The Best GM I Never Had

I don't remember the first time I played Dungeons & Dragons. Isn't that funny? A game that became an integral part of my life and self, and I can't remember my first time. I'm sure it was in junior high, and I'm sure that my friends introduced me to it. I'm sure we played this:

...because I asked for this game as a gift and received it soon after. But I don't remember that first game at all.

I do remember that my Dungeon Masters ran adventures typical of 12- and 13-year-old males, with lots of treasure, arguing over rules, and PC-on-PC violence. (We killed Bo's thief, cut him into little bit, and used the bits to test the different pools found in module B1. Sorry, Bo. That was a dick move.)

I remember learning that a Dungeon Master could do more than that. See, that book up there was edited by a guy named Eric Holmes, a doctor and medical school professor who got into role-playing right on the ground floor (or first level, if you will). In November of 1980, Dr. Holmes published an article in Psychology Today (Vol. 14, No. 6) entitled, "Confessions of a Dungeon Master", in which he told gaming stories and described the psychological benefits of the fucked-up actions of his players. I used this article for my primary research in a school project, but more than that, I read and re-read this article, absorbing every detail of Holmes' solutions to the problems his players posed him.

Dr. John Eric Holmes passed away in 2010, so I never got the chance to game with him, but to this day I remember the last scene from his article, in which a paladin character, faced with certain death, prays to his deity for aid. In 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, the base chance for divine intervention was 1 out of 100, or 00 on percentile dice. The player rolled a 99. An angel appeared unto the paladin and whisked him to safety, saying:

"There. Now keep your nose clean."

Thank you, Dr. Holmes, and thank you, angel. I'll try.

#roleplaying #gaming #life

LILT: Our Hero

The headline story was a doozy, and Studs tried not to imagine that his coffee tasted extra bitter. Jesus, the ways people found to die! He left the paper on the table and headed for the office, glad that the story had nothing to do with him...

Next Chapter

#lego #legotown #studsfedora #noir #snapjudgment

All The Secrets of Magic--Revealed!!

They say a magician NEVER reveals the secret.

Magicians love secrets, especially knowing them. We love thinking we're smarter than everyone else in the room. We giggle to ourselves about it, in fact. We love to smirk when people say, "How did you DO that?" We love it so much that the International Brotherhood of Magicians (yes, it's a real thing) wrote it into the Code of Ethics so we can say, "Sorry. Can't tell you. Union rules."

A MAGICIAN NEVER REVEALS THE SECRET.

It's the First Rule of Magic, but of course it is closely followed by the Second Rule of Magic:

UNLESS HE REALLY WANTS TO.

It's a tenuous kind of superiority, you see, because OF COURSE magicians reveal their secrets all the time, for all kinds of reasons. To show off for each other. To get a TV special. To round out their book. To delight audiences. To get money. Usually to get money. Most magicians don't get paid much, so if you really want to know how a trick is done, offer cash.

The truth is, anyone can do magic tricks if they know the secret. The same is true for most artistic endeavors: given enough practice, anyone can draw, or write a story, or play an instrument. Every art has its "secrets"--which pencil to use on which paper, which rules of grammar you can bend for effect, how to get an unusual sound from your saxophone. Some secrets are easier to learn and use than others. Some even have whole college majors devoted to them.

Does that mean that knowing those secrets makes you a magician? No, any more than knowing how to diagram a sentence makes you a novelist, or playing a scale makes you a virtuoso musician.

THIS IS THE SECRET TO ALL MAGIC:

What makes you a magician (or an artist, writer, or musician or whatever) is the SOUL. You must express yourself in a way that affects other people, that changes what they feel or think, even if it's only for a short time. Make them laugh, make them amazed, make them cry or nod their head. The best artists have that impact long after the work is done, but it's worthwhile even in small quantities. That's why it doesn't matter if the magician reveals the secret: the imact of the performance should go beyond the mere trick.

Do with this knowledge what you will.

#art #cartoon #magic #creativity #ideas