I Made a Bunch of AI Garbage, and I'm Glad It's Over

I made a bunch of shitty Sora art. That era has passed.

From what the machine is telling me, this is one of the fastest turnarounds in digital media. AI video generation has grown so rapidly that comparable fields, such as the birth of filmmaking or the history of computer graphics, seem comparable but hardly competitive. 

One of the downstream effects of this rapid growth is that the tools for artists are rapidly changing. You might find a platform which gives you free generations to make garbage art, and then generate two hours of video, and then chop that up to create little weird videos.

And then the megacorporation ends its seemingly fantastically generous promotion.

The feeling at that point for me was not one of disappointment, but rather of relief. I think that happened because I could stop managing all the video files, delete the failed experiments, and just publish my half-finished projects and move on to something else.

I had a good time making a series of AI music videos which reveled in grotesquery: fat versions of myself, lasers shooting out of my eyes, dancing, (a lot of dancing), and then AI-generated music behind it.

The AI-generated music stayed terrible the entire time because it was my desire to match the grotesque energy of the generations. Because I have a natural desire to bring out the truth of the materials that I use, because I'm an experienced artist.

One of the most interesting features of Sora was the face morphing: features of characters in this generation slowly evolve. Several times this seemed to me to create images of my friends in the clips. At those times, it was as if I had commanded the machine to create a non-consensual replica. That, at least, was a recurring paranoia.

I could recreate this kind of generation, but that would require a different kind of engagement with video generation than the one that I could so easily and freely access during that Sora era.

I heard Alan Resnick said in Save It To Your Desktop that the previous AI era for image generation was better because it was more hallucinogenic. My counterargument has always been that, well, you can just use older models on your computer.

But I do concede that the ease and corporate access of this current AI generation just sucks everything in. 

---------------------

It turns out there actually is good AI poetry. The AI Poetry Review has a bunch of poetry which manages to be good, and Sam Riviere's *Conflicted Copy* showed up at my door today.

Sam Riviere's AI poems are also really good, I'm glad to report, after opening the book just now.

TRPG lessons from Dragon Quest: An INSTADEATH Listicle

Simple design tips... What is "enough?"

1. A dungeon that is simple, proceeds in stages, and has a simple puzzle (and random encounters) can be effective.

2. Extremely simple spacial positioning.

Having two groups, enemies and player characters, standing in lines opposite each other, and taking turns inflicting attacks or casting spells, can be enough. This is especially effective as a default positioning for battles. 

3. Spells can be extremely simple. 

Knock, Fireball, and Speak With Dead are great. 

4. Means of transportation tiers exploration.

It's a JRPG staple. Walk across the continent, then get a ship and go visit other continents and explore the sea. Maybe find portals between various places. Eventually you get an airship, which lets you visit floating islands or other planets or whatever.

It's a simple principle to apply. Less transportation, less settings. More transportation, more settings. 

5. Arbitrary Monsters

Monsters can, and should, be whatever. Meaningless details or additions can be handwaved or explained. A monster is an open-ended template which players KNOW how to deal with.

5a. corollary: can NPCs be anything??

6. Chasing after a big bad vs. simulating colonialism.

Instead of raiding indigenous peoples, pursuing an antagonist around the globe allows the players to be problem-solving-tourists aka traveling heroes. They need not pursue, but then bad things will happen. 

7. Nonspecific NPC Monotheism.

Having all or most of the NPCs worship a single, semi-mysterious deity has its advantages. There's a simple and uniting cultural touchstone everywhere the players look. The Goddess is good and the people who worship her (most people) are basically good. This contributes to Simple Ethics.

8. Simple ethics can be fine.

 An overtly evil antagonist will likely speed gameplay along.

9. Cooperating with monsters is easy as shit

You probably already knew.

10. What if there are already lit torches underground?

If you don't want to track light, why not have torches line the way? No one's going to complain.

SMOKESCREEN AI

 Yeah. I think “smokescreen AI” names something more specific than simply using AI despite its bad aesthetics.

The mechanism is: AI’s cringe becomes cover. The ugly, cliché, low-status surface gives you permission to move outside the cultural network whose judgments you already understand.

You know how your existing milieu reads things: what looks sophisticated, embarrassing, derivative, corporate, tasteful, politically suspect, etc. AI comes preloaded with extremely obvious violations of those standards—generic prose, glossy imagery, “AI slop,” weird enthusiasm, tech-culture corniness. So entering an AI-heavy space can initially feel like entering somewhere culturally beneath you or simply illegible.

But that ugliness functions as a smokescreen for network transition. You think:

I’m doing this cringe AI thing.

while what may actually be happening is:

I’m entering a social and cultural network whose status system I don’t yet know how to read.

That second experience is much more threatening. 

