In fact, the village has suffered a string of odd attacks for several weeks now, though they are reluctant to tell the party the specifics. Handley Toshane, ever the cozener, eventually gains the confidence of a village councilman who let spill that an abandoned (some villagers would say haunted) house nearby was the target of a recent excavation by an unlucky group of adventurers. Apparently, this group attempted to explore a strange tunnel underneath the house. They met their end underground, their corpses left to rot. Since then, the village has been hit by attacks from any number of monsters.

Perhaps the two events are related?

The Cast
Jordan as… the Dungeon Master
Nick as… Handley Toshane, a male Halfling Rogue
Kevin as… Twitter McFacebook, a transgendered Human Wizard
Clay as… Sasha Fierce, a female (lesbian) Elf Avenger
Aaron as… Bigby O’Toole, a male Half-Elf Cleric
Sean as… Chen Stubsters, a male Dwarf Fighter

And Introducing
Daniel as… Lorilla, a female Gnome Bard
Lucinda as… Emma Fierce, a female (lesbian) Dragon-born Paladin

(Perceptive readers will notice that Emma Fierce is now played by Lucinda rather than Clay. This was change was due to Clay’s concern that Emma simply wasn’t “his type” of woman. Instead, Clay now plays Sasha Fierce, Emma’s wilder, fiercer friend. They are of course unrelated, as the surname Fierce is terribly widespread these days.)

Kevin: If this were a videogame, I’d be skipping this.

Nick: You don’t carefully read every bit of dialogue?

DM: You’d just be skipping my face talking at you.

Okay, you’re walking to this abandoned house about a half-mile from the village, alone on a hill surrounded by forest. The council member said he’d keep a man posted to help you find your way.

Moving to the location indicated, the group spots the house. The windows are all broken. There’s a guy standing awkwardly off by the side of the front door. He looks at you and nods his head, as if to say, “You’re the people I’m waiting for.”

Kevin: How much?

The group chuckles.

Daniel: Negotiate!

Nick: Okay, well I’ll actually be serious about this. I’ll go up to him, and I’m like, “Hey, what’s up? You need some guys to go into a… deadly hole?”

More laughs.

Lucinda: Use protection.

Nick: I’m just trying to keep my options open.

The guy looks at your group, nods once more and points to the door.

Kevin: I’m gonna use my intuition on him.

Kevin rolls a 20-sided die.

Kevin: Intuition is a thing right?

Clay: Insight.

Your Insight skill allows you to divine a person’s intentions and motivations.

Kevin: Oh, I don’t have that, someone else do that.

Sean: As a drunken dwarf… I also do not have insight.

Clay: I’ll do it, but I don’t know why.

Aaron: Oh, I’m sorry, this guy that’s acting like a prostitute is telling us where to go, and we’re just gonna go where he tells us.

Nick: Exactly.

Aaron: At least someone steal something from him.

Nick: Okay, pickpocket.

As you’re walking by?

Nick: Yeah well you know, we’re all walking by in one crowd — a bustle, rather — and so I think I can…

Nick rolls a 20-sided die.

Nick: Twenty!

That’s pretty good, you must’ve been practicing recently. So this guy is wearing normal clothes and has a cloak that conceals his waist. Are there any particular places you’d like to target your pick-pocket?

Nick: You mean he doesn’t have a visible pouch?

Kevin: I love that we’re spending so much time harassing this one guy.

Yeah, you guys can’t walk by him twenty times and steal everything he has. He’ll notice.

Nick: Okay okay, I’ll aim around the belt. Reach around, or reach under the cloak and grab that. I’m a thief, you know. So if there’s a bulge there, I’m grabbing it.

Sean: I think we have a new gay character.

Nick: Yeah, I’ve never told you about my adventures in the exotic south.

Lucinda: Aaron will disapprove now

(Aaron plays a stern, religious type.) He furrows his brows.

When you move past him, you spot a small velvet bag and you grab it. He mumbles an apology as you brush by him, not noticing your finessed pilfer.

Kevin: So you’re that thief character in every RPG that isn’t ever strong enough to fight anyone, but just steals shit while everyone else dies.

So you enter the house, it kinda smells like mold—

Kevin: —Is it your room?

Lucinda: Is there anything of interest in the house?

There’s some trash that the last party left, but it appears to just be debris.

Kevin: Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for boring things.

Clay: I found a burger!

Nick: It looks only a day or two old, according to my Nature check.

And then there’s the rug in the middle of the room. It is depressed in the center.

Aaron: Does it tie the room together?

Yes, it looks quite nice.

Clay: I lift it.

The smell of mold and stagnant water fills your nose as you lift the water-logged rug. Smashed floorboards are underneath, with a big hole in the center that goes down into darkness.

Kevin: I have a light! I’ll pick up a pebble, cast Light on it, and drop it down.

You drop the pebble, and it falls down about 40 feet.

Clay: Holy…

Nick: And there’s no ladder or anything?

No.

Lucinda: We have 50 feet of hemp and rope.

Nick: This is gonna be like Ocean’s 11.

Lucinda: Is it?

Kevin: We should just throw that guy down here.

Use him as cushioning.

Nick: Okay, I’ll tie my rope to whatever is around… maybe a pillar or something.

Sean: I’ll go first!

Roll an Athletics check.

Sean rolls a 20-sided die. He is determining whether his character is skilled enough to scale the rope without falling.

Sean: 8 plus 9, so 17.

You scale half the rope, now do it again.

Sean rolls again, better this time. He makes it to the bottom.

Nick: I have very poor Athletics, how much does it hurt to fall 40 feet?

The DM chuckles, and doesn’t say anything.

Sean: Can I lay down and provide cushioning? Oh, I have a bedroll that I can lay down.

The dwarf (who isn’t the smartest) unrolls his bedroll to provide cushioning in case someone falls forty feet. Proud of his contribution, he awaits the next person to slide down the rope.

Everyone manages to scale without incident, except for the new recruit Daniel, whose character Lorilla loses his grip halfway down and falls. He tries to tumble to break his fall, but that doesn’t quite work out. He takes 6 damage, which isn’t too bad. After healing their wounded teammate, the group surveys their surroundings. They find themselves in an underground tunnel that’s slightly damp and proceed forward.

Kevin: Whenever we’re walking, the theme music to Thomas the Tank should be playing.

Sean: The dwarf calls the wizard gay.

Kevin: Yeah, you’re kind of a homophobic dwarf aren’t you?

Sean: He has issues to work out.

The underground tunnel continues sloping downwards. The ceiling is concealed, hidden above you in the darkness.

Kevin: I tell Daniel to give me a crossbow bolt.

He does.

Kevin: I cast my Light spell on it, and then tell Daniel to fire that bolt at the ceiling. I want to see how high up it is.

Sure.

Daniel: Do I need to roll for this? A crank check or something?

Kevin: Does a crossbow have a crank?

