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Post by CreativeCowboy on Mar 17, 2013 15:06:11 GMT -8
Stu, Stork, JiB, and Gina; Thank you guys for taking the time to go over my eMail and spit ball ideas. I had a game not 7 hours after the live stream and I will report on it [edit insert link] HERE [/ insert link] in several days time. It was a better game than I have experienced in the recent past. But it had its unusual-ness. I intend to use the story in a compare and contrast on the Journey Thread I started in General Gaming Discussions forum a few days ago. In 24 hours' time I expect to have Blue Booked two new-to-the-hobby players and gotten them ready for the game scheduled for 6 April. Thank you again for connecting with me. I really do not want to surrender my social life entirely but I can understand where the need for a break comes from. Hopefully the new people and the new direction apparent from the game on Saturday will bring a little more wind to my sails and less in my drawers. Thanks, SpringFwdMyAss. ps. Oh My Head that was an early stream!
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Post by gandalftheplaid on Mar 17, 2013 16:53:30 GMT -8
Sorry about the quality of my "help" in the chat CC. I think I had misunderstood the nature of your woes for at least half that conversation.
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Post by greatwyrm on Mar 17, 2013 20:16:19 GMT -8
Just wanted to say thank you for the proper Blues Brothers references.
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 17, 2013 20:47:30 GMT -8
First, I wanted to apologize to creativecowboy. I think we disagree on several (many) points of the roleplaying hobby, or at the very least approach the game from fairly different perspectives. However, after listening to the episode and hearing that the HJs podcast and these forums are essentially you only options, I can't help but feel like a dick for arguing against you so extensively. I'm sorry. The last thing I want to do is drive you away from the one community you have left.
I understand how much it can suck to live in a foreign country where the language barrier is a constant struggle, even with mundane tasks. Some days I want to punch absolutely everyone I encounter, simply because I'm just so god damn frustrated with things being "different" over here. I don't know what Poland is like, but Japan is still a xenophobic country, where foreigners are gawked at, intentionally ignored, automatically at fault in legal disputes, and treated like second class citizens. Kids point and stare, people refuse to sit next to you on the train, and old men ask when you're going home because you aren't wanted here. It really starts to wear on you after a while, to the point where I am starting to perceive honest mistakes and harmless coincidences as intentional slights and insults.
It's very difficult to find gamers who speak English well enough to play in a roleplaying game here, let alone find ones that have compatible play styles with my own. I've sat through some tedious games simply because they were the only ones available. My advice, if the new people you're playing with now don't work out, is to play something else for a while. Board games especially. There is a group of ex-pats here in Osaka that meet every month for a day of board gaming. Occasionally someone runs a one shot RPG session (I've done so a few times), but those are few and far between. It's not roleplaying, but it is social, and I've met some new people thanks to attending a few times.
Cheers, Chris
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Mar 17, 2013 23:07:57 GMT -8
Gandalftheplaid,
It is nice to be taken serious. Simply that is enough of an island I can cling to so the cultural Tsunami Hyvemynd describes does not wash me out like flotsam. And what he is describing is dead on for Poland. Poland is a white country, like Japan is a Japanese country: Poland for the Poles, Japan for the Japanese. It is even a political movement in the same vein as you Americans can imagine having an accepted political party made up of men and women in KKK white sheets. Here they are called the Family Party and if I were to make the connection I just did now, there would be a sincere wall of blank faces staring into their xenophobia and not getting it. Unlike non-Japanese visiting Japan, I can pass myself as Polish if I shut my mouth and adopt The Prime Directive. That describes my most recent 12+ years of non-life. Thus I deeply appreciate your kind help and it is helpful on so many levels I assure you.
Chris, I like when you argue a genuine difference we have and I would have it no other way. Let’s call it a sandbox interaction versus a railroad. What I do not like, what you and I survive as a daily expatriate experience, is the whisper campaigns and debates that devolve into just so much cowardly hits on the smite button. So you, sir, are a tonic!
