All posts by sonworshiper

General, Worship

Glee Worship

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My wife and I are admitted “Gleeks” since about the end of the first season. For whatever reason, this current season isn’t doing it for us. We half-watched the most recent episode (where the boys of the Glee Club produce a male model calendar to raise money), and my wife and I discussed our feelings on the show. Her assessment was:

“They made it all smutty. That’s what you do when you don’t have any real ideas.”

It’s the easy kill. When you don’t have a character-driven plot, you can rest assured: Sex sells.

So what does this have to do with a Wednesday Worship post?

Simple. As worshipers, we need to make sure we’re not going for the “easy kill.”

The great thing about worship music is that it touches the emotions so powerfully, which is also the worst thing about it.

As worship leaders, we can chain together a number of moving choruses, maybe working in some sweet transitions so that one song flows into another smoothly. We know how to build up excitement and how to bring things down into intimacy. We know how to drive the beat with energy and how to slow things down with passion. We can orchestrate emotional highs and lows, playing the congregation like another instrument in the band.

We must never do this. That’s what you do when you don’t have any real ideas.

Louie Giglio (yes, the one that didn’t get to speak at the Inauguration) tweeted something on Sunday that I really appreciated. “Preparing to lead others in worship instinctively requires some worship of our own.” My worship pastor’s wife posted something similar: “When you’ve been in the Word all week at home, worship at church is WAY sweeter!”

I used to think, “Man, I hope the worship team does something awesome on Sunday to get me motivated.” Then I learned, when I was already excited about what God was doing, I didn’t care what songs they played — I was just happy to respond to Him.

I’ve seen this on a larger scale in churches where much of the congregation sticks around after the service just to sing praises and celebrate who God is and what He’s done. I’ve had to play for over an hour after the official close of the service just because people are still eager to respond to God’s love. (I say “had to” but it was a privilege.)

It wasn’t anything we did as a worship team; it’s what people focused on, and it was our commitment as a church to seek God and not just a good time.

Worship is not about doing what sells, hitting the right chords to pluck the heart-strings of the congregation. It’s about a meaningful relationship, a set of songs that matters and communicates truth, an expression of love and gratitude that helps us come in line with what God is doing in our midst.

Any decent worship team can go the Glee route and perform the current Top 40 hits to manufacture a response. But that’s the easy road, the equivalent of smut episodes during May sweeps.

I want to be sure that my worship is authentic. I want the plot of my worship to be character-driven, coming to know God’s character and seeing my own reshaped to match His.

If I realize I don’t have any idea what that is, it’s not time to play songs for cheap thrills. It’s time to get some revelation.

Culture/Politics, General, Worship

Non-Traditional Family

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“We’re fighting for the traditional family, the mainstream marriage, the moral foundation of our society. We can’t permit marriage to be redefined by anyone’s agenda, so we’ve got to fight to protect the fundamental building blocks of society.”  — any randomly selected opponent of gay marriage

This is the "For People Like Me" liferaft. Find your own.
This is the “For People Like Me” liferaft. Find your own.

Our church is going through a series called “Healthy” as we try to discover how the Bible applies to a holistic, holy and whole life. Sunday’s sermon was about conflict, and healthy ways of dealing with it in order to maintain and strengthen our relationships with those around us.

Relationships are messy, difficult, and absolutely necessary. Community is hard work, but it’s essential. And in the context of building community and developing a sense of “family” in the church, the pastor spoke about the current status of families in America.

Consider these numbers:

1 in 2 children live in a single-parent family at some point.

1 in 3 are born to unmarried parents.

1 in 4 kids live with only one parent.

1 in 8 were born to a teenage mother.

1 in 25 children have neither parent in their lives.

68% of children in America live in non-traditional families.

These stats got me thinking…

How “traditional” are so-called traditional families?

What exactly are we working to defend when we protest gay marriage? What point are Christians making when they gloat over a homosexual dying of AIDS as “the due reward for their sin”? What good is being done for society as the church-in-general fights against this one issue?

The usual justification is that we must stand for traditional marriage and traditional families. I’ll refer you back to those stats. Traditional marriage is pretty well gone in America, just like Leave It To Beaver and black-and-white TV. This isn’t what “the gays” are doing to marriage. This is what all of us traditional heterosexuals have done to it.

