NPC’s (Non-Player Characters)
In Dungeons and Dragons games you are trying to bring characters to imaginary life by getting into their deformed, powerful, or magic-filled heads and walking around in a very dangerous imaginary world. You have to be them. You have to think like them and talk like them. You have to love what they love, decide what they do, and live and die for them. They become real people to you. Well… as real as imaginary people can ever become.
But there are actually two distinct types of characters.
These, remember, are the Player Characters. My two sons and my daughter provide them with their persona, personality, and personhood. They are the primary actors in the stage play in the theater of the mind which is D & D.
But there are other characters too. In fact, a whole complex magical world full of other characters. And as the Dungeon Master, I am the one who steps into their weird and wacky imaginary skins to walk around and be them at least until the Player Characters decide to fireball them, abandon them to hungry trolls, or bonk them on the top of their little horned heads. I get to inhabit an entire zoo of strange and wonderful creatures and people.
Besides the fact that these Non-Player Characters can easily lead you to develop multiple personality disorder, they are useful in telling the story in many different ways. Some are friendly characters that may even become trusted travel companions for the Player Characters.
D & D has a battle system based on controlling the outcomes of the roll of the dice with complex math and gained experience. In simpler terms, there is a lot of bloody whacking with swords and axes that has to take place. You need characters like that both to help you whack your enemies and to be the enemies you get to whack. There is a certain joy to solving your problems with mindless whacking with a sword. And yet, the story is helped when the sword-whackers begin to develop personalities.
Crazy Mervin, for example, began life as a whackable monster that could easily have been murdered by the Player Characters in passing while they were battling the evil shape-changing Emerald Claw leader, Brother Garrow.
But Gandy befriended him and turned him from the evil side by feeding him and sparing him when it really counted. He became a massively powerful ax-whacker for good because Gandy got on his good side. And stupid creatures like Mervin possess simple loyalties. He helped the players escape the Dark Continent of Xendrick with their lives and is now relied upon heavily to help with combat. He was one of the leaders of the charge on the gate when the Players conquered the enthralled Castle Evernight.
Not every NPC is a whackable monster, however. In the early stages of the campaign the Players needed a magic-user who could read magic writing, use detection spells and shielding spells and magic missiles, and eventually lob fireballs on the bigger problems… like dragons.
Druaelia was the wizard I chose to give the group of heroes to fulfill these magical tasks. Every D & D campaign requires wizarding somewhere along the way. And Dru was a complex character from the start. Her fire spells often went awry. When Fate used a magic flaming crossbow bolt to sink a ship he was defending, killing the good guys right along with the bad guys, it was with a magic crossbow bolt crafted by Druaelia. Her fire spells went nuclear-bad more than once. She had to learn along the way that her magical abilities tended more towards ice and snow than fire. She learned to become a powerful wielder of cold powers. And while she was comfortable in a bikini-like dress that drove the boys wild because she grew to love the cold, she didn’t particularly like the attentions of men and male creatures that went along with that. More than one random bandit or bad guy learned the hard way not leer at Dru. There are just certain parts of the anatomy you really don’t want frozen.
The Player Characters will need all sorts of help along the way, through travels and adventures and dangerous situations. They will meet and need to make use of many different people and creatures. And as Dungeon Master I try hard to make the stories lean more towards solving the problems of the story with means other than mere whacking with swords. Sometimes that need for help from others can even lead you into more trouble.
But as I am now nearing the 800 word mark on a 500 word essay, I will have to draw it all to a close. There is a lot more to say about NPC’s from our game. They are all me and probably are proof of impending insanity. But maybe I will tell you about that the next time we sit down together at the D & D table.
On Fridays I’m Supposed to Be Funny
Being a daily blogger who has now reached 421 consecutive days with at least one post on WordPress and at least one Tweet on Twitter (linking it to this blog,) I am attempting to impose order and structure on the content of this humor blog.
Mondays are for self-reflection, Tuesdays are for my on-going novel writing, Wednesdays are for what ever is current or topical to complain about, Thursdays are about teaching something (or stories about teaching something to somebody in the past,) Fridays are supposed to be funny business, Saturdays are about artwork, and Sundays are for major themes and big ideas.
So, you can see, I blow the structure apart regularly every single week. I almost never do it according to plan.
