Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, 2 saying: “ The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe. (Matt 23:1-3 NASB)
One of the challenges of military life is that you must follow those in positions of authority over you, whether they are great leaders, horrible tyrants, or complete incompetents.
Naturally, following a good leader is easy.
Less so in dealing with the power-hungry or the clueless imbeciles.
For the Air Force, the rank of Chief Master Sergeant is a good example of this (and I expect the same is true in other service branches).
Chief stripes
A “Chief” usually earns that rank through years of dedication, service, and commitment not just to the Air Force but to the people under the Chief’s command. Usually, a Chief Master Sergeant has earned a great deal of honor; even if you don’t get along with the individual on a personal level, you can respect what they have achieved to reach that rank.
But there are a few who are so incompetent, abrasive, or self-serving that use of the term “Chief” pays disrespect to all those others who have earned that position. For these select few, many enlisted simply refer to their pay grade. “I work for E-9 So-and-so, and I can’t wait to get out of the service.”
Still, E-9 So-and-so wears the rank insignia of Chief Master Sergeant on his or her sleeve, and so the rest of us have to follow the lawful orders we’re given, regardless of how ridiculous they seem. All they tell you, do and observe.
Christians often point to various Bible verses as an explanation for why we hold particular moral stances. Our opponents (rightly) wonder why we might quote one verse and say it applies, then declare that another verse is “not for today.”
A perfect example of this is the question of the Bible’s stance on homosexuality. Some Christians quote Leviticus or other passages to say that homosexuality is a sin. People on the other side of that debate then look at everything else that Leviticus instructs its audience to follow, and rightly ask why in the world we ignore so many other commandments.
What commandments apply?
What commandments don’t?
What commandments are Christians supposed to follow?
(Note that “commandments” does not refer to a nice list of ten of them. It refers to the whole Law of Moses, the 613 rules given to Israel to follow in the first five books of the Bible.)
Maybe Jesus has something to say about this. The religion is named after His title as “the Anointed One,” so we probably should pay attention to Him.
17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5:17-20 NASB
Ouch.
This passage, the quoted passage from Matthew 23 above, and several others raise a series of compelling questions for modern Christianity.
First and foremost, does the Law of Moses apply to Christians today? Are we expected to follow all those commandments? This overarching question leads to others, which are the point of this series.
Did Jesus tell us to keep all of the Law? Did His teaching and ministry do nothing to change it?
We often look at Paul’s epistles and the other books of the New Testament to justify our position on this matter, so another question is raised:
Does Paul’s “gospel” conflict with what Jesus taught? Is Paul mistaken?
And some ask, aren’t we simply picking and choosing what parts of the Bible we want to follow and ignoring the parts we don’t?
Doesn’t that make us terrible Christians who don’t even follow the faith we claim? Doesn’t that failure to obey the commandments mean we’re condemned to the same hell and damnation we preach?
Answering may take a while, but these questions do deserve answers.
Because if the answers are “yes,” then Christians really need to course-correct our faith and shut our mouths until we get our story straight.
So… on the one side we have Jesus, ostensibly the Messiah, the promised Savior of the world, the Son of God revealed to mankind. And He says:
Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
On the other side we have Paul, one of those oft-maligned Pharisees, a shining star among the religious leaders of his day, a learned teacher of the Law of Moses and an unlikely follower of Jesus Christ. And Paul says:
But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
“What are we supposed to do with a thousand pairs of flip-flops?”
I imagine this was the question for a pastor at BCC a few weeks or months ago. A local school had a fund raiser for a missions trip to Kenya, and they chose to collect flip-flops for the African children the team would meet.
They weren’t expecting a thousand pairs, and getting that many shoes from Nebraska to Kenya no doubt meant logistics and expenses and effort.
They get to the city and meet the couple who are running a ministry to children orphaned by AIDS and other diseases, and they find out that–oddly enough–the wife has been specifically praying for flip-flops for the 700+ kids she cares for.
On top of that, the team brought clothing and sundry goods, stuff we don’t even stop to think about like toothpaste and soap. It was like they were handing out treasure.
The team built two church buildings, visited with orphans, provided for needs, and even supplied joy in the form of soccer uniforms and balls. They saw returns on work they’ve been doing for over ten years, contradicting the thought that missions teams just show up for a week or two, then never come back to build relationships or follow up.
Teams I’ve supported or even traveled with have brought cases of medical and dental supplies, pulling rotted teeth and distributing basic vitamins and medicine. They have brought basic food, meeting the practical and real-life needs of the people.
Back on Okinawa, that one church partnered with several others to perform medical missions twice a year, to the Philippines and then Cambodia.
I know from a trip to the rural parts of the Philippines how much I take for granted.
A woman brought her infant to me and asked for prayer for his fever. I felt the baby’s head and ulled my hand away shocked. I thought about if it had been me with one of my kids. Jonathan was about four months old at the time, and so I thought of him. I would have been flying down the highway to the emergency room. My baby would have been full of Infant Motrin and Infant Tylenol and any other thing I thought might help.
This woman didn’t have any of that.
She and her child stand out as the memory of that trip for me. Her desperation and need for something we could meet with no real great expense or thought still haunts me. The unwillingness or apathy of Christians regarding meeting these needs… That frightens me.
Despite it being generally understood that Jesus’ last order to His people was to go into all the world and make disciples, we don’t always see a church that looks out past its building, past its community, past even the borders of its country.
In spite of common sense telling us that people need more than Bibles and “decisions for Christ,” that sometimes turns into the image we have of “reaching out to the world” with the love of God.
More than all of the above, we provide ministry to churches and we preach the Gospel to those who have not heard… Or who have seen no reason to believe before.
There are stories of missionaries handing out Bibles and being rejected. “Do you think I want your book? Will this feed my children? Will it keep them warm? Can your book be a roof or a bed? I don’t need this.”
We come not just with a Bible and a sermon, but with aid for real needs because our sermons based on the Bible tell us to do more than just give out a book or a tract. Sometimes we need flip-flops to deliver our message.
Some of my agnostic and atheist friends would say to deliver the latter, the real needs, while leaving the former at home in church.
They would ask, shouldn’t we do this practical ministry just for the sake of doing it? Should the goodness of the deed be enough to motivate the deed? Should we do this without such an obvious emphasis on Christ?
Ok, maybe.
Maybe it’s not enough to clarify that the response to evangelism is not connected in any way to the services received. But we’re out doing something about the suffering and tremendous need in the world, and we’re putting every cent and every bit of the supplies and support we raise into the people we encounter.
If you can find a better organization that does what you want more effectively, great. Support them. But if not, consider partnering with those who are meeting practical needs in the lives of others.
