This, like pretty much everything Google does, is really cool. But either I’m becoming an old fogey, or the fact that Google continues to make us more and more reliant on content that exists only on their servers makes me nervous.

In pondering the implications of the AIs in Greg Egan’s Diaspora immersing themselves so completely in virtual realities that they forgot about the real world, I found a simple saying: “You should never forget where your plug is.” The virtual reality may be indistinguishable from the real world in every way while being filled with endless possibilities far beyond the scope of anything the real world may be able to offer: But if the sun goes supernova in the real world, you’re still going to die, no matter how deeply nestled you’ve become in your artificial life.

In reflecting on cloud computing I think it’s equally important to say: “You should never forget where your data is.”

Because the “cloud” is increasingly becoming a buzz word that means, “If Google ever goes away or chooses to shut down a server or decides to start charging for a service, then you’re all screwed.”

Don’t get me wrong: I use GMail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader. I watch videos on Youtube. I search prices on Froogle. Google Books (along with the Internet Archive) is literally revolutionary in making information widely and rapidly accessible. I’m even convinced that Google Wave has the opportunity to replace e-mail. (Although, notably, one of the reasons I believe that is because Wave is an open protocol and not dependent on Google’s servers.)

But whenever I hear about somebody who has lost their entire blog because their hosting company has gone out of business or failed to back up their servers properly, I’m reminded of the importance of knowing where your data is. The Alexandrian, for example, is actually designed so that the primary copy of every document is kept on my local computer. The website itself is the first of several back-ups. And even though that isn’t an option for many blogs, you should still make a point of making a local back-up on a regular basis.

The same applies to anyone who’s keeping their data exclusively on Google Docs, Flickr, Facebook, or anywhere else on the web. The utility of being able to access and manipulate your data from anywhere is great, but the importance of both knowing and controlling the physical location of your data just cannot be stressed enough.

Which is why, for example, I can’t get excited for Google Chrome OS. In fact, it’s why I can’t figure out why anybody is excited about it. This is an operating system which fails to offer even a single unique feature: Everything it can do, other operating systems already do. In fact, the only thing it can uniquely claim to do is to make your computer completely reliant on the “cloud” — in other words, to force you to give up your control over your own data. For some reason this is supposed to be a “feature”, but I can’t fathom what advantage anyone thinks they’re going to get out of it.

VS.

(prompted by “Signs of Life” at the Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope)

The reason we look for verisimilitude in the rules of a roleplaying game and not in the rules of Monopoly is because we don’t play roleplaying games as if they were a round of Monopoly.

QED.

Personally, I look at the rules of a roleplaying game as the interface between me and the game world. I want those rules to be fun and interesting, but I also want them to be transparent: My primary interest is interacting with the game world. If I wanted to interact with the rules of a game, I’d play a boardgame like Monopoly or Arkham Horror.

So if the rules in a roleplaying game get in the way — either due to a lack of verisimilitude; or because they’re boring; or dissociated; or too complicated — then I’m going to be unhappy with those rules.

There’s a kerfluffle of sorts rumbling the blogosphere regarding the importance of character backgrounds. It got started at Lamentations of the Flame Princess, where James Edward Raggi IV wrote:

Role-playing is not the characterization and speaking in voices and inventing a background and developing a persona that’s a unique little snowflake. Your character’s personality and “what would my character do based on that personality?” are add-on extras completely irrelevant (yet can enhance and perhaps make the effort enjoyable in the first place, make no mistake about what I’m saying here) to the basic activity of role-playing.

Fighting Man Level 1

ST 12, IN 8, WI 10, CN 9, DX 10, CH 9

That’s your character and your role, right there.

This contention was responded to by Bat in the Attic and was, in turn, followed up by the Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope (which is where I first stumbled into the fray). This led me to a quick conclusion:

These guys all have better blog titles than I do.

(Not that I’m changing or anything, but “Lamentations of the Flame Princess” sounds like a fantasy metal band and “Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope” pretty much screams old school fun.)

Truth be told, however, I also drew a pertinent conclusion: To whit, I think the post on Lamentations of the Flame Princess was (intentionally or not) engaging in the worst type of One True Wayism. Specifically, the type that precludes a clear-headed consideration and open discussion of character backgrounds and how they can be used.

With that in mind, here are a few random thoughts off the top of my head. Each of these thoughts really just skims the surface of some pretty interesting stuff, and perhaps some day I’ll be able to return and muse upon them appropriately. But for now I’m interested to see what kind of discussion they prompt.

First, there’s the difference between crafting a character and discovering a character. Each poses unique benefits, challenges, advantages, and disadvantages. In some ways this can be considered analogous to the difference between, say, playing Hamlet and performing in improv theater.

(Of course, to some extent all characters are developed during play, right? No matter how much detail you develop before play begins, there’ll always be something new to discover once you start playing the character in new situations — if for no other reason than that we all grow and change.)

Second, let’s consider the distinction between a character you create entirely by yourself; a completely pregenerated character; and a character created through collaboration (with either your GM and/or the other players in your group).

(Frankly, this is an area of really interesting gradations. There are different types of collaboration, for example: Some are driven mechanically, others socially. Different issue: Even if you’re given a completely pregenerated character, doesn’t it become a collaboration as soon as you interpret it and begin playing it? And how does that tie back into our first topic of discussion?)

Third, the impact that the expected longevity of the character has on these issues. For my Ptolus campaign my players and I collaborated on character histories that were intimately connected to the setting in various ways. These ranged anywhere from 1-3 pages, depending on the player and the character. In my OD&D campaign using the Caverns of Thracia, OTOH, we expected character mortality to be high (it was) and the entire group only got about 3 sentences of background before the fur started to fly.

