Highmoon's Ponderings

As I write this, Gen Con is just about a week and a half away and I cannot wait to board the plane that will take me from Miami to an extended weekend full of gaming goodness in Indianapolis. Seriously, I am stoked. I missed Gen Con last year due to the death of my mother so this year’s con will be making up for two years of Gen Con awesomeness.

This year I will be working alongside my friends at Rogue Games, repping their games at their booth (#1539 ), hopping to get gamers to try out their very excellent games Colonial Gothic, Thousand Suns and the new Shadow, Sword & Spell. Why work with Rogue Games? Two reasons: Richard Iorio asked for volunteers to help him staff the booth and given I always go to Gen Con with an empty schedule, I did not see any issue with lending a hand; in fact, I was thrilled to do so. That is related to the second reason: I have been to Gen Con three times before, as a regular gamer once and as a member of the media twice, and I wanted to experience the con from the side of the vendors. I am a publisher, but my products so far are all electronic, so this is an opportunity to get an education on what it takes to staff a booth at the con which will hopefully pay off in the future once I have physical games to take there for sale. It also relates to a general shift in philosophy in my life, that of helping others; it is the reason why I decided to start studying Nursing at 35, and it also influenced my decision here. By helping Richard, I am able to gain a small personal benefit in terms of a learning experience, but mainly I am able to help him have a more relaxed con experience since he won’t be running the booth by himself as he has done in years past. Win-win situation.

Schedule

If you want to find me, here are the hours I will be working the Rogue Games booth, arguably the best times to pin me in one place. Know that if you drop by, along with the greetings, I will also talk to you about the awesome games at our booth.

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Things have been very quiet here at Slow Bike Miami for some time now due to me being busy having started a new college degree. Summer has arrived, though, so it’s time to get on the bike and ride to our heart’s content.

Slow Bike Miami will be re-starting with semi-regular posts as of next week. I had thought of merging this with my regular blog (which you can find at DMPerez.com), but I’ll keep them separate for now. If you want to know more about the other things I geek about, by all means feel free to drop by DMPerez.com and see what I write about there.

Catch you here next week, and we’ll go riding together. Well, after I get a new seat for my bike. But I’ll say more about that later.

I write this on my iPod Touch from about 37,000 feet in the air as I fly away to have a nice vacation. From up here, looking down on the Florida landscape pass by, on this fourth of July, I’ll take a moment to talk about a discovery of Self I experienced not long ago and which is still revealing its implications and wonders to me.

I am an American.

For many this is a given; they just are. For me, however, this is only a very recent fact which I have accepted and made a part of me. I am an American.

I was born and grew up in Puerto Rico. Though by birthright I have always been an American citizen, I was first and foremost Puerto Rican. I had my own flag, national anthem, history, country. I had my own traditions, food, dances, legacy. I was Boricua, like the coqui. Beyond my citizenship, my only claim to anything American was the “Yankee” commercialism that had become part and parcel of my own culture. That part wasn’t bad at all; I certainly liked having access to all the American consumer products, from food to clothing, toys to movies and more. But when it came to identity, personal and national? Back off, gringos, I’m Puertorriqueño.

I grew up in a household where my mom openly displayed her Independentista beliefs, where songs of protest played on the radio, where toasts were made to a free Puerto Rico. What can I say, my mom had been a hippie, or at least the Puerto Rico equivalent, and was very much ensconced in the student culture of the University of Puerto Rico, which has always been notoriously pro-independence. My point is, I grew up with this influence on top of the natural national pride in PR as its own country under American rule. That shaped my sense of identity completely.

I’ve never been anti-American, though. I’ve spoken English since kindergarten, read English language comics and magazines, loved American TV and movies. In fact, from from my mid-teens on, I pretty much knew I’d end up moving to the States one day, because as much as I loved my island, it was a place that was stifling me little by little. But I remained Puerto Rican.

I had, however, developed a certain apathy towards the US. I had no issue living in here, but it remained a separate thing from me. I didn’t care about its history even though I do love history as a subject, looked down upon travel within the states even though I love traveling. It was bullshit elitism, I know, and I was called on it by my girlfriend (now wife). Though of Cuban parents, she was born and raised in Miami; she was an American girl, just one that had a good culinary legacy and spoke Spanish. She was blunt: if I was going to hate on America, I’d be hating on her as well.

Little by little I began to accept parts of America in me. Bits of history were added to my knowledge base as they intersected other histories I was exploring. In traveling to Europe, I learned to appreciate what I had back home with a bit more fervor. In opening my eyes to the vastness of this country, I began to find places to add to my travel list. But I remained separate, an entity apart, a visitor – one that kept embracing this adopted home more and more, but a visitor nonetheless.