THE CUT // COMPLETENESS

ai-generated, human-directed and edited

AI has made the artist’s oldest power newly visible: not the power to make an image, but the power to make an image intolerable beside another one. This is montage in its strict sense. Not a collage effect, not a look, not the cheerful clutter of references, but the production of meaning by adjacency. A face followed by a machine; an anecdote followed by a statistic; a domestic object placed inside a history it cannot survive unchanged. The cut does not join two complete things. It damages their completeness. AI matters here less because it can furnish the world with plausible pictures than because it can furnish a practice with an indecent number of candidates: images that are nearly right, texts that are almost alive, forms of competence so instantaneous they expose competence as insufficient.

"density" @moepwellington

The contemporary artist is therefore likely to spend more time among bad resemblances. The model is exceptionally good at recognizing the request before the request has become specific: it knows what “cinematic,” “eerie,” “editorial,” “like an A24 still,” “less corporate” are supposed to look like. It will return the cultural average of the desire, polished to the point where one can no longer tell whether it is an answer or a sedative. Its usefulness begins at that point. Against this stream of ready-made almosts, preference either hardens into taste or dissolves into consumption. One learns that “I like this” is a weak response. The more consequential response is: this is beautiful in precisely the way that makes it unavailable to the work; this failure contains a structure worth stealing; this image has mistaken the style for the event.

There is no reason to call this a diminished form of art. Editing has never been a secondary activity, any more than framing is secondary to painting or rhythm is secondary to music. It is the place where a work declares its allegiances and its refusals. AI enlarges the field on which those decisions occur; it also makes it easier to evade them, to confuse multiplication with discovery. Its real test is not whether a machine can make something surprising. Machines already make surprises in the cheap sense: an extra finger, a wrong shadow, a sentence that abruptly becomes incoherent. The harder question is whether an artist can recognize the one relation that turns an accidental thing into a necessity—and can leave everything else out.

Ronnie O'Neal / THE CAGED TIGER

Video Still of Ronnie O'Neal's Trial Glitched by My Phone 

    Ronnie O'Neal transformed his murder trial, for a crime of which he was obviously guilty, into theatrics of his own fractured personality, the personality which killed his child and his child’s mother. When his public defender refused to use a “stand your ground” defence, Ronnie decided to be his own attorney, and the resulting pacing and yelling went viral.

In this impacful staging, Ronnie succeeded at becoming famous, even if his intent was only to free himself. I get the sneaking suspicion, though, that Ronnie did not anticipate his future freedom, and instead pursued something like notoriety or self-expression. Somewhat, his intent did not matter, as he was stuck in a situation ahead of himself, unable to escape.

So, in such a situation, isn't there something in performance? All the world's a stage, and the company acts pointlessly, as Georges Batallie says in The Accursed Share: “Beyond our immediate ends, man’s activity in fact pursues the infinite and useless fufillment of the universe.” Didn't Ronnie's defence pursue something useless, and universal?

    Joe Exotic, convicted animal abuser of Netflix's "Tiger King" fame, is back at it, this time running an online contest entitled "Bachelor King." The purpose is to find romantic leads for when he’s released from prison. Joe is pretty much a cult leader and as such we can’t really sympathize with him, but I think we do, anyway. There’s maybe something so ridiculous and pathetic about him that it captures our love.

Maybe it is just that we love trapped things. They become like pets. To have the whole of someone in a net is almost the same as having them tamed.

The captured criminal is the tiger in the zoo, so different than the tiger upon you. There is a visible sucking out as the caged thing writhes in the audience’s view. The passion of life becomes alike begging, the lines of power make themselves known.

Joe Exotic knows how to use structures of power, naïve as he was about his security within them. I’ve said that outlaws tend to have a Death they are seeking out, their unrestrained actions show an ignorance that must be, in some ways, intentional. I think Joe is aware of the potential for it all to come crashing down and is somewhat unafraid.

That, at least, is what ambitions tells us. Either in Ronnie O'Neal screaming at his jury or in the search for a Bachelor King, there is an admirable *image*, at least, of “I AM NOT AFRAID.”

But, of course, Ronnie and Joe are scared, everyone is; and we might, too, value leaving an image, when facing eternity.

THE ASSISTANT 2019: SIGNS OF ABUSE

 

Something's wrong within your friend circle, the vibe is off and there are signs of some power struggle. Or maybe it's online; a vacuum of non-information left like a gas signature.

The Assistant (2019) is a movie totally dedicated to the semi-invisible signs left by abuse, in this case, within the film industry. The main character swims through these signs, at the height of the film coming into direct opposition with the source, before returning to normality.

Signs of abuse modeled in the film:

• loud sounds no one will discuss
• misogynisitic jokes/ casually cruel jokes about known persons
  
• exhausted, unhappy people
• confused victims seeking help ineffectually
• the naïve positivity of pre-victims sticking out in context
• people giving up on the possibility of justice 
• direct verbal abuse, and a culture thereof
• threats to destroy people's careers, etc.
• disposability-- a revolving door of people
• new faces being brought in, and the haggard faces of those leaving or on their way out
• things happening where they shouldn't-- typically, sex.

