Don't need any rules

"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules."

― Gary Gygax

That quote is famously tossed around by people who don't understand it exactly the same way that I do. Sometimes its, in fact, misquoted that they don't need any books. Other times, it's interpreted that you don't need rules to play.

I think it's clear that what Gygax meant was that we don't need TSR published official rules, not that we don't need any rules to play. Younger players, and even many older players, either don't know, didn't do it this way, or have forgotten, how DIY the hobby was back in the 70s, and still into the 80s for some time. AD&D attempted, in some ways, to squelch that tendency, but that was partly because tournament D&D was very profitable for TSR in the 70s, and tournament play required regimented and consistent rules.

At home, however, the only thing that the game really requires to be played, is someone who gets the concept. You don't even need the basic rules, although it makes it easier to have a basic ruleset to start from. But if you understand that concept of the fantasy RPG (or any other genre, for that matter), if you've got a GM with a DIY attitude and drive to run a game, then he don't need anything else at all to play other than players.

Realistically, however, I don't think too many people are homebrewing their entire systems anymore. They're probably DIYing off of a base system that they like, either a 5e game, a Pathfinder game, or an OSR game (which is largely going to be based off of B/X or some other "early" version of D&D.) The people that are homebrewing are often selling it, and then people are using those games, i.e., Knave or ShadowDark, etc. So, realistically, 1) you do need rules, although you don't need official rules, you can write your own, and 2) most people aren't going to go to the trouble of writing their own.

What it does mean, though, is that there isn't any need for the various splatbooks or anything beyond the basic core rules. That you truly don't need and never did. Or, seen another way, given the DIY and third party way of doing things, you can buy someone else's rather than WotC's official D&D stuff to use if you want more product to consume. I personally like consuming RPG product. I've got a load of it. I don't care for more rules, though—in fact, I have moved to a DIY rules lite approach, although it's still modified based on someone else's work rather than truly built from scratch. But I like having stuff to read, especially "fluff" books and setting books and monster lists with new ideas for antagonists to potentially use. But I don't need them and never did; I just happen to be able to afford them when I want them, and I (slowly) have gone through reading most of what I've purchased.

This, of course, is a threat to the business model of TSR and later WotC (and Paizo) who aren't in the business of modest profitability by selling core tools and explaining the concepts to gamers, and then helping them proceed with their own DIY gaming going forward. Their business model is MOAR profits by selling stuff that people don't need, but which they enjoy just enough to keep buying it; or at least they feel like there's some benefit from buying it. This even gets to the point where they're trying to convince players that they do need to buy the continuing stream of product to consume, or they're not playing the game right and are at risk of.... being wrong, or something. I dunno. This state of affairs has gone on since at least the later 70s, when Gary Gygax himself said it repeatedly, especially with regards to pushing the abandonment of old D&D and use AD&D instead. So, yeah... it's an old story. Which is why, if Gary actually said the quote attributed to him above, he would have considered it a secret that they didn't really want GMs to understand or know.

So rulebooks can be cool. Fluff books—as far as I'm concerned—can be even cooler. But you don't need any of them. They're unnecessary luxuries. 

I thought of this because of Bob World Builder's newest video. He gets it.

To be fair, I think it's actually how a lot of busier, middle-aged guys participate in the hobby. They don't game nearly as much as they'd like, if at all, so reading products is their link to the hobby, and a way to participate and be a part of it still.

Which is cool. But it means that the industry needs to how and why people buy products if they want to have continual success in selling them. I think that there's been a lot of misunderstanding of that over the decades, including the business model that WotC are clearly trying to launch.

Real numbers from the Ukraine

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/ukraine-opts-more-cowbell-as-desperation-sets/

The last week of November is setting up to be a pivotal week in Ukraine’s futile effort to fend off the Russian military. Russia is clobbering Kiev and other parts of western Ukraine with drone hordes that are wreaking havoc on military depots and electric power nodes. In Kiev, the rift between President Zelensky and General Zaluzhny is widening, with rumors swirling that Zelensky will order a full mobilization of Ukraine that will draft 17 to 70 year old civilians, including women.

To make matters worse General Winter has arrived in full force, lashing Ukraine (and Russia) with winds of more than 90 mph and mountains of snow.