It’s that time of the week when my wife and I try to get the kids to help get the house in order, so that we can relax and play some D&D. As usual, this is always more challenging than we anticipate, but we succeeded and sat down around the table.
Along the way, I start setting up, the kids work to finish their part of the chores, and Jami is keeping on them because they stop working every time “ooh shiny!”
I lurrve me some Dire Bear
And Judah escapes with a Dire Bear miniature that apparently he now loves.
He flips out when we try to take his new teddy bear, and immediately calms down once we return it to him. He doesn’t put it in his mouth, it’s too big to swallow, it doesn’t have any small parts, and we’ve got an eye on him. So he hangs onto the bear for a minute.
The kids and I take some time to review what powers their characters have… so far it’s been too easy to fall into “I stab him with my sword, I shoot him with my crossbow, I hit him with the one magic spell I know my character has.”
Every. Single. Round.
Since it was a long time ago that we made the characters, I think the kids forgot what awesome stuff they could do. Now they know, and I see their eyes light up. Deborah is happy to know Beastly Tiger has “powers other than asking everyone if they’re a hobo.”
Jonathan has other plans, too. He eyes the collection of miniatures I have on the shelf, and asks,
“Next time can we fight an elite?”
I laugh. He’s always been the one who wants to help DM. One of these days, I’m going to have to let him.
“Let me know what you want to fight, and I’ll see if I can work it in.”
But for now, it’s just a bunch of goblins. The heroes bust through the gate of the goblin-occupied town and begin the assault to return it to the townsfolk.
Deborah’s character, the acrobatic Beastly Tiger rushes to the first house and tries to spring up and pull himself onto the roof to engage the goblin archer up there. Deb rolls a 1, and I tell her she hit the overhanging rooftop with her head.
Jonathan’s wizard, Killbot creates a massive ball of fire that he moves around in order to burn his enemies. Justin tries to shoot through it at a goblin mage, and Jonathan and Jami both start asking if shooting through the flaming sphere will light the bolt on fire give any bonus to the attack. I want to encourage this kind of creativity, so YES. Yes of course it does.
Next we’ll get a Wall-Nut and a Chomper…
I think Jonathan has been playing too much Plants Vs. Zombies and was thinking of the Torchwood.
I’m ok with that.
Beastly Tiger gets up on the roof and smashes his foe with that massive hammer. It’s a one-shot kill, and Deborah is satisfied at having gotten past that initial fumble roll.
Another wave of goblins rush to the fray, and the heroes slowly whittle them down. Jonathan declares an attack with his flaming sphere against a goblin, and he asks a great question:
“What does the roll have to be above in order for it to count as a hit?”
I don’t really feel like explaining attack bonuses plus roll versus whichever defense is applicable to the attack power, and-like I’ve said before in these posts-I’m trying to get more game than math going on for right now. So I dismiss the question with, “Just roll and I’ll figure it out in my head.”
He rolls a 20.
Unfortunately for my monsters, that’s how I rolled tonight.
Math completed. The goblin is consumed in the flames.
Justin’s character, Clayface has a crossbow, the special item card he got from the NPC challenge last session. The card describes a stock carved and stylized to look like a dragon, with the bolt flying out of the dragon’s maw. So I figure this has some flame power that the characters haven’t identified yet, but I haven’t decided exactly what, other than a +1 to damage.
He attacks a goblin and kills it, and I decide that the magic power is that if a bolt from the crossbow kills a target, the bolt explodes and damages anyone next to the target. No one is around the goblin that Clayface kills, but I describe this nonetheless and the children decide that’s pretty cool.
Sure enough, my plans come back to bite me later.
Toward the end of the fight, three goblins remain. Justin shoots one and kills it. And of course it’s next to one of the other remaining goblins. Faithful to my word, the dead goblin explodes, and I roll an attack against the other goblin.
I roll a 20 against my own monster.
We’re using the Critical Hit deck, so I pick a card. The goblin is deafened by the explosion and takes double the damage I’d originally planned. He’s barely hanging on to life and his ears are ringing.
Now it’s my half-orc sorceror’s turn. As always, I try to leave him in the background. He’s there for comic relief or as a handy tool for explaining a concept by example if needed. So he casts a basic spell on the mostly-dead goblin, because certainly he can’t steal the spotlight with that.
I roll a 20 again.
The kids cackle with glee, knowing something horrible has happened to this goblin.
Double damage and knockback of 5 squares (25 feet). This guy would’ve been killed instantly by the spell if he was fine, but he was already down to almost no health. That and the knockback meant “explosion” in my mind.
I describe the devastation, and I lay out some gobs of meat–little red rocks I use to mark “bloodied” when a PC or monster has lost half its health.
“I cast Conjure Meat, level 2.”
Deborah quotes Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs:“You’ve probably seen a meteor shower…
“…but you’ve never seen a meatier shower than this!”
Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another. – Jean Paul
“I got a way out, I got an idea — I figured out a way to get ridda all the lesbians ‘n’ queers. Ya build an electric fence…”
You’ve probably heard this quote in the last few weeks, or perhaps you’ve seen a video of a sermon posted to YouTube. It’s a bit old by now… ancient, really, by modern standards. But this topic has been bouncing around in my head and on my computer screen for a while now.
A North Carolina pastor decided to “solve” the “problem” of homosexuals through what amounts to concentration camps. In the firestorm of protest and controversy, he is (as of this writing) holding to his guns about what he has said on the subject of homosexuality. From the sermon video, “The Bible’s agin’ it, God’s agin’ it, I’m agin’ it, and if ya got any sense, you’re agin’ it too.”
A noted theologian and leader in arguably the most dominant Christian denomination in America expressed his concerns on this pastor’s frightening “solution,” yet also felt the need to state that homosexuality is the key moral issue facing America at this time.
Notable media attention has shown us kids who commit suicide rather than deal with the bullying and mockery they face when their sexual preference is made public. We read about school districts whose vague policies on bullying and sexual preference instill fear in the teachers and staff instead of providing healthy avenues of correction and discipline. We see that even though homosexuals are now permitted to serve openly, part of the “deal” that enabled that policy change was a less-publicized agreement to prevent these servicemembers, once married, from enjoying the housing benefits that heterosexual couples (and even single military members) are afforded without a second thought. And a few weeks prior to the “electric fence solution” grabbing the spotlight, we had another pastor talking about physically knocking sense into a child that acts outside normal cultural and societal standards, gay or straight.
And if that all wasn’t enough, we have Westboro Baptist Church running around letting everyone know that “God hates fags.” Even though we might try to distance ourselves from Westboro, or claim that they’re not really “true Christians,” the rmajority of the world will see their signs and hear “Baptist Church” instead of “fringe element.” Clearly homosexuality is the bright blip on the Christian moral radar lately.