If there exists a pathway for many people to enter, then exit someone's life, this may be a conduit for abuse. Ties of anonymity benefit those who burn through people. And abusers require fresh streams of people constantly.

This is sort of the human condition, too. We are all, mostly, folding new strings of people into our lives, and then watching some of them leave. Abuse, then, may leave patterns visible in the peoples exiting one's life. Outsiders may observe these patterns, subtle, semi-invisible, instinctually perceived...

LUST-BLOGGERY

 I think so often Lust, and by extension, Blogging, is an admission that we feel something, want to love, want to be a part of it.

An admission of desire, a seeming want to compete in a worldwide network of such admissions. To lust is to struggle, (as it is to Blog).

Lust is the desire to participate. To not only join the universal human struggle but to direct it, at least a little. For your direction to matter.

The experience we have culminates in taste. Lust is often the desire to have our tastes be actualized, applied, and viewed. Lust is tied to our desire for family to support us. Lust is a desire for the world to accept us. 

We are on here because of Lust. The desire to be read is Lustful. Publishing absolutely is a seeking of appreciation. Selling yourself as a person with attractive ideas.

This is why there's this glamour-preening network of bloggers, tweeters, facebook-users... Trying to meld themselves into appealing ink. We want to be read, we want to feel the adulation.  

JOSH SIMMONS’S “THE FURRY TRAP” REVIEW’D: HORROR AND INTIMACY

Horror is a form of self-inflicted intimacy, alike taking a hot bath, it creates intimacy and stimulation between you and your senses. 

 

 

October 18th, 2002: “The Ring” is released. I am 10. Although I only witness the film piecemeal through ads, a parody sequence in Scary Movie III, and through a recounting of the film by my dad on a long hike, the horror of the film settles deep within me.

The idea of “The Ring”’s antagonist Samara hiding in my closet tortures me for months. During the day I am beset by childhood social anxiety. At night I could not rest my ear against the pillow without thinking my heartbeat was, somehow, Samara.

 

I had no hope but to wait. Day after day I would attend long lectures by struggling teachers, and night after night I had no reliable peace. I didn’t get out of the school system for years but my escape from Samara happened sooner.

My family kept a library of Stephen King novels, and despite my childhood knowledge that Horror could destroy my nightly peace for weeks, I took those King books for a spin. Surprisingly, they didn’t terrorize me like “The Ring” did.

 

 

I found myself enjoying the often erotic weirdness and terror the King books spewed out. I got acclimated to whatever Samara struck me with; the nightmares slacked off, though I was still cautious that watching a horror movie risked hours and hours of panic... 

 

Sometime around 2015: I attend a book tour for The Furry Trap at The Cyberpunk Apocalypse, an artist-owned residence and performance space. The author of The Furry Trap, Josh Simmons, is there. I opened this particular graphic short-story collection and was appalled.  Grody Not-Safe-For-Life Alt-Comix were something I was familiar with but I had only to read a few panels from The Furry Trap’s “Cockbone” story before I was once again struck with the knowledge that the media in front of me would give me nightmares. I hurriedly stopped reading and left the event.

A similar thing happened when I looked into The 120 Days of Sodom a few years back. In the main public library’s stacks, I flipped through the original translation of 120 Days, read a brief paragraph about feeding a young girl a special diet for the purposes of coprophagia, and I put the book down. I think I can remember consciously repressing what I had just read.

Naked Lunch may have done it, or maybe it was one of my friends. In my late twenties (2016+) I began to actively pour through stories of the worst horrors. Last Podcast on the Left, “Last House on the Left”, “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” the movie by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and then The 120 Days Of Sodom by the Marquis De Sade, newly translated and released by Penguin, convinced me fully of the virtues of this kind of thing. John Waters too, I guess. (AND many others -ed)

I began to feel curiously at peace with the shocking themes these films and texts presented. Something about these stories would relieve some great pressure and satisfy some curiosity. Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom in particular got me over several intense fears, of coprophagia, one of them.

It’s after all that, in 2021, I returned to Josh Simmons’s The Furry Trap, and can now say I am compelled, to the point where I can’t stop reading this text every time I start. Some great emotional traumas wrecked on me seemed soothed by the demons therein. Is it sympathy, or what?

WHY EXPLORE THE ID?

A hot bath may be tested with a toe, and we discover whether the water is too hot. Responding to pleasant sensation, we might stick the whole foot, and next, the whole body.

The calming effect of horror is a pleasant sensation that I don’t understand, though I have theories and pop-psychology. It feels as if some self-knowledge is being gained, like the simultaneous testing, and relaxation, in a hot bath. It may be just the nerves, stimulated but safely recalibrating and responding, I am alive, I am alive, I am okay.

