Marriage and Murders

I've been a role-player for quite a while, in fact I think its been over a decade since I first joined my brother and his friends in their dungeon clearing pseudo-murderous adventures. At the height of my efforts I was role-playing three times each week with three different groups. Each Tuesday I would play with a group that was quite open and free while still structured within a rule set; on Wednesday I'd still be playing with my brother and our friends in the same murderously efficient dungeon clearing and on Saturday I would play in a small group of three people as we basically made everything up as we went along. Each session had its own attractions, I suppose, but eventually the small Saturday game died off as other commitments over took our leisure.

At the moment, in the Wednesday game, I'm getting married. Since the beginning of the Nordic style campaign I decided that I wanted a shield maiden. I chose the local barmaid (as indeed there are very few other women that exist in these types of worlds) and then began to accrue a dowry or bridal gift. I chose to try and use the "apprentice" rule set that already exists in this game so that she might be able to gain experience and strength as I do. This meant however that I would have to wait until I'd spent over a hundred points of experience. So during these months of gaming, I gathered a treasure of not jewels or finery but rather livestock. By the time I had spent enough points I had a herd of cattle and a number of mules - a fine bride price indeed. On the Wednesday past, I finally went back to the original town and proposed to the father my intention to marry his daughter. I've decided that my character will take her surname of "Kraken Slayer" as it sounds more impressive than "Horn Blower". It was agreed and in the Wednesday coming we will travel off to the main city to have the ceremony. I'm sure there will be time for a spat of murdering.

Next year in June, in Croydon, I'm getting married. I can't help but wonder if my partner is not at least a little worried about my fantasy version of marriage. Especially when, to all apparent views, the lead up to our engagement was so different. We met online, dated, had dinner with each other’s parents, moved in together, then I proposed on a beach in New Zealand. There were no mules, no murdering, no waiting for a "100 points", and I'm pretty sure that her father was one of the last of our family to know about it. The only thing that reflects at all is that I might be taking her surname of "Weisz" over my name of "Willcocks". I think that anyone doing a deconstructionist reading on my role-playing efforts would have to be at least a little afraid at the best of times. Or maybe I'm thinking too hard about it. Maybe I’ve been role-playing for too long.

I love Valve.

Not long after the release of Half Life, I read a post mortem that described the following axiom to me: If you show them where the trap lies, then show them how it works and they still run into it you can be as brutal as you like. (I can’t find the direct quote, but that’s basically what I took away from the comment.)

I’ve used this axiom many times in any number of creative experiences, especially in regards to roleplaying . It really turns a challenge into a puzzle, and I like puzzles in a gaming environment.

It was earlier this year when they gave me another axiom, quite different yet no less profound: “Pirates are just underserved customers”. They really shook me awake to a quite obvious idea that people who copy your work and try to give it to your potential customers for a seriously discounted price/entirely free are quite simply a competitor. It was a paradigm shift, before software pirates were a ubiquitous phenomenon that stole and perverted peoples work and now they’re your competition. And we as a global society have become very good at dealing with competition.

I love this example. When Jon Rawlinson used a tune from indi band Barcelona for his YouTube video, their reaction was simply that they were flattered. They drew the video into their domain and utterly endorsed it which allowed them to basically use it as a marketing tool. Try doing that to some ubiquitous phenomenon.

I’m not saying that Valve created this philosophy, or that they educated the world in this shift, it’s just that they simply educated me.

I love Valve.