Like anything else, there are debates about the Bible and more importantly the New Testament being against homosexuality and to what degree. That’s not my point here.
My point is that when the Christian community focuses so strongly on one particular issue, we make a tremendous tactical blunder. We try to win one battle, and risk losing the war.
In fact, we forget exactly what war we’re supposed to be fighting.
In the movie, “We Were Soldiers,” a young lieutenant is leading his patrol through a patch of jungle in Vietnam, when his men come under fire from the enemy. Brash and hungry for glory, he tells his men to charge the enemy position. Then suddenly, his men realize that they are cut off from their allies and surrounded on all sides. Memory fails me, but I believe in the end only a couple of members of the lieutenant’s unit survive the difficult night.
It seems to me that the Church often charges hills, ready to “really impact society for Christ.” If we don’t anticipate some triumphant “victory” over the cultural “evil” in our crosshairs, we at least seem convinced we can snatch a few souls from the jaws of hell if only we tell everyone how horrible ________ (fill in the blank) is.
Years ago, it was heavy metal, and Dungeons and Dragons, and MTV. Then it was Harry Potter and Pokemon and video games. Somewhere in there, I remember ouija boards and Magic the Gathering cards. All along the way, abortion has been a key issue. And for almost as long as I can recall, anything to do with homosexuals was on or near the top of the list of spiritual dangers.
Every time, the Christian community (at least what I was familiar with) would get up in arms over the wicked nature and powerful influence of these various subjects. We would talk about how evil they were, and how misguided or intentionally evil those were who got involved in these different activities.
Look back over the list; how many of these controversies were dramatically affected by Christian protests and warnings to anyone willing to listen?
It’s wasted effort that misses the point of the Gospel.
I get the point many of my fellow believers are making: we cannot simply ignore sin. Jesus didn’t do that. He didn’t say to the woman caught in adultery, “Hey, no big deal, I know your heart, go on, keep living this way, I love you.”
He said, “Go and sin no more.” We can’t ignore that.
But I think some of my fellow believers forget where we came from. Growing up in church or in a “Christian” environment, growing up without doing any of the “really bad” sins, maybe it’s easy to look at other people and say, “Wow, you are LOST.” Maybe it seems right to look at them as dirty rotten sinners or something.
It’s not right. We can’t look at others that way. Or at least, we can’t look at the rest of the world as anything other than what we ourselves were before Christ changed us.
All of us are in the same category, according to the Bible. Nobody gets by on their good deeds and winning personality. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All can be justified freely by grace through faith in Christ.
It doesn’t really matter what I did or who I was.
The focus is on who God is and what He’s done.
And when I become a Christian, it still isn’t about who I am now and what I’m doing now. It’s still about who He is and what He’s doing.
So instead of seeing me and mine as “us” in a battle against “them,” whoever “they” may be this year…
How about starting to see myself as “one of them” instead?
Because even though the pastor in North Carolina forgets this, when we start building electric fences for sinners, he and I are going to belong inside one too.
“Mom, Dad, I really want to thank you for spanking me when I was little…”
Actual quote, from… I’m guessing… it’s been a bit… I’ll just say early 90s.
I was out with my parents, and we witnessed a toddler throwing a fit and actually going so far as to hit his mom because she wouldn’t let him have his way. Her response? “Now, now! (hit) Mommy doesn’t like that. (hit) Please don’t do that. (scream) Now now, son… (swing and a miss) don’t– (hit) don’t– (hit)”
I am pretty sure I never even thought of taking a swing at my father, out of a healthy respect for the permanence of death. I never thought of taking a swing at my mother either, because my father taught me to respect his wife.
I am one of the lucky ones. When I was young, “deadbeat dads” and single-parent homes were not nearly as prevalent as they are today. There were some, of course. But most of the kids in the neighborhood had both parents at home.
Not all those parents were winners, sure. But at least they were present, and at least they seemed to be trying.
From a very young age, my brother and I would go with my Dad on his weekend errands (which almost always involved a stop at one or more of the local coin shops) or on long walks around the neighborhood. He would hide coins and gemstones and little odds and ends in various places along our usual routes, often in the bowl of a tree trunk where the thick branches separate and stretch to the sky. And we would check those trees — the ones we could easily reach, at least.
I wonder if that was a way of seeing just how much we were growing, or if it was just a silly game. Either way, that was part of our relationship for years.
My Dad also loves trains, and our walk would inevitably lead up the hill near our house to the train tracks that bordered the golf course. We would walk along the tracks (my brother and I trying to see how long we could stay balanced on a rail) until a train sounded its horn. Then we would plant a penny or nickel on the tracks and step off to the other side of the road to watch it go by.
Dad recognized all the names of all the railway companies, and he would always look for the uncommon emblems, like a kid with a pack of baseball cards hoping to find a rare star player. “Such-and-such Pacific… I’m surprised that made it all the way from California. And the old BS&P… and then there’s the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” (and he’d sing it as a little jingle, even though we’d never heard the commercial).
The train would pass, and we’d get back on the tracks or head down the hill, always looking out for those special trees along the way.
We would hold hands fairly often, too. Eventually my brother stopped doing that, and I didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter. Then I stopped doing that, because who goes for long walks holding hands with their Dad? So not cool. (This might have been around the heady days of “rad.” Holding hands was not “rad.”)
But we would walk and talk. That was alright. You could still do that with your Dad, and if anyone picked on you about it, it’s probably because they don’t have a Dad like yours to go walk and talk with.
Eventually, Saturday morning errands and weekend walks became a “take it or leave it” kind of thing for my brother and me. We had video games, or toys, or, you know, cool stuff to do.
But I think I was always the one worried about feelings. And I would picture my Dad going off by himself on errands or sitting around in his workshop instead of going on the walk he had in mind, and then I’d get this horrible sense of something between guilt at my selfishness and abandoned loyalty to my Dad, and I’d say, “You know, I’ll go with you, sure.”
I thought I was doing him a favor.
Looking back, I know I got the better deal. Hands down, by far, without a doubt.
I had a Dad who wanted to be with me, who liked me the way I was, who was interested in what interested me, and who was eager to share with me all the things that interested him.
Even back then, that was something special.
Dad would build Lego forts for my brother and I to use in our epic wars… my brother with his toys lined up and organized in tight formations, his war strategies all laid out based on whatever historic battle he’d most recently read about. My army was a pile of all the toys, with maybe four or five of my favorites off to the side in some soap opera relationship squabbles. (This was also done out of necessity. My brother was fond of kamikaze attacks with his expendable first wave. He taught me the definition of “fodder.”)
