D&D Encounters – RPG for beginners and lessons in what not to call a room full of gamers

In the name of researching information for my dissertation on stigma and Fantasy publishing, I have contacted publishers, interviewed editors and sent questionnaires to readers of different genres. But last week I decided the time had come to look into a different corner of the Fantasy market, that of the Fantasy gamer.

The generalised stigma surrounding Fantasy, Science Fiction and, to an extent, Horror (if the stigma exists, and I think it does), by which I mean the negative perception of SFF books (eg, they’re for children, they’re escapism, they’re wish-fulfilment, they’re badly written), also includes the negative perception of the readers themselves. I think many people who scorn the genre (please step forward by the way, I need you) still have this image of the ‘geek’ in mind when thinking of SFF readers.

That is, the spotty teenager/middle-aged man still living with their mother, with a deep lack of social skills and an unhealthy pallor earned from late nights spent basking in the glow of their computer screen, barking orders at their elf-self that’s done more exercise going from one end of the tavern to another than they’ve done in a year.

I blame television. Obviously, this is blatant stereotyping; it’s negative and, let’s face it, plain mean. Why is it a bad thing to enjoy gaming, online or otherwise? Who cares if some of those people who enjoy gaming also enjoy wearing their hair as long as their beard and t-shirts that say ‘What Would Leeroy Do?’

There are different sectors of the gaming world. There is LARPing – Live Action Role Playing (people who run around the woods acting out Fantasy battles and what not). MMORPGs – Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (role-playing video games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, etc). MMOG – Massively Multiplayer Online Games (online poker, puzzles etc). And there is RPG – Role-Playing Games (complex board games like Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons, etc).

Of all of these, I felt that RPG was the one where I could find a bunch of like-minded people together in the same place (as opposed to distributed all over the world), and speak to them face-to-face.

However, when I emailed a shop that specialised in RPG, I didn’t expect the following response:

Me: *explains project and asks for help*

Store: Sure! But the best way is to take part in a session. We have D&D Encounters for beginners, we’ll set you up a character.

Me: ?!

Store: What would the slightly gothy version of yourself be like?

Me: ?!!!! *Out of my depth* A cross between Tyrion out of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and… Buffy? But that’s probably not what you meant.

Store: That’s exactly what I meant ; )

So that’s why I cobbled together my questionnaires and, with younger sister in tow for support (she wanted to be Xena – we were clueless), embarked on a three and a half hour gaming session, the majority of which I spent completely bewildered.

To cut a long session short, there was a lot of background information the others on the table knew that we didn’t (not to mention incomprehensible in-jokes that provoked rounds of laughter we politely joined in on). This is because there are whole books published on the universe, including a number of regular publications that reveal new characters, abilities and locations, and a considerable online community fostered by DCI where you can swap stories, build characters and buy their countless, expensive player products.

D&D Encounters is, not a dating for geeks as the name might suggest, a series of weekly ‘epic encounters’, and ours was called ‘Dark Legacy of Evard.’ You can find out more here – and more details are released weekly so that gamers everywhere can take part.

I was Luusi, the human slayer. Our Dungeon Master was called Ian. Dungeon Master Ian, an ex-academic with long grey hair, explained the rules as we went along with supreme calm and patience. Our fellow gamers were similarly patient and helped us make our moves, looking past our expressions of confusion. There were just so many numbers and variety of dice involved. I rolled a D20 and a D10 (for damage, obviously), but one man declared something incomprehensible before throwing five different kinds of dice onto the table and making his move. The rest of us were suitably astounded (or at least, I acted suitably astounded to hide my lack of understanding). When I was first up I rolled a crit, which drew gasps, but I felt only panic, and had to fight the urge to say ‘Maths. Very dangerous. You go first.’ However, I didn’t want to look weird in front of the gamers.

