Follow-up from Yesterday's Game Prep Post

After posting my (intentionally) inflammatory post, yesterday, +Adam Muszkiewicz and I had a delightful exchange of ideas. I don't full agree with everything he says, but we are not as far apart as my original post might have made it seem. Also, a clarification. It should be noted (as Adam did) that his original post was directed at hex-crawl gaming, a different issue than (or a specific sub-issue of) game preparation in general. My take was, to be sure, based on ignoring that very true fact.

Adam also agreed to let me post the full exchange. I will do so, and a small rejoinder to his last comment. I left the rest of you guys who commented out, because you just don't matter. Suck it! (I kid, I kid).

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 9:40 AM

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I actually do recognize my "information collection" process as being important to gaming, and I am aware that it informs and inspires my gaming. I think in my original post, the point I made had a considerably different focus, though, and that you're picking out only one detail of it (even of the part of the article in question; you're targeting a part of a part here), but I have to say, I stand by my initial assessment: an overabundance of prep stands between the DM and his players as a sort of informational wall that exists independent of the players' experience of that information. If the player doesn't experience it, then it doesn't exist within a game. 

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 10:22 AM

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Also, I've never come out against prep, just against an overabundance of it. I love maps as much as the next guy and often, like +James Aulds says, I just might start with a map. But what stands in the way of the game is having a list of exactly what every shop in town is and who runs it and how much GP they have in their safe, dresser or underneath a loose floorboard, whether I wrote it or someone else did. I feel like too often, DMs prep themselves into a corner and they lose sight of exactly what the game is to the point where a rift develops between player & DM, th players shrouded in darkness, suffering from indecision paralysis, the DM silently raging at himself "if they'd only do this, it's all so simple!" Of course, again, that's entirely my experience of it, especially as someone who used to over-prep.

Effectively, I'd define "over-prep" as "designing game elements that your players will never experience." 

Edgar Johnson

Yesterday 10:49 AM

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I don't see that as overpreparation, because it helps (me) with what happens at the table. It's a thing that exists in the world. So long as it makes the world make sense to me, and helps me make the world make sense to my players, then it's a useful exercise in imagination. It may not get used directly, but it will shape what does get used.

So, having stuff in my game my players never see may make sense to me, and help me make sense of the world I present, and may help me choose (wisely) the signifiers used to present that specific world-situation at the table.

The fact that Bob the Butcher is getting leaned on by a specific member of a criminal gang may be insignificant to the players. They won't enter the shop. They won't buy a joint of meat from Bob. They may, however, try to pull some kind of caper in this town, or they may have dealings with criminals. When I know Bob, his situation, and why it exists, it is helpful to me when I'm at the table, and trying to present the world and the things in it to the players.

Mind you, I don't usually get that far into the weeds with inconsequential NPCs. This is more of an extreme example to color in the point I'm making: Underprep is less helpful (to me) than overprep in allowing me to respond effectively to players during the game session.

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 11:06 AM

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My thought here is that, for me, all of what you describe the "I can do this at the table when I prep" can be handled as a natural extension of just applying the game's aesthetic to the situation. Why do you need to know that this specific butcher is being leaned on? Does that help in any way that knowing that organized crime is rampant here and then finding a way to show that to your players doesn't?

Edgar Johnson

Yesterday 11:41 AM

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Another way of putting it. The exercise in thinking in detail about some of the minutiae of the city (e.g., people's names, their situations, etc.) help me, personally, to think about the city as a whole.

Yes, the aesthetic drives this, but the aesthetic (for me) needs to come from the specifics. So, I might not do a write-up for Bob the Butcher, but I would want to think about people like Bob, and the sorts of things that happen to them.

That's sort of like Morlan Twelos, the clerk you guys recently killed. I thought a lot about him and what he does, and who might be pressuring him in particular ways, and what his motivations might be. It didn't end up mattering in that case, because James and those guys offed him, but by thinking about him and the specific place he worked in has helped me to understand a bit more about the city as a whole, especially about corruption in the Imperial bureaucracy.

