My third RPG editing project is out and for sale. It’s a very large adventure called New World Order. The book I worked on before this one is Terrors of the Lost Paradise, a “monster manual” for the Lost Paradise region of the Darwin’s World post-apocalyptic game setting. It’s a lot of fun getting to edit such creative material!
by 
I participated in this conversation recently:
The Scene: the computer room. Andy is seated at the computer wearing headphones. Michele enters unnoticed.
Michele (barely audible over headphone music) Hey, what are you listening to?
Andy (realizing after several seconds that Michele is in the room, turns down music volume and removes one of the headphone ears): What?
Michele: What are you listening to?
Andy: Uh… video game music remixes…
Michele: Ah. Would those be the same game music remixes you were listening to a few months ago?
Andy: Yeah…
Michele (with sarcastic smirk): They must be pretty good game music remixes.
Andy: Uh, they are..
I would’ve tried to deny it–perhaps claim to be listening to something more cultured and refined, like my Tesla Greatest Hits CD–but my Winamp playlist window was in plain sight:
by Long time, no post, as they say. It’s been a moderately eventful month for us. The biggest piece of news to emerge over the last few weeks is that Michele is heading over to Israel for seven weeks this summer to do archaeology work at the Ashkelon site. This news is one of those difficult things that I know inside is a wonderful opportunity for her, but which I’m nevertheless having a hard time getting excited about–seven weeks will be a long time! Assuming that Michele has Internet access there, I hope you’ll all join me in emailing and otherwise writing to her during her stay. And while I distinctly remember rolling my eyes in exasperation at parental safety/terrorist/bombing concerns over my own trips to Jordan several years ago, suddenly those concerns seem a lot more serious now that it’s my wife who’s heading over there.
Still, her departure is a full month away at the moment, which means we’ve got plenty of time to enjoy this beautiful springtime before she leaves. In a few weeks, we’re even taking a one-year-anniversary vacation, spending a few days in a cabin at the park where we got married. Isn’t that romantic?
And aren’t you glad you waited almost an entire month for a new post from me, and were rewarded for your patience with three paragraphs of lovesick whining?
by Two passages from The Silmarillion stand out as my favorites. The first is the tale of Hurin’s last stand against an overpowering enemy force:
Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried: ‘Aure entuluval! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, for the Orcs grappled him with their hands, which clung to him still though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, until at last he fell beneath them.
The second is the account of Fingolfin’s final battle against the Great Enemy, Morgoth, and his death:
Now news came to Hithlum that Dorthonion was lost and the sons of Finarfin overthrown, and that the sons of Feanor were driven from their lands. Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him…. a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came….
Thrice [Fingolfin] was crushed to his knees, and thrice arose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell…. Yet with his last and desperate stroke Fingolfin hewed the foot [of Morgoth]….
Thus died Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor, most proud and valiant of the Elven-kings of old.
These are powerful accounts–Hurin and Fingolfin are just two of the book’s many great heroes who, in the absence of any hope, fight desperately and fanatically to the bitter end. There is a dearth of hope in The Silmarillion, and this theme carries into The Lord of the Rings–you see traces of it in Theoden’s charge at the Pelennor Fields and in Eowyn’s suicidal stand against the Witch-king of Angmar. Hurin and Fingolfin know that their efforts are futile. In The Return of the King, Theoden and Eowyn (and Gandalf and most of the Fellowship, for that matter) know this as well. Things turn out reasonably well in the latter case–but they shouldn’t have, by any reasonable estimation.
The heroes of Middle Earth–like the very World in which they live–yearn for release from the pain and grief that taints Creation, and in that sense they carry with them a powerful hope that evil will one day be wiped away. I have read much about these themes of hope (often in respect to the Christian themes in Tolkien’s works). But I have read very little commentary on the undercurrents of hopelessness that often crop up side-by-side with these optimistic themes. Middle Earth is filled with heroes who look around them, see no hope at all, and yet choose to go on fighting–often to their inevitable deaths. Why do they do this?
Is it possible to have hope in the face of absolutely certain defeat? Is this hope, faith, or simple stubbornness? Is this an unconscious understanding that Good will triumph in the end, or is it a grim fatalism that sees Doom on the horizon and prefers to charge into it rather than wait for its inevitable arrival?
by Yesterday marked the debut of the latest attempt at “liberal talk radio,” which is getting some mixed reviews. I’ve been a fan of Rush Limbaugh since high school, and have listened to my share of liberal talk radio programs (during my trips to and from Chicago on Saturdays to visit Michele), so I’m always interested in these efforts. When I first heard about this latest effort a few months ago, I was tempted to roll my eyes–not because I find the idea of liberal talk radio absurd, but because it seems like every other year somebody tries to hype a “left-wing version” of Rush Limbaugh, only to have the effort either slip quickly into radioland obscurity or never even get off the ground. This effort looks a bit more promising than past attempts, mostly because there’s a recognizable personality (Al Franken) behind it.