More complicated ones do, but not yours.

Kevin: They must be like training wheels.

Nick: Yeah — you’d get no respect from the other adventurers.

Kevin: I’m just imagining the jack-in-the-box sound as you crank the lever.

Lucinda: Anyway…

Daniel fires the crossbow bolt into the darkness. Seconds later, the bolt clangs against the rock above them. A pair of otherworldly screams sound out in the darkness, and two bat-like creatures high above the party burst into an inferno of flame. The creatures dive towards the party, their wings a fiery blaze.

The party prepares to meet the devilish bats. They take little notice of the dark stalker who slinks behind them, tracking their every move, waiting for an opportune moment to catch the group off guard.

The Cast
Jordan as… the Dungeon Master
Nick as… Handley Toshane, a male Halfling Rogue
Kevin as… Twitter McFacebook, a transgendered Human Wizard
Clay as… Emma Fierce, a female (lesbian) Dragon-born Paladin
Aaron as… Bigby O’Toole, a male Half-Elf Cleric
Sean as… Chen Stubsters, a male Dwarf Fighter

Jordan: You hear shouting. As you step outside, a throng of townsfolk are fleeing their homes. They’re fleeing a curious sight. A monstrous-looking creature, an Ogre (check out that pic of the statue eating children in that article), about two-men tall and two-men wide, is pulling a large cart and holding a cask in one huge hand, with a club in his other. Two Hobgoblins with bows are perched atop the wagon.

Kevin: Cue Final Fantasy fight music!

The cast tries their best to imitate the generic Final Fantasy music. Sean is off key.

Nick: This is more like Final Fantasy Tactics, honestly.

The DM draws a map on a grid, adding markers and buildings.

Nick: So I feel like we need to disable this wagon. What does it look like?

Jordan: The Ogre is pulling it by a strap at the waist. It has two wheels, and is made of wood. Nick’s character notices that the Hobgoblins are standing on top of more casks.

Clay: Casts? Casks.

Aaron: Barrels. Just… different.

Nick: I don’t necessarily have to share this information, right?

Kevin: Why wouldn’t you?

Nick: I’m a schemer. Maybe I want to scheme.

Jordan: As you run outside, the Ogre throws his cask. When it hits the ground, it explodes and catches nearby debris and a building on fire.

The DM places some orange-colored beads on the map to indicate the areas on fire.

Nick: And he has more of those?

Jordan: Yeah. So after he throws that one, one of the Hobgoblins riding on top hands him another one.

Nick: I can speak Goblin…

Jordan: You might be able to catch what they say.

Nick: Can I bluff? Be like, “Hey, we’ve got a goblin twice as big, you better skedaddle.”

Sean: Better git’.

The DM calls for an Initiative Roll, which indicates that combat has begun, with a whole new set of rules in place. The game slows down significantly, and now players must precisely indicate their actions and movement.

Kevin: Okay, Twitter McFacebook is going to move forward toward the Ogre.

Kevin moves his marker on the map.

Kevin: So there are casks in that wagon? That are flammable?

Jordan: Yep.

Kevin: Well let’s burn that shit up. I’m going to cast the Scorching Burst spell on the wagon: “a vertical column of flame burns ALL WITHIN.”

Clay: So you’re going to hit them all.

Dice rolling.

Jordan: One of the casks explodes, burning one of the Hobgoblins riding on top the wagon and the Ogre itself. They look annoyed.

Kevin: Wouldn’t it be nice if they all just died?

Aaron: Yeah, I’d just grab the fire hose.

Nick: While you’re all doing that, I’ll burglarize everyone’s homes. Including that burning one.

Jordan: They don’t all die, unfortunately. In fact, none of them are dead.

Kevin: Okay, well I did my turn. Let’s see some hustle out there.

Jordan: The Ogre throws the cask, now lit with the help of a Hobgoblin, at Twitter McFacebook.

Kevin: Oh shit. Shiiiiiit.

Jordan: It explodes, and Twitter is burned for seven damage.

Kevin: Shit. I’m retreating. (Kevin’s Wizard has low health, maybe 10 hit points total.)

Nick: As a minor action I’d like to activate my marshmallow toast ability.

Aaron: Okay, I’ll run up and help Twitter, who’s on fire.

Kevin: Twitter is down!

Aaron’s character Bigby O’Toole, blessed with the healing properties of his deity, magically cures Twitter of some of his wounds.

Nick: (looking at the fire on the map) I feel like I can’t really do anything here… Can I throw a dagger?

Kevin: Oh yeah, that’ll stop a giant Ogre with explosive barrels.

Nick throws a dagger at one of the riding Hobgoblins instead.

Kevin: Is anyone else imagining this Ogre as the Rancor, and the riding creatures as Jawas?

Sean: I was actually going for the Cave Troll in Lord of the Rings.

Clay: That’s what I was thinking! Anyway, my turn. Emma Fierce is going to throw a javelin!

Emma Fierce runs past her compatriots, tossing a javelin in the air and sticking it in the large Ogre.

Kevin: “Falcon kick!”

Clay: Okay, I’m done with that.

Clay moves Emma Fierce back behind everyone else.

Nick: What the fuck? You’re supposed to be the burly guy standing in front to protect everyone. That’s your role.

Clay: Meh.

Sean: I want to take out the fire instead. Can I get a bucket anywhere?

Aaron: I have a waterskin!

Sean: Okay, that idea is stupid. I’m going to try throwing a dagger too, but I want to hit that strap on the Ogre.

The DM makes some dice rolls. Sean’s character (what’s his name?) throws his dagger, but misses and hits nothing instead.

Sean: I’m just building up steam. Wait till next turn.

Aaron: Yeah, dagger throwing doesn’t seem like your specialty.

Kevin spends another turn lighting the wagon on fire.

Aaron: Alright, let’s have someone productive go.

Aaron moves his character.

Aaron: Bigby O’Toole is going to use Sacred Flame, a divine power. Sacred Flame “sears an enemy with its divine radiance, while at the same time giving aid to an ally.”

Everyone snickers.

Aaron: What?

Sean: Every ability your character has used is just… fabulous. My character is getting a serious gay vibe from you.

Aaron: Who me? Bigby O’Toole?

Sean: Lance of Faith? Bedazzling Light?

Nick: Ray of Light?

Kevin: You are divine!

Aaron: Yeah… okay, I’m casting my spell. Oh shit. (Aaron rolls a 5.) I probably miss.

Jordan: Well you tried, and that’s what’s important.

Clay: Okay, leave me an opening; I’ll run up and attack.

Kevin: And then hide behind a building again?

Clay: I have a good plan!

Jordan: The Ogre lets out an angry yell.

Clay: Blargh!

Kevin: I’m hungry!

Jordan: He swipes at Emma Fierce twice, hitting you with his club twice for 10 damage. The Hobgoblins fire their bows, and one pierces Twitter McFacebook for 7 damage.