Men who are little more than sperm donors skip out on their responsibilities, leaving the child-bearing and child-rearing to the single mom or teenage mother. In our rabid defense of traditional marriage, are we chasing down single mothers and telling them that their exhaustion and sacrifices are the “due penalty of sin” they committed? God forbid! I don’t think even Westboro stoops that low.

Selfishness drives spouses apart, and lust disguised as love excuses divorce and remarriage. But we don’t hold up signs and chant slogans at the woman on her third husband, or the man with a new “younger model” spouse who leaves behind an ex-wife and some children. Sure, we probably judge them like good religious folk are supposed to… can’t let them get away thinking they’re ok, after all. Gotta heap on the condemnation with dirty looks and cold distance in church.

But we’re not picketing them or campaigning for laws banning remarriage. We’re not railing about the destruction of our moral fabric at the hands of every non-traditional heterosexual couple.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: maybe we’re past the point where “traditional” really matters.

I mean, it’s nice to think about, of course, in the same way that it’s great my kids like to watch Beaver and I Love Lucy. We think fondly of tradition for good reason. But tradition isn’t what we see in the world around us, and we need to stop fighting to make it so.

When the Titanic hits the iceberg and starts taking on water, when the design flaws are exposed and the ship is going down, it’s a bit late to go to the shipwright and tell him how wrong all his plans were. There’s no point drawing up new blueprints or editing the old ones to fix what went wrong. Really, after a certain point, baling water is no longer an issue either. The problem is past that point.

The ship is sinking. Stop laying blame and start handing out life-jackets.

When we practice water survival for the military aircraft I fly on, latching on to the other survivors is one of the first steps we take once we’re in the water. Then we work together to get to a life raft.

What if the Church-at-large stopped picketing the design flaws in our society and stopped pointing at those floating and flailing in the water? What if we made it our mission to latch on to people in need, to cling to them with arms of love instead of looks of judgment?

What if we admit the ship has taken too much water and just focus on handing out the life-jackets, grabbing hold of the reaching hands that want help? Maybe we can start working together to find and build places of refuge where we can minister to people’s needs. Maybe we can show love and acceptance as the very first and ideally the very best non-traditional family out there – without changing our morals, but without using them as weapons, either.

There’s no room on a life raft for a picket sign.

Culture/Politics, Worship, Writing

The Mirror

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For a Monday Morning Snack, here’s a short piece about mercy and judgment.

The Mirror

I looked out the window at the world, angry at all the injustice.

Then I looked in the mirror, ashamed at all of my own.

I looked out the window at two men in love, and my religious beliefs rose in offense.

I looked in the mirror, saw how little I love, and I was humbled.

Outside I saw greed ignore need and I was enraged.

Inside, I saw my own selfishness, and I was appalled.

I looked out the window at passion paraded and praised, and I stood in judgment.

I looked in the mirror at my lust and desires, and I cried for mercy.

I looked out and saw people reject God’s word, and I thought them foolish.

Then I saw my life contradict my professed beliefs, and I was disgraced.

I looked out the window at everything wrong, and asked, “God, what are You going to do about this?”

Then I heard Him respond, “I gave you a mirror.”

General, Workplace Leadership

Retention – Problem or Solution?

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“You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?” – Robert Louis Stevenson

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” – Harry S. Truman

exit

There is a proverb in the Bible–not surprisingly, found in the book called Proverbs–which warns the reader that “Even a fool is thought wise when he holds his tongue.” Sometimes the best thing one can do in a crisis or confrontation is shut up and move on. Sometimes the worst thing one can do is vent their frustration in public.

I don’t always remember that.

Couple those lapses of judgment with a very public forum (i.e. Facebook), and you have a recipe for disaster… especially when you vent frustration about your workplace and your management. Thankfully, I don’t make a habit of Friending my chain of command.

Still, I sometimes get pointed responses – either in person or in social networks. I get it that some people don’t care for whining, and some people don’t see complaining as befitting a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer. I imagine many in the military would think the right thing to do is salute smartly, shut the mouth, and execute the assigned task as ordered.

So, to the whiner, these folks essentially say, “If you don’t like your job, get out.”

I see a problem with that.