Nevertheless, I personally don’t expect this to go very far before petering out. Why has liberal talk radio failed to make an impact or gather an audience despite numerous attempts?
I think the most important reason is that the liberal radio approach has almost always been reactionary. That is, the stated goal is always something along the lines of “offer an alternative to right-wing radio,” “offer a Democrat answer to Rush Limbaugh,” “break the conservative stranglehold on radio”–that sort of thing. This all basically amounts to creating an imitation Rush Limbaugh–but a talk show that claims to be “like Rush–but liberal!” does not exactly resonate with any promise of originality or creativity.
The comparison that immediately springs to mind is that of the Christian music industry. I cannot count the number of times I’ve read–online or in print, and on some occasions even in Christian music stores–lists of recommendations for Christians who want “cleaned-up” religious alternatives to popular secular bands. You may have seen this sort of thing–“If you like Pearl Jam, you’ll love [Christian band name]!” So the main appeal of this band is that they sound just like Pearl Jam? Be still, my beating heart! In the same way, I have a hard time seeing a “Democrat version” of Rush (or his many imitators) capturing the hearts and minds of listeners, any more than a “right-wing version” of, say, Michael Moore (“like Michael Moore–but conservative!“) would.
When I look at this latest liberal effort and see shows with titles like “The O’Franken Factor,” my suspicions that this is just a feeble effort to clone conservative successes (without bothering to learn why conservative shows are popular in the first place) seem to be confirmed. Unless Franken and his compatriots quickly establish that their shows are unique, interesting, and have something new to offer, nobody apart from existing Franken fans is going to tune in.
(It’s worth pointing out that many of Rush’s right-wing imitators are guilty of the same thing–and for this reason among others, I seriously doubt that they’ll be able to stick around nearly as long as Rush has.)
I think the above reason is the most important reason that liberal radio has failed in the past and risks failing again. Other factors play into it as well, though. For one, for years now, mainstream Democrat candidates, pundits, and politicians have been expressing outright contempt for the “idiot masses” who tune in to Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts (I specifically remember this hitting a peak during the 2002 elections). We’ve all heard references to the “mindless Ditto-heads” who believe anything that Rush tells them. I’ve never heard any Democrat, in the midst of these criticisms, ever suggest that maybe Rush (for example) is popular because large numbers of people find his show entertaining, amusing, and informative. Conservative talk radio has long been a place where conservatives go to hear information they aren’t getting from other sources–it isn’t a tool by which the masses are enslaved to a right-wing agenda. But if the prevailing view in the Democratic party towards talk radio listeners is that they are mindless morons with no free will, exactly what am I supposed to think about their own efforts to reach this same radio-listening audience?
Liberal talk show hosts are going to find out the hard way that radio listeners aren’t brainless morons. Just as Rush can’t “force” people to tune into his show, Al Franken and the like can’t just assume that the country’s liberals are going to automatically tune in. A successful liberal radio show will be one that works hard to earn a listening audience by demonstrating that their show is worth hearing. Rush himself is the perfect example of this–starting out with a tiny radio show, over time he earned an ever-growing audience by providing a compelling program that people found worthwhile.
There are doubtless other challenges facing liberal talk radio, but I’ll stop rambling for now. There’s definitely room in the world for a high-quality liberal radio program, but it will require its founders to work hard to distinguish themselves and to give people a good reason to tune in. And so despite my own thoroughly conservative tendencies, I wish Al Franken and the others involved here good luck–I think they’re going to need it.
by [Note: the following is a personal reaction to John Keegan’s A History of Warfare–it’s not intended as a comprehensive review of the book.]
Is it possible to write a comprehensive history of human warfare? I wasn’t sure quite what to think when I first saw John Keegan’s A History of Warfare. How could one hope to adequately address such a topic in a 400-page book? Having enjoyed several of Keegan’s other works of military history (his Six Armies in Normandy is one of the best accounts of D-Day and the battle for France that I’ve read), and intrigued by the audacity of any book claiming to relate the entire history of war, I picked up A History of Warfare and began to read. I finished reading it last week. Not only does it live up to its title–it does indeed trace the history of war from prehistoric times through the Cold War–it is an important book that, despite its military-history title, ought to be read by anyone with an interest in anthropology, sociology, or history. I’ll record just a few of my thoughts on the book.
