Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

A few weeks ago I blogged about strengthening trust between players in role-playing games, "Trust & Promises in Role-Playing Games". It was inspired by a blog I'd seen on Gnome Stew on the same topic. Well, the Gnomes wrote a sequel to their blog, "Earning Their Trust: The Rules" and it has inspired me to write on the topic again.

The focus of the Gnomes' latest article in the series is how game masters (GMs) can use game rules well— or poorly— to make or break the players' enjoyment of the game. The gist is that slavish adherence to "The Rules" generally weakens enjoyment of the game and that good GMs will think about when it's right to loosen up their interpretation/application of the rules to promote everyone having a fun time. That's pretty much in line with an idea I wrote about in a few blogs entries back in January, "What's Your Roleplaying Game About?" and "Taking it Easy with Encumbrance in D&D". What really resonated with me in the Gnomes' latest article, though, was one of their sub-headings, Punitive Parent VS “Cool Mom” GM.

Within that phrase it was the two words Punitive Parent that really resonated. ...And not because I've ever been punitive parent or worried about being one, but because it immediately struck me, "OMG, 'punitive parent' totally describes almost all the GMs I played with in my teen years!"

What's a punitive-parent type GM? It's someone who's actually more than just a stickler for the rules. Getting stuck on rules is a trap that a person with low imagination or low confidence might stumble into. Using the rules so as to be punitive, though, is different. It's more. It's not lack of creativity or courage, it's asserting your will over the players' style of play and using the rules as punishment to enforce compliance. It's being a dick.

How is a dick GM different from a mere rules-stickler GM? A rules stickler can be tedious but ultimately they're likely to be fair. A dick GM goes out of their way to use and abuse the rules, including making up new rules at the table, to punish players for not doing things their way. For example:

• One GM in high school would enforce trivial rules to slow down the game every time he hadn't prepared actual content for the game session. I remember one full-day session when we players spent the whole day rolling dice to see if our characters could avoid getting lost in the forest, forage food, cook it safely, and survive the effects of dehydration, starvation, and food poisoning. Yes, we were making Fortitude Saves to see if we puked from eating undercooked deer meat! That dick had the gall further to gaslight us into thinking we wasted a whole fucking game session rolling not to puke because we weren't playing intelligently enough.


• One of my GMs in high school would keep a ledge of black marks against players for actions he deemed to be "not in character". Each black mark was an experience point penalty, meaning it slowed your character's advancement. (Advancing characters is a huge part of RPGs, BTW.) Nominally these were judgments that you weren't playing your character "in character" and thus not eligible to advance. Except in reality the black marks were arbitrary behavior grades. If GM thought you, the player, weren't taking things seriously enough, black mark. Making a joke at the table that he didn't like, black mark. Speaking out of turn too much, black mark.

Yeah, I played with a bunch of dick GMs in my teen years. Partly it was common cultural assumption of how the game was supposed to be played back then. Partly it's because people who are dicks are often ego-driven and thus attracted to GMing because they see it as an opportunity to flex on others. And partly it's because enough of us gamers put up with dick GMs treating us poorly. (Why did I/we put up with it? I reflected on the social dynamics of speaking up about problems players/GMs in another blog after I tried— and quit— several virtual gaming groups during the Pandemic.)

And yeah, players can be dicks, too; it's not just GMs. In addition to fellow players being a big part of the reason I quit or nearly quit multiple new games I tried a few years ago, I still remember games from 20+ years ago when I, as a GM, ended a game or asked a player to leave because the player was being a dick.

It's like how when people ask me at work, "What do you look for in hiring a successful sales candidate?" My concise answer is, "1) ... 2) ... And 3) Don't be a dick." I'll start using the same Rule Number Three for deciding whom to play with in roleplaying games.

It was a hot day today. The weather app said the high temperature was 95° F. That's hot for around here. A typical daily high in mid-late July around here is 81° F. Global warming is making hot days like this more common and more widespread.