The gamers consisted mostly of middle-aged men or boys that still looked teenaged, with hair in lots of exciting lengths and arrangements – and for the most part were lovely. There was an element of seriousness involved, such as when DM Ian was voicing the parts of the characters in the inn, although when he ducked behind his cardboard barrier to eat his pasta salad, this diminished somewhat. But mostly it was a relaxed atmosphere. There were tables set out where different games were taking place, and people came in and left when they pleased, bringing sandwiches, pizzas, more pasta salads and cans of pop along with them. The atmosphere was relaxed, safe, and you could tell people felt at home.

But then the time came for my questionnaires to be handed out. Suffice to say that I learned a few lessons. Namely: to check my grammar and to never use the word ‘geek’ in a room full of gamers (particularly in a questionnaire full of errors). My questions were openly mocked. It was like being back in high school. Essentially, I’d entered their inner sanctum, disrupted their gaming session, and demanded they answer questions about what it’s like being called ‘geeks’ and ‘steriotypes’ (sic). I think I would have mocked me too.

Having done a session, I only have admiration for the sheer volume of information the players are aware of, and their mathematic ability. I mean, doesn’t a die only have six sides? Any more than that and I'm lost.

Fun fact: the feedback from my questionnaires indicated that gamers don't equal genre fans, and it's a misconception that they are automatically going to be as geeky as, say, me about SFF fiction.

For a keen gamer this place is amazing. For an enthusiastic beginner (sans questionnaires), they're going to get a great welcome. Although this was one lair I don’t think I’ll be invading again.

book review: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I was excited about this Sci Fi debut and winner of five major international SF awards, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (that’s pronounced BATCH-i-ga-LOOP-ee, fact fans). So excited, in fact, that I prematurely placed it as one of my top 5 SFF books of 2010 (not actually published in 2010). I was a few chapters in at that point and was feeling optimistic, plus the book felt good and heavy and the frankly beautiful cover said it was ‘The Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel’ so all signs were pointing towards it being a winner.

It was released by Night Shade Books in the US and Orbit in the UK. I read Orbit’s paperback, published in December 2010, although in a burst of marketing-prowess, the publisher released the eBook shortly before the print version.

It’s set in 23rd century Thailand, in a world where Europe and America have succumbed to the calorie wars and ‘genehack’ plagues created by bioengineering companies, global warming has caused the oceans to rise and temperatures to soar and engineered seedbanks contain the world’s failing food supply. It’s Steampunk meets Science Fiction. Factories are powered by kink-springs, goods are flown over by dirigibles and cars are things of the past. Thailand is ruled by a child queen, but governed by two rival generals, Pracha, of the Environment Ministry, and Akkarat, of the Trade ministry.

The present tense narrative is split between several key players.

Anderson Lake is farang, an American who is working undercover in Thailand as the manager of a kink-spring factory, whose real purpose is to discover the whereabouts of the government’s seedbank on behalf of his employers, the calorie company AgriGen.

Hock Seng, one of the city’s unwelcome yellow cards - Chinese refugees and survivors of the horrific Malaysian purges - is employed by Lake and wants his factory blueprints, and, always, to survive another day.

Emiko is the eponymous character. Outlawed in Thailand, she’s a beautiful, genetically engineered Japanese windup who’s been designed to serve and obey but was abandoned in the city by her master. Emiko is now forced to work in the sex industry, spending her nights being repeatedly raped for other peoples’ pleasure, but also dreaming of escaping to the rumoured safe haven for ‘New People’.

Captain Jaidee and Lieutenant Kanya are White Shirts, vehemently enforcing the Environment Ministry’s brutal regime on all illegally sourced goods in the city. But Kanya’s loyalties aren’t what they seem.

Beginning with an enraged rampage from one of Lake’s factory megodonts – vast, genetically modified elephants – a domino effect of events occur within the confines of the city’s walls, inevitably leading to tumultuous consequences. Each of the main characters represents a division within the city of Krung Thep. Thai, Chinese, Japanese, the farang Westerners, the engineered windup. Each fraction hates the other with extreme prejudice and sweeping generalisations. This serves to both highlight the ridiculousness of racial intolerance and deprives you of a character you can emotionally invest in.