The introduction is scarcely underway before Keegan launches into the argument that forms the central thesis of the book. A History of Warfare is dedicated largely towards the debunking of Clausewitz’ famous assertion that war is a continuation of politics (Clausewitz: “…war is… a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means”). Clausewitz’ theory has come under fire before (among other things, it was perceived by many to have set the stage for the global catastrophe that was World War I) but Keegan’s critique is the most convincing I’ve read.
Keegan argues that tracing warfare through history shows that it cannot be considered a true extension of politics. War, he asserts, is actually a habit to which humans are naturally predisposed. Lacking reasonable political (or other) motives, humans predictably and regularly go to war anyway, and so war must be considered a habitual (and, interestingly, male) human activity.
As you can see, Keegan is treading on controversial ground here, as his assertion comes close to claiming that humans are inherently predisposed towards violence. (Keegan is not writing from a religious perspective, but it’s impossible for me not to consider the Christian belief in “original sin” as having some relevance here.) Keegan begins by examining the question of whether or not prehistoric humans practiced anything that could be considered “war,” and lays out a number of chilling case studies detailing truly disturbing practices of bloodshed and organized violence in primitive (and in some cases, completely isolated) societies, destroying any notion that warfare is an outside practice learned by, imported to, or imposed upon primitive societies.
Having made these assertions, it is up to Keegan to provide evidence for them, which he does in the form of a truly epic history of warfare. The heart of the book is his historical account of human war beginning with primitive club-wielders and ending with the arrival of the nuclear age. Despite the weighty sociological arguments made in the book’s introduction, A History of Warfare is clearly a historical, not an anthropological, work.
You are not likely to read a history of warfare more comprehensive than Keegan’s; he touches on just about every major (and more than a few minor) battle, campaign, army, weapon, and strategy that appeared to shape the course of human warfare through the ages. The brilliance of Keegan’s history is that it balances the two all-important factors of technology and culture instead of focusing on one of them to the exclusion of the other. He sees these as the two factors that most influence the waging of war–technology because it provides the tools with which we fight, and culture because it determines how and why we fight. Technological factors include developments like cavalry, chariots, siege cannons, crossbows, firearms, and fortifications; cultural factors include codes of battlefield conduct, ideological beliefs, the role of tradition, and the motives that prompt war in the first place. While many topics must be glossed over in the interest of keeping the book’s page count manageable, and historians are bound to take issue with some of the generalizations Keegan must make, little seems to be overlooked.
A third factor that Keegan discusses throughout the course of the book is restriction–the limitations placed on warfare that define the when, where, why, how, and who of any given war. There have always been limitations placed on war–first by geography (most of mankind’s wars have been fought in the same relatively small band of geography) and secondly by humans themselves. These restrictions–first seen in the ritual nature of tribal fighting and later adopted throughout history in “official” forms like chivalry, codes of conduct, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets, and countless others–are often more important in determining the outbreaks and outcomes of wars than are the cultures and technologies involved in the actual conflict.
The picture Keegan paints with all of these different brushes is a disturbing one. The allegation that humans are inherently predisposed towards war is alarming, but not terribly surprising (at least to Christians who believe in original sin). More troubling, but more difficult to define, is the general trend we see in the waging of war throughout the years. To simplify things almost ridiculously, the trend as I perceived it is this: the Western (used by Keegan to encompass far more than just American and European) way of war has emerged unquestioningly as the most “effective” method of war–certainly this form of warfare, best epitomized by Greek hoplite warfare, is the dominant one today (every major army in the world is modeled after it). Part of what makes the Western way of war so effective is its ability to adapt to challenges that initially threaten it and adopt superior ideas, technologies, and methods into itself. The dark side of this flexibility and willingness to adapt has been a regular and predictable lifting of the restrictions placed on war. In other words, part of the way the Western way of war overcomes new challenges is by lifting those restrictions that hinder its victory.
Some restrictions are in place because of technological limitations, and are lifted when technology improves; for instance, casualty rates in the Napoleonic wars were relatively light due to the inefficiency of the firearms of the day, but the arrival of the machinegun in World War I “improved” the battlefield firearm–and as a result, the bodies piled higher and faster than they ever had before. The distinction between the “soldier” and the “civilian,” one of the longest-held restrictions on warfare, began to disappear for good during the French Revolution and had faded almost entirely by the time of the 20th-century mass-mobilizations, national drafts, and firebombings. In each case, the combatants who lifted age-old restrictions (“defeat but don’t slaughter your enemies,” “restrict the violence to professional warriors only,” etc.) were frustrated by their enemies’ technology-driven battlefield potency and were desperate to find alternate, and hitherto unattempted, means of defeating their foes. And in the policy of “mutually assured destruction,” Keegan sees the ultimate lifting of restrictions: when you can destroy an entire civilization anywhere, at any time, and for any reason, there simply are no restrictions left.
