Welcome to Critical Miss!

Hi, I'm Joel Shempert and this is my roleplaying blog. I'm no brilliant game designer or groundbreaking theorist or master player, just a guy who's been playing some manner of roleplaying game for a long time. I've been doing a lot of thinking in the past year or two about how RPGs are/can be played, what I want out of them, and how to communicate all of this to other players.

What prompted me to think long and hard was this: I've been playing these things for nearly two decades, and while there have been a lot of times that were really fun, a lot of other times were total ass. I said to myself, "Self? Why is that?" And myself said, "Why, I don't know!" OK, actually, that's bullshit. Myself did "know," every time I asked the question, EXACTLY why I was pulling out my hair over roleplaying sessions. It was always some variation on "well, if that guy would just work with me and play right," or "If people would just respect my needs from the game," or more introspectively, "If I could just do the AWESOME THING in my head right this time, then everyone would see its AWESOMENESS." Until I finally realized it was bullshit. So I've stopped doing it.

Well, I have my moments, but by and large I'm trying to move beyond the true-believer factionalism of "the RIGHT way to play," and the childish politics of "Can you BELIEVE what that guy did in the game? He's an asshole," etc. etc. Instead, with the help of a lot of briliant thinkers online, I'm looking hard at more basic questions of, "what is it that's cool about RPGs?" "What do different people actually want out of play?" "What different ways are there of making that happen in the game?" and most importantly, "How, socially, as real people, can players work toward everyone having that fun they want?"

That's where this blog comes in. I do a fair bit of posting on forums and others' blogs and such, but I wanted this outlet for several things:

1) To have a place of my own, a venue for expressing my ideas and processing the ideas of others, in my own words and on my own terms. I want to be able to just let loose something I'm thinking, outside the context of a particular discussion.

2) To have a venue for my actual gameplaying friends to come, to hear and discuss my thoughts on roleplaying. Sure, I talk to 'em and stuff, but sometimes it's hard to communicate these more theory-type things, and only so much time between, y'know, gaming. Hopefully Critical Miss will help bridge the gap between my mindset and their understanding, a gap created by my inability to communicate. I'm gonna try (TRY, mind you) to keep the tone as down-to-earth and casual as I can, so it doesn't sound too dissertation-y or awkward. I also hope I can get some good feedback from these guys.

3) Ultimately, this is all aimed at helping me to play better, and have more fun doing it. What's "better" mean? What's "fun" for me? That's what this blog'll help define, for myself and for my readers. I just want to make sure that I, and any who post here, keep this goal in mind in all posts, always. There's no point in theory without practice, and in this case, practice=FUN.


Disclaimers:

A) I make absolutely NO pretense that anything I say here is original or unique. Unless I state otherwise. And even if I do, I'll probably be wrong. A lot of great theorists have blazed this trail before me. I only hope to state things in my own way, and illuminate them in ways that make sense to ME.

B) I make absolutely NO pretense that anyone will be safe here. I'm going to be saying things about fun, MY fun. If it sounds like I'm coming down on your fun, yeah, I probably am. I'm probably saying, "I can't stand your fun." Or maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm saying I can't stand a really debased version of your fun, which you also can't stand. Or maybe you're misunderstanding me entirely. So feel free to inquire. In fact, please do. But know that when the dust clears, I still may be saying, "nope, can't stand it." So by all means, keep it, it's yours, but there's no point in calling me judgmental or anything. Damn right I am.

C) Disclaimer A applies to disclaimer B. In this case, vis-a-vis Vincent Baker.


About the name: The "Critical Miss" is of course that most dreaded of die results in roleplaying culture: the Natural 1, the Botch, the Fumble. I take this name as a nod to my own history of abysmal luck in the "rolling polyhedrals" portion of roleplaying, but that's not all. It's also a recognition of my spotty history with fun in the hobby in general, the growing conviction that what I want out of gaming, I just ain't getting. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it's something I'm missing, and it's critical. So think of it as a declaration of purpose: to grope, fumble, grasp, crawl toward that thing, that elusive Grail called FUN (consistent fun, mind), and hopefully one day (soon!) lay hold of it. Hope you enjoy the ride with me.

Peace,
-Joel

PS. I'm going to try to update once a week, on Mondays, to hopefully give my RP buddies time to read and respond before our Friday night game. So see you Monday!