The Big Bang Theory and D&D: One Geek's Perspective

Those of you who visit this blog with any regularity know that I am not merely a fan of Geek Culture, but I'm a bit of an evangelist as well.  I want the world to have the same love for Geek Culture that I do.  So portrayals, and reactions to portrayals, of Geeks and Hobbyists are something that I pay close attention to.  I am also a big fan of the television show "The Big Bang Theory."  To my memory TBBT has had the cast play D&D on two occasions, the most recent being the December 13th episode "The Santa Simulation."  This episode has met with quite a bit of criticism on my Twitter and Facebook feeds.  One of the most mild criticisms was Chris Pramas' post on 12/14,  though the brief conversation that followed gives a glimpse at some of the ire that the show can engender from the Geek community.

Before I continue, I'd like to point out that I'm on friendly terms with two of the writers on the show.  This isn't to say that I'm close friends or anything that intimate, but that I and my Geekerati co-host Shawna Benson have done podcast interviews with both Executive Producer David Goetsch (in 2008) and Supervising Producer Maria Ferrari  (late 2012) on separate occasions.  Maria was one of the writers of "The Santa Simulation" episode, so my curiosity wonders if some small spark for the episode came from her participation in my little podcast.  My Shatnerian hubris tells me "Of course it did," while the person who has an understanding of production schedules and how Hollywood actually works says "Puh-leeze, get over yourself."  These facts make me predisposed to be favorable to the show, and I thought everyone should know that before they read further.

The fact is that I find the Nerd Rage being tossed at the creators of THE BIG BANG THEORY to be ludicrous.  I can understand not liking "The Santa Simulation" as an episode, though I liked it and will discuss why below, but to rage at the creators accusing them of "laughing at geeks rather than laughing with them" is unmerited.  Having forced two of the writers to endure marathon live-streaming runs on my podcast, I have learned two things.

First, the people on the show are geeks.  They don't all geek out about the same things you do, but they do all geek out about aspects of geek culture.  They have writers who are comic book fanatics, Star Trek fanatics, video gamers, and hobby gamers.  Have you ever noticed the games that the cast plays at the beginning of episodes?  While the "Ticket to Ride" game going on in a recent episode was a fairly mainstream demonstration, the playing of "Talisman" during an earlier episode points to some serious Hobby Gaming on someone's part.

Second, these people are nice.  Extremely nice.  David Goetsch's only failing as a human being is that he is a Red Sox fan.  Given that the Cubs likely threw the 1918 World Series to give the Sox their much discussed "pre-curse" World Series victory, I have a particular disdain for Red Sox fans.  The fact that David Goetsch is so nice that he overcomes my anti-SoxFan bias is a testimony to how nice he truly is.  Listen to the conversations Shawna and I live-streamed with the writers.  They not only put up with my asides, meanderings, and bad jokes, they join in.  When hanging out with "real geeks," they spend not one moment laughing at us and are instead laughing with us.

Now for a discussion of "The Santa Simulation" proper, as it is an episode that has fostered so much distracting discussion on my various social network feeds.

"The Santa Simulation" is an episode that has as it's "A Storyline" that the core cast -- minus Penny -- haven't been able to play D&D as much as they like over the past few years and want to play.  They want to play so badly that they are willing to prioritize it over night's out with the women in their lives, in Sheldon's case he "forbids" his girlfriend from participating.

The first criticism that leaps out at gamers, and the one highlighted by Chris Pramas in the tweet I linked earlier, is that the show "propagates the myths that only dudes play D&D and that it's either D&D or sex."  I think that this is a fair criticism of the episode, but I'd like to examine it a little further.  It is true as far as it goes, but it should be pointed out that a) it is only Sheldon who "forbids" his girlfriend from playing, b) that Sheldon has very peculiar ideas about societal norms, and c) that Sheldon's girlfriend very much wanted to play in the game.

I'd also like to share a quick anecdote with you.  This past year, the company my friends and I started up launched our first Kickstarter.  We funded a Cthulhu Claus Holiday Card project that was illustrated by my wife Jody Lindke and that contained greetings written by Gaming God Kenneth Hite.  When the project was completed and all boxes had been shipped to backers, I approached my Friendly Local Game Store and asked if they would be interested in carrying the cards.  I also had a retailer tier available on the project.  The manager/owner of the local store said, and I paraphrase here, "the customers at this store would likely not be interested in the project as they aren't very sociable and won't have people to send them to.  They'll look at them, think they are cute, but won't buy them." 

I am not kidding.  Additionally, ZERO retailers backed the project.