I do like my job. I like it enough that I care when it seems we’re doing it wrong.

Quite frankly, I believe that’s why the organization pays me. I’m not just my crew position, qualification or office title. I’m still in the military because the Air Force still values my input and experience, and they’ve seen fit to put me in a position that should carry some influence. They expect me to bring that experience and judgment to bear in making decisions and informing leadership about the effects of how we’re doing business, good or bad.

Sometimes whining is a refuge for the weak and lazy. But sometimes it’s the last resort once dialogue has been shut down and a culture of oppression or fear has silenced official professional dissent. If I can’t say anything that changes what’s wrong, I’m still going to bring it up from time to time.

If all the “whiners” get out, then no one is left to raise concerns.

As a young Airman recently rededicated to the Christian faith, I once thought that the Base Chapel was the place to serve, and I considered cross-training into a Chaplain Assistant job. Surely there, I could really do something good, or so I reasoned. Then a chaplain friend of mine suggested, “If all of the believers get out of their career fields and work in the Chapel, then who’s left to be a positive influence in your workplace?”

Religious issues aside, the logic is sound in this case. What sort of people are we trying to keep?

Do we want only “yes men” who are willing to bend any rule and accept any treatment in order to avoid a confrontation with those above them? Does our organization need leaders with a mind of their own, or do we want only those who parrot back the opinion of leadership? If that’s what we want, then, sure, telling the dissenter to “get out” is good advice.

Are our retention rates a problem, or a solution?

In my career field, at least, we have a shortage of people. We are constantly striving to replace the experienced folk we lose to retirement and separation. We’re grabbing people with the bare minimum qualifications and putting them in demanding positions of authority, and the pool we can choose from is getting more and more shallow each year. We are considered a stressed career field.

So if I’m frustrated by the stress of the job, and if we’re doing things that encourage people to leave our career field, maybe more people getting out only adds to the problem. It’s certainly not fixing anything.

There are people who need to be helped on their way to the door: those who take no initiative, those who disobey orders or violate good discipline, those who produce little or no value added for their unit. The person complaining and trying to prevent harm to his or her institution is not in the same category. They might be going about it wrong, but they’re doing something right. They’re taking ownership of their work.

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” is a tough-sounding, hard-hitting response that’s great if you just want people to shut up and color. The problem is, you all trained me to cook, and I’ve come to love it. So I’m going to keep stirring the pot, and I’m going to speak up if you’re screwing up the recipe.

That’s why you hired me in the first place.

Bordermarches, General, Writing

Shuuka

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This is a piece I wrote to introduce a villain for my Worldmender project. I aimed for a present tense “in the bad guy’s head” style that is different from my usual efforts, and of course this is about a villain so it’s a bit dark. I’d love to know what you think!

shuuka

“Don’t care ’bout the letter from Hagron,” Dagger Bandit mutters and draws twin blades.

He probably thinks I can’t hear him. He turns toward me, all thin and hunched over, ready to pounce on smaller prey. He’s breathing hard. I see it in the chill air. I hear his heart pounding.

“Letter from a noble or not,” Dagger Bandit continues, “Shuuka’s getting on my nerves.”

That’s what these robbers call me. They don’t know my name. They only know their boss sent me. I don’t know their names either. I don’t need to. Tools should be called by their function.

Maybe they think I’m not listening. Maybe they know I am. I keep playing my bonerattle to the Rhythm as I watch the firelight dance across the sands and the boulders.

shhuuu-Ka shhuuu-Ka shhuu-Ka shh…

It’s cold tonight. I see wisps in the wind when the bandits breathe. I can’t feel the cold, and the fire doesn’t warm me. I can’t feel anything.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I feel the Hunger. My body needs fuel, so I take a bite of dried meat. It tastes like sand in my mouth. I can see the spices, but I can’t taste them. I can’t taste anything anymore.

The Rhythm is the only thing that keeps me calm until I can satisfy the Hunger.

Dagger Bandit hesitates in his approach and glares at me. The stocky bearded man next to him speaks up. “You saw what he did to Namir yesterday. Fought him one-handed, one blade against Namir’s two.”

I call this big one Meat-shield. He seems to be the smartest of the bunch.