I guess what I'm saying is that preparation is also a process of discovery for me, and not just for me and the players at the table. There are a lot of places I've "prepped" in that sense, not as keyed encounters, but as specific things that are happening, places that actually exist in the city (e.g., named taverns and landmarks), that allow me to improvise at the table, and to incorporate the actions of the players, after the fact.

A good example, right now, has to do with the three guardsmen killed while the party was ransacking the offices of the mariners' guild. I want to understand how the government/guard will respond to that. I want to figure out how your employer (the Imperial secret police) will treat that. These are important questions for the party, and I want to have some specific answers. One think is that I need to figure out specifics of guard organization, and how the guard gets along with the Ministry of the Inspector General, and what kinds of things typically are faced by the Guard in dealing with the populace in Harbortown. Are such murders common, or not?

I don't think we are disagreeing as much as all that. However, these kinds of details may matter to me more than they do to you, simply because I'm in the process of discovering this city, if slightly less than the players are. I can't abide not knowing certain things that come up, because they seem important to the game, and would affect how I run it. It's not just that I need to know how many copper pieces are in a tailor's strongbox, or what specific kinds of sausage Bob the Butcher keeps in stock. I do understand, though, that Bob has been experimenting with something very much akin to a good kielbasa...

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 12:46 PM

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Yeah, man, go ahead and put that shit up there. But first, here's my commentary on your last piece:

I agree that I don't think we're as far away from each other on this point than you initially made it sound. I'm especially glad that you added the bit about how your in-depth prep informs you about what your aesthetic is, because that's what I would consider it rather than game prep: part of developing what your aesthetic is.

It's probably worthwhile to point out that my post in question was specifically about the use of aesthetic within the framework of my concept of a dynamic hexcrawl, which is by its very nature an improvisationally-run sort of campaign. That having been said, I do apply the aesthetic logic that I've been talking about to EVERYTHING.

So, allow me get back into this.

I feel like aesthetic coming from specifics rather than becoming the rubric by which to determine what the specifics are is putting the cart before the horse. How can you just come up with these specifics if you don't know where you're drawing your inspiration from for those specifics beforeyou figure out what the specifics are? If Bob has kielbasa, then we've made conscious decisions about aesthetic (that Bob knows how to make traditional Polish, pork-based preserved meats, which means that Bob likely comes into contact with something like Polish people or is one himself, all of which points to either a slavic-inspired or metropolitan aesthetic). If Bob's sausage selection has nothing to do with the aesthetic, then it's a detail that's not worth discussing because it doesn't tell us what things are like (unless the conscious decision is thatthings are different here than elsewhere in the setting); if its consistent with the aesthetic and flows from it, we can duplicate the results by applying the aesthetic (slavicism or metropolitanism) to the immediate game demand ("What sort of sausages does Bob have for sale?") and bam! the job is done.

One of the toughest things about learning to use aesthetics as I am has been learning to trust myself to make the right choices. To make choices that improve the game, flow from the game and work to enrich that game. In my experience, having a good aesthetic guide for your game is like the Force: it surrounds your game, penetrates it, binds your universe together. When you need an answer, you dig deep and feel for the answer that your aesthetic is trying to provide; live in that moment and go.

This does not mean "don't prep." This means "prep only what you're going to need for the next session or two," but I've got more to say on that front. In fact, I already have.

http://www.kickassistan.net/2015/04/lets-talk-about-prepping-to-improvise.html

And a quick detour, because that's how we roll.

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 1:04 PM

 

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I'll be thinking of Bob the Butcher at lunch due to the sandwiches I brought with today, which informs me to ask: is his kielbasa bialy or czerwony? I'm having bialy today, myself. 

Edgar Johnson

Yesterday 1:13 PM

 

 

It's a secret. He'll take it to the grave!

Edgar Johnson

Yesterday 1:16 PM

 

 

One of these days (hopefully at the height of summer) I need to get up there and go out and about to eat with you. All this talk of kielbasa is driving mad with desire! For food. Yeah, for food.

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 1:27 PM

 

 

Any time, Johnson. You should really come up for the Polish festival in Grand Rapids in October. Beer, polka, food... I think it's what heaven would be like. 