But I also like to have a bunch of people singing my praises too, and I do not particularly care if they are all on the same key when they do it. Those hymns to me increase my self-esteem if not my personal development.
I hope you continue to participate on the Journey thread because after I do the reveal everyone who has not participated will say they “saw that coming.” The thread itself has a shelf life, which will lose its meaningfulness to later readers of our collection of posts in the same way it builds meaning between its on-going participants. That is the nature how all our minds work in retrospect/hindsight rationalization because looking back it is often a wholly different experience from looking forward. That’s part of the reason we can’t go home again. The journey leaves us changed.
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 17, 2013 23:09:12 GMT -8
Chris and CC, Believe me even in an English speaking country it can be like that on both counts - I've been likened to a backwater colonial who should be grateful for the opportunity to be entertained by his more civilised mother country. Pointing out that I grew up inner city in thriving metropolis and was educated at an international recognised university and had been a regular patron of the arts and culture of Oz society frequently not with standing - especially when the person insulting you is a simple minded knuckle dragging inbreed with 6 toes, webbed feet and the grace and manners (and personal hygiene) of a rabid swamp monkey. It took years for me to find a group . . . The UK is small but terribly insular and isolationist. Most services for finding groups/conventions etc tend to be limited to a few cities up north with most of the effort concentrated down South - the north/south divide is very real . . . Because everyone seems to think London IS England except for all we poor bastards that choose not to live there. Anyway, enough with this northern monkey's soft southern pansy bashing . . . I found that even though I wasn't able to play games for ages I still bought the books (god bless Amazon) and spent most of my time 'planning for the future'. My current group thinks I'm a super prepped GM with loads of material every other week to cover every eventuality . . . Yes and no : I'm a lazy GM with loads of background notes and hundreds of old ideas jotted down and ready for use when appropriate, because I had years to accumulate just such a collection . . . even apathy can generate a substantial amount of background material. Take time out CC . . . Use it hash out the system you want and create a campaign background. The other thing to do is to use the time to refresh your stock of source material ie: read some novels etc that you've not had time to read before and/or find out 'what's new' on the fantasy fiction front . . . For me it was James Barclays Raven series (which I cannot recommend highly enough) Aaron
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Mar 17, 2013 23:43:14 GMT -8
Hi Aaron, You're describing an over simplification of the xenophobia Hyvemynd and I experience. That's not to say what you experience is not a culturally ingrained injustice, or not as hard on you, as our situation is on us but this thing, this paranoia, that Chris eloquently expresses is psychologically real. It really starts to wear on you after a while, to the point where I am starting to perceive honest mistakes and harmless coincidences as intentional slights and insults. And I infer from his Monsterhearts female character January that he is an amicable (non-pugnacious is how my girlfriend describes me in Polish), emotionally sensitive and intelligent guy like myself. I find this boiling soup I am in very uncomfortable. I currently lack the capability to describe how I came about my situation in Poland and miss the vocabulary to describe my current station in life sympathetically. I am grateful to the life-supporting my girlfriend affords me and for her ability to accept and appreciate why it is I cannot be self-supporting here – and, indeed have stopped what was not working for me. The old serenity prayer is like a haunting mantra. It is the reason I turned to creating a social circle of creative people in that my only ability to change the things I can will come from my artistic creativity. But I would not be surprised, after everything I have survived in Poland, to find, in retrospect wisdom, that I must yet again accept a failure to develop another avenue for escape. My experience here is very much the Saturday morning cartoon experience of standing on a shrinking island until I am balanced on my big toe. Not sure what it means to me to surrender that last piece of land. Being a much more Socratic person than literate, I value the opportunity to regularly engage with living ideas “non-dead” by the medium of their nature and without a requirement of a keen route memory, which I lack. That’s why I value forums. That’s why I fear The Internet.