But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I am supposed to be Funny on Fridays. You see, not only is Funny on Friday an alliteration, a poorly-connected form of ironic humor, but Friday is named after the Norse goddess Frigga, the goddess of love, marriage, fertility, family, and civilization. There is no Norse goddess of humor. But humor is obviously always about sex, the toilets backing up, kids defying their parents in order to do something foolish, how terrible your mother-in-law really is, laws that Republicans pass that screw up your life, and sex again… all those things Frigga was the goddess of.
And I have now come to the realization that I have arrived at my Laughing Place. I am now retired from a job I loved that provided me with numerous little anecdotes about the funny things that happen to teachers. You know, things like a kid that destroyed the hallway drinking fountain by head-butting it, the kid who could make his entire head turn purple by tightening every muscle in his rubber face, the boys who held fart contests for an entire month in 1984, the winner of the contest winning a week of in-school suspension, and the loser winning the exact same prize, and many other such stories that most of the girls were smart enough not to become the main characters of.
I have also managed to reach a point in life where I don’t have to worry about money (at least not the way I used to worry, being more than thirty thousand dollars in debt.) After five years of paying off a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy and inheriting a farm as a third-part-owner of farmland where we rent the land and don’t do the work ourselves. I am no longer in debt. And the evil pirate bankers are no longer circling my home like vultures. So, I am in my Laughing Place because debt-free farmland ownership is my brier patch. The evil pirate bankers threw me in, and it turned out it was a good place for the rabbit that is me. Now I can laugh and laugh. And I might as well do it on Fridays.
So you can now rely on me to try and frequently fail to follow the schedule and be funny on Fridays.
Filed under humor, Paffooney, writing, writing humor
Making Photo Paffoonies
I have been a picture-maker since childhood, drawing skeletons in the margins of my textbooks. I used to use pencils, crayons, and colored pencils. I don’t know why I said “used to” because I still use them… just not crayons so much any more. In fact, I have tried, despite being a living antique my own self, to adapt to modern technology. Computers and digital photography have made the picture-making thing easier in many ways, though my goofy old brain still has so many fossilized pathways to navigate to get anywhere new that it takes gobs of time to get it down.
Having rampant hoarding disorder and being a collecting maniac proves useful, because I have stockpiles of junk and stuff to make pictures out of. The only thing I have to get better at is my photographic light awareness. I have spent too much money on different light bulbs and lighting equipment. But practice makes perfect Paffoonies.
It doesn’t hurt that I constantly paint and make arty-stuff to take pictures of either. Here is my effort to use puff paints to add snow to Toonerville structures.
And I need to work on my background awareness too. But being at home alone while important things are going on elsewhere has given me one thing that I don’t often have. Lots of time to work on stuff like this. Scary how the mind of an artist often works, ain’t it?
Filed under artwork, humor, photo paffoonies
What Good Does Philosophy Do?
I am often told that I think too much. I spout quotes from philosophers too often. And sometimes, while contemplating my navel, I have seen the abyss gazing back.
So, you are probably fine with tossing all philosophy books in your possession into the nearest trash bin. You don’t need to worry about why evil exists in the world. Or what the purpose of life is. Or how you can benefit your fellow man. Stupid people live perfectly happy lives more often than gifted intellectuals do. Of course they also punish themselves by electing Donald Trump and thinking Bernie Sanders is a Communist, because they don’t know how much that hurts their own interests, and they are happy as long as the people they hate are being punished more than they themselves are.
It is possible to be perfectly happy by letting someone else do all the thinking, choosing, and planning for you. Let someone else define who and what you are, what you need to be happy, and how your life is to be lived. Then, when things go totally wrong and you are severely punished by life in general, they will probably tell you who to blame and hate for it too.
Nobody ever told you that Kierkegaard once thought that every man makes his own meaning in life, and you don’t have to accept every daft thing that some smarty know-it-all says is the best thing for you. You can learn to think for yourself. You can learn to test and verify the important points laid out before you. You are not too dumb to follow what Mickey is saying right now. After all, aren’t you smarter than him? Surely you are. That fool thinks he doesn’t really know anything at all. Well, maybe one thing. He thinks he knows he exists, like Descartes says.
And once you know the important thing is realizing you do exist, then maybe you are beginning to grasp what Existentialism means. Existence comes before everything else. You know you exist, so now you can begin thinking about what things are good for you to think about, choose to explore, choose to do, and… hopefully… choose to preserve your own existence in the best way possible.