There is also the tale of Saint Augustine’s curiosity to consider. One of my professors taught this story to me during a lesson on “the abject”. The abject is whatever’s expelled from the body, taboo’d by society, and so on. Literal shit and watching shit being pushed around qualifies as “the abject”; so too gore, horrid sex stuff, and traumas. 

We are more compelled by “the abject” than we may like to admit. St Augustine, my professor taught me, was walking along one day and when he saw, by the side of the road, the corpse of a plague victim.

Feeling the curiousity inside himself, St. Augustine resisted the urge to look at this corpse. However, he noticed his curiousity rising, to the point where he could not resist. “Look then, damn you!”* were his words as he gave his eyes the sight they desired.

The whirling Id inside of us desires information on the forbidden subjects, perhaps to better sort and munch the many horrific fantasies that flit thru our consciousnesses. Am I assauged by the pages and pages of coprophagia in 120 Days? Something happens, and I don’t really know what, but some “assuaging” must occur, because I feel happier and more self-content, often, after reading such a work.

It may just be pride in readership. Facing up to fears. Anyway, The Furry Trap compells me and I think contains a sensitivity the author has been noted to have. Here’s a quote from an interview with Simmons:

“Simmons has an idiosyncratic approach to horror: on the one hand he often employs a take-no-prisoners harshness, on the other he's slyly, darkly funny, and intersperses many of his stories with moments of beauty and even sensitivity (no seriously, check out his Eisner-nominated ‘Seaside Home’ and tell me it doesn't break your heart a little bit).”

There is some capacity for the shock-abject to induce intimacy, like the intimacy that the Marquis De Sade conjured up in jail, the comfort of the interior zone of his mind. The presence of the Id in that interior zone, wild and crazy, can be comforting to a reader like me, who must, as well, live with their own mInD.

This is what can Explain, if we need to Explain, The Furry Trap’s opening story. A thrumming adolescent’s assault fantasy/nightmare. Horror of sufficent strength can speak to our pasts, the scar tissue of a mind burrowing into itself, raised in recongition to the digestion of something similar. 

on the theft of rare books by gregory priore and john schulman

Cw: discussion of suicidality and joe exotic

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/us/Carnegie-library-theft-schulman-priore.html Essentially: Gregory Priore managed the rare book room for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Over many years he raided the rare books and fenced them to John Schulman, a local books dealer. 

 The theft was abysmally stupid. Neither the thief nor the fence decided to think about what would happen when the vault was checked. They both relegated themselves to discovery, eventually, and instead just enjoyed the extra income while it lasted.

This reminds me of times I've heard of gambling addicts embezzling entire businesses. Tho Gregory and John's actions weren't attributed to addiction. But there is that same decision to not think, to not hide, to just trade the future for the present, as in such an addict. 

Both of these men came into their jobs everyday for years and either knew they were fucked or suppressed the knowledge that they were fucked.

Greg priore said greed led him. I wonder if it wasn't a specific kind of lust for the books. Valuables .

Treasure.

(Greg and John)

(Joe Exotic of "Tiger King" fame)

treasure = genes = beauty

Joe Exotic was able to bargain the thrill of exotic animals for income. 

These men help us understand something about ourselves, because they show us tales of greed.

Everything that we love is, in an essential way, as base as the greed Greg faced or the brutality Joe showed to people and animals alike. 

Too much desire negates the self... Desire is suicidal, desire is the desire for change, the desire to want something different. These men were essentially not at peace.

Greg, John, Joe-- all Willy Loman's, a-toil, stewing, family men... Can't blame me for relating.

(Fredric March playing Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman)

I'm more like Joe than Greg in my family structure. I live in a pod of young adults. It's nice, I'm lucky. I feel a sense of disquiet.

Travis was one of Joe Exotic's husbands, and he was abused by Joe. Travis accidentally ended his life in a bizarre gun incident. I relate to Travis's ennui. I smoke a lot of weed. I don't intend to hurt myself and I'm not liable to point firearms at myself and at my friends for fun, so I do not think I will meet an end as sudden and stupid. (Nor any kind of end anytime soon God forbid !)

I think Travis loved guns and the sense of power they gave him even as he was trapped in a cult of another man's personality. Note the zoo uniform. 

Perhaps, as Greg Priore donned his uniform (collared shirt, vest, glasses)... A Willy Loman, he also desired the sense of control destruction can give you. Theft, treasure, tigers, family, weed, guns. All can be said to be powers of death (change).

Good ol' Skeleton Farmer.

Death is the harbringer of change. I am blessed to realize that human consciousness cannot be prolonged forever. Someday, the burden will be lifted-- everything must end. 

No hell can outlast death. The toil of years of knowing you'll eventually be caught, get your career ruined, and be imprisoned-- change will end that toil. 

Alternatively, maybe the weight of knowing you were going to be fucked somehow didn't bother Greg and John. Joe, I know, has gravitas. Maybe the book thieves just 'blanked" it.