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 18, 2013 0:05:26 GMT -8
CC the other thing to consider is Play by Email/Forum since google+ isn't am option. Back in the day it was play by mail . . . the Internet has made this medium faster and more responsive . . . Dragonsfoot I believe have run several such games. As to xenophobia - its Europe : that's what makes Europe what it is and why it was a constant battle ground before the 2 big ones (WW1 and WW2). It's not just Poland . . . A Brit in France or Spain can face just these sort of problems. Eastern Europeans in the UK have had a very bad time . . . Which is why I can say I have done my bit for cultural tolerance by having several genuine EE friends over here. The reason Europe need the EU is because it is a union of states that distrust and missile each other - but realise after WW2 that this has got to change because Europe will not survive another set of such conflicts again. The EU is a grand generational project . . . Eventually the old generations will pass and the inheritors will see themselves as united Europeans rather than through the lens of the old nationalistic animosities of the past. But, as always, there remain nationalistic groups that won't let go and they tend to appeal to the dispossessed and exploited (ie the working classes) which makes it harder. A lot of what you experience in Poland will also be because you speak English and they'll see you through the lens of the less than complimentary and jingoistic anti Polish attitude of certain media outlets in the UK. To any Eastern Europeans who read this forum - I may not be 'English' but I am a resident and on behalf of the more sensible but silent majority I apologise for the slander of the UK press (and our fear mongering popularist politicians) . . . Not everyone here believes the nonsense published by the red tops. Aaron PS:Chris, not that two wrongs make a right, but I remember how badly treated Japanese immigrants were in Oztralia . . . and it wasn't that long ago. Ockers of a certain age will know exactly who I mean when mention the late president of the RSL - a WW2 vet who was free to express his opinions thru the national media . . . a gentleman who basically believed that anyone of Japanese origin (regardless of age) could only be either the child of or a close relative to those accused of warcrimes. He played on the very real suffering of those veterans who served on the front line to pursue an agenda of hate and intolerance . . . . the awful truth was that this 'hero of the people' never served on the frontline, he basically hated anyone living in Oz who wasn't of white angleo/irish descent. The Japanese immigrants were frequently treated appallingly . . . In these strange times any immigrant will be subject to scorn and isolation as economies fail to grow, jobs get fewer, credit is increasingly restricted and the majority have to get used to having less. There was a time very similar and very recent in world history . . . it gave power to the likes of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. I fear fascism is very much alive and well and cleverly disguised . . . a fear my grandfather (a WW2 vet and lifelong leftwing unionist) expressed before his passing in the mid 1980's because of how vocal small minorities of people were in marginalizing different cultures to suit their own agendas. Yeah, there will be ignorant people who insult you . . . that doesn't mean they speak for everyone just they are afraid. Interestingly many of the most tolerant people in NZ/Oz were the WW2 vets that served on the front line itself . . . they were the ones that wanted to forget the war and concentrate on building something new and better for the future . . . Unfortunately while the world continues to let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer people will be afraid for what they have and immigrants/minorities will always be an easy target for them to vent that anxiety . . . it's easier to blame the outsider. Countries that are traditionally isolationist are most prone to this . . . but so are countries founded on immigration. I don't think there is a solution . . . if there were history wouldn't be so rife with the creation of ghettos and associated persecution . . .
