Who the Hell Does Orson Scott Card Think He Is?

I guess this story starts with Netflix. I am notoriously bad at returning things. Books, movies, you name it. The way I see it, I support libraries by paying more late fees than your average borrower. I also watch a lot of movies. I have late fees at most video rental establishments. I just set up an account, rent some movies, and then a few weeks after they're due, return them to the drop box in the dead of night and never go back. Netflix is the obvious solution to my problem, so I got it. I freaking love Netflix.

About a month ago, I had two Netflix DVDs sitting at home. I'd already watched them, I just can't be bothered to put them in the mail. You know how it is. Anyway, we wanted to watch something new, so I walked down the street and set up an account at Hollywood video. I got the movies, and actually returned them on time. Every time I went there, I noticed this Xbox game called Advent Rising sitting there in the "Nobody will rent me, please buy me instead" discount rack. Each time I passed it, I made a mental note to pick it up and give it a try. I was familiar with it, but I don't like to pay full price for games I'm not really excited about.

The reason I wanted to try Advent Rising is because it was written by Orson Scott Card. Now, mister Card and I don't really get along. Which is to say, I think he's a blowhard with a ridiculous vision of the world who wrote a seriously good science fiction book (Ender's Game). I'm really interested in the branching out of video game culture and I thought this game could be really interesting.

I read Ender's Game as a pimply little fledgling geek and then re-read it a year ago. It held up pretty well. Steal it or borrow it from your local library. Don't buy it, though. Card doesn't deserve to get paid any more than he already has because I'm sure they paid him to write Advent Rising and he doesn't deserve another cent.

This game is utter trash.

It's a half-assed Halo rip-off that doesn't have an original line of code in its entire design. It has this gun and super-powers style of play that is implemented so horribly you're better off just picking one or the other and neglecting the rest. The game Second Sight did this really well, but Advent Rising managed to bungle it beyond repair.

The worst part is that the back of the case listed controls for when you're on foot, in a vehicle, in a turret, and in a space ship, leading me to believe that this would be a game with some depth, or at the very least variety. The game opens and you have to pilot a shuttle into a hangar. The space graphics are really good, and the control is fun. I liked it a lot. You land the shuttle and the story continues and then YOU NEVER PILOT A SPACE SHIP AGAIN. The only good part about this game lasts ten seconds. Sometimes you drive an alien tank which is too powerful to be fun and sometimes you get to use a jeep-like vehicle that is almost identical to the Halo Warthog (which, as Halo players will know, is extremely boring in a one-player situation).

But I'm not here to complain about the design. I'm here to call Card out for his atrocious writing. The main character is a smart-mouthed, cocky pilot (like we've never seen that character before) who gets caught up in an alien invasion. The aliens in question have searched long and far for the human race, afraid of their power. They are called... you are not going to believe this... the Seekers.

The Seekers? Come on, Card. I can hear him now, "Oh man. I forgot to name these evil dudes. Oh. Think, Orson, think. Uh... Um... They're seeking humanity... I'll call them the Seekers! YES! I am so great!"

"I wrote Ender's Game!"

Card shamelessly steals his ideas from other sci-fi stories. When humanity first meets the friendly aliens who try to save them from the Seekers, they are given little slugs that crawl into their ears and translate everything they hear (Hitchhikers Guide). The humans, however, use a computer program called the Universal Translator (Star Trek).

I'm really not sure why they decided to pay someone to write this game. Anyone could have written it. No character besides the main character lives long enough to be developed at all. At least one major character dies in every level.

Card, you are a hack. Ender's Game is great, don't get me wrong. You must have blown a few neurons coming up with that one, though, because your work after that has been utter crap. From sci-fi to politics, you've managed to make yourself look silly whenever you turn your thoughts into words. Stick to World Watch (or is it War Watch? I can't keep track) or keep your unoriginal and inconsistent blathering to yourself.

What's up now, Card?

The Art of the D10

Good crapper reading is important. One's time on the mighty porcelain throne is an opportunity to shut out the demands and frustrations of the world for a short time, a time to engage in some light pleasure reading and reflection. Some prefer magazines, others go with books that can be read in short bursts. But, while I'm dropping off the kids at the pool, there's no finer reading material than role-playing books. Sure, you laugh now, but the right gaming book is a well-written and impressively thought-out piece of literature.

Back in high school, my friends and I played a variety of tabletop role-playing games published by White-Wolf (most famous for their vampire game, which we didn't actually play). While similar, in form, to Dungeons and Dragons, I speak from experience when I say that they are quite different in practice.

I'm not speaking of White-Wolf exclusively. We also played a game called Blue Planet, a science fiction adventure set on a remote, ocean-covered planet called Poseidon (Biohazard Games). I've heard the Call of Cthulhu game is very interesting. The point is, there are others.

The difference between D&D and these other games, I think, is that they strike an excellent creative balance. The world of D&D is pretty formless. The players are provided with an endless array of tomes detailing unique character classes, monsters, and weapons. That's all well and good, since the Dungeon master is free to create a unique world, but they seem to end up even more formulaic than the more concrete worlds of the more structured games. All D&D games take place in an endless fantasy landscape dotted with towns surrounded by caves and ancient castles to explore. It's Tolkien as far as the eye can see in every direction.

White-Wolf's games take place in the World of Darkness, a world just like ours, but with their large cast of magical beings lurking in the shadows, in the forests, and manipulating world events from behind the scenes. Their most popular games, Werewolf, Vampire and Mage rely heavily on mythology and folklore from different cultures to empower the characters.

It's been years since I've played. I recently tried to get a game going among my friends in Pittsburgh. My efforts were met with either apathy or hostility. "[Crippled Vulture]," one of these prospective gamers told me, "we're too old for role-playing games." This brings me to my point.

"No, 'we' are not too old for them."

The image most folks have of the tabletop gamer is not an attractive one. Pimple-covered, thick-rimmed glasses wearing, physically and socially stunted youngsters sitting in a basement pretending to be Grog the Devastator. They cheer in triumph as Grog cleaves open the head of the Orc chieftain who, if not actually named after the captain of the football team, is at least a psychological stand-in.

It wouldn't be a stereotype if it didn't happen. To be fair, our early attempts at these games suffered from their own maturity problems as well. Fortunately, the White-Wolf games resist this sort of self-indulgent impediment to real creative entertainment. By setting up a world with just enough structure, providing the players with factions, rivalries, and overall themes which the players are encouraged to accept or discard, the games tend to stay focused enough to avoid the more childish possibilities. The "Dungeon Master" in White-Wolf games is referred to as the Storyteller. It's an important distinction. To be fair, the other group of kids in our high school who played once boasted to me that their vampires killed Martha Stewart by shoving a rocket launcher down her throat. We never played with them.

This level of attention paid to the setting is also what makes the books good reading in general. I haven't played in years, but I can still name all the werewolf tribes.

Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of D&D, has a new ad in magazines that shows a house with two or three dark rooms with players staring like zombies at computer screens, presumably playing an MMO. The living room, however, is well-lit and contains three guys laughing with tabletop RPG stuff on the table. I want to shake that marketing dude's hand.

Remove yourself from all the social stigmata associated with RPGs. How would you rather spend an evening with friends? Staring at the TV? I think not. It's a smarter, far more creative and engaging form of entertainment. Working together to tell a tale in a well- crafted fantasy world. What's so wrong with that?

Sadly, you can't force someone to play these games. A half-assed attempt is worse than abstaining entirely. I never give up hope that I'll play again. All my reading and planning on the john will pay off, because I've got hours and hours of gaming in my head and ready to go.

Until then, I wait and read and plan. And dream.

(grunt)