Zelensky’s efforts to hide the staggering losses of Ukrainian troops took a major hit when Ukrainian TV Channel 1+1 reported that the AFU’s casualties so far were 1,126,652 KIAs and MIAs. Andrei Martyanov noted that Zelensky’s office moved quickly to force Channel 1+1 to retract the story, but the damage was done. The horse left the barn. Closing the barn door does not put the horse back in its stall.

Note that that is more losses than the US has suffered in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries combined (so far). Vox Day offered some nice commentary on the statistic: 

Except in that it represents a step toward the world’s eventual acceptance of Russia’s victory over NATO, the slaughter of five percent of the male Ukrainian population isn’t something to celebrate. It is an abomination and an object lesson in the intrinsic danger of a nation permitting itself to be ruled over by foreigners and thereby sacrificed to interests that are not their own.

The staggering death toll should also provide a sobering lesson to the Boomers and others who still believe in the myth of American military supremacy, as it represents more soldiers than are presently on active duty in the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps combined.

I'll add that it goes further than that. The Ukrainians, or at least the Ukrainian government, brought this on themselves, with the collaboration and collusion of and equally foreign US state department and the UK's equivalent. (((We've))) overthrown the democratically elected government of the Ukraine twice since the advent of the 21st century, and allowed the murder of over 14,000 ethnic Russian civilians in the Donbass before Russia, quite patiently, honestly, slow-walked their way to doing something about it once and for all. The poor Ukrainian people have been manipulated by one foreign interest after another, and ultimately put into the meat grinder to keep the gravy train for corrupt foreign technocrats a little longer.

I don't imagine that the Ukrainians are (or were) a particularly righteous people. Like much of the post-Soviet Slavic world, they've been turned into white Lamanites, essentially, in more ways than one; the traditions of their fathers, flawed though they may have been, have been replaced with hedonistic Babelism thanks to the (((Marxist))) indoctrination of generations. But I don't think they deserved what's been done to them. And for foolhardy binary thinkers, as I said, the Russians are hardly to blame (although they're not any more righteous than the Ukrainians, I'd bet, and their leadership isn't exactly anything to write home about either.) The Russians very reluctantly yet inevitably arrived at this point.

No more Game of Thrones

Vox Day is reporting that a CDan rumor that suggests George "Rape Rape" Martin has privately confirmed to friends that he has no intention of finishing his series.

CDAN reports that George RR Martin is not going to finish A SONG OF FIRE AND ICE.

This permanent A list author has told a few close friends that he never intends on finishing a long awaited book series.

It’s no surprise at this point. All authors, sooner or later, lose their literary fastball, usually around the age of 70 or so. Martin is 75, he is in poor health, he has more money than he can reasonably spend in his lifetime, and he has no children, so he has literally nothing to gain from finishing a story that has already been concluded, however unsatisfactorily, in the television format.

He knows that the fans don’t like his intended end to the saga, so what’s the purpose of devoting several of his last remaining years to torturing himself in order to finish a story that he knows the fans will not find satisfying?

As a reader, I completely sympathize with the firestorm of fury that will likely greet the realization that the saga has already been effectively concluded. But as an author, I can’t honestly say that Martin’s rumored decision is not the right one. Martin knows that his latter books in the series don’t live up to the first two, and I have no doubt he’s well aware that what he’s written since will be widely criticized as sub-par. Better not to publish than publish that which can only detract from his respectable literary legacy.

However, fans of the series need not worry overmuch. There is no way his publisher is walking away from a gold mine that is so easily mined, so I expect that after his death, the publisher will convince whoever ends up with the rights to permit the hiring of a writer to finish the series ala Brandon Sanderson and The Wheel of Time. 

Personally, I don't care. Halfway through the first novel, I got too busy to finish, and I never wanted to go back, because—frankly—the book was pretty creepy and suspect. The tone, the gratuitous rape and violence, especially against children, etc. was a major put-off. And given everything, I'm glad that I never got invested in it very much. As a therefore passive and dispassionate outside observer, I think Vox is completely correct to suggest that from Martin's perspective, he really has literally nothing to gain by finishing. (And given how long it's been, I've privately believed for years already that he wasn't going to finish.) He's also correct to observe that readers who are invested are likely to be unhappy, but the possibility of a Brandon Sanderson-esque finish after Martin's death, which could come much sooner than many people think, is probably a much better solution than Martin finishing it himself, honestly. Perhaps ironically, the best result from a fan's perspective is to hope that Martin kicks the bucket sooner rather than later.

