Nine Unfinished Projects

This is a picture of my desk.

I’m currently working on some terrain pieces, chess figures, palm trees and I’m painting a little skeleton man, my son made out of polymer clay. Some of these projects I started many years ago.

I remember my father always kept several piles of documents on his desk and next to it, and although he worked a lot (too much probably), when he died 20 years ago, he left his study in such a state, that only recently I dared to enter it to go through his things.

A hobby is a luxury, of course, especially if you have three young children and in the midst of a pandemic, so time might be a problem, although I consider painting miniatures or gaming with friends time well spent.

I have a list with nine items, old projects, I need to finish before I can start something new.

Now, that I wrote this last sentence, I already have a lot of doubts about it.

First of all: are there only nine items on my list?

Like many people playing games with miniatures, I enjoy starting new projects all the time. I have a friend who can open a cupboard filled with unpainted miniatures if you mention any wargaming related subject and another friend who buys a plastic bag full of dwarves each time he goes to a gaming convention and I’m not much different.

It’s probably healthy to limit the number of unfinished projects on your table. On the other hand, why should I not paint the dinosaur my daughter made out of Fimo or the giant crocodile my other son sculpted, thus expanding my list to ten or eleven items? Or why shouldn’t I paint some orcs or dark age archers for our fantasy campaign? Or conquistadores? They would be more useful now than three palm trees. And then, why should I do any of these things? Instead I could paint the wall of our garage or some chairs and tables to invite friends over for a barbecue in our garden. Or just spend more time working to gain money?

My father’s hobby or obsession was to visit archeological sites and collect books about it. He was also very much focussed on his work and had a complicated family situation since my brother was severely handicapped. I assume he would have liked to spend more time in museums or read more history books, but just couldn’t. So to release some pressure he bought more and more books.

My father read a lot and he could remember most of the things he read, but when I looked at his books for the first time after he died I noticed that many of them had never been touched. He bought books to put them in shelves or on piles next to shelves, so they would gather dust. I used to have the romantic idea that he wanted to tell me something through his collection of books, because he rarely spoke to me. I feel some kind of sorrow looking at his books. Maybe my father imagined to have more time to read them all.

Now, my second question is: Is it bad, an unhealthy waste of resources, to hoard things and not use them? Books you don’t read, miniatures you don’t paint or play with? Shoes you don’t wear?

Do I really need to finish old projects before I start something new?

I can spend a lot of time sculpting or painting a single miniature, but it’s so much fun imagining playing a game with fifty miniatures on each side or more. This creates a tension and to release it I often start buying new miniatures, before my mind wanders off and imagines playing with yet another army.

Is this bad? A vicious cycle? I don’t know. What do you think?

My Entry for the First Round of the Thought Eater Essay Contest

I like talking to a friend, my son calls Kügel, because he can’t pronounce his name well. He is a long-term philosophy student, gamer and avid reader of cheap fantasy novels. Today I talk to Kügel about “Evocation vs Imitation vs Emulation in adapting literary source material to RPGs“, my topic for the first round of the Thought Eater essay contest.

We have some difficulties defining the three terms, maybe because English isn’t our native language, maybe because we are not that smart. “To emulate“ seems to have two meanings.

1. imitate with effort to equal or surpass

If this essay is supposed to find out which of the three forms of adaptation is the best, emulation automatically beats imitation. Per definitionem, says Kügel.

2. The other meaning of “emulate“ is more interesting. A program can be emulated on a computer, it wasn’t originally written for. What the original program and the new program do looks very similar to the user, but the programs are actually different. Emulation in this sense works best when a text is adapted from one system to a similar system. The fairy tale “Hänsel und Gretel“ can be translated from German to English, for example. German and English are both languages. But can the story be emulated as a film? Or as an RPG?

At first, we understand the difference between evocation and imitation, but talking about it for a while, we get lost. To imitate means to copy superficial elements, all the details of a text. To evoke means to create a similar atmosphere, to write in a similar style, to copy essential elements only, like the more important parts of the plot or the structure.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre“ is a clever adaptation of “Hänsel und Gretel“. You have a group of young people getting lost in the wilderness. You don’t have two children abandoned by their parents. You have cannibalism, but no witch. You have an isolated house, but it’s not decorated with ginger bread. Both stories create a scary atmosphere.

