Racism Inflection Point - non-gaming post

I grew up in the 60-80's in progressive Berkeley, home of the UC Berkeley campus protests again the Vietnam War. I went to Berkeley High School and UC Berkeley for my Bachelor's Degree. I've never experienced any racism except for some token bullying at school by White kids, mainly some kids either pulling up the corner of their eyes or pretending to speak Chinese by saying "Ching-ching, Chong-chong," but it was very rare, maybe 3 times in my whole life.

The only time I experienced overt racism is when I went to Hudson, MA on a college internship with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). My co-workers at DEC, all white, were as accepting as the people I knew in Berkeley, most were from MIT. I took a bus tour of the east coast (NYC, DC, Niagara Falls, Rhode Island) that left from the DEC campus. One lady who was a secretary at DEC, whom I didn't know, made small talk and asked when I was going to marry a nice "Chinese" girl. Interesting that she had to qualify the type of girl I had to marry. I politely answered her question and ignored her racial comment as old white lady syndrome because she meant well. I went to a barber shop and there was a long line of seated customers waiting and the barber told me to go to the saloon next door. Thinking nothing of it, I went next door. A month later, I went to the same barber shop. This time, there was nobody waiting. He still told me to go get my hair cut next door. That's when it hit me: The barber didn't want to cut my hair.

You hear about people who die in their homes and nobody finding the body for months or years. I figure if I died in a racist area, nobody would care. Or if I needed help, it might not be forthcoming.

Since then, I've vowed never to live in a city without a major University and an educated population.

Fast forward to 2020.

Minneapolis 2020 riots

Covid-19 is a pandemic. And there are protests and race riots going on throughout the US.

Rodney King being beat up by cops

I saw the beating of Rodney King on TV during the LA Riots of 1992. I watched Do The Right Thing and didn't quite understood why Mookie (Spike Lee) threw a garbage can through a window. I saw the anger, but I didn't understand completely why. I saw people blocking the freeways in my area during Black Live Matter and didn't quite understand that. I understood peaceful protests like MLK Jr and Gandhi. In Berkeley High, we were taught about the peace movement, but not about the Black Panthers, though Malcolm X was brought up briefly.

Similarly, I didn't understand the current rash of riots until I watched this video (please watch it, it changed my world view): Trevor Noah: The Daily Show#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd.

The last 3 years of President Trump's legacy has been a disaster. He has proven that he's a racist.

I wrote this post on FB:

There were early stories that Trump is a racist. After 3 years, I think they were right. There are stories his dad discriminated against black renters. He called white supremacists wearing khaki and carrying tiki-torches "very fine people." Now, he quotes an infamous line from Miami Police Chief Walter Headley Jr. originally used it during the height of civil rights protests in the 1960s. It's not like he pulled this quote out of his ass. Trump who we know is a very stable genius (self-proclaimed), picked this quote deliberately. I don't think anybody else owns his Twitter account due to bad grammar and misspellings. We know it comes straight from Twitler's head into his cellphone. His hate for Obama. Where could that have come from? They've never met each other. Could it just be that Twitler couldn't stand a Black President? That is why he's been undoing everything that Obama has done? Twitler is a racist, plain and simple.

In response to my post, one of my friends wrote this:

It’s been really obvious that the man is not just a racist, but a hard core old-school racist, since at least the 90s. And if you didn’t realize it by 2010 you just weren’t paying attention. People seem to give him a pass because he just seems too unserious and too dumb and way too many people seem to believe his kind of vicious racism isn’t really that much of a thing anymore. It’s hard to believe he’s motivated by racism when it hardly seems like he has any kind of fixed principles at all and he’s just a grifter and charlatan. But that’s not how it works.

Another of my friends noted this:

People treat him like a child, you wouldn't punish a child because they don't know what they are doing or saying. There's really no malice behind a child's actions. But we elected him president.

Friday, he tweeted that he'd release "vicious dogs" on protesters outside of the White House. This is another racist rant.

Just like the barber who wouldn't cut my hair because I wasn't White, Trump is reversing everything Obama did for the same reason. Not only that, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell are either going along with it or enabling it. Either way, just as bad. It's not just Trump doing this, but the whole GOP government.

So, what do you do when the social contract is broken? (what social contract? See Trevor Noah's video I linked earlier)

All bets are off the table: guns, knives, rioting, protests are all viable responses.

This has all happened before. Riots happened in America 1963-71. Only after passage of the Civil Rights Acts (1964-68) did the riots start to quell. e.g. Civil Rights Acts offered hope of equality and kept the peace for 50 years. LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights Act to stop civil unrest.

But MAGA (Make America Great Again), Trump's signature slogan, hearkens back to White America where "people knew their place."

Would Trump make a peace offering like LBJ? Right now, Trump is offering to use the military to quell the unrest. And police are now attacking reporters and innocent civilians. True to form, Trump is urging crack downs.