I never really thought too much about sleeping arrangements in our house. Essentially, I didn’t have my own room for a long while. I would sleep on an air mattress, or on the floor in my brother’s room. I slept on a spare bed for a few years, but I never really had a room that was mine to occupy (and trash).
One summer, probably just before or early on in high school, my Dad said we were going to build me a room. We went to a lumber yard and bought all kinds of 2x4s and some paneling sheets. And then my Dad laid out this plan and basically built this wall in the basement so that I had my own room. I would help him hold planks in place or hold up sheets so they could get nailed down, but really, the work was all his and the benefit was all mine.
And I never heard him complain about it. He wanted to do it.
I like to claim that I have no regrets, no “what ifs” that I would love to go back in time and change. But in my relationship with my Dad, I do have a few.
I remember how disappointed and hurt he seemed when he found out that my brother and I, wrestling and fighting, had put a huge hole in the fragile paneling of the wall he’d built to make me a room. I recall being really mad at my Dad during an argument on a different occasion, and just because I knew it might hurt him, I punched another hole in that wall while he was standing there watching.
And then there’s the alcohol.
I like the occasional drink. I set a limit of one or two, and I rarely drink anywhere but home because I’ve seen how drinking can destroy careers and lives in the military.
My Dad has a very different opinion about alcohol, based on his experiences growing up with an alcoholic father. Dad hates alcohol so much that I recall him yelling at TV beer commercials for painting such a false image of the life you’ll have when enjoying their products. He can’t stand alcohol, not one bit.
I came home on leave, and I had turned 21. We went out for Chinese food, and I decided, “Hey, I’m not driving, and I’m old enough, and I can do this. I’m ordering a drink, right here, right now, at the dinner table with my Dad.”
This started quite the discussion, and I grew more and more defensive. “I’m old enough, I’m an adult, I’m mature. I’m allowed to do this, and you can’t stop me.”
Hint: Maturity is just like leadership or authority; if you have to remind people that you have it, you don’t.
Seriously, as far as the offensive effect it has, I think drinking in front of my Dad is like saying the N word to an African-American, or making a Holocaust joke to a concentration camp survivor. My wife reminds me often that there are terms we can say which mean little for us, but bring up incredibly painful memories for others. Certainly actions can have the same disparate impact on different individuals.
And if I know that already, what kind of person do I have to be to intentionally push that shiny red button?
Yes, that’s something I would go back and change.
My Dad has regrets, too. As he considered how our relationship as a family has developed over the years, he has said things like, “I can’t claim we’ve done perfect. I know we’ve messed up a lot.” (He’d list specific examples, but the details aren’t important right now.)
I grew up healthy. I was educated at school and then those lessons were reemphasized at home by my Mom and Dad. I had my medical needs met. I had more than plenty of material possessions. More importantly by far, I not once ever had to doubt whether my parents loved me or cared about me.
When we conduct evaluations in the Air Force, part of the brief that we are required to give the examinee is to not let a mistake become a distraction. It’s easy to spot when we screw up, and it’s easy to get caught up in all the reasons why we screwed up, and how we could have done better, and what we shouldn’t have done, and so on. Examinees sometimes do this. They know they said something wrong or did something stupid, and it becomes a fixation that causes more mistakes.
I wonder sometimes if my Dad’s assessment that he’d “messed up a lot” is something similar. When I evaluate my life and think about the influence he’s had on me, I am so grateful to have had such a father.
This Father’s Day, I wanted to give my Dad some of the attention and praise he is due.
If you have an awesome Dad, I’d love to hear about it. Please comment and tell me (and anyone else reading) a little more about what a great Dad looks like. If your father is no longer with us, I’d still love to hear about what made him special.
And maybe you unfortunately didn’t have a father around. Sometimes, single moms or extended family or step-parents come in to fill that critical role in a life, and they’re just as worthy of praise. If you have someone who chose to be a father to you (yes, single moms included) and you’d like to share, please do.
“How many shots are we allowed to put in the cup?” the Starbucks barista asked her manager. “Six, right?”
I wasn’t sure whether this question really did have the legal and liability overtones I thought I was picking up, but then the manager confirmed it.
“Yes, six is the limit. But really, someone could just buy another cup with six shots if they wanted more. But at that point, it’s on them, not us.”
Clearly, there’s a line Starbucks draws so that they don’t get blamed for your heart exploding.
I almost hear Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail. “Six shall be the number of the count, and the number of the count shall be six. SEVEN IS RIGHT OUT.”
NO.
I’m reminded of New York City’s plan for the 16-ounce limit on sugared pop (or soda, or soft drinks, or Coke, depending on where you’re from). I’m also reminded of a blog post by one of my friends from work, and since he has a lot of strong opinions on a variety of subjects, I’m going to throw his link in here.
The fact is, stupid people are going to keep being stupid, even if we legislate the wear of rubber helmets and the installation of padding on all sharp corners. I’m not interested in a nanny state holding my hand everywhere I go.
Politics and cultural observation aside, I’m thinking instead of my love affair with coffee.
My wife says I’m an addict, and I hold to the adage that “you’re only an addict if you want to stop but cannot do so.” I have no desire to stop drinking coffee, so by default it cannot be proven that I have a lack of willpower regarding coffee. So there.
We’ll leave the “addict vs. afficionado” argument aside for now too.
“Everything in moderation,” my wife would say. Indeed.
Given the six shot conversation, maybe I’m the wrong one to bring up this subject.
Coffee at one point had such a hold on me that I would need to make a pot of it when I got home from work–this after drinking a pot or more at the office. If I didn’t, I would fall asleep on the couch at 5 PM. This condition made me quit for a while, until I could get to a relatively normal response and desire for caffeine (as opposed to a driving need).
“Everything is permissible,” the Apostle Paul wrote, quoting prevailing wisdom. Then he countered by adding, “but not everything is beneficial, and I will not be mastered by anything.”
We have freedom that permits us to do all sorts of things, but that doesn’t mean we should do everything we’re permitted to do. Just because something is legal or possible, that doesn’t mean it’s right.
And yet, righteousness can be its own destructive influence:
What came to mind in this experience is a verse in Ecclesiastes that has always interested me, in the realm of “too much of a good thing.”
15-17I’ve seen it all in my brief and pointless life—here a good person cut down in the middle of doing good, there a bad person living a long life of sheer evil. So don’t knock yourself out being good, and don’t go overboard being wise. Believe me, you won’t get anything out of it. But don’t press your luck by being bad, either. And don’t be reckless. Why die needlessly?
18 It’s best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it.
Of course the Bible tells you that being wicked is going to get you trouble. I find it interesting that the Bible also tells you being overly good can also lead to trouble. More formal translations suggest that you will “ruin yourself” by being overly righteous.
The very thing I want to do is put at risk from trying too hard to make it happen.