Thinking a bit more about evocation, imitation and emulation, the lines get more blurry. Most texts which “evoke“ other texts also copy some superficial elements and emulation just seems to be a more accurate or better form of imitation, depending on how you define it. Kügel says the topic is unclear, because the terms we deal with are too similar. “And what is literary source material anyway?“, he adds. “The plot? The characters? The style of writing? The world the story creates?“

I propose to work with this: Playing an RPG, you can refer to a text in different ways. One extreme way is trying to imitate as many elements of the text as closely as possible. MERP springs to my mind. The other extreme way is to refer loosely to the text, in an abstract way, and only copy elements you find essential. “A Red & Pleasant Land“ does this. You could call both forms of adaptation “imitation“, the first one “emulation“, the second one “evocation“.

Kügel says: “Your essay will be disqualified. Let’s think about this in a different way. Try to be original. What works best for a GM?“ Kügel doesn’t like to work if he can avoid it. He says: “Which way needs less preparation?“

Well, if you are good at seeing the structure of a text, picking up elements that interest you, changing them, combining them with other elements and filling the gaps, a concept like “evocation“ works for you. If you are good at memorizing lots of information and reproducing it, a concept like “emulation“ works for you.

Kügel says: “Remember. ‘Opinions differ round-up‘, and ‘Well it’s a balance‘-style essays will be disqualified.“

Ok. Here’s another, more personal way to look at it. As an experiment, I wouldn’t mind adapting “Hänsel und Gretel“ as an RPG and stick to the original as closely as possible. Of course, the first thing that would get lost in the process is the plot of the fairy tale and with the plot a lot of other elements would transform. Being an improvisational effort of a group of people, RPGs open up texts anyway. Because of this, one could argue, when adapting a text, a concept like “evocation“ works best with Role Playing Games. It gives enough space to improvise.

But there is something else. I usually don’t feel too comfortable with people who stick to all the details of a given game world and obsess about it. I live in Germany, a country populated by square headed people.

“You said, we were playing ‘Hänsel und Gretel‘, so why did we encounter a wolf on the way through the forest? This is not ‘Little Red Riding Hood‘, is it?“

“It was just a wolf, an animal. It didn’t say anything. It ran away.“

“Why do we keep finding little bones and wooden objects where we left the breadcrumbs? Where is the gingerbread house? And why did Hänsel just disappear? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Where is the witch? I don’t like this.“

The first 9 Games of our Waltrop Campaign

On Sunday I played Badminton with Krüger. He forgot to bring his sports clothes and couldn’t buy shorts at the club. So he played in the clothes he came with. After half an hour he said: “I’m all worn down. I don’t know why.“ I said: “Maybe because you're playing Badminton in your winter clothes?“ Well, he won all the matches anyway. The best score I got was 14-20.

Afterwards we went to a Greek tavern. The waiter brought two shot glasses of ouzo. I started to talk to Krüger about the Waltrop campaign. We have already played nine games, so I was interested if he wanted some changes or if he was happy how the campaign was going.

I showed him two maps, a map of the imaginary island Waltrop and our campaign map. Krüger doesn’t like the taste of anise, so I had both shots of ouzo and felt drunk already. Krüger suggested that we should eventually start a second campaign phase, with stories like: the Greek hoplites under the command of Foibos lead an expedition into the jungle to discover an orc village. I thought: “In which way is this different from what we are already doing?“  I suggested to play out special scenarios using a role playing game like GURPS, an idea we had when we started the campaign about a year ago.

I said: “In general, I’m happy with the campaign. I like the theme. Orcs versus Greeks on a Caribbean Island. At first I thought: Why Orcs? But now I like that a lot. We could add some trolls in the mountains. Savage orcs in the jungle. I could also play the Aquarians when the orcs meet small groups of them as random encounters. I just need to add some fantasy elements to my Greek army. Like giant crabs, a water elemental, a sea hag, deep ones, Merman, silverfish …“ Krüger said: “I should finish my Cannibals in Masks HotT army. I just need to paint a couple more miniatures.“ We talked about where we could place the cannibals on the campaign map. I suggested the mountains, Krüger said they could come from the jungle in the West.