Adam Muszkiewicz

Yesterday 6:06 PM

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"Bob the Butcher... the zine" - IN THIS ISSUE: This Year's Top Dungeon Beast Cuts - Intelligent Fungus Counts as Meat, Right? - Know Your Sausage! A Field Guide to Preserved Meats 

Edgar Johnson

Yesterday 6:49 PM

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Also:
10 Sexy Ways to Eat a Sausage
It's All Greek to Me: Gyros and Souvlaki for People Who Can't Pronounce Them
And don't forget his opinion column, "The Finest Cut."

Now, just a quick reply to the last serious comment Adam made:

I feel like aesthetic coming from specifics rather than becoming the rubric by which to determine what the specifics are is putting the cart before the horse. How can you just come up with these specifics if you don't know where you're drawing your inspiration from for those specifics beforeyou figure out what the specifics are?

I think this is the main place where Adam and I part ways in our conception of game prep. I don't see this as an either/or thing. My details usually inform my aesthetic. I get caught up in them as a New Cool Thing (thanks, ADD!) and forget for a moment the overarching theme, at least in part. So, for example, in my thinking about elves (teaser for the upcoming issue of the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad zine), I started with the iron susceptibility of the DCC elf class and asked, "Why isn't this used?" Then I thought about what it meant, on the level of the specific things that might happen to an elf character if iron susceptibility was taken to a logical conclusion (i.e., like heavy metal poisoning). What would the details of specific NPCs' lives be like if that were a thing, in Ur-Hadad? It would depend on who you were. So, thinking about the details of NPCs I'd like to use for that sort of thing got me thinking about what a society where this was an issue might be like (more of an meta-aesthetic thing). That got me to thinking about conflict in that society based on class divisions, technologies that might be utilized to help the problem, specific game-based effects on player characters and the like. I even started thinking about a detail like a faction leader who resents that a lower-class elf is doomed to horrible death, and becomes a terrorist. Cool details I may never actually use in a game, but which inform the overall feel of the game, and how I might present it to my players.

My point: Sometimes I find that specific details that I think are cool become the resource material that provides the resulting aesthetic that will then be used to generate other details. Then, some of those details recur to the aesthetic frame and change it in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. I work back and forth between them--not always, but pretty regularly.

Another example. I wrote an adventure called "Mysterious Temple of the Serpent God," where I wrote the entire adventure from song titles by the band High on Fire.* One of the songs used was "Frosthammer." The existence of the artifact known as the Frosthammer of Graki Deathstalker was a detail that I used to resolve other things that occurred in that adventure. The significant detail is, for me, one of the things that helps me to develop a coherent aesthetic. That said, I understand that it also can work the other way, and has done so for me, as well.

*Note that this way of generating the adventure was based on using song titles for designing specific encounters, and part of developing the adventure, as such, involved me discovering a specific aesthetic framework based on those encounters. So, detail to aesthetic. That said, the method for generating my encounters might be seen as, itself, an aesthetic. I do not agree that the method is, in itself, an aesthetic, because it lacks content associated with aesthetic frames. I could have used REO Speedwagon to do the same thing. The method would be exactly the same, but the result would have been completely different (one would hope).

Another thing: I like having details in my adventures, even if they don't get explored by the PCs. Here's why. If you've ever played a CRPG like, say, Morrowind, and been frustrated by doors you can't open, or objects you can't manipulate, or NPCs you can't interact with, it creates a sense of futility, for me. It gets to feeling "railroady." Prepping a single location, like Bob the Butcher's shop, and thinking about what kinds of things he has there, and how that that implies what sort of neighborhood it's in, and how that affects the kind of customers he attracts, and what kinds of problems he has, etc., etc. All of those little things give me a better picture of the larger world around Bob. He becomes real and, as a result, the whole world becomes more real. The aesthetic springs from the details of the place just as much as the place is birthed from an aesthetic preference. Good fiction is like that, too: An "insignificant" detail can become the thing that makes the story meaningful for a particular reader. (and yes, I realize that I'm conceding Adam's point that this is something that is "significant" because a PC actually encounters it at the table, for this example). The larger point, though, is that the detail may not get encountered, at all, but it may help me (as a GM) understand the larger aesthetic and produce things that are encountered.