I come across “affected” (thanks, Simon Cowell) rather than “authentic.” Most of us can probably think of that acquaintance who tries too hard to be accepted, and never really is–not because they’re a bad person, but because they’re frustrating in this respect.
Back when I had to quit caffeine, the coffee I relied on to give me energy became a crutch–without it, I had no energy.
Likewise, in the Christian community, surrounding ourselves with “good” things and staying away from “worldly” influences makes sense, to a point. We’re called to be “in the world but not of it,” so we can’t let our actions and decisions mirror the culture around us.
However, we also need to make sure we’re “in the world, and not out of it.” Just like I can order another cup with more espresso, I can also fill every minute of every day and every conversation or interaction with other people with Christian this and Christian that. But that becomes far too much of an arguably good thing.
We’re not Amway… we shouldn’t need to act like a pyramid scheme.
We can’t let our church walls become a fortress to keep the big, bad, eeeeevil World out. Otherwise we risk failing at the very purpose behind the lifestyle we’re called to live out.
Live “out” like out in the open, where other people are, the ones that don’t already agree with everything I believe.
Here’s hoping for authentic living and honest interaction with the world around us.
Disclaimer: This is a *fictional* story, not an actual personal experience. I hope to do something like this some day, and to live out love like this every day. But this is just a short story.
It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.” – James 4:6 MSG
I step out of the van and ignore the immediate hostility of passers-by.
Two cross-dressers glare at me as they head toward the parade route. A man is crawling on the pavement in leather chaps; he has a leash around his neck, and another man is ‘walking’ him. He barks at me.
These are among the more tame participants. It strikes me as odd that in such a crowd, I am the one who gets strange looks.
If I am embarrassed at all now, well… it’s going to get a lot worse.
I make my way to the edge of the crowd and try to squeeze through to the front. I need to be visible if this is going to be of any value. When people turn and see me, they assume they know what I’m here to do. I get jostled and shoved a few times as I gently push my way through. “Bigot,” one person says. “Homophobe! Go home!”
“Get out of the closet already, Bible-thumper.”
The police are out in force. Pride parades often get a lot of attention, not all of it good. That one church from Kansas is lined up farther down the street. Some local churches have put up their own signs, not willing to be outdone by these famous out-of-towners with the “God hates fags” posters.
The cops are busy keeping people marching in the parade from getting into fights with the various protest groups. None of them notice when I finally reach the rope that marks the edge of the parade route.
I stand at the edge and lean out, a Jesus in Teva sandals, a wig, and a polyester white robe with a red sash I borrowed from our church drama team. The beard is mine, scraggly but full enough after two months of growth.
The first few people to see me react in anger, swearing, shaking fists. “You don’t belong here,” they yell, along with some other choice words. People in the crowd throw half-empty Starbucks cups and large sodas and McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Ketchup and mustard splatter across my white sleeve.
No one throws rotten fruit any more. It’s not readily available, and it’s too expensive.
The folks marching in the parade are not happy to see me, either. Rainbow signs with witty slogans are shoved in my face. I don’t know if they’re meant to block my view with their message, or block the view of the other marchers so that no one else has to see another religious jerk condemning everyone in sight.
“What’s another name for the Crucifixion?” one guy asks the girl next to him, loud enough for me to overhear. She shrugs.
“A good start,” he says.
She laughs, and glances my way, her smile turning into a sneer.
I reach out a hand to those marching, and someone spits at it. The next person ignores me, stepping away.
“I am sorry,” I say, and he looks back, brow furrowed. But he’s too far past me now.
Mostly all I get from the faces in the crowd is the strong sense that I am unwelcome–a defensive posture and wounded expression that demands to know, “What are you doing here? You don’t belong here. This is ours… go away.”
I catch another guy’s hand, someone in a leather jacket, boots, and briefs. He recoils in disgust, but then I say, “I am sorry for how we have hurt you,” and he pauses.
Someone else spits on me. “Go back to the tomb, Jeebus.” His partner winks at me and says, “Hey, baby, I’ll nail ya.” They walk away laughing.
The man in the leather jacket, whose hand I grabbed–he simply nods to me, and I think I see his eyes glisten as he turns and continues in the parade.
A thin guy explodes into a rant with more f-bombs than actual words, arms waving, fists clenched. “What the f’ing f are you f’ing trying to do, f’er? You f’ing f’s think you’re f’ing doing any good with your f’ing ‘God hates fags’ signs and your f’ed up little white dress? Do you really f’ing think I give one good f’ing G-D what the f you f’ing have to say to me? F!!! I f’ing hate you, I f’ing hate your f’ing book that does f-all to teach love and tolerance, and I f’ing hate the f out of the f’ing God you represent! What now?”
He gets in my face.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and a tear runs down my cheek. “I’m sorry for how we have hurt you.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
I think of the recent news stories I’ve heard, the angry sermons on the Internet, the callous defenses of indefensible statements.
“I’m sorry for how we’ve let people say we should ‘smack the gay out of children,’ or put them behind electric fences.”
He says nothing now, but he continues staring at me.
“I’m sorry for how we’ve pointed the finger at all of you, instead of preaching against our own arrogance, our own pride, our own prejudice and hatred. I’m sorry for how we act like you are less than human.”
“I came to say I’m sorry for my people and what we have done.”
His friend grabs his arm and pulls him away. “Come on, man.” But he keeps looking back, and I see him mouth the words, “Thank you.”
Another person spits on me, and a big guy just happens to hit me with his elbow. “Bigot,” he mutters.
This pattern repeats itself for an hour and a half, some people accepting my hand in friendship, many slapping it aside at first, some of them turning back to acknowledge the apologies I offer.
One of the people in the crowd behind me tugs at my shoulder. He’s holding a black leather Bible, with the gold edges on the pages and a little fish over a monogram in the corner of the cover. “You’re in the wrong place, brother. We’re all protesting at the other end of this block.” He points to where the angry people are waving their signs and shouting Scripture like a battle cry.
I nod and remain in my spot on the street.
Two women walk by, arm-in-arm. The blonde says, “You want us to confess our sins, pervert? We’ve been verrry naughty.”
They giggle as they approach. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bible Guy watching.
“I would like to confess my sins to you,” I say.
“Ooooh,” the other coos. “Kinky. Yeah, do it.”
“I am sorry for the double standards we use to judge you,” I begin, and the smiles disappear.
“I am sorry for acting like one sin is worse than any other, for acting like our sins don’t matter to God as much as yours. I’m sorry for behaving like we’re better than you.”
They are quiet, holding hands, waiting as I continue. Bible Guy storms off to rejoin his protest.
“I am sorry for treating you like you don’t deserve our love–like you don’t deserve God’s love.”
