Tabletop Tales: Rashomon

I've been playing a lot of tabletop role-playing games lately, mostly the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, although I've tried 7th Sea, Edge of the Empire and some Legend of the Five Rings. I run games on occasion too and I thought I'd write about my thoughts on "game-mastering" or whatever you call it. 

I'm no expert and there's plenty of guides online already but I figure it's better to write about something I actually enjoy for a change instead of government or whatever outrage du jour is on social media. Maybe other people might find these useful. Maybe not.

The Rashomon Effect

Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa. The premise of the movie is simple: a murder was committed and the account of the incident is told from the perspective of four different characters. Each character's version of events vary wildly given their subjective individual experiences, bias and self-interest. Just like the movie, the same problem of competing perspectives may pop-up at the gaming table.

An important job of the game-master (GM) is to keep everyone on the same page. Everything the players know about their environment and the world depends entirely on what the GM says and how he says it. Players have different mindsets. A player may fixate on a thing you didn't expect him to and then he'll proceed to gnaw on it like a dog on a bone. Sometimes players will miss clues entirely or choose not to pursue them at all.

Then there's the matter of remembering details. Some players take notes while others rely on memory. Now, this is the tricky part because what is worth taking note of or remembering varies from player to player. You cannot rely on your players remembering things. I do not mean it as an insult but it's really impractical to expect them to. They may not know what's important or what it is you want them to consider as important. See, even the storyteller suffers from this Rashomon effect. People can't read each other's minds.

A skipped detail here or there won't hurt the game too bad but sometimes if the players' views widely diverge, you'll end up with competing narratives. Players will then propose different courses of action which may be shot down as impossible by the others, even if it isn't, or decide to make poorly thought out decisions due to misinformation or misapprehension of the given facts. At worst, there might be arguments.

The goal of the GM is to make it clear to the players what is important and what is not. Therefore, he/she must take care to communicate information to the players in an effective manner. I've found some methods to be helpful:

1. Don't say too much. The more words you use to layout the situation, the more useless filler you're cramming into your players' brains. Keep it brief and mention only the very important bits.

2. Speak clearly. You don't have to be the grand Toastmaster of the Rotary Club or anything. It's enough to just speak in a way that people can easily understand.

2. Repetition is key. If there's something you want the players to know or remember you have to mention it a couple of times from different sources. You have to be subtle though and not seem like you're bullying the players into doing something.

3. Do a recap. I find that it helps to do a recap of events at the start of every session. There, you can emphasize the important persons, places and things of the campaign.

It's easy to get caught up in the game-play bits and forget that playing tabletop RPGs is also an exercise in communication. It's been difficult, personally, but I expect people used to public speaking and speeches will have a better go at it.

Surviving Mars OST - Rockets

Fallout: New Vegas Analysis : House Ending

In Fallout: New Vegas, the player can choose to ally himself from among three different factions: New California Republic, Caesar's Legion or House. Allying with different factions will lead to different endings.

A lot of people end up choosing to side with House. It's a reasonable choice. House was the man who saved Las Vegas. He's intelligent and charismatic. He seems to have things figured out, which is more than you can say for the corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats of the NCR. House is strict but he's not outright cruel like the Legion. He has a plan to restore New Vegas and maybe even colonize space. What a visionary! He may be a ruthless and unfeeling dictator but hey, nobody is perfect.

The Question

Humanity rising from the ashes of the old world to create new societies is a constant storytelling element of Fallout. These new societies run the gamut from backwards, spear-throwing tribes to Mad Max style raiders with spikes and leather to cultures revolving around some misunderstood relic of the past. It's all good fun.

However, there is a underlying thread running through these new societies, a dreaded question haunts each and every one of them: Will they repeat the same mistakes? War never changes, after all.

That the NCR and the Legion represent certain bad things from the past is obvious but they deserve their own separate posts. With House, it's not immediately clear what he represents. He is not manifest destiny America like the NCR nor is he an old school conquering civilization like the Legion. To best understand House, one must stop trying to tie him to a historical analog and simply look at the way he operates, the way he treats those around him and the way he deals with those who stand in his way.

Don't Mess With the House

House serves no god and answers to no man. He rules New Vegas alone and rules as he sees fit. He is a force unto himself. He operates through cold logic, always calculating the odds. He's ruthless when dealing with obstacles and threats.