Two Small Items

Whew! It's been a heck of a month. Summer teaching is finally done, four writing deadlines have been met (one to go), and things are starting to settle down a bit. Sorry for the month (or so) long hiatus, but the blog was the only thing I reasonably could let wait while I got other stuff done. But enough of my excuses!

Here are two ideas.

Patron Bond as Wizard Class Feature

First, I think every wizard in DCC RPG should get access to the Patron Bond spell--It should be a class feature. Yes, it would make elves slightly less special, but tough shit for them. The idea, here, is that supernatural entities are keen to keep their fingers in a variety of pies, and that being "successful" in ways that make sense to beings of such power, has a lot to do with that being's ability to exercise influence, either through bargains or through other control mechanisms. There also are plenty of people who might be greedy, crazy, or desperate enough to attempt such thing, even without a clear idea of what they're doing.

Having the patron bond (little p, little b) class feature, though, doesn't have to be the same sort of thing as having the Patron Bond (Big P, Big B) spell. The big difference is that a caster without the spell can certainly find some entity that wants to make a deal, but controlling the deal-making proceedings is often aided by incantations, rituals circles, and generally knowing what might get you better results, and what might get you killed.

The caster could simply roll the class feature version on a lower die. I'm tempted to say a d10, as it's an untrained "skill," but a wizard already has some knowledge of arcane magic's workings. So, a d14 would probably be a reasonable choice. You could even open it up to other character classes (but probably not clerics), and allow a d10 (or maybe a d8) roll. Even a warrior might try making sacrifices to beings capable of keeping the Big Sleep at bay for yet another day or two. Why wouldn't they take notice? I mean, hey, who knows where a warrior might be headed. A patron certainly would value a relationship with warlord or king, right?

Some More Stuff About Elves in Ur-Hadad

The elven caste system is as ancient as elven civilization itself, and entrenched in the minutia of elves' daily affairs. Before passage to Ore from whatever plane and or planet they came from, there was tension in that system, and many factions within elven society militated against its limitations. The Elven Dominion of Ore was one outcome of those earlier tensions. Now, though, the elves have been on Ore for millenia, both the Dominionists and the elves of the Old Kingdom. During that time they've been introduced to and (though they don't like to admit it) influenced by the ways of the other races, particularly the humans. This is especially true among the lower-caste elves.

Strangely, though, the bond with humans is not with the humans themselves--very few elves, even lower caste elves, interact regularly with the other races. Rather, the bond is with some of their political philosophy. Where elven civilization is stratified from the very top to the very bottom, human civilizations tend to allow for a lot more churning at the lowest levels. There's still aristocracy, of course. The humans aren't so crazy as to believe they could dispense with rule by their elites. But lower-class humans can rise up the ladder, especially if they're willing to step on their fellow humans to do so. This dynamic has give some lower-caste elves pretensions about How Things Should Be. Some of them have plans about this. Some of them are taking timid, tentative steps.

One odd thing that's come out of that emergence of class consciousness among lower-caste elves is in their slang. It's not uncommon to hear a lower-caste elf insult another by calling him or her "a'matrak kelorko" (more or less, "human fucker"). However, another insult has recently come into lower-caste elven parlance: "a'matrak kelorko-ul." The article "ul" in the elven language of Ore means "dead" or "dying," depending on the context. Given the sparseness of relations of any kind (let alone carnal or necrophiliac relations) among high-caste elves and humans, it's not clear why that insult would apply. If the graffiti in the elven quarter is any indication, though, the phrase seems to be growing in popularity. Also, it's becoming increasingly uncommon to see the masked and robed forms of high-caste elves among the hoi poloi of their folk, treating them almost like they treat humans and the other lesser races. Strange, that.

A Very Metal Creation Story

I've written about the Metal Gods a whole bunch of times already, but recent thoughts and readings about cultural production spurred me to put together a... well... I guess a theology is the thing I mean. So, here, I lay out a theology of the Metal Gods. But first some things about culture.

Metal Gods Are a Product of Culture

I will begin with a pretty simple idea: That Metal, as such, is cultural. This means a variety of very complicated things, most of which are irrelevant to this post. Still, culture and its pursuit give rise to a variety of passions, one of which is music.

