You learn a lot from having kids if you pay attention. About yourself. About how things work. Or don't.
One thing I didn't expect to pick up from them was a clearer picture on the impacts of agency. What having it does to you. Not having it. What the illusion of it means. And most importantly what shattering the illusion does.
The kids are all on their way into or out of high school. So agency is always a thing. They don't have a lot.
High school is all about control. Lots or rules. Rules designed for expediency. Rules in service of the governors. Not the governed.
Of course, they are first sold an illusion. Schools tell them they have choice. They are empowered to pick their own path. Own their future.
It's bullshit. Like a shitty roleplaying game. They quickly find out they are passengers in someone else's story. Players in someone else's play.
No matter how good intentioned, that sucks.
It led to a lot of trouble for us parents. We struggled until we figured out what was going on. Until we helped them see the rails they were stuck on.
Then they learned how to work within the structure. Work around it. Bend it. Break it even when they found the right crack.
It helps them to know that the ride they are on will end. They get a graduation day.
Yeah, I just compared the US to teenagers.
How couldn't I? The collective belief in the illusion of the fairness of the justice system. The delusion that laws are magically self executing. The stark denial in facing that this country has never, ever shed the illusion.
Instead we continued to reinforce it and promise one another that we had agency. That we could boot strap ourselves into a brighter future. We won World War II and then beat the commies and made the world safe for democracy...
Or some shit.
Well, now it looks like more people are seeing the illusion for what it is. That the agency they thought they had was always in the hands of someone else. That minority communities have always been right about this shit.
Once you see the structure, you can't unsee it. Now it is a matter of working in it. Bending it. Breaking it where you can.
And graduation day?
It's a long way off. A lot of people need to be held accountable. A lot of laws need to change. A lot of social norms too.
Weekly Roundup
Spitballing, D&D and AI have a love child, and a master at work.
My Work
The Mystery Box continues to evolve and I have figured out, I think, some of the core components. I also ended up planning out another book, which may or may not fit in the box. So far what I have is:
- A deck of 68 cards for Torchbearer that I would paint and then have produced. Maybe hand cut.
- A sort of players handbook + dungeon master's guide book centered on Yggdrasil for Torchbearer. Maybe done as a series of zines
- Torchbearer game aid sheets. I am always flipping through the books and personally rather have some laminated sheets to work with.
- A Yggdrasil specific character sheet since I introduced some changes to the system specific to my material.
Gaming + Technology
No one should be shocked that researchers would be trying to use D&D as a test bed for AI research. What I do find shocking is that there is never any mention of how these simulations handle world context. Or rather, how they don't.
One of the reasons chess was used to measure the power of super computers is because of the incredible number of possible decisions that can be made in the mid game. LLMs fall down in the mid game because they lack world context, so this particular use case is curious. It makes me question the rigor. Link
Creativity
Pat Bagley does not fucking miss. He is probably the best political cartoonist alive today. It is a crime this art has all but disappeared from the landscape. He does more with this image than 5,000 words in the New Republic accomplish. Link