That store owner was harder on the hobbyists who frequent the store than TBBT has ever been to the geek community.  The fact is that "gamer are not social" is tried and true stereotype.  The fact that hobby gaming is itself a social hobby that requires social networks -- physical ones not digital ones -- in order to fully appreciate is beside the point.  The most sociable people I know are all gamers.  Are all gamers sociable?  No, but many are and all seem to enjoy the company of their friends while playing games.  TBBT's "The Santa Simulation" at least got that part right.

Back to Chris's point though, he's right that the show didn't break stereotypes and it would have been nice if they had.  It would have been fun seeing how Penny reacted during Leonard's "Holiday Themed" D&D adventure.  I think there was some real room for comedy gold just in that thought experiment, not to mention how it would drive Sheldon crazy.  This is especially the case given that Sheldon has yet to defeat Penny at any game, and an entire episode was dedicated to Penny besting Sheldon -- though sad to say that episode (The Re-Entry Minimization) didn't include any hard core hobby games.  So I think Chris is on to something with his reaction.  TBBT had a moment when they could have gone for the harder, but funnier, storyline and they didn't.  TBBT stuck with the easy gamers are boys assumption when they could have been narratively braver.

That isn't only due to meeting stereotypes though, or from a lack of ability.  It also has to do with screenplay structure.  TBBT -- like most modern shows -- has an A and a B storyline.  Sometimes they even have a C storyline.  Given that the majority of the cast was playing D&D and they only had 3 regular characters not in the game, what would be left for the B storyline if everyone was playing the game?  That's a challenge the writers had to face, and they came up with the episode they came up with.  It was essentially "boys night vs. girls night out."  And you know what, the "boys night" looked like more fun.

That's right, the D&D game looked like more fun than going out "clubbing."  Leonard's "Let's rescue Santa Claus" D&D adventure was exactly the kind of thing gamers do for the holidays.  Savage Worlds has a free Christmas Evening adventure -- and I should point out that a couple of years ago I ran a Savages Save Santa Necessary Evil game.  RPGNow is filled with holiday themed adventures for heaven knows how many game systems.  This year I ran a Call of Cthulhu holiday themed adventure -- and no it didn't involve Cthulhu Claus.  Next year's will.  The guys were all having a great time, the play looked engaging and fun, until Sheldon ruined the boys night out due to his personal history with Santa Claus.

Let me say something that was embedded in that last paragraph again.  It made playing D&D look fun.  It started off silly, but in the end it looked like a great time.  I can see someone saying, "That's what people where afraid of in the 80s?  Really?  It looks fun and I'm going to give it a try."

Do I think the episode could have been better?  Yes.  Having Penny and Sheldon battle it out over the fate of Santa Claus would have been amazing.  Showing non-gamers being recruited to gaming was a missed opportunity for D&D evangelization.  But the episode was fun, and it made me happy that I'd already planned a holiday themed Cthulhu game.

Roleplaying and Player vs. Player Conflict

Everyone who has played a role playing game has at some point experienced sessions, or even campaigns, that contain Player vs. Player conflict.  When it comes to MMORPGs, there are some who claim that Player vs. Player is their favorite mode of play.  There are even Pen and Paper RPGs that have Player vs. Player treachery as the primary motivating factor for the game -- PARANOIA I'm looking at you.  There is definitely a time and a place for PvP play, it can be highly rewarding.  Much of the game industry is based on the assumption that the players will be playing against one another and not cooperatively.

One of the major innovations of RPGs was that they stressed player cooperation rather than competition.  A fact that many DMs didn't take enough to heart in the early days.  Which brings to mind how important it is to understand what your players expect from a game, and how to set expectations to minimize disappointment if a group has decided to embark on a PvP campaign experience.  After all, who hasn't lost a friend or two over a game of DIPLOMACY due to a breaking of that game's "magic circle" when someone used real world commitments/obligations to shape outcomes in the game.




Which brings me to the point of this post.  Player vs. Player conflict can be great in a game, but "inner party" strife can ruin a game.  If the players of a game are expecting this: 

And they get this as a part of adventure design:

You can end up with some very disappointed players.

I recently had this occur during a recent season of D&D Encounters (The Council of Spiders adventure).  The module is set up so that the characters distrust one another and have conflicting objectives.  To add to the intraparty conflict, WotC released "Treachery" cards that can be used during play.  The treachery cards cause bad things to happen to your fellow players -- or take advantage of bad things already happening to them -- and give you a benefit.  The intention is to create a sense of paranoia and drama.  It's a decent goal, but it can end with disappointed players.