He looks up at Dagger Bandit now. “You think you can take him, have a go. I won’t miss the noise.”

“Never seen Namir lose a duel,” Dagger Bandit admits and sits down.

“Lost his bleedin’ hand is what he lost.”

Meat-shield has a point. Plus he’s in charge.

I would have liked very much to take more from Sword-dancer, the one they call Namir. He sits in the shadows, nursing his bandaged stump. The Hunger clamors within me always, and Namir might have satisfied it. For a time. But I don’t want them to know about me yet. I kept my glove on during the fight, kept the Darkness hidden.

I chose to be patient then. To listen to the Rhythm a while longer. But I think today’s the day.

shhuu-Ka shhuu-Ka shh…

Footsteps rush toward us. My fingers rest on the pommel of my blade. Our scout bursts into the hidden campsite. “They’re coming,” he pants. His chest thuds in my ears like a horserace. My right hand twitches. I want to consume him. The Hunger roils within, and I suppress it with a shudder.

I focus on the rattle again.

“His letter,” Farsight blurts between gasps, pointing at me. “It’s true. The caravan, nearby, three guards, four others.”

Meat-shield hands Farsight a waterskin. Only a few drops in it. Enough for another day here in the Waste. Then Meat-shield hisses “Get ready,” as he kicks out the fire.

I stop the rattle and head for the dunes around the camp. It’s time. Away from the firelight, I remove my right glove. Shadows swirl and flow like oil in the shape of a hand. I’m not sure I really have an arm under there anymore. Only the Darkness remains.

I don’t mind the loss. The power is worth it.

Meat-shield is smart. Good position. The rocks and dunes hide the camp in darkness. Anyone would have to be on top of the nearest hill to see the firelight. But the robbers take no chances. Prey in the Waste is skittish and dangerous. Predators must be crafty.

Meat-shield sends archers to the tops of the stones where they can get a clear view of the merchant route. His best bowman has a monocle that Meat-shield got from Lord Hagron.  It makes night like day in the wearer’s eye. I can think of many uses for such a device.

Trueshot looses a flaming arrow to mark the caravan. I hear it sink into the wood of a wagon with a thok. Now everyone can see it. The travelers cry out. The four robbers on foot rush the prey while Trueshot and the others take aim at the guards.

I take aim at Trueshot. I creep forward, unnoticed, black hand extended.

His monocle slips into my open palm as he dies. I lay his body down atop the stone and turn to the next archer. The night makes it easy. The rush of adrenaline, the thrill of the kill–that makes my victims delicious. The Hunger feeds on life, but strong emotions and passions are the sweetest. I can taste those. I can feel them as they are consumed.

Meat-shield and his allies are busy fighting guards or chasing the unarmed. They don’t notice that the arrows stop flying. Three of the guards are wounded. One fights on. It’s easy to sneak up on the bandits.

Sword-dancer dies first. I catch him rifling through the goods in a wagon, out of the view of the others. Greed–lust for the prize–it’s not delicious, but it will do.

He expires with a quiet sigh, the noise lost in the din of the fray.

The lone guard shouts as he cuts down Mace. I’m not surprised. Mace isn’t a fighter. He’s Meat-shield’s cousin, or brother-in-law, or some other relationship with obligation. Doesn’t matter. With that steaming wound in his belly, he’ll be dead soon.

One of the other bandits is down. Arrow in the back. Maybe Trueshot or another archer had some score to settle. I don’t care. And now Meat-shield is fighting the guard that killed Mace.

I sense two more heartbeats, one pursuing the other. Dagger Bandit finished off a couple of the passengers and is chasing the last one. A woman’s scream pierces the night. I can feel Dagger Bandit’s lust building. The Hunger longs for him, and I shiver. He’ll be tasty.

But first, Meat-shield is fresh, and this final guard is weary. Not a fair fight.

I stretch my right hand toward Meat-shield. No one can see it in the dark, but I know tendrils of black are forming around him, slowing him, hindering him. I hear him rage against invisible bonds, swinging wild punches as he tries to break free.

The guard sees his opportunity and thrusts a sword into Meat-shield’s ribs. Meat-shield roars and draws a knife as he grabs the guard by the throat. I turn away, releasing the bonds. I hear choking and gurgling behind me, weak cries, labored breathing in the dark. They’ll both be dead soon.