In any case, guilt or no, their futures were traded away. 

the great zucchini and why great artists might make you suspicious

THE GREAT ZUCCHINI is a classic piece of human interest journalism. 

IN SHORT: The GREAT ZUCCHINI is a middle age white man who has an incredible grace with children. He is able to connect with suburban children to create consistently great birthday parties in Washington state (he is a magician). The easy income from these parties grants him the freedom to never grow up, and he couch-surfs*, his finances are in shambles, and he's a compulsive gambler.

THE GREATZUCCHINI's grace with children is objectively great, I'm convinced from Gene Weingarten's excellent journalism. This grace, given from god no doubt, permits THE GREAT ZUCCHINI to never face certain consequences. 

In this way, being a successful artist is somewhat alike having rich parents. You are able to conjure money from nowhere. You are able to float above poverty. 

Great art skills additionally attract a bunch of affectionate people, on top of the financial benefits. Anyone who can make great art consistently can count on a renewing stream of fans.

One of Jenny Holzer's "Truisms"

The corruption of power comes as no surprise. We associate beauty (and the ability to create it) with moral upstandingness. In reality there is no reliable correlation. 

Great art grants Fame + Power, a dangerous combination.  Fame makes us politicians. As much power as we are granted, fame demands and creates endless opportunities for exploitation of this power. Particularly if your fame and power (and status) convince others that you're trustworthy. 

There is nothing trustworthy about the fame and power granted by great art. Famous and powerful people make us feel afraid, don't they ?/

New shirt from Bread & Water Printshop 

*THE GREAT ZUCCHINI isn't homeless, his home is just so full of garbage that he'd rather not stay there :/

I wrote my own version of dnd

I had a rush of energy and wrote down my own little version of dnd, like one does. Someday I may playtest it... but for now I'd just to like to curate the good or interesting ideas I had.

SUMMARY OF THE "GOOD IDEAS" IN MY DND-LIKE I JOTTED DOWN:

• Three stats, between which you can distribute 2 points at character creation:
• Strength, Magic, Cunning.
• Strength: 1 point of strength = +3 hp, +2 bab, and +1 ac. Also helps some skills.
• Magic: 1 point of magic lets you cast one 1st level spell per day, 2 points of magic lets you cast as many 1st level spells as you want. 3 points of magic lets you cast 1 2nd level spell per day (and as many 1st level spells as you want), 4 points lets you cast as many 1st or 2nd level spells as you want etc. etc.
• many spells have their own restrictions about how often they can be used to limit the power involved.
• cunning: 1 point of cunning gets you 1 free action before initiative is rolled. So if you have 2 cunning you get two actions before everyone else goes.
• if multiple participants have cunning, these free actions happen in random order.
• skills, from which you get to assign 2 points at character creation:
• hunting- str OR cun +hunting vs. prey. can also be used to track
• healing- d4 hp per patient per day, per point
• climbing- str and cun + climbing vs. DC
• thievery-- includes sleight of hand and all stealth. vs. prey's cunning, or 
• no social skills at all.
• advancement:
• you can improve skills by fulfilling conditions like "practice this skill for a year" or "achieve great wealth using this skill". 
• improving stats, however, happens mostly on the basis of patronage, that is, service to divine figures in exchange for power.
• this is essentially a substitute for classes.
• examples of patronage:
• serving god:
• you get rewards for building churches, burning heretics, bringing righteous justice, leading a flock, converting nonbelievers and so on.
• rewards include the ability to channel divinity, stat bonuses, "taking communion"=full heal by going to church, holy weapons.
• however you are required to follow a strict moral code and receive
•  forgiveness from powerful priests if you misstep.
• serving the devil:
• can directly trade your soul for money or stat bonuses, and greater amts for a more pious soul.
•  Also you're destined for hell.
• Also the devil then can speak to you whenever it wishes, and will try to tempt you with, like, better positions in hell. or other stuff.
• serving the chaos god
• directly trades stats bonuses for people killed, e.g. +1 at 10, +1 at 100, +1 at 500, +1 at 1,000...
• You can improve your magic score by finding eldritch texts, building a library, communing with other wizards, and practicing the art; essentially the study of esoteric knowledge is its own "patron".
• Patronages can usually be advanced to some extent by spending money. Churches built, monuments to satan, etc.
• Failing patronage requirements usually doesn't take away the stats, but rather imposes other penalties: wizards who get their libraries burned get mishap chances when they cast, for example.