Earlier this year I got a new roleplaying games called Colonial Gothic, a game set in the colonial/revolutionary era of American history. I’m a sucker for historical RPGs, and I had already visited this era via another game I had called Witch Hunter, which was more an alternate history than speculative historical fiction. With Witch Hunter, I had all the details I needed in the game book, and the rest I could make up without a problem; with Colonial Gothic, which featured more of a hidden-history-behind-the-real-history approach, the more I learned of the actual history of the era, the better I could play the game. I won’t say that this game was the reason why I finally went and read a comprehensive book on American colonial history, but it was a catalyst for sure.

The more I read, the more I learned the history of this nation, the more I began to identify with it, the less it became the “them” and more the “us.” It really was very simple: I was born in a Puerto Rico that had been under American control for two or three generations; my American legacy was as strong and valid as was my Spaniard one. My world was as much the Spanish castles in San Juan, the Taino blood in my veins, as was the American influence in our government, media, way of life. I was as much a child of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson as I was of Ponce de Leon, Guarionex, Hostos. I was Puerto Rican, but I was – am – also American.

So on this fourth of July, as the plane begins its descent on North Carolina, I officially lay claim to my American legacy and heritage. Whereas other fourths of July I’ve not cared about what is being celebrated, this year and henceforth I will celebrate the declaration of our independence from England in 1776. Our independence. Our history.

I am Boricua, I will always be Boricua, but I am also American. And proudly so.

My friend Judd Karlman has been talking both on Twitter and his blog about a new Burning Wheel game he’s started set in the city of Waterdeep, in the Forgotten Realms (FR), arguably the most detailed campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. This, of course, has gotten me thinking about FR as well, and has brought a flood of nostalgia washing upon me, causing me to write this post where I can wax poetic about my love for this world.

Let us travel back to the last years of the Rubik’s-Cube-and-leg-warmers era and to the little island of Puerto Rico. In 1986 I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons, or more precisely to Basic D&D. To say that I fell head-over-heels for this game of the imagination would be an understatement. We played the game as much as we could, as much as 8th-graders can manage, as much as was humanly possible at our age. And given we were playing Basic D&D, all our adventures were in the Known World (later to be known as Mystara): we played through B1-9: In Search of Adventure straight through, once, twice, more. The Known World as our world far more than the real world was. But this isn’t a post about the Known World (though I certainly think one will eventually have to be written as well).

A couple years later, we finally got our hands on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) books. Getting RPG books in Puerto Rico during this time was about as difficult and exiting as Indiana Jones finding the lost ark (sans snooty French nemesis), so these were great treasures and the literal keys to even more adventures than before. Problem was, AD&D didn’t come with a built-in setting. There were a couple to choose from: my friend Braulio wandered down the road to Greyhawk, and me, I took the road leading to a brand new land just recently discovered, a placed called the Forgotten Realms.

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At some point last year, while I was traveling back and forth between Miami and Puerto Rico, we decided to make a significant change to our diets. We keep kosher, so that overrides everything, but beyond that, we made a conscious decision and effort to start eating both locally and organic as much as possible, both for our own health and for the general benefit of the world. When we moved to our new apartment, among the things we downsized in order to make the move easier and get rid of some clutter, was the microwave. That was in November and rarely in the last seven months have we honestly wished we had one; breakfast may take a little longer to prepare, and I’m probably one of few who has four burners going at 7 AM, but it’s not an impossibility. We’ve learned that we enjoy a lot of foods we used to microwave a lot more now that we actually cook them. Along with this switch we decided to do our best to increase our rate of exercise, though this one has been a far more inconsistent resolution.

However, the simple truth is that in the last year I was at one point at the heaviest I’ve been in my life, clocking in at 360 lbs. I am not that weight right now, but I’m also not that much better: I’m 346 lbs as of Wed, June 30, 2010. Clearly something needs to change.

I’m choosing today to mark the start of that change.

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THE BONES Blog Carnival

Gameplaywright has published a book called THE BONES: Us And Our Dice, a collection of articles and essays celebrating those funny-shaped randomizers that every gamer just absolutely seems to love. To celebrate the publication, I suggested to Gameplaywright’s Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch that they hold a blog carnival on the topic of dice; after all, it’s a universal topic among gamers, whether wargamers or roleplayers (and even some card gamers as well), so gaming bloggers should certainly have their own stories to tell. They liked the idea and launched the carnival in early June and here I am, on the very last day of the month, and I have yet to add my own post. Tsk, tsk. Let’s fix that now, shall we?