Kevin: Je-sus. I’m gonna die. And you’re gonna’ miss me. You’re all gonna miss me.

Eventually the Ogre is felled and the wagon blows up, killing both the Hobgoblins riding on top. The town’s buildings are in various states of disrepair, some smoldering and some still on fire.

The group takes a moment to collect itself and heal up.

Aaron: Can you ravage the corpses?

Kevin: I don’t think that’s the right verb.

Nick: Yeah, is there any loot?

Instead of aiding the weary townsfolk or dousing the nearby buildings, the group pokes around the dead bodies to see if there are any valuables. Emma Fierce tries to take the Ogre’s club, which is actually just a small tree root. He struggles to move it.

Kevin: Okay, well I go back to our inn and look for the continental breakfast.

Clay: It’s night!

Kevin: This was not complimentary, by the way.

With the Ogre successfully slain, and local townsfolk (begrudgingly) grateful for the party’s help, they retire for the night. The town is at peace, for now. The root of these recent troubles, however, seems to be a much greater problem.

Kevin: Is there an erotic Dungeons and Dragons? There must be.

With this in mind, it was quite startling to sit down at the table for my first game of D&D as a freshman in high school with my friend, his mom and dad, and aunt and uncle. They are all normal people. But instead of the after-dinner movie or game of Scattergories, we sat down to imagine ourselves as wizards and elves.

Briefly, Dungeons and Dragons is played with a pen, paper, and dice with about five or six people. One person takes the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), who describes all of the settings and places and people. The rest of the people are players, who role-play heroes in a world that the DM has imagined for them. Much of the interaction is question and answer (what do I see?), guided by few rules. Some interaction, combat specifically, is amazingly complex, requiring several books to properly direct the action. There is no real goal in D&D, unless the DM gives the players one, or unless the player decides their character exists for a particular purpose.

Given that most of my current friends are nerds themselves (including Editors Kevin and Nick), it astounded me that none of them had ever tried their hand at Dungeons and Dragons. So I planned a dinner and D&D evening, enticing them with quiche and squash soup but ultimately hoping they’d enjoy role playing the most. The following is a transcription of everyone introducing their characters, to their very first fight in a bar.

The Cast
Jordan as… the Dungeon Master
Nick as… Handley Toshane, a male Halfling Rogue
Kevin as… Twitter McFacebook, a transgendered Human Wizard
Clay as… Emma Fierce, a female (lesbian) Dragon-born Paladin
Aaron as… Bigby O’Toole, a male Half-Elf Cleric
Sean as… Chen Stubsters, a male Dwarf Fighter

This is their story.

Kevin: So I know we get to pick a name, but what about gender? Like, if I’m a women, do I get drunk faster or something?

Jordan: There’s no difference. Why don’t we go around the room. Say your name and talk about who you are.

Kevin: My name is Twitter McFacebook. I’m a Human Wizard. I put my gender as Prince. I’ll just say I’m transgendered.

Sean: Uh, my name is Chen Stubsters. A Dwarf Fighter who is a male. I am strong, hardy, and dependable.

Clay: He’s Asian?

Sean: Well he looks Asian on the picture

Clay: No you imagine your own character. Like, not just that picture.

Sean: Okay, well imagine he’s Asian.

Clay: My name is Emma Fierce. A female lesbian Dragon-born Paladin.

Kevin: What does dragon-born mean?

Nick: You’re born a dragon.

Aaron: Dragon-born.

Jordan: I think it means an ancestor got preggo from a dragon once or something.

Clay: So how do we play this? Do we all have to talk in our character?

Nick: Yeah role play, come on. Forsooth.

Jordan: If you want. That might be a little too nerdy to begin with. We’ll work up to that, and eventually we’ll end with LARPing in our parent’s backyard.

Kevin: What’s everyone’s height?

Aaron: I’m 5’11”, my actual height oh my god. I really identify with my character already.

Nick: You’re also a half-elf, so that helps too.

Jordan: Alright. Now that we’re done introducing our characters, let’s figure out where you are in this world.

The DM drops a map on the table. It shows a tavern with various tables and chairs, with a bar near the west side of the room. A rabble of patrons are scattered around.

Jordan: So you find yourselves in a local tavern.

Nick: Can we throw chairs in this tavern?

Aaron: Oh my god. Let’s kill everyone on this tavern. Oh you guys are fucked, I’ve got +5 religion.

Nick: What does that mean? I have zero religion. I’m definitely going to steal from someone.

Kevin: I have more religion.

Aaron: But I’m a cleric, that’s a religious character! I should be more religious than you.

Kevin: Do our characters have a patience level?

Jordan: Everyone pick places where you are in this tavern.

People drop their character on the map to indicate where they are.

Aaron: Oh, it’s like Coyote Ugly, we’re all on top of the bar doing a dance.

Everyone moves their character on top of the bar, a la Coyote Ugly.

Nick: Yeah, I’m totally dropping dollars in your G-string. Or your plated mail, rather.

Clay: Well, I’m a lesbian so I’m alone. I’m not having fun.

Nick: So how am I associated with these people? Do we have a history?

Jordan: Well you’re associated somehow. It’s better for you to make up a history to give your character some flavor, but for ease of play, we’ll say you all know each other already.

Kevin: So we’re all Facebook friends already?

Aaron: Some of us are probably friends. I’m not friends with Clay though.

Jordan: Anyway, as a band of adventurers, you basically go out and do jobs for money or treasure. So you’re all hanging out at this bar, which is basically the center of social life in this small town.

Clay: Is this the Wild Rose? (a lesbian bar in Seattle)

Jordan: Sure, we’ll call it the Wild Rose, but it probably isn’t the kind of crowd you’re thinking of. So you guys are all just hanging out at the bar… or I guess on top of the bar. Your evening is interrupted when all of a sudden the front door of the bar splinters open with a loud yell and four big, scary-looking humanoid forms burst through. These four bust down the door, and one of them takes a big axe and chops down this man sitting in a chair closest the entrance.

The DM places four markers indicating these new creatures on the map.

Sean: That guy was my friend!

Jordan: Roll a Sadness Check.

Sean: What?

Jordan: I’m kidding. Your character is sad now. Anyway, in this game I give you the setup to everything — what stuff looks like, who is where, what people are saying — and then you need to tell me what you’d like to do. So, chaos is erupting in the bar as these four scary creatures bust down the door. What do you do?

Kevin: LET’S KILL THEM. EVERYONE.

Nick: Wait, wait. Maybe… maybe we can see what they want?

Clay: No.

Nick: Could I use some sort of skill to see what they’re pissed about. Like, just say, “Hey man, what’s goin’ on here?”

Jordan: You can do whatever the hell you want. You could make an Insight Check, which is your character attempting to divine a person’s motives, feelings, etc.