REFLECTING ON THE "GOOD IDEAS":

• Cunning
• Cunning awards actions before initiative is rolled, essentially free surprise rounds. Thus, the more often you can trigger initiative being rolled, the more often you get your free actions. So to some extent, paying attention to when initiative is rolled will be necessary for the design to prevent abuse.
• Free actions like Cunning gives might be very overpowered.
• Potentially complex and/or bad interactions with how chases work.
• Making initiative more complicated might not be good.
• This seems like a unique take on initiative, and I'm proud of it. Going first has always been a huge advantage and often underlooked by design, so I'm happy to place it as a primary feature of the character mechanics.
• Also seems like a good way to keep tactics fresh. Goblins have 0 strength but 1 cunning so they're weak but they get to do something surprising.
  
• Simplicity
• Not sure how much benefit there is to constructing a very simple framework for characters, especially since so much of the appeal of DND-like games comes from specialization. With 2 points to distribute between three stats, every character will be shades of each other.
• On the other hand, there is a lot of variety presented by a party composition such as this:
• guy with 2 magic
• guy with 2 strength
• guy with 2 cunning and stealth.
• Patronage
• the essential idea is that instead of XP you have class-specific goals. Improvement happens in a wider context, such as a hero's rise in a church or a deepening debt to the Devil. 
• This lends more drama than just becoming more powerful by defeating monsters.
• Asking players to pay more attention to their advancement seems like it might turn people off or split the party more.

• No social skills at all
• LOTFP gets away with just using reaction rolls, and for a while I've insisted that players offer good deals if they want NPCs to do stuff. I don't like "roll to convince" so I'm fine taking it off the table. However, there will probably be unforseen consequences.

I don't know when I'll give it all a playtest. Sharing on my blog because its where my creative mind is rn. 

You can see the rough design doc here.

the axe hack

IT's just normal DND but the only weapons are axes. Everyone knows how to use axes and there are no other weapons. Everyone has an axe.

comparing rpg and poetry workflows

Was talking with my friends last night about how my workflow for rpgs is so much better than my workflow for poetry ever was.

that's a workflow.

trpg workflow:

1. draw on the osr/diy dnd community for good texts like books and blogposts
2. schedule gaming with any interested friends
3. generate fragmentary prep. post some of this on blog
4. run the game with resources from step 1 and 3 and improvise.
5. depending on what players did, set some prep goals. goto 1

steps 1, 3, and 4 will generate a constantly growing pile of resources which can be published via blog or used in future games, step 5 will generate weekly creative goals

example:
1. read patrick stuart's "veins of the earth"
2. over like a month period got a group together
3. wrote up a bunch of veins stuff inspired by the book, mainly a starting locale
4. during our first game the players buzzed past the starting locale into some unknown tunnels, I used the veins random tables to fill these in
5. write up the tunnels proper for next week

I'm doing research, writing my own stuff, organizing it, sharing it with my friends, and contributing to the community; and I have little weekly goals.

my workflow for poetry is more like:

1. see someone else's shitty poetry
2. think "I can do better"
3. get on a writing kick and produce some stuff
4. potentially share the poetry at a pittsburgh reading
5. try to edit the poems a little. either produce a finished piece or move on

comparing the two, the biggest missing elements from my poetry workflow are:
1. a constant stream of writing that I actually like
2. a regular space and time to share the writing with friends, irl
3. regular writing goals
4. a welcoming community I can self-publish to (he has several of these, they just don't produce work he likes all that often -ed)
5. an organized space to amass all my writing
(6. the poetry workflow is completely meanspirited. -e)

#1 and #4 are pretty hard to find, I've been looking for years. #2 can be more readily arranged and like as I wrote this I put out feelers on facebook for a poetry group. but I know just like you know that knowing where to find good writing is pretty essential for an artist of any kind...

the other thing to immediately note is how important social media is. it can provide a constant stream of good writing to read, a community to self-publish to, and like google hangouts edges into a regular space/time to share the writing with friends.

there's also a lot of synergy with social media: sharing is the same thing as organizing and documenting. A constant stream of writing that I actually like is (in many cases -ed) the welcoming community I can self-publish to. etc

it would be good to find a social media community that did poetry I liked. but maybe I just don't like (other people's) poetry that much! who knows

fun, non-threatening combat system by peter

melee
--attacker rolls d12 and adds strengthmod + ab
--defender does same
--winner does damage to loser equal to difference between results
--you can only deal damage in melee x number of times per round where x= your bab (overcomplicated rule, might drop -ed)
--ties = miss

example: smaug has +6 to hit and he swipes at bilbo baggins (+2 to hit). smaug rolls a 10 for a 16. bb rolls a 4 for a total of  6, so smaug does 10 damage. this kills the hobbit :(

ranged
attacker rolls d8 and adds dex + ranged ab.
if they roll higher than the defender's Dodge score, they do damage equal to their result.