Dagger Bandit’s heart is thudding in my mind. It’s all I can think of. Maybe it’s all the Darkness can think of. I’m not really sure how this all works.

All I know is I want him.

He has the woman cornered. I sense her fear. It’s a powerful emotion too, but it’s the only one the Darkness doesn’t like. She doesn’t interest me, not with Dagger Bandit near.

I hear his voice telling lies, his tone meant to soothe. I can’t make out the words. The pounding of his heart is so loud in my head. My shadow hand can barely retain its form. It yearns to stretch out and take him. I resist.

The woman cowers. Dagger Bandit steps forward, knife shaking with delight. He slowly reaches for her, and giggles as he grabs her shoulder. She writhes and screams, but she can’t get away. He raises the knife.

Now.

Shadows wrap around him, wracking his body into awkward positions. I think bones snap but I don’t care. His eyes are wide, reflecting firelight. His mouth is filled with darkness. His intense emotions are captured and consumed in an instant.

The lifeless body crumples to the ground. A wave of pleasure washes over me, the reward from the Darkness for such a perfect feast.

The woman sees me, knows that somehow I’ve saved her. She doesn’t question how, just bows and babbles profuse thanks. I am not interested.

…until the Darkness senses her overwhelming relief. Her fear is gone. I step into the light.

“I swear to you,” she continues, “I will tell my father of how you saved me and he will reward you with greater riches than what we carry here. I cannot thank you enough.”

“No, dear,” I frown. “You can’t.”

I stretch my hand once more and close my eyes, awash in satisfaction as she dies.

A minute later, the night is quiet. I start collecting provisions. I’m not sure where I’ll go. Before I came here, Hagron spoke of war in the city of Sulkath, and invading armies from Kandurien.

War always brings out strong passions. It sounds like the right place to be.

Meat-shield mumbles something behind me, dying on the ground, tangled with the body of the guard. “Hagron… that letter was fake… he didn’t send you…”

“No, the letter was real. But Hagron didn’t send me. I took it after I fed on him.”

He looks confused, so I explain. “You worked for Hagron. I killed him. So you serve me now.”

Meat-shield coughs up blood.

“Rest now,” I say as I turn. I can’t help a grin. “I have been well served.”

I take out my bonerattle as I walk away from the ruined caravan. The Darkness is sated.

shhhuuu-KA shhhuuu-KA shhh…

I can hear the Rhythm clearer than before. For now.

General, Writing

February Resolution

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“You only fail if you stop writing.” – Ray Bradbury

“I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” – Steven Wright

 

It has been quite a while, and I regret being away from this for so long. “Life gets in the way” is a poor excuse.

It’s common experience that other priorities sometimes force themselves to the top of the list, but the harsh truth of writing is that people more busy than me are blogging and writing at a prolific rate.

You make time for what you love, what you want, what you need.

Writing is something I really want, so I never doubted that I would get started with this again. I thought I could in December, and when that didn’t happen, I told myself I had a New Year’s resolution to uphold.

“A New Year’s resolution to start blogging again? How trite,” I rationalized.

So now, at the end of January, I am committing to return. Perhaps this won’t have the over-reaching “every day” commitment I tried to maintain in August and September. But I will commit to frequent entries. Some of these can follow the daily format I used before — today’s Thursday Tirade about quality versus quantity, for example. Others will be whatever strikes my fancy.

In any event, I welcome back your thoughts, your feedback, and your interaction. Thanks for your patience; let’s get back into this.

– Dave

Culture/Politics, General

College Football Recon

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Here’s an example of an airline… tell me if you’d book a ticket.

“9 out of 10 landings successful… 10 out of 10 landings accomplished!”

“4 out of 5 pilots perform safely most days… overwhelming majority of pilots have spotless records”

“when every other airline refuses to fly, we still try… overcoming adversity to get you to your destination at any cost* (not liable for loss of life)”

Or perhaps you’d like to try a new mapping app on your smartphone:

“Our 2010 maps provide accurate directions to 85% of customers.”

I suspect you might not accept these bare-minimum standards when you know that there are better airlines or better apps available. With the above examples, you’re rolling dice and hoping things go your way.