Nick: My character is trained in that. I’ll do that.

Nick rolls a 20 sided die.

Nick: I got an 18.

Jordan: You have a hard time sensing what they want, beyond some general desire to kill and destroy things. You do, however, see a big Red Hand tattooed on all their foreheads, and you recall overhearing a tavern patron talking about some Red Hand folks earlier in the night.

Kevin: Is that like a new band?

Nick: Can I ask them to play, uh, “Shaking Hand”?

Kevin: Okay, let’s fuck these dudes up.

A lengthy battle ensues, which is guided by very specific rules. Some terribly violent things occur, including the bar and bartender exploding in a giant ball of fire, magical spells whizzing around, Nick stealing everything off the bartender’s charred corpse while no one looks, and Clay hiding in the corner until everyone yells at him to do something. In the end, the party emerges victorious, though a little shaken at this seemingly random act of terrible violence.

The party decides to investigate by questioning some townsfolk, eventually discovering that the attack is part of an ongoing problem of raids by a local hobgoblin and his band of ruffians. And with that, the group embarks on their epic venture, much to the consternation of their real life friends and family.

However, this past weekend I’ve become so inconvenienced to the point of physical and mental action. This is uncommon. I don’t know why, but I have a theory. Please, bear with me.

Let me start with a list of inconveniences that have accumulated over a period of a month or so:

1. I only have a mattress for a bed. I am 23, with a full time job. A fucking mattress on the floor.
2. I switch between a very small number of pants. This is unpleasant for everyone.
3. The light in my room is out. This prevents activities like reading, or seeing anything.
4. I should change the sheets on my bed; they’re past their expiration date.
5. The hot water in the shower can only be turned on if you also turn on the bathroom sink full blast. The planet hates me.
6. The wipers in my car just smudge the rain around. Since I live in Seattle, this mortally endangers everyone around me.
7. The smelly lady on the bus makes me want to puke in my mouth.
8. I hate everyone else on bus.
9. The skeezy Haitian bar next door plays loud club music until ungodly hours.

This list has been building for about a month, but only recently have things crescendoed into a whirlwind of life-changing declaratives and achievements. After this weekend, I scratched the following deeds off the list:

1. I only have a mattress for a bed. I am 23, with a full time job. A fucking mattress on the floor.
2. I switch between a very small number of pants. This is unpleasant for everyone.
3. The light in my room is out. This prevents activities like reading, or seeing anything.
4. I should change the sheets on my bed; they’re past their expiration date.
5. The hot water in the shower can only be turned on if you also turn on the bathroom sink full blast. The planet hates me.
6. The wipers in my car just smudge the rain around. Since I live in Seattle, this mortally endangers everyone around me.
7. The smelly lady on the bus makes me want to puke in my mouth.
8. I hate everyone else on bus.
9. The skeezy Haitian bar next door plays loud club music until ungodly hours.

Item number three, I can assure you, was completed in its totality. In any case, this changes my life entirely. Or does it? After I accomplished this task, I comfortably resettled into my typical routine like a fat girl waiting for the next Grey’s Anatomy. I have taken no further action to complete anything else on the list. This is both sad and frustrating, because I’d very much like to have these things gone from my life, yet they keep coming up.

Am I doomed to constantly have a host of vulture-like annoyances circling over me? I think I am. I theorize that everyone has what I call an inconvenience threshold (IT), a point at which something is so annoying that it actually galvanizes them into action. For myself, I think that point is quite high. See, the possibility of achieving any given thing works like this: I’m going to use MATHEMATICS (don’t freak out and have a period — stick with me for a second) to explain.

For any given inconvenience, there is a regularity of it occurring (R). For instance, I am reminded that I want to get a box-spring every time I sleep, or whenever I look at my stupid mattress on the floor. That is usually once a day, probably because I try to avoid it since it’s so ugly.

There is also the level of importance (M), which signifies how critical it is to resolve. Though my floor mattress is unsightly and is probably correlated with the level of action I’m getting (none), I’m still sleeping, so its delayed resolution is tolerable.

Finally, there is the work (W) required to alleviate the inconvenience. Buying a box-spring and bed frame is not only costly but time-consuming as well (shopping for it, managing to move them, etc), so the work level is quite high. Thus, we have our formula for discovering the inconvenience (N) of any given life problem:

(R+M)*W = N

I figure that the work required is the most important aspect here. If you’re a mathematician and would like to discuss my findings, please fuck yourself and refer to my contact information here.

Now that we have N, we may say that the sum of all N’s is your total sum of all inconveniences in your life. That number must outweigh your inconvenience threshold for you to be spurred into action. Or in other words:

N_total > Inconvenience Threshold (IT)

So over the course of time your N will accumulate until it outweighs your IT, and then you’ll actually get off your sack-of-crap ass and do something useful. Let me draw you a chart.

Figure 1-1

Over time, a list of unpleasantries builds until it crosses your inconvenience threshold. At this point, you will do something to resolve one of those problems. But that action reduces your inconvenience level and takes you below the threshold. If it doesn’t, you’ll keep resolving things until it is, at which point you’ll wait until the next thing builds up and then take action again. Therefore, your state of equilibrium (and general happiness) is just below your threshold of tolerance.

This is how everyone else works, right? To barely hold shit together while tightly gripping to their sanity as problems slowly creep up like miasmic goo? That seems to be the trend for me. Then again, if this continues I may never resolve some inconveniences. Like getting an actual bed.

Last July, Leacock left his job at Yahoo! for a position as head of user experience at Sococo, a new company developing a communication platform for teams to meet in virtual space.

The Bygone Bureau: So how do you start creating a game? Is there a particular mechanic you begin with, and build the rest of the game around?

Matt Leacock: I usually have an idea for a theme, then look for an interesting core mechanic. I do most of the initial work with the mechanics because themes are more malleable and I can adapt them to fit the mechanics that generate the best experiences.

My initial process begins with raw sketches and off-the-shelf components and involves a lot of rapid iterations where I try out all sorts of crazy things. After I’ve got a basic engine working, the rules take shape next and then the long process of balancing the game begins.

I would imagine that there’s a temptation to add too much to a game. Did you ever have to chop out particular ideas for that game?

Constantly. After the initial game engine is found, I need to add the rules that give the game its basic shape. At the same time, I’m searching for any other rules that make the game more fun, easier to understand, or novel. Any rules that don’t add substantially and positively to the experience are torn out. Rules that are difficult to learn or don’t fit well in testing are modified or discarded until the game flows more naturally.

You’ve designed games before, but as far as I know, none have been nearly as popular as Pandemic. Is there a particular aspect of Pandemic that you think has allowed it to enjoy the popularity it has?

I think Pandemic’s popularity is primarily due to the fact that people feel good while they’re playing it. They get to band together with their family or friends to defeat a game that will likely defeat them.