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Mar 18, 2013 2:52:21 GMT -8
Hi Aaron, I hail from a small town in Quebec, Canada, where my family name marks areas of some local significance. The story is passed down to me that loyalists comprised my branch of the family. They quit New England during the American War of Rebellion, leaving some family to sign the Declaration of Independence and others to settle the southern portion of Quebec - which my family did. I might also add that this was closely following the Hundred Years’ Asswhipping the British handed the French. However, the terms of surrender decided upon by two non-partisan mercenaries left the French culture in place; and they were sore losers rather than grateful conquests. This situation continues to this day with cultural, economic and social discrimination happening between English and French Canada and the government of Quebec. So I know the worst of it having grown up in a country that I did not have entire legal access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I also know the regret of loyalist roots. But I will tell you, based solely upon my experience, being an expatriate in Poland is an entirely different situation than the racism I experienced on home ground where elected officials and one bureaucrat, to my face, have told me to leave Quebec and work elsewhere. Hence I started my own company and gave them the raspberry. Having (admittedly, psychologically) “selectively” heard the horror stories coming out of England about Poles, I will tell you that Poles behaving badly there in England, according to us west from the Polish-German border types, are behaving perfectly fine according to Polish culture. There are forums where I visit only long enough to post an advertisement for social gaming to meet people because when I read about these cultural divides, I facepalm. Rather than the normal process of adaptation to a new country, which ends in a finer appreciation for the local culture, I, and I perceive Chris in Osaka too, have become radicalized to such a degree as to be almost unreasonable – paranoid of slights, laughs and whispers from locals. I much prefer the company of others like myself, though I do not mean simply expatriates. There are many in that number, as with RPG hobbyist, with whom I do not fit on anything but the most superficial façade. But, as an English native speaker, I am a target for a nation of locals accustomed to the conceptual expectation of Communistic entitlement and who perceive this proliferate western language among the trappings of wealth. I highly doubt I could hold a job with my Tourettes’ style freedom so deeply conditioned to my self-esteem to speak in my own voice after 12-years in this Tartaros were I to indulge my fantasy of employment that was not late with payment; shorting me payment; refusing payment; or brazenly asking me to contribute financially towards my employer. (This is why my girlfriend asks me to stop my employment seeking activities: we cannot afford me to continue it.) In the very least, using your intellect, you can carve out a piece for yourself using a common Queen’s English. You can focus on commonalities between yourself and your tormentors (something that saved me a few head slaps or worse in high school) and you can create the fiction of living in a world that wants you whereas I have no such comfort every time I would turn on the television. When I was touring Ireland during the decades of The Troubles, I once found myself face-to-face with IRA sympathizers – crew on the ship I had booked passage on between England and Ire. My name is very English so it magnetized the crew. I was 18 and, we might say an easy target traveling alone. So I was asked which side of the divide I stood on Northern Rule. Well, fuck me if I know what that was. But I have an English name. So I replied: Yes, but the milkman as Irish. Everyone laughed, I made no direct assertion about my mother’s morality or a cuckolded father, and the matter dropped. Later I asked the head of the Australian family to whom I had previously attached myself as their interpreter in France, and they were pleased with my response. Just one of those right things I had the opportunity to tumble out of my mouth because of a simple thing like shared language. As in the Irish troubles, the Quebec Issue, The Polish culture…. There is much repressed anger waiting for expression on the right pigeon. As you move further away from any common ground, even in appearance different apart the locals, many opportunities to diffuse situations are lost and you attract those seeking their angry catharsis. Satanism in Poland The Foreign Service Polish State Radio reports (last year): Demon energy drink 'promotes Satanism' in Poland Yet, this guy gets a free pass www.youtube.com/watch?v=VofLbnNronk
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 18, 2013 3:41:12 GMT -8
Having (admittedly, psychologically) “selectively” heard the horror stories coming out of England about Poles, I will tell you that Poles behaving badly there in England, according to us west from the Polish-German border types, are behaving perfectly fine according to Polish culture. There are forums where I visit only long enough to post an advertisement for social gaming to meet people because when I read about these cultural divides, I facepalm. The truth is the majority ARE perfectly well behaved. They work hard, they don't claim benefits and accept any job provided it pays . . . the builders are usually reasonably priced, do a good job and are reliable. Yet the occasional cowboy builder tarnishes them all in the press . . . despite the years of, now forgotten, complaints about the extortionate prices, poor workmanship and unreliability of our domestic builders prior to Poland's accession to the EU . . . Richard Clayderman . . . you bastard . . . I open an unnamed file and a horror from my youth (diligently avoided) desecrates my PC's hardrive Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 18, 2013 3:56:44 GMT -8