It’s an environmental social commentary. Man-made plagues have already wiped out much of the earth’s population and narrowed its food supplies, but still prejudices divide the remaining peoples so they are constantly at threat of turning on each other, when another plague or global warming-related disaster is always just around the corner.

Here’s why part of me is in awe of this book: it's unique, and brooding, and well-constructed. The present tense narrative has presumably been chosen to reveal the short-sightedness of the characters, as well as the uncertainty of their future as they all sit on the cusp of some cataclysmic event, waiting for monsoon season, waiting for an excuse to fight, waiting for another plague. They are living in a crucible of tension. The pace and tension are excellently built to the point where even the weather is against the characters, slowly bringing them to the boil amongst the nuances of political plotting. As a reader you feel like you’re watching a series of simmering pans to see which one boils over first. In the end it doesn’t matter, because Bacigalupi has engineered the narrative so expertly that it runs like clockwork, each part working against another towards the same grim conclusion.

And yet, despite my admiration for Bacigalupi’s talent, I can’t bring myself to love this book, because I couldn’t find any joy in it. The plot was excellently executed, but the characters left me cold. Each one has a necessarily dark past that is alluded to, but you still barely feel like you’ve scratched their surface. The characters are all products of their tragic lives, and their current situations are so dire it’s hard to gain any sense of hope, or really feel enough for one of them that you want them to survive their hardships. The only truly relatable character – again, this speaks volumes for Bacigalupi’s overriding message and gift – is the windup girl, Emiko, but her genes force her to go around in circles, never finding the escape she desires. Her rape scenes are harrowing – and even though they are a justifiable point in the plot, they resound through the text and set its bleak tone.

This is why I’m so torn over this book: I can see the writing talent and intent behind the desolate design - no one would want this future - but I also want to be able to root for at least one character, and instead as readers you’re constantly held at arm’s length.

The book is described as ‘hard science (fiction) and magical realism’ by io9, who absolutely loved it. Perhaps as a Fantasy fan, rather than a Sci Fi fan, I’m not the target audience. But Orbit are all for targeting ‘the widest possible readership’, it says so on their site. However, I clearly am of the ‘everything should be sunbeams and rainbows’ perspective, so I’d still encourage you to try this for yourself before accepting anyone else’s verdict, especially mine. I’d love to hear what you thought. Here's a free sample chapter. I do spoil you.

6/10

TV preview: HBO's Game of Thrones

HBO’s Game of Thrones TV series based on the first book in Voyager author George R. R. Martin’s epic Fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire should premier April 2011. The network have released this behind-the-scenes video that shows-off their series and it looks like it’s going to be, well, epic. Anyone worried that the scope would be too vast to cram into a few episodes will understand why HBO have decided to tackle the books one at a time.

A Game of Thrones won the 1997 Locus award and has been nominated for other top awards since its original publication in 1996. Set in Westeros, the land where winters can last a lifetime, and lifetimes seldom last out the winter, this is a gorgeous and incredibly detailed series that is well worth reading whether you’re a fan of the genre or not. To put it very simply: it begins at the end of summer in a tremulous time of peace and descends through intricate layers of politics between ruling Houses across the land into all out war and full winter. There are supernatural threats building in the North, but the humans have enough to contend with just between each other. You’ll love characters and lose them: Martin is as brutal as he is talented.

As for the television cast, Sean Bean has combed out his Boromir wig for the role of Ned Stark and Peter Dinklage is exactly how I imagined my particular favourite character, the multi-layered Tyrion Lannister, would be. The preview reveals some truly amazing sets so much kudos goes to the art department. The CGI looks like it’s going to meld seamlessly with the large scale sets that look, thankfully, more LOTR alternative history than Zena.

Preview highlight: George R. R. Martin saying that Fantasy is bigger than history. He’s amazing.