(On the other hand, as much as OD&D’s short-lived characters encourage you to skimp on your character’s backgrounds, a 1st level Fighting-Man in OD&D is known as a Veteran. That title pretty much insists that even a beginning character has an interesting and meaningful background. A veteran of what? is the inevitable, unavoidable, and evocative question.)

Fourth, there’s the issue of how character backgrounds can be developed and used (by both the player and the GM). The short version is: There are lots and lots of ways to use them. And there are also lots and lots of ways to abuse them.

(Which is why you’ll get plenty of horror stories talking about both (a) the guy who showed up with nothing but a stat block (and played nothing but a stat block) and (b) the guy with a 15 page character background of Mary Sue-ist excess.

Of course, on the flip-side, you’ll also hear great stories about (a) the guy who took nothing but a stat block and turned it into the Most Memorable Character Ever(TM) and (b) the guy who developed a 15 page character background giving the GM all kinds of useful hooks and providing dramatic fodder for some of the most moving roleplaying you’ve ever seen.)

Fifth, we could discuss various mechanical ways of developing character background. For example, there’s Traveller‘s terms of service which uses a gambling mechanic to simultaneously generate a character’s mechanical statistics and provide a framework for fleshing out their background. Or GURPS which bribes you with extra points for making your characters more interesting (by way of disadvantages). Or what about those systems which replace a skill system with a background system (so that what a character can do depends on concrete experience and not just abstract measurements of aptitude)?

(And is mechanizing the development of a background good or bad? I would argue that the more appropriate question is: Good for what? These types of mechanics can provide raw fodder to inspire improvisations that you might not have otherwise considered. In other cases, such mechanics provide a common framework for the group to creatively collaborate. Sometimes that’s what you need. Sometimes it isn’t.)

I think the biggest point I want to make here is that this isn’t really an issue of right-and-wrong. And, in my opinion, trying to frame it in those terms is to waste a lot of time needlessly tilting at windmills.

First Principle: Any story you can tell in any other genre can be told in speculative fiction.

Second Principle: … and a whole bunch more.

Let’s take Spider-Man, for example. You can probably find other ways to explore the central theme of “with great power comes great responsibility”, but it would be comparatively difficult to invest that great power into the hands of a teenage boy with whom your audience can so readily identify. (See, also, Ender’s Game.)

Similarly, love stories are ubiquitous… but it takes speculative fiction to create the specific type of dynamic that exists between a 17-year-old Vampire Slayer and a 400-year-old vampire (particularly when the vampire loses his soul as a direct result of experiencing true happiness with the Slayer). Which isn’t, of course, to say that there isn’t clear metaphoric content there that can be applied to mortal relationships.

Or take a look at the absolutely brilliant exploration of character in the new version of Battlestar Galactica. The clone-like, resurrecting cylons are a Pandora’s Box of sociological, cultural, and psychological problems that simply do not exist in the real world… and thus make possible compelling and powerful stories that you won’t find anywhere else.

Conceptually, look at a work like the original Foundation Trilogy. Or Vinge’s exploration of perverse ethical structures in A Deepness in the Sky.

None of which is to say that other forms of fiction need to pack up their bags and go home. There is clearly a power in the historical narrative of Roots, for example, that cannot be captured by any fantastical restructuring of slavery and racism. Contemporary romances can feature a closer identification between protagonist and reader than a novel starring someone from the 31st century. And so forth.

Nor is it to say that all SF is innately awesome. Sturgeon’s Law (“90% of everything is crap”) naturally still applies.

But it is to say that SF removes the walls.

Which brings us to our conclusion: SF is awesome because it has women wearing brass bras and spandex.

… wait, no. I seem to have gone astray somewhere.

There are six ability scores in D&D. And there are six spells for buffing those ability scores:

bear’s endurance – Clr 2, Drd 2, Rgr 2, Sor/Wiz 2
bull’s strength – Clr 2, Drd 2, Pal 2, Sor/Wiz 2
cat’s grace – Brd 2, Drd 2, Rgr 2, Sor/Wiz 2
eagle’s splendor – Brd 2, Clr 2, Pal 2, Sor/Wiz 2
fox’s cunning – Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
owl’s wisdom – Clr 2, Drd 2, Pal 2, Rgr 2, Sor/Wiz 2

Okay, I can kinda see the archetypal reasons for the bard, druid, paladin, and ranger getting access to different subsets of these spells.

But given the fact that the cleric’s key role in the party is healer and buffer, why are they missing cat’s grace and fox’s cunning?

It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Never has. In my house rules, the cleric gets access to all six buffs, just like the arcanists do.

Random thought: Given the predilection for PCs to get pumped up on stat boosters, is anyone else struck by the similarity to performance enhancement drugs? This doesn’t have much (if anything) to do with game mechanics, but it can be an interesting insight into the relationship between wandering heroes and the world around them. I think the idea that PCs are, in some sense, doped up further alienates them from the common society. Not only do they wield amazing powers, but their very bodies and minds are being constantly hyped up on mystical enhancements.

One of the things I talked about in D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations is the fact that the game covers a range from sub-normal to super-human powers. I think there’s something particularly interesting about a world where the guy sitting next to you may be able to unleash incredible destructive forces with the flick of a thought. What does it really mean for a common man to live in that kind of world? Even if there’s only one such person in a hundred thousand?