Culture Is Both Product and Process
First, culture is the set of things that people make through their actions on the empirical (and obdurate) world around them. This expression may be ephemeral (e.g. live music or conversations about music) or it make be more durable (e.g. a musical instrument or a recording).

Cultural production, as a process, creates groupings, patterns, and regularities, not just chaos. We get genres of music, for example, and material culture that surrounds those genres. But time also passes, and some cultural products and processes are abandoned or forgotten, and some are reimagined in new ways. The regularities break down again, and some are remade. Sometimes this happens in recursive cycles. Doom metal, for example, is a rearticulation of older rock/metal genres, but in new ways; as a genre it both repeats and creates cultural patterns.

Those cultural patterns are objects of human attention and affiliation. We like some kinds of music, so we listen to them, evangelize about them, and so forth. We pass on musical culture to others. We receive it from them, also. We do this just by living life. Richard Dawkins used the term "meme" to express how relatively ephemeral culture gets propagated socially, using an infectious disease metaphor to express that idea.

Culture is Unevenly Distributed in Time and Space

A person lives at a particular time, in particular material and symbolic environments. Those things shape him or her, and provide both means and patterns of expressing culture. For example, by being a consumer of particular products, I am interacting with the world. But those products and process I am a part of are not everywhere and ripped from the moorings of time itself A kid growing up in suburban New Jersey or rural Georgia does not experience the same things in the same ways, and those make both experiences and expressions of music culture variable from scene to scene, creating differences among people calling themselves metalheads. Nonetheless, metalheads probably can spot other metalheads in a crowd--like maybe walking across the mall and seeing one of My People out among The Straights, or not being able to find a single other person like you in other, more rarified climes for whatever your particular subculture might be.

There's also the power issue.

Culture Expresses Power Relations

The conditions under which you live, material and symbolic, are historically rooted in your particular cultural space. You live an inherited culture. And not all of the roots of that culture will be oriented toward you and your interests. Power relations are a part of that.

Not all cultures are valued equally. When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, there was a shift during the Reagan years toward the demonization of punk and metal. I was a punk for the most part, but we sort of got lumped into the same crowd by the religious types. We were all just into that Devil Music, don't you know. And the religious Right came after us. They also instituted the Satanic Panic about gaming, so there's that as well. The fact that gaming and metal are sometimes the passions of the same folk, of course, means that sometimes we were doubly targeted, both by adults and by Straights in general.

So, cultural difference led to cultural conflict, and there were asymmetric powers at work. Teenagers have less influence than adults. The religious Right at that time was ascendant (not that they've left since), and able to be influential in significant ways, using mediated social activism in reaction to the bugaboo living in their brains. This didn't make life easy for teenagers at the time (with some exceptions), but it did create a sense of some degree of solidarity, at least in relation to Straight culture. Eventually, though, some Outsider cultures get appropriated in the mainstream (whence we got hair metal and New Wave).

But enough about culture. What does it have to do with the Metal Gods?

The Kids in the Basement

Somewhere, somewhen, there are some kids in a basement. They're listening to Metal. They're listening to it a lot, an they're listening to it LOUD. They're listening to it with their friends. They're expressing the "Metal-ness" in various ways, some of them frightening to adults. Many of them are really, really passionate about it. Here's where the theology comes in.

That passion feeds across all the planes of existence, calling into being and making real a particular version of Creation: Planet Ore, and Golden Ur-Hadad, the First City of Men.

Every song calls Planet Ore into being. Every chord brings forth the land and the seas, and the people and the creatures that dwell thereon and therein. The crash of the drums upon the warp and weft of Chaos sends out ripples, causes effects. The cities and rise and fall. Empires wax and wane. The moon is broken and the floating city crashes into the Thunderlands. A thousand years pass, and with them the rises the culture of Men, and the forging of Metal.

The act of playing raises the creators of the songs to the status of Creators of the World. They find themselves among the gods of that place, authors of the Lost Hymns. And the Lost Hymns still echo across Creation, making and unmaking it simultaneously. Here's how it works on Planet Ore.