... I got better.
85% safe landings accomplished.

Welcome to the future of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance for the US Military.

Ok, that’s an exaggeration – I hope. Maybe it’s not. Over the last few years, I’ve been frustrated by a non-stop trend in my workplace and community, and I need to hash out my thoughts since I’ll probably be explaining it to my leadership soon.

Sadly, what I’m seeing isn’t exclusive to intelligence and my particular workplace. It’s basic management that can be applicable to any job. If you’re a worker bee, maybe you’ll see that other people get your pain. If you’re a manager, please take away some thoughts about what NOT to do to your people. And if you’re neither, I hope you enjoy my inner monologue.

I’ve heard some interesting management philosophies lately:

“There’s a basic standard of expected performance… the floor, if you will. We won’t dip below that. But we can settle for that.”
or
“We won’t ever violate the quality of our training, and I admit our initial students are coming to us with less experience than ever before… but we need to figure out how to speed up the process and get more students qualified faster.”

We’re like a college football coach telling his players, “It doesn’t matter what you do in class or what you learn here… as long as you make a C- and can keep playing on my team.”

That’s great when you’re talking to a guy who needs to throw a football or run for a touchdown. What about people who are required to gather intelligence and funnel it into the hands of a soldier on the ground taking fire from enemy positions, in order to hopefully save his squad? “It doesn’t matter what you learn here” doesn’t cut it anymore.

Here are my thoughts on this disturbing willingness to pump up numbers:

1. If you trade quality for quantity, you get neither. The harder you work your producers, the more their ability to produce quality will decline. The faster you work them, the more mistakes and omissions are made along the way. You’re breaking your people to increase your stats, and soon you won’t have the workers left to make the product.

2. If you trade quality for quantity, you forget your customer. The soldier on the ground taking fire isn’t looking for the bare minimum, he’s looking to come home safe and get his friends out of harm’s way. The intelligence community isn’t in need of bodies in seats (well, we are, but that’s beside the point). The community needs accurate and timely information that highly trained bodies in seats will be able to produce.

3. If you trade quality for quantity, you violate the trust of your employees. If you’re going to surge for a short time and there’s a reason, you can get buy-in and hard work. Picture that college football team. The Bowl game is coming up, so they ramp up the training and give 110%. After the game, they back down. That makes sense.
But that’s not what happens in the workplace. I’ve seen it over and over. Someone tells all the employees that they’re going to carry out a temporary surge in production, but two months down the road, the surge is suddenly the expected norm.
Sometimes you have to surge. Do not turn around afterwards and use that harder workload as the new baseline for production rates. Trust, once lost, is difficult to rebuild. I’ll refer the reader to retention rates in the intel community… “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice… I quit.”

4. If you trade quality for quantity, you trade your integrity for convenience. Getting better numbers means bending the standards that keep us from mediocrity. You start asking “Does the regulation really say…?” and “What’s the definition of ‘safety’ in that grading criteria?” You’re becoming the devil, holding out the apple to your people, tempting them to go the easy way. Your metrics aren’t worth selling out, but unfortunately, for many, job security is worth it. You’re dragging down your organization with you.

5. If you trade quality for quantity, you devalue your people. Once quantity is the only real standard, people become tools and machines whose sole purpose is to reach the target number of products. Late hours, overworked technicians, weekend work, exhausted employees… all of these are acceptable because nothing else matters except that green column on a spreadsheet. “Service Before Self” — or whatever similar mission statement and core values apply in your workspace — these work when I can see the big picture and the value my extraordinary efforts add to the overall meaningful mission. But when you violate my trust and make your success my mission, “Service Before Self” becomes “Service, Nothing Else.” And your glowing performance report doesn’t have my buy-in when it’s written on the backs of broken people.

The gist of all this is servant-leadership — what we’ve been teaching in military education for quite some time. If you are a leader, your people are not there for you. You are there to take care of them. Do that, and you’ll see both quality and quantity soar.

Bordermarches, General, Writing

Break Time

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There is some news that is relevant to my interests. It might be relevant to yours as well. I know some of you who read my ravings also do some writing of your own.

Harper Voyager is accepting unsolicited submissions for their planned Digital releases.