The Brotherhood of Steel, for example, is a serious threat to House. The BoS is dangerous to him for a couple of reasons: they have the knowledge to figure technology out quickly, they have impressive weapons technology of their own, and their philosophy is to keep dangerous technology out of people's hands. Since House's regime practically runs on robots, he'd want them nipped in the bud before they become a complication. To remove the BoS, the player must find the BoS bunker and either turn the bunker into a slaughterhouse by gunning down every last one of them or turn the bunker into a tomb by initiating the self-destruct sequence. Either way, a lot of people are going to die but at least with the second option, you can't hear the screaming.

This is the part when some players break with House. This is curious since the player has probably been doing some killing up to this point. But bandits and raiders are a different story, eh? If killing the BoS isn't genocide, it sure does seem close to it.

I mention this particular episode since we're trying to figure out House. If it isn't immediately obvious to the player now, House doesn't really much care for people.

More Machine than Man

The common argument to justify siding with House is that he's the best hope for humanity. However, House doesn't care about humanity at all but only cares about New Vegas. Consider this: sweeping aside the romantic image of Las Vegas, how does it operate?

Historically, Las Vegas is widely known for one thing. Its image isn't exactly squeaky clean and it's called "sin city" for a reason. Las Vegas is a gambler's mecca - it runs on vice. There's something both wonderful and terrible about Las Vegas. I've been to Las Vegas and I was amazed at how in the middle of this harsh and barren desert, a great gleaming city stood defiant.

New Vegas, as it is portrayed in-game, is a place where people go to get money sucked from their wallets. New Vegas has no industry to speak of and exists by profiting off of people's vices. While the Strip is a dazzling place full of entertainment and luxury the likes of which are unheard off in the wasteland, it is surrounded on all sides by slums. The dregs of humanity are kept at bay by a wall patrolled by securitrons armed with machine guns. Only those with enough caps are allowed in. New Vegas is kept in order by police bots while anarchy reigns just outside its gates.

House's lack of humanity is also well portrayed in-game through your dealings with him. He's just a face on a screen. He interacts with the outside world rarely and only through robot agents. His own casino, the Lucky 38, is empty and accepts no guests. Even before the war he was an eccentric genius who was a recluse. Hell, his girlfriend is just an A.I. personality hooked to a securitron. His dealings with the courier is purely on a professional level.

But so what? What does all of this mean? Well, it loops back to the question. Is House repeating the same mistakes of the past? One of the main themes of FONV is the problem of technology in the wrong hands. Its retro-futuristic designs are more than just aesthetics. The atom was supposed to usher in a new age of progress but only brought death and destruction instead. Science without morals was extensively covered in the DLC Old World Blues. We see humanity grow in leaps and bounds in terms of scientific discovery but fail because human morality and ethics couldn't catch up.

With house we have the promise of order and progress but lack the increase in human welfare that ought to go with it. Order and progress come only on House's terms and his terms are only for the good of New Vegas. It is tragic that New Vegas is a supposed to be this center of prosperity while just outside people live absolute squalor. If you don't have the caps, House doesn't care. If you're no use to House, he doesn't care. If you get in his way, well too bad.

Greed is Good?

I've read that House is supposed to be a critique of anarcho-capitalism or capitalism in general. While I don't wholly agree, I believe there is some merit to this. When House brought the tribes of Vegas to heel, he turned them to his "employees" to operate his casinos. House is basically a promoter of a one-of-a-kind experience. He offers services in exchange for your cold hard caps. No money? Then get your poor ass out the door.

How one views this operation is the crucial point separating players who support house and players who don't.

Supporters of House will point out that when House isn't applying violence, as he sometimes does, his interactions with the tourists of New Vegas is entirely consensual. House isn't putting a gun to people's heads and ordering them to gamble their money away. It's all "legal" in a sense. However, what is legal is not necessarily moral and it's not good to confuse the two. If a man wants to buy heroine to get high or kill himself, is it moral to sell it to him?