The parade marches on behind them. I look at them through tear-clouded vision.
“I love you. We love you. I am sorry for how often we fail to show it. We shouldn’t see you as what you do, but I know we also do that. Please accept my apology on behalf of my people.””
I extend a hand after wiping it off on a clean spot of my robe. They hug me instead, ignoring the chopped onions and ketchup and diet Dr. Pepper.
We stand there, hugging, for about a minute before they thank me and move on.
Bible Guy is back with friends, and they’re not happy. “Don’t you know Leviticus says homosexuals are an abomination and the Bible says it’s a sin?”
“I know,” I reply.
“Yeah, well, maybe you need to get your Gospel straight before you come out here supporting all these queers.”
“I know what the Bible says about homosexuality, and so does the rest of the world,” I fire back. “What they don’t know, what they aren’t seeing, is what the Bible says about loving others!”
“Hey Jimmy,” Bible Guy says to one of his friends, “What do you think we should do with false Christs?”
It takes a couple minutes for the police to respond to the situation and break up the fight. I’m the freak in an offensive costume, so I end up in the handcuffs. “For your protection, bud,” one of the cops tells me as he drags me away from the parade.
Sitting in the back of the paddy wagon, I pull off the wig and rub a bloody jaw.
“Not the smartest move ever for the Son of God, eh, bud?”
“Yeah, I guess not.” I answer. I don’t believe that, though. I felt the hugs, I spotted tears, I saw the faces change from rage to respect. “Then again, things didn’t go so well for Him either, so it’s nothing new.”
The cop laughs. “I thought I saw those punks head back over to the protest after we grabbed you. You sure got them riled.”
“They’re mad because I used to be one of the ones holding signs.”
“Oh… yeah, I used to hate dealing with this parade each year, too. And then my son started marching in them.”
He offers me a cup of water. “Take it you get beat up by Christians a lot?”
“You’d be surprised.” I take a drink. “It was the religious leaders that wanted Jesus dead, not the so-called sinners.”
“Feh.” The cop looks back out to the crowd. “I just wish those guys would go back to their caves sometimes.”
“They can’t help it,” I reply. “They kind of belong here. The event is all about celebrating pride. They’re just full of a different kind.”
1. noun. (archaic) an acronym for Non-Player Character, commonly used in Role-Playing Games. This character is one with whom the Player Characters (PCs) can interact in order to gain information, accept goals or objectives, or conduct business.
2. noun. (modern) A target or prop upon which the PCs attempt to unleash all manner of pain, suffering, and torture, without expecting any consequences.
The session in which the children accidentally all the NPCs.
(Grammar Nazi disclaimer: it’s a meme. The mistake is intentional.)
So, in session 2, the intrepid heroes created and controlled by my wife and children have successfully defeated a two-prong attack by goblins and a host of icky natural critters. As is always my fear and always the custom of seemingly all D&D players everywhere, regardless of what they face, the heroes attempt to capture the last surviving enemy in order to interrogate it.
One goblin remains and is questioned. He reveals that hordes of goblins are en route to the nearby town, bent on recapturing a jewel that was stolen from them. The heroes take their prisoner along in the hopes of using him as a bargaining chip.
Inwardly I laugh at the thought of goblins caring about one of their number held as a prisoner.
But that’s a surprise for a later session.
The plan for session 3 is mostly role-playing and interacting with NPCs.
The hero meets his nemesis, the NPC.
This is one of the most fun parts of the game for me, because you never know what a player is going to decide to do to your NPCs. It’s usually good.
Usually.
Session 3 begins with a recap, and then I describe the scene as the heroes return to their town (the supposed target of the goblin hordes). The townsfolk are camped out in makeshift tents like refugees, cast out from their own walls. The goblins have already struck.
I pick out one of the official-looking faces from the Urban NPCs deck, and now he’s the guard captain who meets the heroes and briefs them on the situation. He’s gathering together all able-bodied townsfolk for a counter-attack in the morning, and he needs the heroes to assist in the raid.
However, the rest of the people are giving the party the stink-eye.
And so I take a moment to describe skill challenges to my kids. “Now’s your chance to use some of these skills your characters are good at in order to figure out what’s going on, why the town is mad at you, and maybe get some info that will help you beat the goblins the next day.”
A host of thousands! Or eleven.
I also had a stack of those face cards ready for them to randomly choose, with a rough idea of who each NPC might be. They rolled initiative, but I had my half-orc barely-functional comic-relief character go first to show how an interaction with an NPC might go. He talks like Hulk, if Hulk was stupid. Or more stupid than whatever version of Hulk you might be familiar with.
I lucked out and got the crazy-looking guy. The conversation was devoid of anything useful, other than serving as an example of picking a skill to use to interact with an NPC, rolling a check, and seeing what happens.
Justin’s character, Clayface the rogue, was up next, and he got the innkeeper. Since the innkeeper was fairly friendly, all went well, and Justin used Streetwise to get some gossip about what took place.
Then my wife’s warlord, Bethrynivere interacted with a politician from the big city. The NPC was a total witch–no, not a magic-using witch, the other kind–and blamed the incompetent “countryside buffoons” for the failed defense of the town. But Bethrynivere was able to use History (her character’s primary hobby) to point out the unique and abnormal nature of the goblin attack in order to persuade the politician to help the party rather than hinder them.
She makes the guards bring out some of the salvaged supplies that have been gathered for the assault. I just let the players pick a total of five random cards from a Dragon Trove deck (or whatever it’s properly called… I’ll probably write a “Paizo is Eevil” post about it and offer a picture and link).
The warlord ended up with a special suit of armor. The rogue got a new crossbow. The hunter picked a heavy hammer. The wizard got a mysterious magic potion. And my “special” half-orc got a chainmail shirt he intends to sell for some extra gold.
So far, all has gone pretty well.
Jonathan’s wizard, Killbot encountered another wizard, a supermodel-perfect blonde-haired fellow who boasted proudly of all his awesomeness and ridiculed the so-called heroes for letting this calamity happen while they were out camping in the woods. I really tried to push Jonathan’s buttons by being as annoying as possible, but he calmly made a Diplomacy check to defuse the situation. Then the two wizards discussed the magic energy in the area, and Jonathan’s Arcana check helped confirm what this wizard suspected. The jewel the goblins were after was a powerful artifact that was changing the flow of magic around the town.
I was pleasantly surprised thus far. The kids were taking this pretty seriously, and kind of thinking about what their characters might do instead of how they personally would like to respond.
Then it was Deborah’s turn.
Actually, I’m pretty sure.
Deborah is smart, and she has a concept of what Beastly Tiger is like and how he interacts with people.
For one, he calls everyone a hobo. Sometimes he politely asks them if they are a hobo.