The Gift of Dice

As pretty much any male gamer out there, I wanted a gamer girlfriend. I was totally into games; beyond school, it was about all I thought about, and when I thought about girls, I wanted one at my side with whom I could share this awesome hobby. Alas, awkward teen I was, getting a girlfriend was hard enough as it was, let alone a gamer one (especially in Puerto Rico, where the gaming scene was tiny at the time). I just didn’t know any gals who gamed, though a couple of friends from the local game shop had these mythical women at their side, so I knew it was possible.

Fast forward to college, where by divine intervention I now had a girlfriend. She wasn’t a gamer, but she’d lived in the US for a while and had heard of Dungeons & Dragons once or twice, so I had an in. Once I was sure she wasn’t going to run away the moment I whipped out my books, I revealed the full extent of my geekness and brought games into the equation. She found them interesting enough to give it a try, so during our year-and-a-half together we ended up playing two fairly lengthy campaigns, Star Wars (West End Games) and Cyberpunk 2020. I loved the fact that she gamed with me, and I thought she liked it well enough as well, so in between our two campaigns, I one day said to her, “I should get you your own set of dice.”

“Nah, there’s no need. I’ll just use yours.” I won’t lie, I felt deflated, both because my gift had been turned down, but also because my gift of dice had been turned down. Even though we went on to play another couple-months-long campaign after this exchange, I knew this whole gaming thing was soon to be done with. And it was; after the Cyberpunk 2020 game, she didn’t want to join any other game the group proposed. There was something about that denial of the dice that told me she was not interested in sharing that one part of who I was. Later on this would come up in conversation, and to her it had barely been worthy of remembering. Me? This was seventeen years ago and I still remember.

So what’s the big deal about her not accepting the gift of dice? It isn’t so much about not accepting the gift per se; I had the chance to give her many other gifts to express my affection. It’s the fact that dice represent the most tangible and accessible part of my love for this hobby, and in giving them, I was giving a part of myself. I can give a book, but the book, to a non-gamer, can be a threatening thing, especially the games I mentioned above, both of which are 200+ pages of esoteric rules. But dice? They’re safe, shinny, sparkly. You can treasure them as little keepsakes, roll them for the sheer fun of seeing what number comes up, enjoy their geometrical cuteness. They also hold the promise of the game that may be. In not accepting them, the message I got was, “This is of no further interest to me beyond my relationship with you.”

It is entirely possible (read: 100% possible) that I over-reacted, even if my external reaction was simple, “Ok.” But I was 18, so gimme a break.

Fast forward again about three years. I was living in Miami now and I had a new girlfriend, another non-gamer. She has seen my ample collection of game books and finds them a charming aspect of me. She’s looked through them here and there but simply does not have any interest in trying them out. Until she comes across Vampire: The Masquerade. That called her attention.

After a few conversations where I explained to her the concept of the game, she actually acceded to trying it out, so I put together a game with her and one other of our friends: just two players, all three of us good and trusting friends. It was a hit! She really dug the game, loved her character, and completely got into the shared experience of making a story. And I was as happy as a gamer can be.

After a few sessions I decided to try my hand at the gift of dice once more. The previous experience was still fresh in my mind, but I go on with the idea, for I am both a hopeless romantic and a masochist. This time, however, I did not ask if she wanted her own dice, I simply went to work (I was living the dream, working in a game store at the time), ordered a very special set of dice, and when they came in a few days later, took them home and presented them to her before our next game session.

I got her the special set of Vampire: The Masquerade dice made by White Wolf: ten 10-sided dice in the same green marble color as the core rulebook along with a green dice bag bearing the ankh icon. She loved them. And I was the happiest gamer ever. My girlfriend accepted my gift of dice, and in doing so, to me, she accepted my love of gaming as an integral part of who I was.

She went on to use them all throughout our long chronicle; when we gamed, and my gamer friends pulled out their dice, she would proudly whip her own set out. Even if she did not identify herself as a gamer, she was part of the tribe now. When we later played Changeling: The Dreaming, I also got her the set White Wolf sold for that game. Another gift of dice that was gladly and happily accepted.

It’s been a few years since those chronicles ended and we have not played any other roleplaying games since. That is entirely my own fault, and it’s one of the thing I want to remedy this year, to the point that I made it one of my own Gaming New Year Resolutions. She is now my wife, still not a gamer as I am, but she has her dice, her own set of dice which no one can use, no one can touch. I did not end up with a gamer girlfriend/wife, but I did end up with a wonderful woman who accepted my gift of dice, and thus accepted the gamer that I am.