Dodge is a stat, for 1st level humans is like 3+ dexmod. max is 8

example: bilbo baggins shoots smaug (dodge: 4) with an arrow. BB rolls a 4 and has a ranged attack bonus of +1 so he hits (5 vs. 4 dodge) and does 5 damage.

weapons
weapons don't have different damage values but have various bonuses and drawbacks like
greatsword/greataxe +3 damage, two handed
rapier +1ab
dagger = light weapon can be used in grapple
heavy crossbow +3 damage, takes a round to reload

armor
just gives damage reduction and dodge penalties.

shield = 1 dr, one hand
light armor = 1 dr
medium armor = 2 dr, -1 dodge
heavy armor 3 dr, -2 dodge

consequences

• ranged weapons are likely more deadly than melee
• dodge isn't that great bc you still take the big hits
• dodge stat max is 8 or whatever the ranged roll is if adjusted
• dr and dodge interact strangely 

advantages

• no need to roll for damage, potentially faster combat (depending if considering armor dr and weapon bonuses doesn't take up more time -ed)
• less misses = faster combat
• ranged attacks should be even quicker
• if you're good at melee fighting you hit more, are better at defense, and do more damage all at once

troubles

• "roll over for damage" is already a thing
• armor dr seems like it should be folded in somewhere
• no critical hits or automatic hits

inspired by troika! 

THE IMPROVISED DUNGEON

common dungeon elements

mazes:
drawing a maze as they explore is actually fine. you can easily put things in the maze while you sketch the paths and make decisions about which way is the right way. trick is to make those decisions before the players decide which way to go if possible

riddles:
difficult to come up with a good riddle on the spot

monsters:
a good monster can just be something stereotypical with a twist

traps:
seriously easy to think up... again just think of it before the players encounter it. blades in the dark jab out at you... there's a magical energy field generating blades. and uh it's coming from a little magic machine running in the corner. great trap.

treasure:
can actually be negotiated with players as described or invented randomly

puzzles:
I would say that you can actually make this up as the players solve it, similar to a maze. you see a bunch of colored blocks that can be rotated. green yellow blue orange. they correspond to... some charts on the wall. the charts? well there's a series of checkerboard patterns that have those colors... no, it's too difficult for me to draw out... yes, let's just have someone roll an intelligence check... you can bail out

secret passageways:
as convenient (goes without saying) and you get to use fiat  whether they find any in a search. it's important to use fiat. because life is arbitrary

an overall sense of dungeon logic:
will emerge as you play.

advantages

• no prep
• don't need to reference prep
• dungeons are pretty random collections of elements anyways
• surmising quickly thought-up elements into larger overall themes is actually easy
• I might be better at improvisation than reference
• can elide easier, bring out the important bits easier
• can use fragmentary prep easily
• simple stuff is probably easier to play with
• good work flow: make or find fun fragments and improvise rest
• credible way to run a red & pleasant land

disadvantages

• some elements are hard to improvise such as riddles (solved via fragmentary prep -ed)
• a sense of prewritten secrets being divulged is perhaps lost
• requires the ability to improvise
• "fairness"???

what I want and do not want in rpgs

I read " I feel the compulsion to explicitly state the things I desire in play and assumptions in the material I write, " in scrap's post and have, honestly, been gushing over the pig pip stuff zak put out lately. 

what I want in rpgs:

1. a framework of power

in the game, the king's guards can protect the king from most threats, there's a military logic behind it. you can always refer to that logic. this is how you get cool stories in like plays. in "sexy beast" a retired mob employee is being pressured by his superior to come out of retirement. the retired mobster does not want to come out of retirement because he is afraid of death, but he is also afraid of angering his superior who has the freedom to beat him up and maybe even kill him. the superior doesn't want to kill the mobster, his former friend... thus a drama. in the end the mobster kills the superior and then has to go deal with the superior's superior... consequences for the actions along a framework of power, a basis of drama like they taught me in playwriting class. 

not just the drama but also clever circumnavigation thereof... fun shit.

2. fun potential power levers

this is what lotfp has with the "summon" spell, or all the little rules which can be cleverly used, like casting "bless" to aid a pickpocket attempt. fun because they're clever, fun because they're dangerous, fun because they feel fair... that's one of the great uses of magic in games. powerful artifact has bad downsides.

honestly #2 is optional because with #1 I can just come up with fun power levers in whatever setting it is. my "top secret" campaign was one of the best bc the players would just use their knowledge of 80's airport security to bypass challenges.

.do not want:

1. railroading- a loaded term but basically any understanding applies

2. complex world of warcraft style combat which will always always be difficulty and pixel-bitchy and take too long to run.

3. non-optional homework. I should be able to drop in, having like library content to pour through can be good but I shouldn't have to or we should be able to do it quickly at the table.

interesting note here is that both categories above reflect a player's desires. 

fourth post

The Age of Unreason;  Hope in Pittsburgh-ocalypse (The Apocalyptheosis of Pittsburgh)

"Better to live on beggar's bread
With those we love alive,
Than taste their blood in rich feasts spread,
And guiltily survive!"

The world is somehow terrifying; it really is, in a way beyond reactionary politics. The rational reaction has never been more useless.

