The very framework, the foundation, the skeleton of intersectional thinking, is at the end of the day, nothing more than one big, often narcissistic genetic fallacy. It serves to exacerbate grievance against others, but offers little of value to critically examine a problem, bridge the gap, and certainly not offer forgiveness and reconciliation. Considering the godless roots, it is not surprising. The cause is always more valuable than people there. Facts and respect for persons are of little consequence under this worldview. How much is lost because of that?
Privilege in the dictionary sense obviously exists in the world. It is practiced in every way possible by every human on the planet. Privilege, oppression, phobia, bigot... all of these have actual meanings, and the actual meanings are at every turn ignored and twisted by intersectional theory. The problem we have is in determining the rational criteria by which we decide that a thing is actually fair or unfair, cruel and excessive, illogically pathologically fearful, or unfairly hateful. Asking this question is flipping on the light switch at threats of the bogey man... committed intersectionalists in my experience almost always prefer the bogey man, and all too often rejoin with ad hominem attacks on the person questioning without first understanding the questioner's assumptions. This does nothing productive to solving real problems of fairness or equality toward persons.
I have a problem with that too.
Case in point... I discovered recently the page of a game designer who makes some of the coolest games in my collection. I love his stuff. But I made the mistake of commenting on one of his posts that had nothing to do with his games and was instead about an issue that he felt very sincere about, with which I happened to disagree. Being neither rude or aggressive, I merely questioned his assumptions in a polite and reasoned fashion, asking what his criteria were for his point of view. I was rebuffed instead with the statement that that was not an issue he wished to address.
The next post on his page was about this exchange with what I think he believes to be adequate evidence to prove his point. Here is what he said (italic) and my thoughts on his follow-up:
Today someone told me that they didn't believe in privilege.
What I actually did was question his assumptions about what it means vis a vis an assertion of offense he made about a game design. "Privilage" as it was used by him is a term with particular meaning in intersectional social/political theory. I know very well what intersectionalism states to be true, I have studied the philosophy underlying it, I frequently read intersectional media for insight, and I still happen to think that it is philosophically flawed at the very foundation. More on this below...
He continues:
Today, on a day when an unarmed black man waiting by his broken-down car was gunned down, murdered by police who were supposed to help him, to protect him.
This is a statement of some of the facts, and a misstatement of others in the Terence Crutcher shooting in Tulsa. Before addressing them in turn, the first big problem is that this poster quickly judged the situation without all the facts or context, and demonstrated a prejudicial preference that privileges the intersectional narrative over all others. Further facts not mentioned are these:
1) Officer Betty Shelby was en route responding to a domestic violence call when she happened upon Crutcher, not in his vehicle which was stopped in the middle of the two lane road.
2) There were some number of 911 calls just before that by people reporting Crutcher's erratic behavior, shouting that among other things his SUV was going to explode.
3) His behavior was assessed by officer Shelby as being consistent with the erratic behavior of someone on PCP (she did not know a the time but a vial was found in the SUV).
4) Crutcher was non-compliant with the demands of the officer, who then called in backup.
5) When Crutcher approached his SUV while refusing to comply with several officers, Shelby claimed she shot because he was attempting to reach inside the vehicle after having been reaching in his pockets before.
6) Video footage appears to show that at least the driver's window was closed, and possibly the rear window as well.
So without prejudiced conclusions, we can judge in light of the facts that the officer did have reason to be more suspicious of the motorist based on his behavior than usual, prompting a reasonable amount of caution which merely continued to escalate, based still on his behavior. We can also conclude that there was insufficient evidence to warrant deadly force, especially in light of the fact that one of the other officers had drawn a taser rather than a firearm, which she could have also done.
The poster also failed to note that the officer has been suspended from duty, and charged with the felony of first degree manslaughter. He also did not note that this was in the same town that a deputy that was allegedly insufficiently trained for the job was also convicted with felony manslaughter for the shooting of Eric Harris. These facts suggest if anything, that the overall tone of law enforcement in Tulsa is not institutionally racially biased against black men in Tulsa, is not protecting wicked officers, but is actually pro justice in their actions. We may speculate that there are some training issues that need addressed. The poster used the term murder rather than manslaughter, I suspect in haste. It does not prove that he is willfully deceptive, but suggests at least a moment of lazy research in his attempt to offer support for the intersectional view that he feels passionately about; but it is not excusable if his goal really is justice rather than self serving political outrage. More on this below...
Today, the day after the Republican candidate's son tweeted out a white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee meme.
This has nothing to do with Tulsa, or with police issues in general and the questionable intersectional assertion that there is an institutional oppressive bias by police (especially white police) against black men in America. It does not bring any actual salient facts on the Tulsa issue he used as an example, it ignores or is oblivious to such facts as the research that shows statistically, white police are far less likely to shoot black suspects than Hispanic or black officers are.
But if we assume this is an attempt to provide another piece of anecdotal evidence to bolster the assertion of validity of his intersectional view, I would have to point out that the meme in question is the Skittles meme, which mostly does not support what the poster asserts it does. The meme text states, "If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem." The poster asserts that this is white supremacist. There is no evidence of this. While the color of the Skittles in the bowl invite a snarky response, there is in fact no assertion in the meme of a preference of any kind to any race. The poster further asserts that the meme is anti-immigrant. Again, there is no statement whatsoever about immigrants in the meme, and if we reasonably assume that it is supposed to follow Trump's stated policy view on immigration, he has generally stated that he supports immigration from anywhere as long as the immigrants are vetted for security, and do so legally. Trump does say a lot of other wacky things (oh, so many!), some of which he has changed his mind on, but this is a pretty consistent policy position in a pretty sparse field of stated policy positions. The poster finally states that this is anti-refugee. To some degree it is. However, in context with everything else Trump has actually said, he has further noted that he wants all refugees to be vetted before being allowed to come onto our soil. This position is predicated on the fact that:
1) there are a good many documented posts by terrorist organizations that they are actively seeking to insert agents onto American soil under guise of refugees from Syria, and
2) it is well known that there are multiple terrorist organizations who actively seek to harm Americans, and American interests that have received support from incompetent administration channels operating in Syria.