Patriotism is a virtue

I haven't had anything meaningful to post, or time to post it, in a little while, but here's an interesting gem from the Z-man's post today, about going to an NFL game in Germany.

I edited it. He's traveling, and probably posting from his phone, so he has a higher than normal occurrence of typos. Plus, I cut some parts out of the selection I'm quoting.

The point of being in Frankfurt was to attend the NFL game. The city has embraced the NFL for some reason, so it is a good place for the league to hold games. There are social clubs all over for the different teams. It is not just a novelty for them. They have taken the time to learn the rules of the game and they now have youth leagues for football. Colleges now come to Germany to scout for players, mostly linemen. Germans feel a strong connection to the United States. There are a lot of Americans in Germany, so it makes sense that the biggest American sport would take root.

Just before the game, they played the American anthem. A female soldier performed it and by the time she was finished it was clear she was getting choked up. That was because the crowd was singing louder than her. It was one of those times when you are reminded that Americans are great people, even if our leaders are the worst people who regularly turn the virtue of patriotism into a vice. Patriotism is a virtue, and your fellow citizens, by and large, are good people.

I like it when the Z-man doesn't get too high on his own black pills and recognizes something good. Sometimes he doesn't do that often enough. Given how evil our leaders have been, it's probably quite fair for us to extend the same courtesy to the peoples of other countries who may not have the best leaders running their shows either. The Germans were, by and large, good people during World War II. General Patton specifically commented on that following the war. The Russians probably are, by and large, good people, even if nobody else is happy with what Russia is doing. The Ukrainians are probably by and large good people, who didn't vote for Zelensky, it should be noted, so his perfidy, corruption and the murder of thousands of ethnic Russians in the Donbas can't fairly be blamed on the Ukrainian nation as a whole. Etc., etc. Sure, sure. There are a lot of wicked people, and a lot of people who are not going to stand up for good behavior. I've quoted this before, and no doubt will again, from 2 Timothy.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

But even so, I find myself feeling sympathy for those led astray, because if it weren't the the manipulation of evil men teaching them to be other than they would be, they would probably be OK, if not necessarily actively righteous. I feel like there's a sense of the West having been taken advantage of because of our niceness, and been taught something other than what we'd otherwise be tended to do, much like the children of the Lamanites. And so I frequently find myself praying that the Lord will be merciful unto my people in spite of their open wickedness, because it's less open rebellion and more having been preyed upon by serial predators and sociopaths in literal league with Satan.

Which reminds me, I even extend that same consideration to the Jews. They've cultivated a tribal supremacist cult that teaches them that they're justified in exploiting the Gentiles for all their worth, but your average Joe Blow Jew on the Street probably doesn't actively hate the West and Christianity, or at least wouldn't if they weren't taught to by sociopathic radicals among their own kind for generations.

Ultimately, I think both the Jews and the Gentiles will be happier when the Jews who refuse to assimilate to America (or the West) go back to Israel where they belong, but that's not because I hate the Jews or the Jews hate me. We just don't mix very well because of incompatible cultural programing. Which is totally OK when peoples can have their own countries and not be gaslit and forced to say stupid things like "Diversity is our strength" because they can set up whatever culture works for them in their own country and practice it to their hearts' content without being meddled with by anyone else from outside.

At least that's the theory.

No session 2 yet

Well, due to a combination of the flu and a weird miscommunication leading to some double booking of the evening, we haven't had our second session yet after all. Sigh. That's what I get for scrambling to think I'd play early; we didn't even play late. 

As of right now, we don't have an alternate plan on the table. My son-in-law is traveling all week for work. I have Friday off, but I'll be busy winterizing the patio in advance of any snow (most likely. I guess we could get surprised.)

I'll make an update once I know more. 

Not even sure why I wrote this post. This is more like a social media post than a blog post. It's one of a few things that's been frustrating me this week (almost everything else is related to work) so there you go, however.