D&D and Traveller . . . sorry to burst the bubble but Marc Millar is on the record as saying he wrote Traveller because of his exposure to D&D. He wanted a Sci Fi RPG but he didn't want D&D in space. He chose d6 simply because they are easily available . . . thus the Traveller system was conceived and born . . . after D&D was a published product. Linear rather than convergent evolution. However, Empire of the Petal Throne is the best example of someone exploring early RPG concepts. So close to being an RPG that a newborn TSR took on the task of publishing this rich, full and somewhat alien world which had been in development a good decade before even the Chainmail Rules were formulated . . . Don't want to open up the whole AC argument but AD&D 1e Unearthed Arcana had Full and Field Plate Armour that was AC with Damage reduction/soak (from memory 22pt damage soak with 2pts soaked for every damage die rolled) Aaron
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Mar 18, 2013 4:15:08 GMT -8
Having (admittedly, psychologically) “selectively” heard the horror stories coming out of England about Poles, I will tell you that Poles behaving badly there in England, according to us west from the Polish-German border types, are behaving perfectly fine according to Polish culture. There are forums where I visit only long enough to post an advertisement for social gaming to meet people because when I read about these cultural divides, I facepalm. The truth is the majority ARE perfectly well behaved. They work hard, they don't claim benefits and accept any job provided it pays . . . the builders are usually reasonably priced, do a good job and are reliable. Yet the occasional cowboy builder tarnishes them all in the press . . . despite the years of, now forgotten, complaints about the extortionate prices, poor workmanship and unreliability of our domestic builders prior to Poland's accession to the EU . . . Can't argue with that except to say I was not the cowboy there. Richard Clayderman . . . you bastard I know, right?! Devil's music that's perfect music to welcome Cthulhu.... We had a small discussion about damage soak and partial damage during the game on Saturday. As the story/game gets started, and as the players get settled together, I am more open to gabbing about such things during the game, and it is relative to the "in-character" of trying on armour and wondering if a mix and match set will work for him, etc., through the expediency of player-to-player rule discussion. Keep preaching it Aaron! And I promise no more Clayderman. Next time: Frank Mills The Master.
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Post by fordprefect on Mar 18, 2013 12:24:36 GMT -8
As a Polish immigrant who grew up in the suburbs of the eastern coast of the US, I can assure you that Americans are xenophobes and bigots. This stuff is deeply ingrained in their politics and culture (see: FOX News, Jeff Dunham, the South).
Re gaming, I think you're mining too small a population. My brother-in-law has a weekly game in Tokyo but that's fuckin Tokyo. I know Poland has become more prosperous recently but Warsaw ain't no Tokyo.
Is your Polish too bad to play with the natives? Just judging by the amount of RPG/fantasy/boardgame polish translations I've seen (even vice versa with GRAmel for Savage Worlds) it would seem like there's a thriving nerd culture. I know my first contact with fantasy-themed boardgames in the 90s was on Summer vacation in a game store in my little town in Poland, then I went back to the US where we only play horrible Monopoly. Fuck monopoly.
Re England, consider Poland to be the Mexico of the EU. With the low barrier to entry, distance a law-wise, you get similar people coming in to do the same kinds of jobs, the poor and poorly educated. Compare to the US where immigration requires funds and planning and you get a much different Polish population breakdown (e.g., my friend and his wife who immigrated here several years ago to finish their doctorates, and now working on post-doc).
I won't try and claim that Poland isn't at least 20 years behind on certain social ideas but try and find a European country that doesn't have a thriving [blank] for the [blanks] party. Greece has actual Nazis! Bad times breed hate and fascism (see WW2).
Good luck!
PS, Who the fuck goes to Poland for work? We're leaving. That's how it works. We work for you, bring money back, build house, get nice stove for grandmother.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2013 17:30:06 GMT -8
Cowboy, stay positive bro. I spent a shit ton of time over seas and being an expat is never, ever easy. Do you have two peeps you can stomach? if you need a mic to play online, man...earbuds with a mic are next to nothing yo. And if you need, i am sure the HJ crew can muster something up for you. There is no good reason this community is not running regular games online. Time be damned...surely something can be worked out.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2013 17:32:46 GMT -8
And the Russian hat is not a babushka, that is in fact a grandmother. You are talking about a shapka or ushanka.
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