There is a credible threat from Syria to America, even if the choice of metaphor by Trump Jr. was grossly clumsy (and it was). But a clumsy meme does not actually prove any institutional oppression or privilege vis a vis intersectional theory... only that the analysis was clumsy, or that it was dumbed down into a straw man argument, and that some people took it seriously anyway.
I read articles like this one and I think, "How can anyone living today be paying the least bit of attention to the world and believe that privilege is imaginary?"
Because articles cited as such are very poor evidence of the validity of intersectional theory. One can believe that prejudice does occur in America (I certainly do), that oppression happens among humans (it most definitely does), and privilege exists in human societies (without doubt). One can well believe these things and still not believe that intersectional theory accurately understands any of them (I assert it does not) even if I am actually willing to respect the people who hold the views as I challenge the idea to be discussed. I just happen to find that my invitations, no matter how humble or polite, are dismissed. My experience has been either that the supporters of intersectional thinking actually want to avoid genuine discussion in favor of incredulity or outrage that fits their view, or (sadly) unproductive agreement that intersectionalism is just liberal whining, which may or may not be true, but is ultimately ad hominem and not helpful.
Football players taking a knee during the playing of a song are raked through the coals, vilified and lambasted, while police murder black men and routinely get away with it. That's privilege at work.
In the first case, while I might think Kaepernik is a twit for doing what he is (I do) I and his critics
1) also have a right to freedom of expression every bit as much as he does, and
2) predicate the opinion on the proposition that he is applying his expression with poorly thought out assumptions, and
3) am not advocating that he and members of his organization or race should be killed.
Furthermore, the poster seems to again be lazy in
1) his understanding or his use of the assertion of murder (vs. manslaughter), and
2) his misunderstanding or prevarication of the fact that officers who actually did commit a criminal breach of trust and authority have been punished.
It's time to start fixing our broken country, friends. And we can't do it with our eyes closed.
I respectfully agree with the poster on this. I likewise respectfully disagree with his diagnosis of the problem, because I question who actually has their eyes more open to the situation. Furthermore, while I am fully persuaded that he is sincere in his feelings that something is wrong, I am disturbed by what appears to be a disinterest in admitting that perhaps, just maybe, he might possibly have not grasped the situation as fully as he seems to assume, nor does he seem to feel that anyone with a challenging opinion could possibly have anything legitimate to offer to the discussion. He suggests that he has his eyes open, and that those who challenge his view do not. Where is his evidence though? I see a pretty thin thread to hang his assertion on, which I to date, have found overwhelmingly typical of intersectional doctrine...
Edit: this subject is important to me, and I take it very seriously. If you want to chime in with a clever, pithy remark, consider that doing so isn't helpful. I will delete such comments. If you want to tell me how privilege isn't real and that all this social justice malarkey is overblown, know that I consider such remarks to be actively harmful and I do not feel an obligation to give you a space to say such things. I will delete these comments too.
...and there you go, my friends. Not only does he not want to critically examine the evidence he offers, but he does not want to examine any evidence anyone else offers that does not fit his view. He is so committed to the view, that any discussion is by default assumed to be harmful and will be summarily censored. I get the principle of not feeding trolls, but I was not trolling. I did bring up the question on his public space, which I could have predicted to end thus, but gave benefit of the doubt because he is otherwise an intelligent and creative fellow from the small window I've seen through his game design discussions. Politics make people often commit to lazy thinking and bad ideas though...
It does bother me that the intersectional assumption automatically demands that I either agree, or else prove myself actively committed to oppression, racism, sexism, bigotry, and phobia; that I cannot possibly take the issues of policing, or community violence seriously or reasonably; that I can summarily be judged to be wicked because I differ on the analysis of the problem. This is bothersome further because it seems to be a view held by so many of the designers that I think are really cool and creative, who I'd love to have thoughtful creative discussions with. But I suspect, based on a pattern of behavior from some of the most forward who adhere to that view, I likely won't be allowed the opportunity because I am in the "other" camp... that group that the intersectional community is quick to accuse of the sin of "othering" others based on biases and unreasonable prejudice, yet hypocritically is so quick to condemn without bothering to even listen.
The very framework, the foundation, the skeleton of intersectional thinking, is at the end of the day, nothing more than one big, often narcissistic genetic fallacy. It serves to exacerbate grievance against others, but offers little of value to critically examine a problem, bridge the gap, and certainly not offer forgiveness and reconciliation. Considering the godless roots, it is not surprising. The cause is always more valuable than people there. Facts and respect for persons are of little consequence under this worldview. How much is lost because of that?
Privilege in the dictionary sense obviously exists in the world. It is practiced in every way possible by every human on the planet. Privilege, oppression, phobia, bigot... all of these have actual meanings, and the actual meanings are at every turn ignored and twisted by intersectional theory. The problem we have is in determining the rational criteria by which we decide that a thing is actually fair or unfair, cruel and excessive, illogically pathologically fearful, or unfairly hateful. Asking this question is flipping on the light switch at threats of the bogey man... committed intersectionalists in my experience almost always prefer the bogey man, and all too often rejoin with ad hominem attacks on the person questioning without first understanding the questioner's assumptions. This does nothing productive to solving real problems of fairness or equality toward persons.
I have a problem with that too.
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