Philosophy is merely thinking. There are many stupid philosophies. Some are even deadly. But there is good thinking out there too. Look at who Caesar Marcus Aurelius says you should rely on when thinking about what is good for you. He was apparently a smart guy. Not all the Caesars of Rome were, by the way. But you don’t have to rely on a Stoic thinker like him. You are the only one who can effectively think for you. You need to create your own philosophy. But everyone who wants to build a wagon does not have to reinvent the wheel for himself. You can find old, dead smart-guys who have invented philosophical wheels that you can put on your own philosophical wagon. And why settle for a Radio Flyer when your philosophical vehicle can be a Rolls Royce or a Porsche? Thinkers have come up with philosophical engines in the past too. And it is not that hard to understand some of the best ones. After all, Mickey can do it. And aren’t you smarter than him?
Filed under humor, philosophy
Wisdom From a Writer’s Life
Don’t get too excited. I searched every box, trunk, bag of tricks, safe, closet, and jelly bean jar that I have in my rusty old memory. I didn’t find much. In fact, the old saying is rather applicable, “The beginning of wisdom is recognizing just how much of a fool you really are.” The little pile of bottle caps and marshmallows that represent the sum total of my wisdom is infinitely tiny compared to the vast universe of things I will never know and never understand. I am a fool. I probably have no more wisdom than you do. But I have a different point of view. It comes from years worth of turning my ideas inside out, of wearing my mental underwear on the outside of my mental pants just to get a laugh, of stringing images and stupid-headed notions together in long pointless strings like this one.
Mason City, Iowa… where I was born. River City in the musical “The Music Man“.
One thing I can say with certainty, nothing makes you understand “home”, the place you grew up in and think of as where you come from, better than leaving it and going somewhere else. Federal Avenue in Mason City looks nothing now like it did when I was a boy in the 1960’s going shopping downtown and spending hours in department stores waiting for the ten minutes at the end in the toy section you were promised for being good. You have to look at the places and people of your youth through the lenses of history and distance and context and knowing now what you didn’t know then.
Grandpa Aldrich’s farm in Iowa is now Mom and Dad’s house. It has been in the family for over 100 years, a Century Farm.
The only thing that stays the same is that everything changes. If I look back at the arc of my life, growing up in Iowa with crazy story-telling skills inherited from Grandpa Aldrich, to going to Iowa State “Cow College” and studying English, to going to University of Iowa for a remedial teaching degree because English majors can’t get jobs reading books, to teaching in distant South Texas more than a thousand miles away, to learning all the classroom cuss words in Spanish the hard way, by being called that, to moving to Dallas/Fort Worth to get fired from one teaching job and taking another that involved teaching English to non-English speakers, to retiring and spending time writing foolish reflections like this one because I am old and mostly home-bound with ill health. I have come a long way from childhood to second childhood.
If “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is really true, I should be Superman now. I look like I’ve seen a lot of Kryptonite, don’t I?
Six incurable diseases and being a cancer survivor since 1983 have left their marks upon me. Literally. Little pink bleedy spots all over me are the mark of psoriasis. The fuzzy-bad photo of me spares you some of the gory details. The point is, I guess, that life is both fleeting and fragile. If you never stop and think about what it all means then you are a fool. If you don’t try to understand it in terms of sentences and paragraphs with main ideas, you are an even bigger fool. You must write down the fruit of your examinations and ruminations. But if you reach a point that you are actually satisfied that you know what it all means, that makes you the biggest fool of all.
If I have any wisdom at all to share in this post about wisdom, it can be summed up like this;
- Writing helps you with knowing, and knowing leads to wisdom. So take some time to write about what you know.
- Writing every day makes you more coherent and easier to understand. Stringing pearls of wisdom into a necklace comes with practice.
- Writing is worth doing. Everyone should do it. Even if you don’t think you can do it well.
- You should read and understand other people’s wisdom too, as often as possible. You are not the only person in the world who knows stuff. And some of their stuff is better than your stuff.
- The stuff you write can outlive you. So make the ghost of you that you leave behind as pretty as you can. Someone may love you for it. And you can never be sure who that someone will be.
So by now you are probably wondering, where is all that wisdom he promised us in the title? Look around carefully in this essay. If you don’t see it there, then you are probably right in thinking, just as I warned you about at the outset, “Gosh darn that Mickey! He is a really big fool.”
He Rose on a Golden Wing… Canto 11
Adagio for Strings – Samuel Barber
After lunch in the school cafeteria, Valerie found her former Pirate crew by Ricky’s locker.
“I didn’t tell you this before, but I invited Dilsey Murphy to our next confessional at the skinny-dipping pond.” She then found herself looking into two shocked and dismayed faces.