Look, whether or not people were going to prosper with nuclear power isn't an issue in the Fallout series. The promise was there. The issue is whether or not people could deal with the enormous responsibility. I believe House failed and that his vision is flawed in a sense that it will not bring humanity to an enlightened and prosperous age. House's modus operandi is exploitative in nature and any "prosperity" he brings about will only go to the rich few who can afford the high price tag. It's sad that House boasts that he could eventually colonize space (not for free, of course) while so many people are still suffering right outside his lawn right now. Hubris, much? The only time House cares about the slums is if it causes too much trouble for the tourists, in which case, he won't hesitate to bust some heads

So the past repeats itself in a way. Humans exploiting other humans, people eating each other. Wealth is everything and greed is good. It's a world without compassion ruled with an absolute dictator's iron fist. This time it's all coated in a veneer of  being civilized, consenting adults in a free market. FONV wouldn't be considered deep if it didn't challenge our beliefs. A lot of people support a free market economy but what if raising the standards of living was no longer the goal of the free market? What if it became soulless and oppressive? What if charity was no longer a consideration?

House could easily help mankind with the tools at his disposal but altruism isn't in his blood. Altruism has it's own problems and isn't exempt from criticism in the game. It isn't profitable, for starters - just look at the Followers. Charity is often abused and at worst, only enables bad behavior.  House, however, takes the opposite to the very extreme. 

In Conclusion

There's perfectly good reasons to support House, he's not all bad. House will bring progress if it would mean him profiting from it. His regime is peaceful and stable at least. House will ensure humanity will survive enough to be useful, like cattle.

It's really up to the player. In terms of mankind's continuation, House is a good bet. In terms of mankind living in a golden age, it's unclear. At least the wealthiest will. Nothing is free when it comes to House.

Humanity will benefit if only incidentally. It's only rational, at least, that's how House would see it.

The Matrix Revolution

One of the more amusing things El Jefe's drug wars have produced is this curious thing called a "drug matrix", a new nonsense term to go along with "drug personality", "criminality", and other purposefully tedious and vague verbiage.

Way back in 2016, the president unveiled his "drug matrix" wherein persons involved in the drug trade were revealed. It was a high profile affair as it concerned drug lords within the infamous New Bilibid Prison and Senator Leila de Lima. But what is a "drug matrix"? A drug matrix is basically a chart which shows the names (and faces if we're being fancy) of people involved in drug trafficking and also shows their links to one another. It's not unlike an organizational chart one would find in a private corporation. Here's a cleaned up, "professional" version:

The matrix makes constant references to the president's rival Senator De Lima but hey,  it could just be a coincidence.

What's amazing about the president's cheap-looking whiteboard chart is that everyone seemed to believe that the information on it was accurate, if not, the truth. How did the president arrive at his conclusions? Who knows. It's on a chart with text, lines, and scary-looking mystery silhouettes. It's like an episode of C.S.I.! It looks like serious police work so it must be true!

The police have followed in the president's footsteps and have been making matrices(?) of their own. Apparently, this is how they operate now and they have a matrix for everything. I heard a few weeks ago, on the radio, a police officer being interviewed about some dead guy or something. "He was in our matrix." he said. Well, I guess that settles that. He was in THE MATRIX and only really bad dudes are in the matrix. Who's hungry?

Maybe people believe it just because of the way it sounds. Judging by the way campaign season is going, it's obvious Filipinos are tragically very easy to impress. If it sounds official and vaguely scary, sure. Personally, I find it funny. When I hear "the matrix", I tend to imagine people in trench coats chasing each other on the roof while dodging bullets in slow motion. In reality, however, people are being shot in fast motion and there's no waking up from the simulation or anything like that.

Imagine: death via powerpoint presentation.

Black Banshee - Teen Pregnancy

Dragnet

It is much easier to measure efficiency in a factory than a bureaucracy. In a factory, it's a matter of input versus output; how much can be produced from how much material. In a government bureaucracy, it's not as straightforward. 

There is the tendency to rely on numbers to gauge  how effective something is. It's only natural. People like big numbers and charts with arrows pointing up. It works for private businesses for the simple reason that profit is easy to measure. It's different in government since nothing is constant and predictable.

It's better to give an example. In the courts, efficiency is measured in the number of cases disposed of per month. It makes sense. However, it does not take into account that it's not really up to the courts to decide how many cases get resolved in a month. Maybe the trial gets postponed. Maybe the parties decide to compromise. Maybe the compromise doesn't push through. The best you can do is make an estimate. This system isn't necessarily bad. One side effect though, is that some courts tend to hold off on promulgating decisions if the month has a sufficient amount in order to load it onto the next month's numbers. It produces minor delay but it shows that such a system can be gamed to make the reports look good.