Note I'm not saying the fact it was hot today proves global warming or man-made climate change. Just like the fact it there was a blizzard in Minneapolis last January doesn't disprove climate change—much though climate deniers love to scoff, "Look at this snow! So much for gLoBaL wArMiNg!1!" Climate is not about whether one day is hot or cold, or whether it snowed in January in places where it normally snows. Climate refers to long term averages. Patterns.

Thirty years ago my scientifically educated friends and I were dismissive of the science of climate change. ...Well, actually, we were dismissive of the people arguing climate change— because the people making most of the noise about climate change 30 years ago were not scientifically educated, and they were repeating a lot of junk science. My friends and I didn't know what were the right answers but we could definitely spot flawed methods. And we reveled in how much we could point out the flaws in the climate advocates' arguments. The problem with that was, sometimes a person's right about the conclusions even when they're arguing the wrong reasons.

What was a wrong reason? The wrong reason was trying to prove climate change by defending a scientifically provable model for how it happens. When Isaac Newton formulated the theory of gravity, anyone could drop an object and measure gravitational acceleration, g = 9.8 m/s², modulo things like wind resistance. This was never going to work with climate science. There's no way to conduct a scientific experiment on climate. There's no, "Let's pollute the Earth's atmosphere for decades while simultaneously not polluting the atmosphere of a control Earth."

A control Earth?!?! You can see how preposterous that is. But that's the trap actual climate deniers started setting more than 30 years ago. Early climate advocates fell right into it, thinking they could argue experimental proof. And a lot of us otherwise neutral scientifically minded people fell into the same trap by laughing at them for coming up short on proof, as if running an experiment with a control Earth were some kind of achievable scientific gold standard. It turned out we weren't the geniuses we thought we were. We were just really smart assholes.

So, if experiments can't prove man-made climate change, what does? The answer goes straight back to what climate is: Averages. Trends. The fact is the world has been getting warmer at an accelerated pace over the past 100+ years. Yes, the world has gone through cycles of warming and cooling over millions of years, but the rate of change right now is 10x ~ 100x of any change seen before.

We're seeing the manifestations of a warming climate all around us. The heat wave of a few weeks ago wasn't just "a" heat wave, it set all-time records in many places. And beyond just having a really hot day or week or two weeks, the past few years have been record hot years. Globally.

It's past time for anyone who's still a climate holdout, who's thinking, "Oh, I'm scientifically smart, and the people arguing climate change haven't proven it yet," to wake up. You're not a genius. You're not even that smart. The smart ones are the people peddling the lies you're still falling for while smugly patting yourself on the back.

On Friday I walked out of a meeting at work.

The situation was a sales colleague, Mike— I'll call him Mike because that's his name— and I were "discussing" the next steps we'd take in working with a prospective customer. I quote discussing because a proper discussion requires mutual respect. This interaction did not have that. Mike was instead hectoring me, assuming poor intentions on my part, focusing on trying to manage my time (when he's not my boss!), and not really listening to my position on the issues at hand but instead demanding repeatedly that I take a specific action he was ordering me (again, not my boss) to take.

My boss was in the conversation, too. He'd offered to broker the meeting when I showed him a string of demeaning things Mike wrote to me in Slack. I told him I found them unprofessional as was preparing to tell Mike that in simple, blunt terms. He suggested we call Mike together to "straighten this out".

My boss and I were both at the same training summit Friday. It was winding down by noon Friday, so we found a quiet spot out in the hotel hallway and called Mike on speakerphone. That's where Mike continued his hectoring, this time aloud, along with improper focus on criticizing how I am prioritizing my time at work. His criticism was not only inappropriate, BTW— inappropriate because, again, he's not my boss— but also factually wrong. I am actually already spending time on the category of things he told me should be my main job responsibility. I'm just not doing the thing he instructed me to do because I disagree that (a) it's the appropriate next step and (b) that's it's my responsibility... it's actually his as the account manager.