• A kid in New Haven blasts some High on Fire. On the Planet Ore, near Ur-Hadad, Graki Deathstalker takes up the Frosthammer in a futile quest to destroy the Serpent-Men and their minions.
• An old fart in Augusta cranks Deaf Forever up to 13, and war sweeps the land, only a hardy few winning their lives (and riches and glory, but who's counting?). He speaks the name of Lemmy in praise, and on Ore rises the Cult of Lemm the Killmaster, whose aspect is the Steel Boar called Snaggletooth.
• A teenager in Finland does what teenagers in Finland do, what with their black metal and whatnot, and a ravening horde descends upon a slumbering town. The survivors are your zero-level party.
• A certain artist who shall not be named quests afar to create a shrine, a Wizard Van driven by an actual wizard (I've seen the hat and robes, y'all. He's a wizard.). The painted image on that van creates some aspect of the land and its peoples. The paint forms a substrate for the image in one universe, laying the foundations of existence in another.

The very expression of this culture is a profound act of creation, making from the Void, a land, people, situations in which the people live, and a sense both of urgency and of destiny. For the language in which this reality is expressed is not a thing of sense and metrics, but of possibility and passion, at once crying, "What if?" and also, "Fuck yeah!" Oh... and probably, "Fuck you!" as well.

It happens in the art on every album cover, in the notes and chords of every song, in every backpatch on a denim jacket, with each bang of every head, and in every basement where some kid, somewhere, has found The Music and The Music has found that kid.

And lo! Lemm played the first note upon the Rickenbastard, and the seas parted to form the land. Robhal chanted the Purest Note, and there came into being all of the creature that ride upon the winds, and the Greater Moon was broken. Each of the Metal Gods, given life by the Outsiders From Beyond Space and Time, became real. Each added its particular alloy of Metal to create Ore. Men once were slaves on Ore, but they would be slaves no more. Metal had been forged and it would see good use. The Metal Gods called upon their people to rise and take Ur-Hadad for themselves. And so they did. And thus, also, was born the Cult of the Metal Gods. 
                    ~Kormaki Lemmisson, Zealot of the Metal Gods)

Metal... gods?

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about what I mean when I make reference to the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign. What, at its heart, does that term "Metal Gods" even mean? Some correspondence with +Daniel Bishop got that idea rolling around my tiny, hollow noggin (again), and I've finally got a bit of time to write about it. I've written about stuff like this, before, but it's been a while, and I think I might be able to explain it better than I did before.

Who are the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad

First, I must make clear that the so-called "Metal Gods" are not me, +Adam Muszkiewicz, +Wayne Snyder, and the other guys in our campaign. We are merely conduits for Their glory. Nor are the Metal Gods the actual band members of whatever musical acts from which we draw inspiration. However, those acts are a good starting place to talk about the Metal Gods, in much the same way talking about the avatars of a particular god is a good starting place to talk about divine power. However, I am only one of the cult of the Metal Gods; my household deities may not be yours, and that is right and proper.

In this, as in most things, I must begin with Lemmy.

They call him Lemm the Killmaster, in Ur-Hadad

You know what? I don't need to write a fucking essay to make this make sense. Let's try lyrics instead. I know you can't hear the song, but just sort of imagine it as a Motorhead song.

In the midst of the din and the mist in the night
Axes will fall.
Axes will fall

Our elven oppressors will feel iron's bite
Killing them all
Killing them all

The sons of Men are riding
Our swords shine in the sun
Elven spires stab the heart of the sky
Like the points of our lances
Driving forward, all as one

With steel we take vengeance
In iron we shall trust
Drive them from the Golden City
Onward to the First City of Men
It's Ur-Hadad or bust.

The Lost Hymns are playing
A chorus heard by all
The hammers are pounding
The swords, they are ringing
Drowning out elven battle calls

Take one step forward and bash them with our shields
We will not break
We will not kneel

I've got wounds the priest can never heal
But I won't be broken
I am still standing

Caught in the web of the Mistress of Spiders
The secret one, Atraz A'zul
The silent one, she has a plan
For Ur-Hadad she'll make a stand
And She has made us Her tools

Once, I was an urchin starving in the street
Begging for a crust of bread
Now I'm in the Divine Order
A veteran of slaughter
Got silk sheets on my bed
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So, yeah, it's a bit more like that. "Metal Gods" means taking this crazy DCC RPG thing and turning it up to 13. There's palace intrigue, and violent unrest, dungeon crawls, trips to other planets, and visits to other planes of existence. We've got a goat-hooved wizard, and a cleric with chaos runes carved in his arms. We've got a halfling haberdasher to pimp our wardrobes, and a chapter house of our own. We've got veterans in the ranks, and a stable of replacements for when they all go down or retire. We have no home but the Order, no family but our brothers and sisters. We don't take shit from anybody.

