Words in the head
In one of the Discworld books, Pratchett addresses the idea of golems and the words in their heads that make them alive. He also draws a fairly skillful comparison between the literal words on scrolls that the golems have and the power of rhetoric within a group. (The book I'm referencing is called Feet of Clay).
I am beginning to suspect that I have too many words in my head. I have already suspected that many of us do, thanks to the ease of checking other people's thoughts, views, and progress constantly.
Not only that, but the words in my head are not all mine - not by a long shot.
There were a couple things posted by other people (as it happens) that brought this into relief for me.
- One was an essay from Elizabeth Bear about how she generally writes about 4 pages a day on her books. And while that's a fair bit, it's not outside the reach of people who aren't yet professional writers.
- The other was one of the people I actually like on the SA TradGames subforum deliberately banning himself and explaining that the time spent on SA could be better spent elsewhere.
So I am thinking about taking a break from SA. Maybe Facebook, too. I enjoy twitter and google plus more than those, but may cut back on them a bit too.
Why?
I've got some great leads on stuff from SA that I never would have heard about otherwise. I've learned a lot of stuff, too. Without SA, I never would've heard about some of my favorite stuff - things like Mushishi, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Double Cross, Last Stand, or Inverse World. I wouldn't have started listening to Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff or picked up Dark Souls.
But.
I've got more stuff, mentally and physically, than I really know what to do with. At this exact point, I don't really need much more. There isn't much in the way of Kickstarters that I'm looking forward to (or need to back) this year, and the ones I am interested in (Delta Green RPG) will be advertised on KaRTAS, for sure.
I don't see it as a requirement to finish every game I have before buying a new one (otherwise I would never, ever buy jRPGs) but I am pretty well stocked. It's more time to sit back and make some progress on the backlog.
So that's part of the reason. The other is that, SA was a nice distraction when I didn't have my own games going on. But now I do, and Pirates is the best campaign I've run. I find it pretty compelling and I already had an idea for a potential follow-up game. I enjoy working on prep for my games. I even enjoy going through some of the games I haven't run yet (but would like to) and figuring out the best way to make references and introduce them to new people.
(I did some of this last night with Double Cross. I don't fully understand the Power system yet, but it has the clean organization of 4e without the paralyzing depth of content and feats. Anyways, it's a little bit soothing to copy powers into spreadsheets.)
The other reason is perhaps optimistic, but we'll see. The idea is that, by removing some of the external words, I will find more of my own. I already feel something of a compulsion to write (see: almost ten years of livejournal entries, many of which are quite long) but rather than rambling about RPG systems and the relative merits of animes I can get started on some of my own stories.
It's quite possible that I won't be able to live up to this goal, but I want to try it.
Anyways, on the note of other things, we (by which I mean me, playing) finished Amnesia: a Machine for Pigs. I would rate the game as good. It was more consistent than the first game, but also a bit in love with its own cleverness. The writing was quite good, but at times deliberately obfuscated what was already a confusing plot.
Several scenes were lovingly described but would have been much more powerful to well, play through.
I don't mind the shorter length or lack of the more involved puzzles from the first game, but I found the very last section of the game quite baffling in its implications. Only a few of the puzzles from the first game were both fun and challenging; many were kind of tedious exercises in banging stuff together. The engine's not really ideal for item manipulation.
So I recommend the game, but with reservations. It had some scary and atmospheric moments, but nothing quite compared to the honest, deep-seated dread that I felt about the monsters in the first game.
Dunno what to play next. Getting close to burnout on Animal Crossing, yet I must not fall behind in the house race to my former communist neighbor.
I've been trying quite hard to make this a good, productive week, but the week is fighting me. Going so far as to resort to snow in March. And a broken kegerator. And a really bad workout.
I've been going through a lot of my RPG background music in an effort to freshen up my playlists. The majority of it is very, very good. Some of it is more suited to prep-time than game backgrounds, though - some of the anime or music stuff, anything that's too busy and would be distracting in an actual game. (It can be tricky to find the right balance of mood, without being intrusive.)