I have about 100K words poured into a rough manuscript, and so I am going to dedicate some time to editing and polishing it for submission. It’s a roll of the dice, and I’m sure they’ll be swamped with tons of other aspiring amateurs. But if nothing else, I end up with a completed and stronger manuscript than I have now.

Alas, this means no daily blog posts, and possibly very few at all until the project is done. I apologize, because I know you all don’t click Follow lightly. But I hope you’ll bear with me as I put in some effort to accomplish a project that has been waiting a long time.

With respect,
Dave

Gaming

Set Some Goals

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Tabletop Tuesday

A lot of the Air Force courses I’ve attended include lessons about the importance of setting goals in order to succeed.

Today, we’ll talk about setting goals in your tabletop game. But we’re not talking about incorporating player goals into your campaign (that will probably be another post). We’re talking about giving goals to your monsters!

Everyone needs a goal in life, even your fangorious gelatinous monster. (Okay, maybe not everyone.)

In a tabletop game, your players’ characters are probably going to spend a lot of time fighting against a host of sentient creatures. They may be not be the brightest creatures, they may be evil through and through, they may be tools of some higher villain. But they will have objectives and goals they are trying to achieve.

Make your combat about those goals instead of about the monsters themselves.

Let’s face it, the “kill everything burn everything and die trying” monster makes very little sense. Villains have their own interests, their own purposes. Usually, they have some decent or even good motive that has been twisted around or blown out of proportion into a terrible evil.

“Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet… and it’s remarkable how like an egg is the human skull.”

20120918-231733.jpg

This guy is going to have a different set of goals and plans than these two.
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Your villains’ minions need not line up like a Revolutionary War battle and march to their deaths in the hopes of defeating the heroes. Setting up a fight with no goal means setting up a long, drawn-out slugfest where the two sides try to bring their enemies to zero hit points. Yawn.

Give the monster team a reason to fight. You can speed up combat and you can make the combat matter to the story. Double win!

Perhaps they simply have to delay the heroes from an objective. They can capture or kill particular innocents or valuable NPCs. They can hold a position or activate some magic artifact or complete a ritual. They can make off with a critical object, or damage a strategic location.

“Good job, heroes… you slew fifty goblins but failed to stop the saboteur who destroyed the bridge. Now our army is stuck on this side of the river while the city is under attack.”

When you do this, mindless evil can have a place in such a setting. It stands out precisely because it has no plan, no motive, no ‘higher’ purpose than carnage and destruction. It can be the enemy that simply has to be brought to zero health, something that has to be put down. And then that combat goal tells a story different from all the others, instead of every combat feeling exactly the same.

So, what does the big bad evil guy (or girl, or gelatinous monster) want? Give your villains some goals. Your heroes will thank you for it.

Awesome Children

Always Growing

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Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. Ephesians 5:1 NASB

You can’t stop it from happening… or can you?

Not surprisingly, I picture my own children when reading this. I have a daughter who is very much a “Daddy’s Girl” and has adopted a lot of my sense of humor (along with some other less desirable traits). I have an 11 year old son who is picking up many of the same interests in hobbies. I have a 7 year old who is probably as frenetic and crazy as I was at his age. And I have an almost-2 year old who lights up with joy every time his mother and I play music. My keyboard is one of his favorite toys.

You don’t have to be a parent to get the picture of the mother duck followed closely by her ducklings. Children naturally watch and then follow the example of their parents.

Growing is something else children naturally do.

I recall holding my daughter as a newborn. She fit between my elbow and my hand. Now she’s almost as tall as me. Try as I might, I haven’t found a way to stop time and keep her or my other children in that seemingly perfect sweet innocent state of childhood.

Healthy children will grow.

12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. – Hebrews 5:12-14 NASB

The writer of Hebrews implies something here. It’s possible for us as Christians and children of God to stop growing, to stay in that infant state. If we do not exercise what God has put in us, if we do not work it out and put it into practice, we’ll remain little children, needing to be fed instead of feeding, needing to be helped instead of helping.

Though the parent in me would love to stop my kids from growing up, I know they must grow. And so must I.

Wherever I am right now, however “tall” I am by God’s measuring stick, I can’t let myself remain there. I want to keep growing, keep reaching for more. I know I don’t want to come back next year and find the mark has not moved higher on the wall.