Since the game is fairly accessible and the other players are there to help, there’s also less fear of being embarrassed about making bad plays. And although the group playing gets to bond together as a team, every player also has their own way to shine given the special powers their roles offer.

Cooperative board games seem to have risen in prominence in the last couple years — Arkham Horror, Descent, Shadows Over Camelot, for example. Is there a reason for this? Did you specifically set out to make a cooperative board game?

Yes, I set out to make a cooperative game. I played [Reiner] Knizia’s Lord of the Rings game and was fascinated with the idea of creating a system that could function much like a human opponent. Diseases (spiraling out of control) seemed like a natural (and dramatic!) fit for an opponent.

I’ve noticed that the cooperative aspects of many board games (treaties in Risk, trading in Settlers of Catan) are always informal. They never have many specific rules about what can and can’t be done. Pandemic is similar. If I remember correctly, the only rule is that in normal and expert mode you can’t show your cards (but of course there are ways around that). Is there a reason social interaction between players is so unguided?

People know how to cooperate — it’s built into the way humans naturally interact as a part of our survival instincts. As a game designer, it’s far easier for me to let the players share information and cooperate than to restrict it, especially in a cooperative game.

Lord of the Rings has the same rule for players not showing their cards to each other. I particularly like this rule as it forces the players to communicate and reduces the effects of a single player leading the team. Of course there are ways around this (as you state quite accurately) but all of them require more communication.

As an interaction designer, I imagine a lot of your ideas about social interaction have played out while watching people play Pandemic. But has anything surprised you? Do people play the game in a manner that surprises you?

I’m consistently underestimate how well a team works as opposed to a single player operating independently. I’ll try to simulate a team playing (by myself) with perfect information, and often find that a team playing with less complete information will perform better because more strategies and points of view are evaluated.

When I play Pandemic, I’ve always noticed that people adopt particular personality archetypes when they play. For instance, there’s the “bossy one” who tells everyone else what to do, the “rogue one” who goes off and decides to do things his way. Do you notice that as well?

I’ve seen some “bosses” but very few “rogues” as you describe them. I think there are many other, more subtle ways of approaching the game, however. I’m sure you could come up with dozens of classifications for these behaviors. To this end, the game could easily be turned into a team dynamics training exercise where the players could record themselves playing a game, then later review the tape to see what types of behaviors they’re exhibiting.

Any new board games you’ve been enjoying a lot recently?

I recently got in a few games of Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue, which I enjoyed.

There’s a Pandemic expansion on the way. Anything else in the works?

I’ve got a fairly large backlog of projects that I’d like to get out the door but it’s tough to find the time while working at the startup and raising my two daughters. Expect to see a new family game in 2010.

Pandemic is published by Z-Man Games. The expansion, Pandemic: On the Brink is due out this August. For those interested in learning more about modern board games, here are a few links to the games Leacock mentioned:

• Lord of the Rings
• Arkham Horror
• Settlers of Catan
• Dominion (I’d like to acknowledge my current obsession with this game.)
]]> http://bygonebureau.com/2009/08/10/communicable-diseases-an-interview-with-matt-leacock/feed/ 0 http://bygonebureau.com/2009/07/20/that-one-time-i-accidentally-ordered-a-prostitute/ http://bygonebureau.com/2009/07/20/that-one-time-i-accidentally-ordered-a-prostitute/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:15:47 +0000 Jordan Barber http://bygonebureau.com/?p=4097 My friend Jenn recently traveled to Indonesia for several weeks. She has lots of stories. This is one of them.

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Jordan: How did you accidently order a prostitute?

Jenn: I was in my hotel, and they were advertising traditional Balinese massages. My roommate and I decided that it would be a nice treat, so I called them up. They asked if I wanted a female or male masseuse and I said female.

Jordan: I have no idea how these two things are going to connect, but go ahead.

Jenn: Well, it turns out the massages aren’t really massages. Well actually, they kind of are… but I’ll get to that later. So the masseuse comes in — it’s a lady — and she seems a little surprised. She’s pretty young, native Indonesian. Speaks almost no English.

Jordan: And then she gives you a massage?

Jenn: Not really. She tells me to take off all my clothes, so I strip down to my bra and underwear. But she tells me to take off everything, so I take off my bra and lay down. Then she comes over, pulls off my underwear and gives me a really hard slap on the ass. So it doesn’t really start as a massage.

Jordan: Okay: naked and ass-smacking. You’re sure it’s not just a “traditional Balinese” massage?

Jenn: Well, that’s what I thought. I just pretended it didn’t happen. Maybe her hand slipped or something.

Jordan: Oh right, those embarrassing accidental ass slaps. Do those all the time.

Jenn: Hey, well she was massaging pretty hard, so all the downward pressure… maybe if you hit it just right, you just do an ass smack. Are you a masseur? I didn’t think so. There might have been an accidental slip in there.

Jordan: Okay, whatever. So after you justify the ass-slap through the laws of physics and then what happens?

Jenn: Well she keeps up with the massaging bit. Then she starts talking in poor English about how pretty I am, which is nice.

Jordan: People just aren’t complimentary anymore.

Jenn: Yeah, it seemed like a nice thing to say. That and all Asian people want to be white. It’s strange; they’re obsessed with whiter skin, while white people want to be tan.

Jordan: You know what they say.

Jenn: You can’t always get what you want.

Jordan: You always want what you don’t have?

Jenn: I don’t think that’s it.

Jordan: I think we’re getting off topic. So she calls you pretty…

Jenn: Yeah she keeps doing that. Her massaging is terrible though. She’s just running her hands up and down my legs, and but keeps going up my thighs. I tried to tell her “too hard,” but she just cackles and spanks me again.

Jordan: Probably a slip of the hand.

Jenn: She’s doing the whole leg stroking thing, calling me pretty, and spanking me every once and a while. It was like lightning — I couldn’t tell when it would strike next.

Jordan: Did you think she was a prostitute at this point?

Jenn: Not really. I just thought she was really weird. I was trying to enjoy myself, so I was willing to excuse some weirdness. Anyway, after that, she touched my vagina.

Jordan: Oh god. Well it’s hard to ignore that.

Jenn: Yeah, she just kept crawling up my leg until she just thumbed my vagina. Then she told me to flip over, so I did. So here I am, totally naked with my boobs flopping around, and she takes a towel and covers my stomach. Like, that’s the part we don’t need to see.

Jordan: What were you thinking at this point?

Jenn: I’m gonna be honest, I had no idea what was going on. I just laid there like a statue, trying to keep my legs together so she wouldn’t do any more vagina thumbing.

Jordan: Sounds like she went to town. Like spelunking, or scooping ice cream

Jenn: It wasn’t vagina ice cream scooping! At this point, I started to get a little freaked out. But I didn’t want to do anything, because I didn’t want to offend her. It was really embarrassing, but I stayed hoping she would finish soon. I just laid there. Like a cold fish. I figured if I lay really still, she’d ignore me and go away.