“I don’t think I can do the naked-truth thing in front of any girl but you, Val,” Ricky said with a slight shudder in his voice.
“I can’t do that in front of anybody,” reminded Billy. “And while we all need the chance to talk about what’s hurting us, I don’t think Dilsey will understand any of it.”
“Yeah, she hasn’t gone through the crap we have. She won’t get what we’re talking about,” added Ricky.
“I think anyone can understand about being depressed. And anyone can benefit by talking through it.”
“Well, maybe. But shouldn’t we cancel the naked-truth thing?” asked Ricky.
“Cancel it,” said Billy.
“We’ll see what’s possible. But if she comes, we can postpone getting naked. It may be too cold anyway.”
“Yeah. That’s a good point,” said Ricky.
“I suppose it won’t hurt to talk about Francois in front of Dilsey. She remembers him too, I’m sure.” Billy stuffed books in his locker as he was headed to P.E.
“Sure, of course she remembers him.”
“But she wasn’t with us during the blizzard. And she never met Tommy or Denny,” reminded Ricky.
“I never met them either, but I remember the stories about them,” said Billy. “But I gotta go now. I have to dress out for P.E. or risk another failing grade.”
“So, go. Have fun with the nakedness in the locker room, Billy.” Valerie grinned at him as she enjoyed his annoyed grimace.
“I gotta go too,” said Ricky as he slammed his locker shut and took off towards Berensen’s room, completely forgetting his History book in his locker.
Valerie was going to head to her class when a slamming locker door eight lockers down caught her attention.
“You had some nerve ruining the dance last week. You made yourself the center of attention and took all the joy out of the entire place.”
“You wouldn’t understand, Char. You only understand your own selfish stuff.”
“Don’t you think I can see the selfishness in you? Needing to be the focus of attention because you lost your daddy. We all pity you, but it doesn’t make everything always about you.”
They were alone in the hallway. The bell rang for fifth period. It was a good thing the hallway was so quiet. It meant neither girl was willing to yell and draw everybody out of their classrooms again.
“We are going to be walking on eggshells all week this week, and probably next week too, just so the crazy girl won’t have another hissy fit in the middle of everything.”
Valerie was instantly exhausted. Her arms and legs were now full of lead. And there was a crushing pressure in her chest. She knew this was going to happen. She just needed it to end more quickly than it was going to.
“You got your wish because of it. You’re head cheerleader now.”
“I have wanted to be that since I was little and didn’t know Valerie Elaine Clarke even existed! I worked hard for it all through junior high and high school. And when I got it, it was not because I won it for myself, not because I beat you out for it… but because you just gave it up. You got it all so easily. And you threw it away. You didn’t even give me the chance to earn it. I will never forgive you for what you took away from me.”
“Don’t forgive me, then. I ain’t asking.”
“And you get all the best boys, too. Ricky is so handsome. And he doesn’t have eyes for anybody but you. And you don’t even bother to see it.”
“Ricky’s my friend. Not my boyfriend.”
“See what I mean? You threw that away too.”
“Go ahead and hate me, Char. You are probably right to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Val. I always wanted to BE you. But I have to get over it now. I’m sorry your father died. But that doesn’t give you the right to act the way you do.”
Valerie no longer had the power to continue the conversation. She hung her head. She turned slowly towards class and the inevitable tardy slip. Charlotte walked off in the other direction, even though she had the same class that Val did.
Filed under humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
What the Heck is this Blog About?
I read a lot of other people’s blogs for a lot of reasons. As an old writing teacher and retired Grammar Nazi, I love to see where writers are on the talent spectrum. I have read everything from the philosophy of Camus and Kant to the beginning writing of ESL kids who are illiterate in two languages. I view it like a vast flower garden of varied posies where even the weeds can be considered beautiful. And like rare species of flower, I notice that many of the best blossoms out there in the blogosphere are consistent with their coloring and patterns. In other words, they have a theme.
So, do I have an over-all theme for my blog? It isn’t purely poetical like some of the poetry blogs I like to read. I really only write comically bad poetry. It has photos in it, but it isn’t anything like some of the photography blogs I follow. They actually know how to photograph stuff and make it look perfect and pretty. It is not strictly an art blog. I do a lot of drawing and cartooning and inflict it upon you in this blog. But I am not a professional artist and can’t hold a candle to some of the painters and artists I follow and sometimes even post about. I enjoy calling Trump President Pumpkinhead, but I can’t say that my blog is a political humor blog, or that I am even passable as a humorous political commentator.