During the call I stated a few times, "Mike, you're not listening to me." When he continued criticizing my time management— falsely— and went back to hectoring language, I stated outright and simply, "Mike, you're being disrespectful, and I don't like that."

His response? "You're disrespectful!"

Really. His response was straight off an elementary school playground.

At that point I told Mike and my boss— remember, boss was standing next to me— "I'm done with this for today. f you can't be respectful toward me, find someone else to work on this project." And with that I picked up my bag and walked away.

What happened next: I regrouped and came back to give my boss a verbal warning!

One week ago Israel was viciously attacked by the terrorist group Hamas, which is also de facto government of the Gaza Strip. Hamas fighters purposefully massacred hundreds of civilians in addition to waging attacks on military targets. Soon thereafter I started seeing the analogy in the news, "10/7 is Israel's 9/11." I was already thinking it myself.

I've also seen some articles where writers highhandedly admonish readers how 10/7 and 9/11 are not alike, because of how al Qaeda was a non-state actor and Hamas is a state actor, or some equally beside-the-point thing like that. There are two big problems with this. First, fuck the finger-wagging man-splaining. Anyone attempting to use asshole style arguments and rub my nose in how smart they are by explaining to me how I've been mistaken the whole time is rarely going to win points with me. Rarely, because it's rarely the case such people are actually right! I will agree with an asshole's point if they are right. But almost invariably assholes are not right, because they are too caught up in their own egos to recognize facts contrary to their prejudices. In this case these finger-waggers are wrong because of problem #2: All analogies fail when you take them too far.

The point of making an analogy is to illustrate how something unfamiliar or simply new, in this case the 10/7 attacks on Israel, is similar in a few keys respects to something much more familiar, like the 9/11 attacks on the US. The key is in a few key respects. An analogy will always— always— break down if you take it too far. The "take it too far" in the case of these contrarian writers is them comparing the different geopolitical positions of Hamas vs. Al Qaeda and arguing that because those two are not the identical the whole comparison is null and void. That's horseshit. Their argument is a logical fallacy (overextending an analogy proves nothing) and an indication of arguing in bad faith.

The point of the analogy between the attacks is not that Hamas and Al Qaeda are the same (except also in some limited regards) but that the impact and consequences of the attacks have, or are likely to have, key similarities. Here are three big similarities I can think of right off the top of my head:

1) The attack killed a huge number of people, proportionately. The 9/11 attacks in the US killed just under 3,000 people, virtually all civilians. The initial death toll in the attacks on Israel was estimated at just over 100 in the hours after the attack. Just that death toll is a comparable loss as the US population in 2001 of 285 million is 30x Israel's population of 9.3 million today. And as the breathtaking scope of the 10/7 attacks became clearer after the first few hours, the death toll increased to over 900. Edit: after several days it was increased to 1,400. That makes 10/7 actually fourteen times as bad as 9/11 in terms of proportionate loss of life.

2) Policy reaction to the attacks will change government and society. The US government implemented sweeping, permanent changes after 9/11. The changes are still all around us in our daily lives. In Israel, this attack is seen as a massive failure of the country's sophisticated and far-reaching intelligence apparatus. What changes in surveillance and security policies will be made? And will this attack ultimately topple the precarious government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Israelis are understandably pulling together in this time of war, but at the same time many are openly criticizing the leadership of Netanyahu— who for years has defined his political brand as his ability to keep Israelis safe from attack better than absolutely anyone else.

3) Israel has a rare moment of global support— and may overplay it. Following 9/11 the US had broad international support, including from geopolitical rivals who'd ordinarily condemn US foreign actions, to find and bring to justice the parties responsible. This support backed the invasion of Afghanistan and tolerated, to a certain extent, broad suspicion of Muslim people and Muslim majority countries. The US overplayed its hand, though, in invading Iraq under flimsy pretenses that later proved false— arguably knowingly false— and in violating its own commitments to the international rules of law through actions such as detaining prisoners without charges or trial and using torture. Nevermind that the US's enemies did such things as a matter of course; the US was held by its peers and its own people to a higher standard. Israel faces the same challenge today. This attack was brutal. It violated the rules of war, via its deliberate attack on civilians and taking of hostages. But Israel will lose its moment of international support if it does the same in return. It may seem unfair that it's held to a higher standard, but it's simply a fact that it is. And already its war on Hamas is causing a widespread humanitarian crisis. The 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip have been without power or piped water for several days. Israel is telling 1 million of them to leave ahead of a ground invasion, but where will they go? The borders, including Egypt's border, are all closed.