Jordan: I think that works with the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Not sure about people though.

Jenn: It didn’t work. She was stroking my pubic hair too. She also told me “I have baby like you!” which really confused me. Did she have a white baby because she was a prostitute? Or did she think I was pregnant? My roommate didn’t seem to mind it though.

Jordan: What?! There was someone else in the room?

Jenn: Uh, yeah. We both got a massage. I tried not to look; she’s a big girl. She didn’t get any spanking though.

Jordan: Oh — sounds like you got special treatment.

Jenn: I got my money’s worth. Anyway, after she finishes “massaging” me, she sits down on the bench with me, like we’re best friends or something. Except I’m completely naked and she’s clothed. And then she does something really weird. She takes her own hair, bends down to my pubic hair so they’re touching, and says, “see we’re the same!”.

Jordan: She compares her head hair with your pubic hair?

Jenn: Yes.

Jordan: I feel like there’s some sort of profound cross-cultural significance hidden in this meeting of your hair to hers. Like we’re all the same. Did it never occur to you to stop any of this at any point?

Jenn: I was gonna get my eleven dollars worth no matter what it was. I tipped her two dollars though.

Jordan: Wow, okay. Anything else happen to you in Indonesia?

Jenn: Well I was also bitten by a rabid monkey, and had to get tested for rabies. I also had an allergic reaction to a henna tattoo and had to go to the hospital. I was really hesitant about the Indonesian doctors because whenever we went they said, “Do you want the Indonesian medicine or good medicine?”. I also bought two turtles, but I left them in the bathtub in the hotel. And that’s why I’m never having kids.

Jordan: Sounds like an adventure. Thanks for talking with me.

Jenn: No problem. Turns out I don’t have rabies.

]]> http://bygonebureau.com/2009/07/20/that-one-time-i-accidentally-ordered-a-prostitute/feed/ 0 http://bygonebureau.com/2009/06/15/land-of-the-free-and-the-home-of-the-pixies/ http://bygonebureau.com/2009/06/15/land-of-the-free-and-the-home-of-the-pixies/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:00:32 +0000 Jordan Barber http://bygonebureau.com/?p=3832 Free Realms is Sony's way of translating World of Warcraft's success to a younger generation. Jordan Barber shakes the kid-friendly foundations of Free Realms as a radical pixie.]]> Sony Online Entertainment’s Free Realms takes the essentials of online role-playing games and tries to make them accessible to the whole family. Games like World of Warcraft are relatively adult in terms of the tone, violence, and interaction between players, so Free Realms aims to reign in these elements. The game made this intent clear to me the second I started playing.

You start by creating a character. The game asks the basics: are you a male or female? Both genders have equal ability (because everyone can do everything!). You then choose between playing a human or a pixie. You customize your face and physique — your body choices range from fit to pleasantly plump. There is no obesity in Free Realms. Any way you go, the human choice is inevitably a young, mid-twenties attractive male or female with perfectly gelled hair. There are no one-armed or acne-stained people in this world: despite the pre-modern society Free Realms places you into, everyone is in perfect health.



Meet Natasha Glitterytracer.

I, of course, chose a different route and opted to be a female pixie, which is essentially a smaller human with frilly wings. Then the game presents you with your most important choice: the outfit. It’s like having all those Barbie outfits that your mother never bought in one place. A couple of hours later, my pixie was looking fab-tastic, and I was ready to play.

The last thing left was to create a name. I immediately typed in the name I use for all games: Sarah Barracuda (a reference to Sarah Palin’s nickname). The screen then promptly informed me that my name must be “checked” for any possible offensive meanings or innuendo, to guard against all the “Bigpenis Chodemothers” that crowd other online worlds. In the meantime, I had to choose a name from a designated list of generated words.

Shortly thereafter, I was informed that Sarah Barracuda was indeed offensive and thus not allowed. I had to keep my predetermined name. From that moment, my character’s name was Natasha Glitterytracer, female pixie. I hail from a long line of glitter-tracing fairy adventurers, never shirking from a new quest and always looking fabulous while doing so.



Merryvale, the hippie kingdom.

The game world topography is a bright, colorful land. The inhabitants are all oddly cheerful creatures, and there seem to be no parents in sight. Places of interest range from Snowhill, a god-forsaken frozen city high in the mountains, to Merry Vale, a flowery, hippie paradise no doubt full of farming communes and acid houses. I asked a local where I could score some “giggleweed” (the internet told me it meant marijuana), but he appeared incredulous and thought I was referring to some new powerup item. Powerup item indeed, my friend.

The game encourages you to work on leveling up your character in different classes, like Chef or Demo Derby Driver. (That’s right, there are demolition derbies, though the cars are probably powered by fairy-magic rather than crude oil since that’s icky.)



Racing against other humans and pixies.

Rather than work through the preset class system, though, I preferred to travel my way around Free Realms and visit the common folk. My adventures, however, revealed a hidden horror in this fanciful realm. It became apparent to me that my own people, the pixies, were obviously the “other” race in this realm of Anglo-white privilege. I saw that pixies played second-fiddle to humans, who always held positions of power. All of the important non-playable characters were human. Oh sure, there were pixies too, but they were guards or just trainers for the lamer classes. I mean, all the postmen are pixies! Who wants to be a postman?

I noticed other races, too, but they didn’t even merit the privilege of citizenship. Though these other creatures seemed perfectly innocent, I was constantly told to go “save the village” from pillaging monsters. There was also a race called the “Chugwugs” (likely a racist term) who were confined to their village Wugachug up north. This nefarious racism ran deep throughout the realms, obviously perpetuated by a sociopolitical paradigm of human privilege.



Snowhill: it’s snowy.

I continued to travel the realms, though a little more paranoid than before. Mimicking the “buy local” movement, I began to buy from only pixie vendors (trust in your brothers). And though always jovial in public situations, I occasionally let slip an incisive comment or two: “Pixie brothers and sisters we are being OPPRESSED!” or “I will not cower in the shadow of HUMAN DOMINATION.”

Reactions were mixed. Most people just ignored me; they were too busy leveling up their Chef class to bother recognizing the rampant injustice taking place around them. I tried talking to individuals as well, seeing if I could find any like-minded radicals. I would ask, “Have you read Michel Foucault?”. I was astonished to find that no one could explicate Foucaultian power analytics or biopower theory. Most replied with muted enthusiasm or just confusion. Sometimes I couldn’t help but feel like I was communicating with a bunch of eight year olds.

Despite such setbacks, I have continued to press the issue onto a world that is ignorant of the problem. My new task is to bring the message of race struggle to the people. This will likely get me banned. I wonder, perhaps, if Sony could be persuaded to add “Radical Activist” as a new class?