One thing that I can definitely say is that I was once a teacher. I was one of those organizers and explainers who stand in front of diverse groups of kids five days a week for six shows a day and try to make them understand a little something. Something wise. Something wonderful. Something new. Look at the video above if you haven’t already watched it. Not only does it give you a sense of the power of holding the big pencil, it teaches you something you probably didn’t realize before with so much more than mere words.
But can I say this is an education blog? No. It is far too silly and pointless to be that. If you want a real education blog, you have to look for someone like Diane Ravitch’s blog. Education is a more serious and sober topic than Mickey.
By the way, were you worried about the poor bunny in that first cartoon getting eaten by the fox and the bear? Well, maybe this point from that conversation can put your mind at ease.
Mickey is tricky and gets good mileage out of his cartoons.
You may have gotten the idea that I like Bobby McFerrin by this point in my post. It is true. Pure genius and raw creative talent fascinate me. Is that the end point of my journey to an answer about what the heck this blog is about? Perhaps. As good an answer as any. But I think the question is still open for debate. It is the journey from thought through many thoughts to theme that make it all fun. And I don’t anticipate that journey actually ending anytime soon.
Dreariness
Today the day is seeming drear…
The dreariness is coming near…
But the time is not to fear, my dear…
It’s merely dreariness almost here.
So dry those eyes and shed no tear…
The sun comes back real soon, I hear…
And it comes no sooner with lots of beer…
For only time cures looming drear.
But as we try to spy and peer…
And see through gloomy dark so drear…
Hoping we will hear the cheer…
For darkness ending, the dark lords sneer.
And sunlight fades beneath the fear…
That now there’s only darkness near…
And gloomy faces frown and leer…
For now the dreariness is truly here.
Filed under Depression, feeling sorry for myself, Paffooney, poem, poetry
Catch a Falling Star 
Hurtful Words
Yesterday’s post got me thinking about how words and the power behind words can actually hurt people. They can you know. Words like “brainiac”, “bookworm”, “nerd”, “spaz”, “geek”, and “absent-minded professor” were used as weapons against me to make me cry and warp my self-image when I was a mere unformed boy. I do not deny that I was smarter than the average kid. I also recognize that my lot in life was probably better than that of people assaulted with words like “fatty”, “moron”, “loser”, and “queer”. Being skinny as a child, there was actually only one of those deadly words that was never flung my direction. Words like that have the power, not only to hurt, but even to cripple and kill.
We all stand naked at times before a jury of our peers, and often they decide to throw stones.
I try to commit acts of humor in this blog. Or, at least, acts of verbal nit-witted goofiness that make at least me laugh. I have been told by readers and students and those forced to listen that I only think I am funny, and I am a hopelessly silly and pointless old man (a special thank you to Miss Angela for that last example, used to tell me off in front of a science class I was substitute teaching years ago.) But those words do not hurt me. I am immune to their power because I know what the words mean and I am wizard enough to shape, direct, and control their power.
I have stated before that I don’t approve of insult humor (usually right before calling Trump a pumpkin-head, or otherwise insulting other members of the ruling Empire of Evil Idiots). And I don’t mean to shame others or make them feel belittled by my writing. But sometimes it happens and can’t be helped.
This blog isn’t about entertainment. I am not a stand-up comedian working on joke material. I use this blog as a laboratory for creating words and ideas. It is mostly raw material that I mean to shape into gemstones that can be used to decorate or structurally support my crown jewel novels. I use it to piece ideas together… stitch metaphors and bake gooseberry pies of unusual thinking. I use it to reflect on what I have written and what I have been working on. And sometimes, like today, I use it to reflect on how readers take what I have written and respond or use it for ideas of their own. That’s why I never reject or delete comments. They are useful, even when they are barbed and stinging. I made an entire post out of them yesterday.
I try hard myself to be tough in the face of hurtful words. You have to learn that essential Superman skill to be a middle school and high school teacher. It is there in those foundries for word-bullets that the most hurtful words are regularly wielded. The skill is useful for when you need the word-bullets to bounce off you, especially if you are standing between the shooter and someone else. But I can never feel completely safe. Some words are kryptonite and will harm me no matter what I do. Some words you simply must avoid.
Anyway, there is my essay on hurtful words. If you want to consider all of that being my two cents on the matter… well, I probably owe you a dollar fifty-five.
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Filed under angry rant, blog posting, commentary, humor, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, William Shakespeare, wisdom, word games, wordplay, writing humor
Tagged as humor, hurtful words, insult humor, resisting hurtful words