“There is one thing I don’t understand“, I said. “One thing that bothers me. Why don’t the people involved in this campaign write background material for it? Or at least comment blog posts like reports of battles they participated in? I mean, I get interesting and friendly comments on my blog from people I don’t even know.“ Krüger started to sweat because what I said bothered him.

“You know, I don’t like social media“, he said. “Ok. You don’t like social media“, I said. “And we talk about the campaign when we meet. Like we do now. But how about Jörg and Sven? I wrote a battle report about a game you played against Jörg. No comment. I mean Jörg has ‘social media‘ written on his business card. I know this is just a hobby. A lonely hobby, my wife says. But still. It’s ridiculous. I talked hours on the phone with Sven to find a name for a blog that was supposed to document our campaign. A place to exchange ideas about it. We ended up calling it Beyond the Pillars of Heracles. The name is a bit pathetic. But what the hell, I thought. And now? Nothing. The blog is dead.“ “Well“, Krüger said, “Sven looses interest easily.“ “You know“, I said, “Sven has a book with notes about the campaign, with maps and names and whatnot. He asked me if I have a notebook like that. 'Just read my blog', I said.“ “Why doesn’t he share his background material with us?“, Krüger wanted to know. “It’s not ready. I asked him to show a picture of his notebook at least.“ “If you want to get him involved again, you need to change key elements of the campaign. Big game companies do that all the time.“ “Yeah. Like I’m a big game company. You know. I don’t care. There is no interesting communication going on here. They say the internet creates echo chambers where like-minded people meet and tell each other how cool, excellent, amazing they are. But this feels more like a funeral home.“

Krüger said: “When I started to play fantasy games, I used to write pages of background material. In those times I would have written a text for every hexagon on our campaign map. But now I think it’s better not to go into such detail. It leaves more space to improvise.“ I said: “It would be cool if you could come up with a name for your general, the orc warlord, at least. Or if you could write short background texts for the hexagons occupied by the orcs. 20. 29. 30. 38. 39. 68. 78.“ “Why are you so angry?“, Krüger asked. “I don’t know“, I said.

We asked for the bill. The waiter brought two more shot glasses of ouzo. I drank one and a half. I said: “Καλό βράδυ!“  The waiter said: “Καληνύχτα!“ (I started to learn Greek because of our campaign.)

On the way home I thought, I should just ask for orc names on google+ and stop bothering Krüger.

Reiseführer

Ich habe gerade zwei Wochen mit meinen Kindern Lina (4) und Hendrik (2) im Haus meiner Eltern in Dortmund verbracht. Dort habe ich begonnen, meiner Mutter beim Aufräumen zu helfen. Mein Vater war obsessiver Sammler. Er ist nun seit mehr als 10 Jahren tot.

Jeder normale Vater hinterläßt seinen Kindern, wenn er kann, ein Haus, Aktien, Gold. Mein Vater hat mir etwa 2000 Reiseführer hinterlassen, darunter 20 über Zypern. Mein Vater war nie auf Zypern, so weit ich weiß. Die Schränke meiner Mutter sind vollgestopft mit Büchern, größtenteils ungelesen, aber so schlecht gelagert, daß viele wertlos sind.

Es ist für mich nicht einfach zu verstehen, welches System der Sammlung meines Vaters zugrunde liegt, was die Sammlung erzählt. Ich habe gemerkt, daß einige Themen, die meinen Vater interessiert haben, auf mich übergegangen sind.

Marjorie, die aus Honduras kommt und mit der ich verheiratet bin, habe ich auf einer Reise kennen gelernt, auf Kuba. Ich habe unter den Büchern meines Vaters auch einige Reiseführer über Kuba gefunden. Auch dort war er nie.

Unter anderem hat mein Vater zu folgenden Themen Bücher gesammelt: griechische Kunst, ägyptische, etruskische, römische Kunst, Museen und Ausstellungen, englische Gärten, Karten. Das Buch, das mich am meisten überrascht hat: "Romantik und Wirklichkeit der alten Mühlen".

Zu jedem Thema, das ihn interessiert hat, hat er eine Sammlung angefangen. Seine Bücher haben sich in der Wohnung wie ein Pilz verbreitet. Ich habe nun die Aufgabe, diese Sammlung aufzulösen. Einige Bücher werde ich behalten, das Meiste verkaufen.

Ich glaube, mein Vater war ein sehr einsamer Mann.