Why?
Because apparently old people are hobos, as a general rule.
Turns out Beastly Tiger is also a hobo.
Oh, now we’re getting some backstory here.
So Beastly Tiger encounters a monk, a servant of the Divine Aspect of Strength. And this fellow suggests that he is willing to offer a supernatural blessing to people of proven strength so that they might better defeat the goblins who have taken over the town.
“Show me your strength,” the monk says in my best Ian McKellen Gandalf impression, “and I will bless you.”
Deborah looks at the card for the hammer her character received, and grins.
I could make you fly.
“I could make you fly,” she threatens.
At this point, we have a conversation about consequences in-game, and how the townspeople might react to an attack on their number.
We also revisit the definition of Diplomacy.
Beastly Tiger re-thinks his plan, and the suggestion is that he can show off some martial skill with throwing knives.
Deb rolls low, and I describe the monk’s eyebrow raise in a question as Tiger’s knife nicks the side of a tree.
I almost went with the Miyagi line, “Wood not hit back.”
The monk is not satisfied and demands that Beastly Tiger try again.
So then Tiger decides perhaps a good demonstration would be to throw the monk into the tree.
Poor NPCs, objects of wrath and torment.
I roll a Diplomacy check using Strength.
We discuss again the wisdom of such a decision.
Tiger finally decides to pound the tree with his hammer, sending splinters flying in all directions with the force of his mighty strike.
And that finally works.
Thank goodness, because I thought I’d hear the fateful words, “I attack the monk,” any minute now.
One “round” of NPC interactions has finished, and so I ask the kids if they want to do another round.
They’re loving it. “Yes!” they cry.
Again, my orc-sorc goes first. But DM PCs are notoriously horrible for stealing the spotlight, and I have eleven characters to play in this session already. So I want this out of the way quick.
I pick a random card and get a poor waif’s face.
I can picture her begging, “Please, sire, just a crust of bread to get me through the week…”
But Burak the sorceror is… sorely lacking in the People Skills department. It goes a little something like this:
“Please, sir, can you–““NO!!!!!”
My shout of “NO” is so loud and unexpected that my wife practically jumps and the kids’ eyes go wide. But then they start cackling, because once again it is proven that Burak is a moron.
“Surely no hero really acts that way,” you may think.
Yes, but players do it all the time.
I had a player show up impaired, we’ll say.
The session turned out to be quite odd, but never more so than when the heroes saved a villager from ruffians on his farm.
The Halfling comes running out the door of his farmhouse crying for help. The ruffians chase him, clearly intent on bodily harm if not bloodshed.
The heroes intervene and defeat the ruffians.
Then the player immediately says, “I INTERROGATE THE HALFLING!”
WAT.
“Interrogate” is a word with connotations. It’s not just “ask how he’s doing” or “try to find out why the ruffians were after him.”
I questioned his chosen course of action at least three times, explaining, “That’s the Halfling you just rescued. You really want to interrogate him?”
“Shhh…” he whispered with a dismissive hand-wave. “It happened. It happened.”
Yes. Players do interesting and horrible things to NPCs.
So back to the game…
Now it’s Clayface’s turn, and he gets some beggarly-looking fellow with obvious fright on his face. I figure this is a contact of Clayface’s, someone with minor ties to criminal elements, someone who knows what happens in the back alleys of town. And Clayface wants to know what this guy knows, so Justin goes with Intimidation checks.
Last time, Justin’s character was represented by a “Human Bandit” miniature, with a big sack like Santa Claus slung over one shoulder. Thus, when it came time to question the goblin they captured, Justin’s plan was “I hit him with my sack.”
It’s a *diplomatic* sack.
No questions, no demands. Just start beating the goblin until answers fall out, I guess.
This time, I gave him a miniature that looked a little more roguish. It’s an assassin with a flowing black cloak, jumping back as if parrying an attack with his shortsword.
Now Clayface’s intimidating plan is, “I whap him with my cape.”
Roll for a Humiliation check, maybe.
Naturally, he rolls a 20. (Pun intended.)
Capes can be pretty scary, I guess.
Soon, they’ve finished another round of chats with the friendly folk of the town.
They’ve learned about secret tunnels they can use to get the drop on the goblins.
They’ve learned about the jewel the goblins are after–that it’s probably an artifact of some magic power, that it’s affecting the area around the town in a bad way, and that it was seen in the hands of the merchant they rescued in the first session long ago.
They’ve gained some material and supernatural aid to help them own some goblins.
And they’ve been offered a few side quests from concerned citizens with interests in town.
It seems a good place to stop, and I’m left hoping that the players learned a little more about how the game works.
But I suspect that we’re going to have to talk about not beating on the NPCs again soon.
And I’ll be okay with that as long as I don’t hear “Shhhh… it happened.”
Paizo continues to get my money, despite all my efforts to resist them.
And they deserve it, because they put out some great stuff.
In part 2 of this topic, I mentioned the value of pictures to communicate an impression and image of a Non-Player Character to your players. Naturally, the same holds true when dealing with description.
You can be an amazing wordsmith, and you can have an impeccable delivery, but my experience is that your players hear “words words words wall of text still more wordsCASTLE with words words blah blah Baron von Guy-we’re-gonna-killokay enough already let’s move on.”
Description problems get compounded when combat ensues.
“I fire my Thundertusk Boar-Strike at the goblin.”
“You can’t see the goblin. He’s out of line of sight because he’s in the hall around the corner.”
“You failed to mention that, DM.”
“I mentioned it while you were checking Facebook and laughing at a LOLcat.”
And this is why many games use maps. Good use of a map of some kind will get everyone seeing roughly the same thing in the portions of the game where that matters. It quickly answers questions like “Can I target that guy?” and the natural follow-up, “Can I hit that guy with an arrow/a fireball/the wild dog I’m holding by the throat?”
Please do not throw the dogs IRL.
Because that happens more than I would have guessed.
(Maybe I should choose my players differently.)
Anyway…
Different games use different combat systems, of course. Different groups of players are going to employ combat rules in their own unique ways. So some folks may not even need a map. I’ve heard arguments that in some games, combat — at least the storytelling aspect of it — is enhanced by not having a map.
But I don’t have supreme confidence in my descriptive storytelling or in the attention span of players. And as much as possible, I want them to see the world as I see it in my head.
An easy method that requires very little artistic talent is the plain hexagonal or square grid roll-up playmat. Get wet-erase markers, draw lines for walls and add a few simple features, BAM! Instant dungeon.
A slight step up from the playmat
But for some of us, this might not cut it.
So there’s the option of tiles. Wizards of the Coast has put out a whole mess of these sets, with punch-out cardboard map pieces you can mix and match to create any number of settings. They’re generally pretty easy on the eyes, but can be painful to the wallet if you want a good variety.