This is due to a couple of reasons:

1. Player expectations -- Many people play RPGs because they want a collaborative experience where they work with others to achieve objectives.
2. Mary Sue Syndrome -- The descriptor might sound derogatory.  Don't take it that way.  Many players are playing romanticized versions of themselves.  This is true even when they aren't playing a character who seems remotely like themselves.  Players care about their characters and they want control over them.  When PvP erupts in an RPG it often makes a player feel threatened...and by other players no less.  This can lead "at the table" conflict to leave the magic circle of play and bleed over into real life.  This isn't good, and unless you're playing PARANOIA this is a real risk.  Let me restate this again.  Players play characters again and again because they like them.  If they perceive that character is being directly threatened, they may take it as a slight against themselves.
3. Most Players Don't Really Suspend Disbelief -- What separates good actors from bad actors?  One trait is the ability of good actors -- even ones who aren't "transformed" in each role -- is there ability to immerse themselves in a role and completely separate themselves from the actions of the character.  Most gamers aren't good actors.  The veil of suspended belief is thin.  They are usually not roleplaying.  They often take "roleplayed" moments more seriously than they should.  As a DM, I have roleplayed NPCs who were jerks to one or more players.  I have often had to go out of my way to let players -- who thought I was beating up on them -- know that it was only the character behaving this way, that I was acting.  This surprises some players as they expect you to do something like say "so and so says" rather than for you to affect a voice and act it out straight.
4. Metagaming -- Players will use information they don't have against their peers.  Did the Evil High Priest secretly tell player A to plant evidence that player B was a member of an evil cult?  Guess what.  If there has been time between sessions, player B will begin looking for that evidence.  This is true even if player B would have no idea the planting of evidence is occurring.  They will act on player information and be hurt when they are called on it.  Why?  See #3 and #4. Ask me about a Vampire LARP experience regarding this kind of conflict where players teamed up against a storyteller's character -- an Antediluvian Settite -- because characters were acting on player knowledge.   They had a big gathering.  Every vampire in the session knew the guy was a Settite.  Everyone.  Even though his power was to make people do stuff without knowing who told them to or why.  They were supposed to think it was their own idea.  It took some very skilled ad libbing from a co-storyteller to transform the narrative into making this "trial" the key piece of action.  The action was supposed to be around the Prince.  But people didn't want to "hurt" their friends, so they acted on player knowledge and reworked a whole narrative.  It worked.  No one's feelings were hurt, but it was still a mess. 

In my opinion, Player vs. Player conflict can be a powerful narrative tool.  After all, the source of all DRAMA is conflict.  Thing is in player vs. player conflict -- that isn't entirely pre-scripted and then acted out line by line by actors but is actually played -- things can get messy.  They often do get messy.  I would argue that setting up cases of player conflict should be rare.  I might even recommend avoiding them altogether.  You'll have a happier table, even if it is one that misses out on some "dramatic opportunities."

MAN OF STEEL -- Does Zack Snyder Get It?

If the most recent trailer for the new Superman film MAN OF STEEL is any indication, the answer is a resounding YES!

I have long argued that Superman is my favorite character because he is the most complex of all superheroes.  He isn't merely the first, he is the most interesting.  He has layers and layers.

To often authors and illustrators focus on what Superman can "do" and not "why" he does it or "what" he needs.  Superman is the living embodiment of the question Aristotle poses his Politics.  In Book One of THE POLITICS, Aristotle writes about man and society: "But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends."

Like all men, Kal-El has the instinct to live within society.  He desires to be a part of humanity.  It is why he has a secret identity at all.  Superman has no need for a secret identity except as a way to connect himself with "The City."  Unlike Spider-Man and Batman, Superman wears no mask in his heroic identity.  He lets the world see him as he is.  But he knows that his superheroic identity can not be a part of society.  Superman is godlike and disconnected.  He would be naturally rejected by the society.  Not out of spite or fear, though some would feel that way, but out of awe.  Yet Kal-El isn't sufficient in himself.  Yes, he can survive the vacuum of space without protection.  He can survive a nuclear explosion and lift mountains, yet he is alone.  He is the "Last Son of Krypton."  He needs society and the only way he can have that is through the creation of the adult Clark Kent.

Without Clark Kent and the merging with society that persona gives Kal-El, he might well become a beast.  The tragedy is that through the creation and maintaining of Clark Kent as a persona, Superman puts those he loves at greater risk.  Spider-Man's adoption of a secret identity is done to protect Aunt May, and with some exception it does exactly that.  Superman's secret identity puts Lois, Lana, Jimmy, and Ma and Pa Kent at greater risk than otherwise.  Since Superman is a public figure, he could spend all his time in the Fortress of Solitude with no private life.  Villains would attack the Fortress and only attack civilians in typically villainous ways.  By having roots in society Kal-El puts those people at risk of being targeted as individuals due to their connection with him.  Yet he needs them to become fulfilled...to be a part of law and justice...to work with intelligence and virtue.