With this all in mind, war cannot easily be summed up as a moral good or ill–nor are all restrictions good and the lifting of them bad. Good or evil, war simply is. The challenge is to keep it under control: to restrict it in such a way that its inevitable occurences result in something good–or at least something less than disastrous.
It’s a thought-provoking book, to say the least; neither falsely optimistic or overly pessimistic, it simply lays out our own history before us and challenges us both to acknowledge our warlike nature and find a new means of restricting it. In Keegan’s concluding paragraphs, he calls for a return of the restricted, even ritualistic warfare that characterized man’s early conflicts; whether or not this is possible in a post-nuclear era is difficult to say. Nevertheless, it’s a sobering topic for consideration. I’d wholeheartedly encourage anyone with even the remotest interest in military history or human warfare to read A History of Warfare.
by Gencon 2004 is approaching. Well, maybe “approaching” isn’t quite the right verb for a convention that’s still six months away, but the deadline for submitting events arrives in just a week or two.
I enjoyed Gencon last year tremendously, and plan to return again this year, barring work or family conflicts. I had a great time visiting with Ed on the five-hour drive there (and back again), and the other highlight was getting to hang out with Jon, who I see all too rarely these days. And of course there were the games.
I think I’ll enjoy Gencon more the second time around, now that I have a better idea of what to expect (and know a few things to avoid). My main priority this year will be to play more games. Last year, I spent too much time wandering the vendor’s hall and too little time actually playing games–and unfortunately not all of the games in which I participated were run well. I figure if I make a point of playing in more games this year, I’ll increase my chances of happening upon a really good one. Right? I’d also like to spend more time at Gencon–I think three days would work well for me; the two days I spent there last summer seemed a bit short, but I don’t think I’m up for the entire four-day experience.
Something else I’ve been thinking about lately is submitting and running a game event myself. One of the big challenges there, in my mind, is running a game for a bunch of strangers who might have vastly different expectations for a game than I do. My general philosophy in gaming over the years has been to not game with people I wouldn’t enjoy hanging out with outside the game, and that philosophy has served me well thus far. A Gencon game would be a gamble: it could involve a bunch of reasonable, enthusiastic gamers, or it could involve one or more frustrating individuals of the sort who put a damper on some of my Gencon games last year. I’m not sure how well I, as a GM, would deal with problem players, since I’ve rarely had to do so in my personal gaming. (I guess in a worst-case scenario, I could simply snatch up my gaming materials mid-game and sprint wildly out into the hallway, hoping to lose myself in the crowds of Klingons, furries, and Goth LARPers.)
If I were to run any games, I think HARP or Godlike would be my first choices; both are “underdog” games that I enjoy and would love to introduce to new players. I have the most experience running D&D, but something tells me there won’t exactly be a shortage of D&D games at Gencon. And part of me wants to run a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, just to redeem my nightmarish experience with that game last year.
However it works out, and whether I end up running a game or just playing in games run by others, I am already looking forward to Gencon. And if any of my gaming friends are planning to attend again, that’ll make it all the more enjoyable. Until August, then…
by Interesting article on the rumors and suggestions circulating about Saddam’s presumably upcoming trial. (Unintentionally and unpleasantly amusing quote of the day: “Saddam cannot have a fair trial at home. There are just too many who suffered under him.”)
When Saddam does go on trial, maybe they can pick up a few tips on how not to try a genocidal maniac from the ongoing Milosevic trial:
Prosecutors concluded their case against Milosevic last month, two years after his trial began in February 2002. Milosevic is to begin presenting his defense on June 8…. Milosevic has the right to challenge any replacement [judge]. That could delay the proceedings, which have already been going on for more than two years. He could even seek a retrial.
Beware the terrible swift sword of justice!
by It’s the attack of the unstoppable Communist crabs!
(If this isn’t something straight out of Call of Cthulhu, I don’t know what is.)
by Michele is in Chicago all week taking her comprehensive exams! Five days of exams… sounds pretty hellish to me. I’m working on another RPG editing project at home this week, so I’ll be holding down the fort alone and looking forward to Michele’s return.
Michele, my beautiful wife–I love you and am praying for you.
by