And my experience has been that I spend more time in preparation looking through a bag or drawer of tile pieces trying to find parts that are “just right,” and then I spend too long during the gaming session trying to recreate the map that I made before.
I don’t want to put together a puzzle in front of my friends, and they don’t want to watch me. They want to own monsters with nat 20s.
I need something faster.
Eevil Paizo strikes again.
How about maps I can just lay down and run with? (To be fair, Wizards also puts out similar products, and I’m sure there are smaller companies doing it too.)
Need urban combat in a city? Who wants to draw every individual building? And if you’re rushing, be honest: all your buildings will end up as little featureless squares. So why not unfold one of these City Streets flip-mats?
Maybe you need more detail. Maybe you’ve got your players clearing out an enemy force by going building-to-building. You can pick up the Shops Map Pack and have interior maps for every building on that flip-mat, including upstairs and downstairs in most cases. Now you have the element of surprise, too. The players only see into buildings as they get inside them–you lay down the individual building map as needed. So you get something like this:
… continue pwnage.Clear some buildings……move to next building…
Of course, this plan costs a pretty penny. Or about 2,500 of them. Plus tax. Plus getting to your local game store and hoping they have it, or getting it through the store in the links above… which probably means shipping and handling, too.
If you want to spend the money but don’t have a conveniently located game store–you can get Paizo’s eevil map subscription plan, which gets you each new map and pack as they come out (charged to your credit card at the time, of course). The advantage is that you also get access to a free .pdf of the map or map-pack, in case you want to print your own.
Printing your own… hey, there’s an option! Maybe I don’t want $25 a month going to random map packs I may or may not actually use. What’s stopping me from printing off a map for cheap?
Nothing.
In fact, using that limited artistic talent again, you can print off sheets of 1×1 grid, and then draw whatever you want on them. Like I said, I spend time looking for the “just right” tiles or maps, time I could be spending on any number of other things.
Maybe this is enough.
Quality suffers a bit, of course. It’s not shaded and colorful and pretty. But a quick-drawn map on a sheet of paper or two serves the intended purpose, providing a graphic representation of where all players are in combat, so that your players can develop and execute strategies to kill things and take their stuff.
It all depends on the needs of your group and the needs of your budget.
Heck, if tiles and measuring range and all of that are unnecessary in your system or your group’s playstyle, just sketch out the setting like a football play.
Even this might suffice.
The pic isn’t great, but you can jot down names of PCs and monsters on the page, plus add a little bit of setting detail.
(This is meant to show a couple trees for cover and a line for the trail through the scene).
I threw in lines to show movement and red lines to show ranged attacks, with red circles for the blast radius of spells.
Is this high-quality? No.
Does it work? Possibly.
Does it cost money? About two bucks for paper and a pen. If you’re doing any traditional tabletop RPG, you probably have plenty of both right at your fingertips.
As always, find out what works for your group and what saves you the most time and money, then run with it and have a blast.
For the sake of brevity (relatively speaking), I’m not even going to get into stuff like 3D terrain pieces or the crazy craftsmanship (warning: language) that can go into setting up a particular encounter. That Penny Arcade link just shows some pictures of the ridiculous extent they went to in creating a setting for one session. If you can find the articles where they explain the game mechanics of those settings, it is mind-blowing.
Anyway, you can do that. You can literally create worlds for your players to explore.
And you probably ought to, if you are able. But for most of us, that just doesn’t happen, because life.
Speaking of relevant things that distract from life…
I’ll just leave this roll20 link here. Welcome to the future.
How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! (Psalm 133:1 MSG)
As a parent of four, I can sure relate. Our soon-to-be thirteen-year-old usually gets along with her eleven-year-old brother. They team up and torment our soon-to-be seven-year-old, who tags along after them constantly, just hoping to be included in whatever they’re doing. And he generally gets along great with our one-year-old, although he’s not really old enough to help take care of him. Helping out generally falls on the older two, who flip-flop between viewing their baby brother as the best plaything in the world…
Mommy, can we take Judah out and set up the kiddie pool and put his swim trunks on and let him play in the backyard?? Pleeeeease??
…to the most frustrating and despised chore ever.
You feed Judah. No, you! No, I’ll go clean up the dog droppings, so you have to take care of Judah.
There are some days that shatter nerves like glass, and then take the nerve stumps and run them over the glass repeatedly. (I take my wife’s word on this, as I miss most of those days by being at work dealing with the Air Force version of the same problems.)
But there are those days when everyone seems to get it… when the kids work together, or play together, or just plain get along nicely. Days when my daughter defers to the little brother she normally ignores, and chooses to play the game he loves. Days when my son offers to clean up a mess without being asked. Days when our ears are filled with the laughter and joy of children instead of the screams and cries of a war-zone.
Days when we’re not six separate people fighting it out in a house, but a family sharing our lives together in a home.
This morning, our worship team gathered together to sing. We got everything plugged in and set up, and then started a song. Suddenly no one could hear the keys, and none of the background vocals had working mics. This led to about an hour of scrambling and searching for the culprit. Our sound techs are awesome servants and were all over it. The rest of the team finally gave in to the delay and began practicing while the audio issues were being fixed.
We got through the first practice run of our set. Problem areas were addressed. Individual parts were discussed. All the timing and solos got worked out. Still no keys or background vocals.
Then keys started working through the house audio, and we practiced a couple of the songs a second time. Soon, the sound tech tested out mics for the background vocalists, and we were all in the system.
We finished a second run through a few songs, but this still seemed more technical preparation than anything else, until we got to the end of the last song we practiced. All the parts came together, and it seemed like we were able to get past the details to really worship Deity.
The song ended, but the music and the singing–more importantly, the worship–continued.
There are few things like that moment when a group of individuals playing or singing at the same time turns into something both less and more.
In an instant, ten separate people become one collective team. That’s the “less.”
The “more” is how those ten individual offerings of talent and heart do not simply add up, but build on each other and multiply.
When we as the lead worshippers on stage are able to get to that place, there’s a much better chance for the several hundred individuals in the sanctuary to likewise become both less and more.
I don’t know if secular bands experience something similar. I assume so. And I imagine there’s something powerful when they hit that sweet spot at a concert, and the audience really connects with the music too.
All I know is that it’s powerful to join together with a single focus and a single purpose.
If it’s been a while, I suggest you find that thing, that single worthy ideal deserving of your attention. Find that connection with like-minded individuals, and together become less so that you also become more.
And if you’re in Omaha, and that worthy thought around which you want to gather is the glory and goodness of God revealed in Jesus Christ, well, I know a place for that.
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.