I guess it'd be easier if more of the music was crap.
I am beginning to suspect that I have too many words in my head. I have already suspected that many of us do, thanks to the ease of checking other people's thoughts, views, and progress constantly.
Not only that, but the words in my head are not all mine - not by a long shot.
There were a couple things posted by other people (as it happens) that brought this into relief for me.
- One was an essay from Elizabeth Bear about how she generally writes about 4 pages a day on her books. And while that's a fair bit, it's not outside the reach of people who aren't yet professional writers.
- The other was one of the people I actually like on the SA TradGames subforum deliberately banning himself and explaining that the time spent on SA could be better spent elsewhere.
So I am thinking about taking a break from SA. Maybe Facebook, too. I enjoy twitter and google plus more than those, but may cut back on them a bit too.
Why?
I've got some great leads on stuff from SA that I never would have heard about otherwise. I've learned a lot of stuff, too. Without SA, I never would've heard about some of my favorite stuff - things like Mushishi, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Double Cross, Last Stand, or Inverse World. I wouldn't have started listening to Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff or picked up Dark Souls.
But.
I've got more stuff, mentally and physically, than I really know what to do with. At this exact point, I don't really need much more. There isn't much in the way of Kickstarters that I'm looking forward to (or need to back) this year, and the ones I am interested in (Delta Green RPG) will be advertised on KaRTAS, for sure.
I don't see it as a requirement to finish every game I have before buying a new one (otherwise I would never, ever buy jRPGs) but I am pretty well stocked. It's more time to sit back and make some progress on the backlog.
So that's part of the reason. The other is that, SA was a nice distraction when I didn't have my own games going on. But now I do, and Pirates is the best campaign I've run. I find it pretty compelling and I already had an idea for a potential follow-up game. I enjoy working on prep for my games. I even enjoy going through some of the games I haven't run yet (but would like to) and figuring out the best way to make references and introduce them to new people.
(I did some of this last night with Double Cross. I don't fully understand the Power system yet, but it has the clean organization of 4e without the paralyzing depth of content and feats. Anyways, it's a little bit soothing to copy powers into spreadsheets.)
The other reason is perhaps optimistic, but we'll see. The idea is that, by removing some of the external words, I will find more of my own. I already feel something of a compulsion to write (see: almost ten years of livejournal entries, many of which are quite long) but rather than rambling about RPG systems and the relative merits of animes I can get started on some of my own stories.
It's quite possible that I won't be able to live up to this goal, but I want to try it.
Anyways, on the note of other things, we (by which I mean me, playing) finished Amnesia: a Machine for Pigs. I would rate the game as good. It was more consistent than the first game, but also a bit in love with its own cleverness. The writing was quite good, but at times deliberately obfuscated what was already a confusing plot.
Several scenes were lovingly described but would have been much more powerful to well, play through.
I don't mind the shorter length or lack of the more involved puzzles from the first game, but I found the very last section of the game quite baffling in its implications. Only a few of the puzzles from the first game were both fun and challenging; many were kind of tedious exercises in banging stuff together. The engine's not really ideal for item manipulation.
So I recommend the game, but with reservations. It had some scary and atmospheric moments, but nothing quite compared to the honest, deep-seated dread that I felt about the monsters in the first game.
Dunno what to play next. Getting close to burnout on Animal Crossing, yet I must not fall behind in the house race to my former communist neighbor.
I've been trying quite hard to make this a good, productive week, but the week is fighting me. Going so far as to resort to snow in March. And a broken kegerator. And a really bad workout.
I've been going through a lot of my RPG background music in an effort to freshen up my playlists. The majority of it is very, very good. Some of it is more suited to prep-time than game backgrounds, though - some of the anime or music stuff, anything that's too busy and would be distracting in an actual game. (It can be tricky to find the right balance of mood, without being intrusive.)
I guess it'd be easier if more of the music was crap.