This past weekend the comic strip "Dilbert" was canceled, and its author, Scott Adams, effectively was, too. As I mentioned in a brief blog yesterday, these were consequences of Adams publishing video of himself going on a racist tirade.

Do I care that "Dilbert" got canceled? No. I stopped reading the comic strip over 10 years ago. It had ceased being funny years before that. That's a harsh thing to say because for years it was funny, enormously funny, especially to me as a software engineer and person in IT. You see, the main character in Dilbert is/was a software engineer, and the comic was about the foolishness that goes on particularly in the corporate world of software and IT. ...At least it used to be. Adams started rehashing old material and gradually folded in too much right wing politics.

Even after the comic strip became tedious and stupidly political I continued reading Adams' blog for a while. Back in 2015-2016 he shared a number of trenchant observations about Donald Trump's rising political campaign. Adams has studied techniques of persuasion and recognized Trump as being a master of these techniques. His blog was, for a while, an excellent "inside baseball" type explanation of what Trump was doing and why it was working.

I specify for a while because after a few months of sharing insight on Trump's techniques, Adams shifted to actively using those techniques to argue Trump's White nationalism cause. For the first week or so I wondered if it was a test for his readers; could we spot the techniques? But it wasn't a test. Adams had gone full MAGA. I stopped following him.

One of the many problems with going full MAGA is that it rots your brain. MAGA-heads wall themselves off in echo chambers of the like minded. Gradually they believe that everything they believe is normal. Thus Adams shameless posted an overtly racist screed, figuring since he was such a master of persuasive arts he'd show us all how smart he is. Well, I'm sure the 30% or so who are MAGA see his brilliance. The rest of us say Good riddance.

There's a Reddit sub I like to read, r/AITA. In it people post stories about situations where someone's gotten upset and them they're not sure if they're in the right or wrong. They ask "AITA?" — Am I The Asshole?

One type of AITA post involves someone getting fired from their job. Employee X does something on the job that Person Y, who could be a customer or a coworker, doesn't like. Person Y tells X's manager, and X gets fired. X and/or their friends rage at Y for "getting" X fired. Y worries, "AITA?"

My response is that Y in these stories is rarely the asshole. I point out that notion of "getting" someone fired is generally a misstatement of responsibility. If you report an employee's misbehavior accurately and in context, and they get fired for it, it's on them. It's the consequence of their actions. They've gotten themselves fired.

About six weeks ago Better.com CEO Vishal Garg was in the news for firing 900 employees via Zoom (my blog from then). It wasn't just that he fired them in a callous manner, BTW. He also insulted them as idiots and literal thieves, continuing a pattern of communication creating a hostile work environment. Under pressure from the public and the board of directors he took a leave of absence a few days later (Daily Beast article, 10 Dec 2021). This week he came back from leave to resume his role as CEO, proclaiming himself a changed person.

In a memo announcing Garg coming back off leave, the Better board of directors crowed that it is “Moving forward with strong, dynamic CEO leadership" (Tech Crunch article, 18 Jan 2022). While everyone can certainly hope Garg is a better person now, I doubt he's changed. His tirades against employees during and after the mass firing weren't just one botched move; they were part of a pattern of hostile behavior stretching back years. The board's actions smack of the "Promise change and lay low until it blows over, then go back to business as usual" school of PR.

It must be nice to be Garg, being able to come back to his old job with the slate wiped clean, unlike the 900 employees he fired and the many who resigned over his behavior.