Would the protests continue? Right now, unemployment is at 19% due to Covid-19 and people are stuck at home without work for an undetermined amount of time. They have nothing better to do and they are dying from the virus and police brutality.

Civil Rights have been on the rise since 1964. Then with Trump's Presidency, a swift fall. I'm hoping this is an inflection point, a bottom. Depending on how much the riots go on, on how scared the WH and GOP gets, something positive might come of this.

---

p.s. On 7/22/2020, Vice President Biden called Trump a racist.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/politics/joe-biden-trump-first-racist-president

p.s. On 9/10/2020, Michael Cohn, Trump's lawyer and fixer says Trump is a racist.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/09/10/michael-cohen-trump-racism-ctn-sot-vpx.cnn

p.s. On 9/23/2020, George Takei.

p.s. On 9/29/2020, during the 1st Presidential Debate for the 2020 election when asked to denounce white supremacists, Trump instead tells a white supremacist group: "Proud Boys stand back -- and stand by."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/30/politics/proud-boys-trump-white-supremacists-debate/index.html

p.s. Reaction to Trump's Proud Boy comment, it's right out of Hitler's fascist playbook.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/01/trump-defends-armed-rightwing-gangs-proud-boys-fascism

Swords of the Serpentine - Review

I play tested this in January 2019. It's was available for pre-order May 2020. It finally shipped July 2022.

When I signed up for the play test, I was a bit leery of it. I mean how many fantasy RPGs are out there and what would make this different? On the plus side, this was co-authored by Kevin Kulp, who wrote Timewatch, one of my favorite games.

Below are examples from the play test.

Character Creation

There's a lot of customization where you can write several phrases ("What is Best in Life?" from Conan the Barbarian) which helps describe your character and give you an edge when needed.

The Adjectives are self selected for flavor and to help you decide how your character would act in a situation when faced with indecision.



You also pick your alliances and enemies right off the bat, so everyone already has built-in drama.

And Character-defining gear adds 1 pt of Grit, but it's also cool that there's an incentive to create character and backstory based on your gear. Below is gear for a proto-Conan.

So, character creation is colorful and full of flavor.


Investigative <==> General Abilities

One of my complaints about Gumshoe is that combat is a bit lack luster. Night's Black Agents has improved this with Cherries, abilities at 8+ give you special abilities.

Swords of the Serpentine solved this by allowing Investigative abilities to be used in combat. For instance, you can use your Vigilance (Notice skill) to note an uneven spot on the floor (Player defined), so during combat, you can force your opponent to step on that crack and give you a bonus.

This adds more storytelling to a combat scene.

Also vice versa, a high general ability would give you Investigative skills. For example, a high Warfare (Combat skill) means that you have Investigative skills pertaining to weapons and armor.


Sway vs Warfare

Warfare is your standard sword combat. Sway is affecting the morale of an opponent or opponents. With enough sway, you can make your enemies flee (or retreat from) combat. You can insult your enemies until they run away crying. Very cool.


Sorcery

Yes, there's magic and you can use magic to affect your enemy's Health or Morale. Minor magic is exactly the same as doing the same action physically such as swinging a sword, firing an arrow, picking a lock, but to an observer, it is done magically and is more done for flavor. e.g. people climb up the stairs, but you just float. You point your finger at someone at a distance and you can hurt them as if you fired an arrow at them. It's all for flavor.

But there are major magics where you spend Sorcery. You increase your effects and cause as a side effect a blight (your choice: randomly, evenly everywhere, focused on an area, or on yourself). Powerful and illegal in the city.


The World - Eversink

But what is best in life? A kick-ass world that's different and new.

The main selling point of Swords of the Serpentine is Eversink. The city is built on a swamp. Think Venice filled with canals where various buildings continue to sink into the earth and new floors are built upon the old. The rates of sinking vary throughout the city, some take decades to sink one inch and others drop ten feet in one day. New construction changes the city everyday. Think Winchester Mystery House where an alleyway leads to swimming pool whereas yesterday it was someone's roof. People aren't buried, but exposed to carrion birds or sunk into the marshes. Their souls are remembered by funereal statues, but if destroyed their spirits return to the land of the living. so throughout the city are multitudes of funereal statues; grand ones for the rich and powerful, small clay ones for the poor.

The city has 12 factions fighting each other for control of the city. So lots of intrigue and missions for the PCs.

The city is old, so there are rules and regulations buried deep in time. My favorite skill is Laws and Traditions where a PC can declare a law on the spot and it would be true for the entirety of the campaign "except on Tuesdays." 😊

The monetary system is Byzantine and deliberately confusing in mockery of old D&D and old British money.


Summary

I'm really excited this is seeing print. I've already paid for my pre-order and I'm excited to see the final product. Do we need another fantasy RPG? Yes, if it's Swords of the Serpentine. 😊