]]> http://bygonebureau.com/2009/06/15/land-of-the-free-and-the-home-of-the-pixies/feed/ 0 http://bygonebureau.com/2009/03/18/a-lunch-too-pretty-to-eat/ http://bygonebureau.com/2009/03/18/a-lunch-too-pretty-to-eat/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:49:34 +0000 Jordan Barber http://bygonebureau.com/?p=3032 Americans tend to be a bit unimaginative when it comes to making food. We like to add more of whatever we already have—like more meat on a meat pizza, or more cheese to just about anything (anyone else eat apple pie with a cheddar cheese slice?). Sometimes this turns out okay, but more often than not, we end up with a Taco Town-like abomination. If we can just add more stuff on top of the other stuff, it’ll be even better.



Photo courtesy of Anna the Red

I’ll always be an ardent supporter of the “more stuff” policy, but I think there’s some room for improvement. Following The Bygone Bureau’s recent observances on modern Japanese culture, I’ve been following a couple Japanese food blogs. Anna the Red’s Bento Factory is the most notable, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a couple things that Americans can learn about making creative food.

Anna makes bento, traditional Japanese lunches that usually come in lacquered boxes. Most bento are compartmentalized so that each food can be accessed individually. My mom, who is half-Japanese, never made them for me. That’s okay though, I always thought they were a little too cutesy for the rough-and-tumble American elementary schools.



Photo courtesy of Anna the Red

But Anna makes more than bento; she makes a kind of bento called kyaraben, or “character bento.” Her bentos are inspired by video games, anime and other popular culture (the Bureau is fond of her Cylon bento), and she makes them all for her boyfriend. They’re elaborately designed, colorful pieces of art that put my mom’s ham and cheese sandwiches to shame. I’d totally trade my school lunch for half of that bento.

I had a chance to talk with Anna about her bento, and she was kind enough to share some insight into her process, inspiration, and Japanese aesthetics.

Anna says character bento isn’t particularly new, but the craft is getting a lot of attention from the Japanese press, which has spurred more moms and dads to try making it for their kids. They’re often incredibly elaborate, involving hours of work. Anna usually sketches hers out the night before, preparing any needed food along with dinner.



Photo courtesy of Anna the Red

Most of her bentos are made from a combination of items, though Anna says that rice is an important ingredient. It’s not only moldable, allowing for a greater sense of dimension, but also easily colored. “You can dye rice naturally using black sesame seed, curry powder (tumeric), ketchup, seaweed, or other furikake [a dry Japanese condiment], or many other foods,” says Anna. She also includes other items like meat, vegetables, or fish. The Tingle bento from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, one of my favorites, has a bright green color that allows the rest of the bento to stand out.

“Usually the more color the bento has, the healthier the bento is,” says Anna, “The only color I avoid using is blue. Blue is an appetite suppressant, so I don’t make a character if it has blue, or I’d use different color instead of blue. I occasionally dye eggs purple, like in the Tingle bento, but try not to use blue-ish tones too much.”



Photo courtesy of Anna the Red

My favorite bentos from Anna are usually the ones that are bright and dimensional, like her Farm bento. Some just appeal to my submerged otaku nature. As a kid, Anna found that she didn’t necessarily eat food that looked nice, but “wanted to eat food that looked fun to eat.” I wonder if that might be true: might I have liked tomatoes more if they were in the shape of a Samurai Pizza Cat?

Modern Japanese aesthetics seems to have inculcated cuteness into its very culture. Living in Japan, Anna recounts daily encounters with cuteness: “Junk food, sponges, air freshener, health insurance, even medicine for constipation.”

As an American, I’ve never understood it, but I don’t think Japanese people equate the cute and the infantile the way Americans do. That might be why they’re more comfortable eating things with little smiley faces.

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Anna isn’t the only one who has a kyaraben bento site. Be sure to also check out the winners from the annual Sanrio Bento Contest, 2007 and 2008. Seriously, those bears in the egg holder: I want to nom them right now. Weird Asia News also has a great article on the phenomenon.

And of course, be sure to look at Anna’s website, and her boyfriend’s Flickr account which contains all of her photos.

]]> http://bygonebureau.com/2009/03/18/a-lunch-too-pretty-to-eat/feed/ 0 http://bygonebureau.com/2009/02/23/the-unbearable-likeness-of-bein/ http://bygonebureau.com/2009/02/23/the-unbearable-likeness-of-bein/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:00:09 +0000 Jordan Barber http://bygonebureau.com/?p=2822 About a month ago Wired.com published an article titled “Do Humanlike Machines Deserve Human Rights?”, partially in response to all of those terrible (read: hilarious) videos of Elmo toys being tortured and burned to death on Youtube. The piece also cited a recent move by the South Korean government to pass a robot ethics bill to legalize how we may (and may not) treat robots. Wired writer Daniel Roth ends the article in an uncertain position, but realizes that the problem is a perception gap between inanimate objects and humans.

Silly as it is, we seem to be falling into a belief that robots are more human if they make sounds or motions that mimic ours. If I kick a computer, no one will feel sad (in an empathic sense). If I kick a machine that looks like a person and makes a noise like a person being kicked, then the situation changes. Daniel Roth writes that kids would be dismayed about Elmo being burned to death not just because it’s their toy, but because Elmo has characteristics sufficiently lifelike for them to attach empathic feelings towards it.

By this logic, robots should have rights not because they’re alive, but because they appear to be. Japan is a nation obsessed with the idea of lifelike robots. Robots like the Actroid line are extremely human-like, but its makers haven’t extended its usefulness beyond simply acting human. Some even appear to be breathing, for no other purpose than the appearance of breathing.

Japan, it seems, is obsessed with robots not because they want to use them for a nonhuman activities or chores. Rather, Japan wants robots to become substitutes for humans themselves. Perhaps it’s a desire to have a perfect person. (This reminds me of a Reuters report on a man in Japan who has a collection of dolls which substitute as his girlfriend). Maybe the enthusiasm to develop a lifelike robot comes from the frustration of having to deal with people who are unpredictable and self-determining, which begs the question of whether Japan’s fascination with robots will end if they become exactly like humans. (This begs a Battlestar Galactica example, but I’ll let that someone else think that up.) For now though, Japan is still inventing robots that are human-like, but obviously limited.

The obsession with humanoid robots amuses me, but also unsettles me. I’m rattled by the idea of a perfectly lifelike robot. It’s an existential threat firstly, and it also represents an aversion towards anything that doesn’t fit a taxonomic code.

Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori hypothesized something termed the “uncanny valley” to describe this classification problem. He posists that as an object becomes more and more lifelike, we become more emphatically attached to it—to a certain point. But at this certain point, empathy turns to revulsion; the object seems eerily human, but uncomfortably not so. For example, a paper shredder would not be in the uncanny valley. A hyper-realistic videogame character, however, would. It looks so human that the differences (dead eyes, zombie skin, mechanical movement) creep us out. But surprisingly, Mori believes that our current humanoid robots are not in the uncanny valley. He places things like prosthetic limbs and corpses into the uncanny valley, meaning that people naturally have a level of revulsion with these things.