What we're working with will just be an intensification of inequality, a magnified status quo. In this way boils in a cynicism which is powerful and absurd, actually obscene.

I see the red culture of Pittsburgh basically endemic to the Polish and the Poor and Yinzers and etc. and as always, white male, and somehow the more progressive elements always seem either too hip or too un-hip. This is my cynicism, which I think is a white cynicism not too far from basic Pittsburgh racism. This white Pittsburgh cynicism which is somehow ultimate arbiter and also obscene; a cynicism which is virtual, shared by everyone, present everywhere, and un-real. Against which the actual diversity of Pittsburgh exists.

I call it the Age of Unreason but, in in the words of Samuel L. Jackson, "this is just another Tuesday." Or like, my friend Sarah pointed out the basic hypocrisy in the outrage against "locker room talk": the lived reality of women is that sexual assault is everywhere. The no-nonsense candidate became no-nonsense because he emerged from the imagination of our lived reality, and there can be no further validation of that present reality. I mean to say that Trump is a really Pittsburgh candidate.

I would say this white cynicism is only a cynicism from an outside perspective. In converse, it is the ulimate un-cynicism, the proud suffering blue collar take of Bruce Springsteen, et al.. That Bruce himself, like all artists, is hopeless to reverse any tide made by Republican candidate is not new; that #MAGA is essentially Springsteenian shows our stand-off. We have to remember this is normal.

The actual normality of what has gone down has revealed a failure in the bottom of our liberal imagination. You can maybe say we were only capable of processing presidents as Obamas or Reagans. What we are dealing with is both old and new, and at the juncture of these two lies our blind spot: open exploitation, kleptocracy, whatever. It's a hiding-in-plain-sight kinda thing.

In the face of a genuine belief in self-interest to the point of hiring someone who can only be self-interested, our own cynicism about politics, that real change can never happen, seems oafish.  We have this insane hopeful validation of third-party politics and of revolution itself in the face of kleptocracy. Socialistic anti-cynicism which seems impossible but is possible in the The Age of Unreason. Given that social unrest is building there is at least the possibility of change.

This possibility is not gleeful in Pittsburgh; the Pittsburgh Left seems relegated to a few blocks in Bloomfield; and while not hopeless, is truly Not Me. I have said there is only work involved; my friend Eric has said that true change will only occur when the poor are angry; in between these two statements lies The Party. I keep trying to break in but they don't let me!!! I gotta be a member of the Big Idea Book Club first??

Arbiter or not, here I come, daily, exactly as dumb and stupid, with the need to socially left pull; that artist as myself, I see the age has been flipped on its back. Everyone stands here precious flesh exposed but no one digs in; I think it's the sense everyone who went out to gather fish was supposed to have in the face of Tsunami. So I flip out a fork and pull out some meat and everyone stands around pointing their toes; there's a growing shadow.

Reactionary or not, attempt with me to deflate this cynicism. The pull can be, at least, this; the Pittsburgh I live in can be a little honest. The city has zero tolerance and is only marginally blue. It's comfortable. That we can change this; that the gunk in my ears can be face-paint; gross, but at least tolerable, an Imaginative Left can exist, the spring to opulent radicalism post-election. I can only think we must supersede the fashionable tactics.

The Radical Left from Godard's "Weekend"

**Nota Bene is of course the Radical Left of "Weekend" (see above) which ate tourists and killed people. A dream of revolutionaries who were young and corresponded to that much larger flywheel which has all the death and pain at the bottom. The desire for fashion may supersede all the boring, valuable gems like Law and Order but at least, with me, observe the coral-reef environment of the present now, and dream a competing dream.

THE COMPETING DREAM: GREENWAY SPACES

I have to credit the real utopic post-apocalyptic shit to Teleportaterz, attributable maybe to Yinz Like Plays and the artist I only know as Hunter and a few of the cotiere who I keep seeing at events, kind of true Pittsburgh left, artists seeking a critic. I don't really have the guts to reach out to these people. Suffice to say that in their art the apocalypse seems natural and has already arrived not-even-dreaming, just extant in a way I could tease out if I put in the work. Suffice to say that all the tools of our redemption already exist, that the above cyncism has been undone in the work of a few locals, I don't even find it hopeful, I just find it already taoistically fact.

Suffice to say the dreaming outside the present Zone has already made a way around the liberal imagination and this way is garden-path-like valuable. Private, beautiful, greenway-work which has found in Pittsburgh refuge. We all know of this greenway, which is the unclaimed space in a city hemorraging claims; that reverse intensification of property value, the city wilds which are still magnificent dumping-grounds. I know of the release that can be found here and it is likely the only teneable release; the opposing forces too bland to compete, the apocalypse in wilderness a pocket-park almost; my friend Hank who lived in a parklet in Polish Hill; it manages to not even be Twee.

You could maybe call it trash culture? Hope in apocalypse. - peterwebb