He is a truly tragic figure, and I have always been moved when writers are able to capture that small part of him.  Sadly, too few capture that conflict.  They are too often trapped by looking only at Superman as mythic figure and not as someone with the social instinct.

The new preview shows a Clark that yearns for that connection, but whose powers not only separate him from society but cause him pain.  Imagine Clark -- the child -- who can hear all the sounds of the world at once pounding into his eardrums.  Every conversation, every tear, every rain drop.  How alone he must feel.  The voice over with Ma Kent reflecting this in the trailer is magnificent.

Jackie Chan's ZODIAC --- Okay, Now I'm Interested

Seeing Jackie Chan in the teaser trailer for ZODIAC, I was really worried.  The luge body suit stunts were impressive, but they were also stiffer and less fluid than a typical Jackie stunt.  I wondered how much of his natural grace had been worn down by the various exertions he has put his body through during his career.

After seeing the extended trailer I still may hope that Jackie is able to enjoy a long and well deserved retirement, but I am no longer worried about him going out with a fizzle.

Enter Colonel Philip Green or... Gary Mitchell? -- STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS

I'm beginning to wonder if Cumberbatch's character in the upcoming STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS is either Colonel Philip Green or Gary Mitchell. There has been some talk about how the villain cannot be Gary Mitchell of late, even though the initial leak was that it was Mitchell.

Watching the teaser trailer, I'm torn between whether it is Green or Mitchell and leaning heavily toward Mitchell.  It looks like the crew explores a new planet with strange plants, there is a blond character very reminiscent of Sally Kellerman's character Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, and Cumberbatch does some pretty superhuman feats in the clips below. 

Oh, and you see him wearing a Star Fleet uniform.

If it is Mitchell, I'll be geeking out pretty hard as Where No Man Has Gone Before is possibly my favorite Star Trek episode.

Knights of Pen & Paper: Good Idea, but...

As a member of Generation X, I am a fan of "meta" media that is well done.  The initial trailer for the Behold Studios game "Knights of Pen & Paper" makes the game look like it could have been one of those beautiful meta moments.  It looks like a combination of Phoenix Wright with old school "Dragon Warrior," and that would be a beautiful thing indeed.

Reading through the reviews on iTunes, and looking at the in app purchase price schedule, it becomes quickly apparent that this is a game that hopes to have its profits driven by micro-transactions rather than by raw sales.  This is really too bad, as I think that this game might have some traction as a pure single transaction game with expansion purchases to buy updates similar to Ravenmark.

Alas, it seems that was not meant to be. I would have easily paid $7 to $10 for an excellent meta-rpg, but a micro transaction "buy gold" game?  Not so much.

Donnie Yen's Dragon (aka Wu Xia): Watch It

Donnie Yen's latest martial arts film was recently released in the US under the relatively uninformative title DRAGON, a title that brings to my mind thoughts of Bruce Lee and his many classic kung fu films.  It is also a title that does a disservice to the film.  As awe inspiring as Bruce Lee was as a performer, using any of Lee's major works as a reference point is completely off base as the vast majority of Lee's films were of a different film genre than DRAGON.

DRAGON follows in the wuxia tradition in which martial artists live in the world of jiang hu and are inexorably trapped within an epically tragic tale, often a romantic tale.  Think CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and you are on the right track.  But DRAGON, directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan, brings in elements of American Film Noir to the traditional tragic fantasy elements of a typical wuxia film.    DRAGON begins as a murder mystery of a kind, a murder mystery that reveals that Liu Jin-xi (Donnie Yen) is more than the humble paper maker he appears to be.  It is a mystery that ends in proper wuxia tragedy.  It is a heartfelt film with fine emotional beats, even if the martial arts themselves don't quite live up to the remarkable high standards Yen has set of late.  This isn't to say the film isn't beautiful, it is, rather that this isn't a rapid paced actioner.  This is a film of investigations, fear of the loss of a mundane life, and tragedy.  It has some echoes of the Shaw Brothers classic ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN, but is entirely its own creation.

Given the narrative tensions of the film, I wouldn't have marketed the film under the title DRAGON.  I would have based the title on the original title Wu Xia, a term that literally means "martial hero."  Given the connotations of honor in the phrase, I would have called the film AN HONORABLE MAN.  The title would then echo the tensions in the movie and provided context for potential viewers.  Is Liu Jin-xi an honorable man?  Has he always been an honorable man?  Will he leave the tale an honorable man?  These are the questions the audience faces as they watch the film.  They are questions worth asking and the investigations of Takeshi Kaneshiro's character answer only one of these questions.  The answer to the others are revealed through the subtleties of Donnie Yen's performance.