Courtesy of Wikipedia

This might explain my interest in news stories about people who have been terribly mutilated, like the unfortunate story of the woman who was attacked by her pet chimp. Doctors are considering face transplant surgery for the victim, who lost her eyes, nose, and lower jaw. Counselors were called in for the traumatized people who witnessed the mauling. Ignoring the physicality of the injuries, the woman faces something of an existential threat. Is she the same person? She no longer resembles the woman she was before. If we judge humanness by appearance (we do with robots), then is she less human? Has she fallen into the uncanny valley?

The faceless woman, in an odd way, poses the same dilemma as humanoid robots. She challenges our ability to comfortably categorize objects as humans. If we see a normal person, will all of its attributes it tact, then it’s a person. If we see someone missing an eye, it’s a little weird, but nothing too unusual. If we see someone missing a face or arms or has some tremendously awful growth on the head, then we’re repulsed. It’s not that they aren’t human; it’s that we have a hard time fitting them into the normal classification of what a human should be. I personally would have a hard time dealing with someone so different—it makes me uncomfortable.

At the same time, I also experience an enormous empathic response, as if someone turned on a loudspeaker in my head that repeats, “they’re a person they’re a person they’re a person.” This connection might be the difference between people and robots, and why I find robots ethics laws to be so misguided. There is something else besides perception that guides the way we treat things, and it’s what makes the distinction between robots and people so clear.

]]> http://bygonebureau.com/2009/02/23/the-unbearable-likeness-of-bein/feed/ 0 http://bygonebureau.com/2009/01/19/the-bush-legacy/ http://bygonebureau.com/2009/01/19/the-bush-legacy/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:07:58 +0000 Jordan Barber http://bygonebureau.com/?p=2491 Tomorrow, the world will collectively celebrate the end of our 43rd president’s term.

As much as people enjoy deriding him, President George W. Bush has left us with some things worth remembering. While Americans have taken great pleasure in maintaining the moral high ground against our departing executive—his policies of coercive interrogation (some people would call this torture), the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror—these Americans have concluded that things can be accomplished through compromise and peace. This is often true, but often not.

Political Theorist Hans Morgenthau believes that the forces of human nature often prevent happy scenarios, despite best intentions. In his book, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, he writes, “this being a world of opposing interests and of conflict among them, moral principles can never be fully realized but must at best be approximated through the ever temporary balancing of interests.” For Morgenthau, the most reasonable policies in politics are ones that aim at the “realization of the lesser evil rather than of the absolute good,” because idealism leads to intractable conflicts that ignore the reality of the world.

Morgenthau and Bush would certainly disagree on many things, but Bush has been responsible for reminding us all of Morgenthau’s caution on pursuing moral causes. He has reminded us that Americans have never understood how political choices are made. People don’t recognize that with every decision, someone always wins and someone always loses. Politics is the art of distributing power and choosing who gets what in a world that is limited in both.

Power is a zero-sum resource, and in every choice we make and every law and secret agreement, some people come out ahead. If we shift toward alternative energy sources, then we’ll end up paying more; some people can afford such a shift and some can’t. If we have lax security at airports, then we’ll have a higher chance of a terrorist attack; the victims of 9/11 would have preferred higher security, but they lost that choice.

In an abstract sense, past presidents have never acknowledged this dilemma of winners and losers. Free trade is a perfect example: Americans benefit overwhelmingly from free trade, yet people with manufacturing jobs lose out. Most elected officials attempt to more or less balance the two, often rhetorically tilting to one side or the other, but always keeping in mind the losers. Barack Obama is pro-free trade, but wants protections for those who lose out.

Bush has never given in to the society-sized ideal that all things can be achieved, together. He has chosen sides, and left the reality of the situation bare. He has never pretended that everyone can be sated, nor has he attempted to. For that, he has been universally derided.

In The Prince, Machiavelli had some advice to rulers on the principle of doing evil in order to do good. “A ruler,” he writes, “should imitate both the fox and the lion.” In this allegory, Machiavelli explains that “a prudent ruler cannot keep his word, nor should he, when such fidelity would damage him, and when the reasons that made him promise are no longer relevant… because [men] are treacherous and would not keep their promises to you.”

I do not believe Bush has Machiavellian schemes in mind, but his policy of torture exemplifies his understanding of Machiavelli’s principle of doing evil in order to do good. In the debate about torture, the Bush administration has outlined several types of coercive interrogation—among them waterboarding—that are legal and permissible. None of these methods of interrogation are particularly violent. The administration has never consented to nail removing, electrocuting, organ cutting, or any other morally outrageous act. Then again, waterboarding isn’t a light punishment: the technique simulates drowning by having a person lay slightly downward, putting a wet towel over their face, and slowly pouring water onto the towel. If you’d prefer a more graphic description, look for Christopher Hitchen’s demonstration online.

In the debate about torture, the public is justifiably outraged about techniques like waterboarding, but people don’t grasp the essential reality of the situation or Morgenthau’s realization of the lesser evil. A well-known example is the ticking time bomb scenario. In this hypothetical situation, a terrorist plants a nuclear bomb somewhere in New York City. The terrorist is in your custody, and the bomb is set to detonate at any time. For almost every American, and certainly almost every New Yorker, any method of torture or interrogation is acceptable in this scenario. Even methods beyond waterboarding would appear justified.

Yet the public continues its moral outrage against Bush’s policies of coercive interrogation. Michael Walzer, a liberal political theorist, has argued for what he calls the dirty hands argument. In this argument, such a scenario involving a nuclear bomb in Manhattan would create a moral paradox. The public and politicians know that torture is morally outrageous, yet in this instance it appears permissible. What do political leaders do? Walzer would argue that they break the rule and torture anyway because it is the correct thing to do, but that they are morally guilty anyway. In other words, politicians should maintain a policy of non-torture but, when it is necessary to torture to, do so if they can admit their moral guilt.

Walzer’s position seems odd, yet the alternative is to agree with Bush and insist that some methods of coercive interrogation be left open to use. Walzer attempts to satisfy our moral appetite and appeals to the public’s renunciation of torture. Of course, the public is never responsible for bombs that go off in New York City.

Bush has never attempted to pander to our moral opprobrium, and he never pretended that leaders can achieve the outcomes everyone would like to see. In doing so, he has reminded us that the public sees everything from a moral high chair, inevitably disdainful of the decisions our leaders make. This in itself reveals not the inability of our executive (though this still may be the case), but the unwillingness of ourselves to share in the burden of choice.

We refuse to share the responsibility of decision-making. Because of that, it’s very easy to disparage the choices of President Bush. But in his legacy, he has also revealed the flawed nature of our own moral pipe dream.

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