The worst example of over-reliance on raw numbers is the travesty that is the "quota system" of the police. The police are given "quotas" by their superiors on how many arrests they should make per month. Right off the bat, one can see the problem with this system. How can you make a quota of how many arrests ought to be made per month? What is this based on? Are they implying they know with certainty how many crimes are committed in a given time and in a given area? Suppose that there's a lull in criminal activity, what then?

The problem with this quota system is that it encourages the police to arrest as many people as they can whenever they conduct a raid on a drug/gambling den. They call these raids "one time, big time" operations. I don't know why they call it "one time" as they do it many times but they're not kidding about the "big time" part. A lot of people get caught in these raids and a disturbing number of them are simply bystanders. It's like fishermen with a trawl net catching everything they can leaving destruction in their wake. The quota has to be met. Of course, the number of actual convictions isn't used as a measure of effectiveness, no, that's the prosecutor's problem. The police don't care. You could be dragged off to jail just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

In their haste to arrest as many people as they can, the police also tend to make a lot of mistakes. Evidence is often lacking. Suspects have to wait in the filthy and overcrowded jails before their case gets called to trial. When the time comes to explain the arrest, the judge is going to know eventually when a suspect is a mere bystander who was just out to buy a pack of sugar. Outside of raids, you have people arrested without a proper warrant just by looking sufficiently suspicious. The irony is that nothing can kill a case faster than a wrongful arrest. In which instance, it is just a massive waste of time for everyone involved.

But we need to get those numbers up, don't we? How else would the brass know if these deadbeat cops are earning their pay?

There has to be a better way.

Title Goes Here

There are many posters and tarps advertising new political groups all over the streets these days. It's election season after all, and these groups spring up like weeds only to disappear once it's all over. What caught my eye was that one of these posters had a lead candidate promoting himself as "Engineer Juan de la Cruz". Well good for him but does that mean he's planning to build a bridge or something? It didn't say what kind of engineer he was.

Traditionally, it's always been lawyers and doctors who swagger around with their titles. Nowadays, professionals from other disciplines are doing it too, not just our engineer. Accountants are trying to get in on it although adding "Accountant" before your name is probably not going to make you sound like a fun person. "Teacher" has a more noble air about it, don't you think? "Architect" is more iffy. These aren't jokes; people are doing this. 

For all the "pinoy pride" posturing, Filipinos don't think much of their own countrymen. It's always assumed that the typical Filipino is dumb, untrustworthy, or both. That's why people wear their titles in defiance as well as pride: "I am not one of the common rabble!", "I am intelligent and trustworthy!" If only that were the case. These titles denote profession. At most, they prove that you're smart enough to pass a board exam but if someone goes around calling himself "Attorney So N. So", how do I know if he's a good lawyer or a bad one?

Titles are treated as proof of character but it's not a guarantee. The den of vultures picking at the carcass of the republic are all supposedly smart people on paper. The President, who is a staunch advocate for summary executions, is a lawyer though you can be forgiven for not knowing that.

Still, people cling to their titles as a means to let others know that they're higher up the social totem pole and therefore have the right to tell you how to live your life. This is why the media made a big stink a few days ago about Imee Marcos. Imee Marcos, daughter of the late Ferdinand Marcos, claimed to have graduated from Princeton University. She didn't. A politician lying? Say it ain't so. A sheepskin from Princeton would be an awesome status symbol better than any Italian handbag. It was the same story with her brother too, who didn't earn a degree from Oxford University despite claiming he did. Their illness must be genetic.

I wonder if it's the same in other countries. I don't recall people doing this in the United States. Maybe doctors but I don't know.

Nobody tells you their title outside of professional settings unless it's to impress you. People who do this are basically selling themselves and the advertising can have different effects depending on the market. The D and E market would be very easily impressed as a title is something they aspire to and see value in. Just tell them you're a doctor and they'll assume you have two cars, two houses and two wives. The upper classes wouldn't be as impressed as they've sampled other products but a degree is still considered a bare minimum requirement to prove competence in something at least.

Don't think that I'm hating on accomplished people. I'm just skeptical. People who feel the need to drop their title constantly are suspicious. It's like a killjoy pulling rank on you. I don't have a fond experience of such people. I won't give names but I know this woman who would constantly remind everyone around her, in case they forgot, that she was an "attorney". She was a bully who did this to intimidate others. Never mind the fact that she had never stepped in a courtroom for half a century and probably had no more right to practice law. 

Everyone has something to sell, including themselves. Only doctors impress me but only because I know I'll need them sooner or later.

Just be you, for Christ's sake.