Ascension of a Metal God

A new Metal God has joined the Great Pantheon. 

Oderus Urungus has left Earth to make the journey to Planet Ore, and join the other Metal Gods. In honor of his ascension, my players will have a very special encounter, this Thursday. 

RIP, Dave Brockie.

I'm sure he had no idea how apropos this recording would be, but there it is.

Confessions of a Metal God

Yeah, so that "Metal Gods" thing... +Doug Kovacs asked us a reasonable question, recently:

I saw The Sword last night at the double door. Do you metal gods ever actually go to see live music anymore? or is all just talk.

My inner professor will attempt to ignore the punctuation of that sentence, because I have some restraint. But he raises a valid point. How fucking "metal" can you be if you don't at least go see a show every once in a while? The answer... well, the answer may disturb you a bit. You see, I have a confession to make. I'm not very metal at all. Sure I like (some) metal music, but my home is old school punk rock. I love the metal aesthetic, but I find people who take metal really seriously, well, kind of tedious, just like punks who are TOTALLY STRAIGHT EDGE. Part of my idiom involves not taking myself too damned seriously. Life is short. I don't need to become a fucking caricature.

Here's the thing though: I really love metal that goes that extra mile, that makes itself a caricature, but in fun ways. Like Sleep doing an hour-plus long song:

This is a master class in HEAVY

Like Rob Halford wearing a leather cape:

This guy would make a way better king than Charles.

Like this trailer for the Brutal Legend video game (which wasn't that great, but had a great concept):

You don't have to like Jack Black to like this.

Like fucking GWAR!

Silly fucking shit. I love it.

NOT like those dickheads who are so fucking metal they burn down churches or beat people up. When you become a bully, it's not metal. When you punch down instead of punching up, it's not metal. Like punk, metal is about making do with what you have and having fun doing it, having a group of friends to do that with, and having fun despite The Man's attempts to control you, and to keep you from having that fun. That's my version at least. That, I can support. That, I like. 

Me, though, I'm a peculiar creature. Metal is never enough. For, at the heart of my crusty exterior, there is a  heart of bubblegum. There is a joy to be expressed. There is the blessed release of singing along with something silly and Charlie Brown dancing my ass off (if only in my mind): 

Schroeder, killing it. Again.

It's a weird combination of things that makes up the soundtrack of my life, and helps me get through the day with a smile on my face. It keeps me from nuttin' up and losing my shit on some jackass who really, really needs it. No, really, I have songs constantly in my head. You may be talking to me, and I look happy. But I'm not just listening to you. I'm listening to the soundtrack.

This one's in there, right now, and it's sustaining me:

The McDonald brothers have been doing it since 1979. They still put on a dynamite show.

That's another thing about the Metal Gods aesthetic that I'm going for when I write and run game sessions: All of this is in there, and every part of it contributes to the greater whole. And that shit is dark, and it's pretentious, and it's heavy, and it's also fun and silly as hell. It's about pushing all of the buttons at once, just to see what happens.

I started with the bubblegum of the Monkees:

And I don't care if they did their own songs.

I have journeyed to High on Fire:

Thor is not the god of thunder. Matt Pike is.

And when I die, I want Dax Riggs to be there, to send me on my way:

Seriously, this dude is The Shit.

And I am fucking free, man. I am free. That that's heavy. What do I mean by "heavy," Matt Pike?

Check out "Such Hawks, Such Hounds" for context

Damn straight, Matt. I am a fucking warlord, man, a silly warlord, and I will beat you to death with an hammer made black metal while adorning myself with monkey testicles. 

Oh, wait. That's Vane Barbute's job. Well, anyway, I'll figure out something.