Andrew Seiple's Blog: Transmissions From the Teslaverse - Posts Tagged "philosophy"

Did you know that there are some authors and companies out there that make superhero roleplaying games?

I'm a fan of Mutants and Masterminds myself, but a few weeks ago I picked up one called "Wild Talents" when it turned up on sale in my local game store. It was written by Dennis Detwiller, Kenneth Hite, Shane Ivy, and Greg Stolze. It's kind of an expanded idea of their original "Godlike" game. Most of the book's dedicated to the rules and setting of course, typical RPG fare... but part of it is an amazing chapter on superhero worldbuilding.

They introduce four concepts that act as good measurements of how far from our own universe a superhero universe has strayed.

Red is how much our main timeline matches another timeline. In a Red 1 world, the Soviet Union fell, World War II ended in the 40s, the US lost Vietnam, we don't have any moonbases circa 2016, and for the most part, history's untouched despite the introduction of superpowers. In a Red 2 world, one or two major events were different as a result of powers. In a Red 5 world, the timeline's totally different, to the point that practically no major events past the introduction of powers are the same.

Blue is a measure of the fantastic... It's how much weirdness is possible for the setting. In a Blue 1 world, there is no such thing as magic, humanity is alone in the Universe, radiation is usually bad, and there are no other dimensions. There are superpowers, but that's all. In a Blue 2 world, there's typically one fantastic thing besides superpowers, and it's either hidden or muted. In a Blue 5 world, Jetpack gorillas can live on the moon so long as they fight off the Atlantean nazis who park their aetherpanzers up there on weekends.

Black is a measure of morality, and overall darkness. Black 1 worlds are gritty, shades of grey where only we judge ourselves, there is no karma, and no one's all good or bad. Nothing's entirely good or evil. In a Black 2 world, some things are clearly good and some are clearly bad, but most of it's still on us to judge. In a Black 5 world there is good and there is evil, and heroes don't do drugs stay in school kids!

Gold determines the capability of a protagonist or antagonist to seriously change the setting. In a Gold 1 setting it doesn't matter that Superman can help with space exploration or that Reed Richards can cure cancer, because they don't. In a Gold 2 setting, there's some limited help, a few tech advancements or societal changes but they're fairly minor and gradual. In a Gold 5 setting we all live in the sky thanks to Awesomeman's levitation stones, and we have flying cars! Or we all live in the blasted remnants because Ragequit burned the world, and now we have to Mad Max it up for scavenged granola bars and gasoline.

This is a seriously useful and well-thought-out scale.

It would have been useful to have it around when I was designing the Teslaverse, because it would have saved me a lot of time, helped me articulate things more clearly. But hey, I can do that now.


RED: I'd put the Teslaverse at Red 3. Most of written history matches up with our own timeline, up until World War I. But the further you go, the more drift happens. Some major events are altered or resolve differently, even if you can still recognize Earth's history if you squint and turn your head a little. Much of the Teslaverse looks like Red 2 at first glance... but then secrets are revealed, and the true disparity of the setting is brought into relief.

If you dropped a person from our world into most nations of the Teslaverse, and took away their television and internet, they wouldn't notice for a day or so, probably. But eventually they'd start wondering why the architecture was different and what all those antennae and pylons on the buildings were about.

BLUE: Blue 3, with no regrets. Magic's a thing, even if it's mostly hidden. Various types of radiation can make mutants instead of cancer, and there ARE jetpack gorillas, but they certainly don't live on the moon, thank you very much. They're doing very well in their superscience-warded plateau in the Congo, thank you very much. It's all due to an agreement with the Atlanteans, who dwell deep within the waves and are said to worship unspeakable elder gods... so yeah. Lots of weirdness, but it's not shoved in people's faces all the time, and for the most part society toodles along, trying to ignore the fact that weird stuff is out there and there's not much the average human can do about it.

Drop an average human from our world into the Teslaverse and they'd think they were having a hallucinogenic episode the first time a naiad manifests in the office water cooler and demands wine sacrifices. Or as the MRB calls it, a code 7731.

BLACK: Black 3, with shades of 2 mostly because Dire. The Teslaverse is a world where killing is a horrible thing to do, and you should only do it in self-defense. Karma always has a way of coming back on people, and good folks are generally more successful and rewarded, while bad folks eventually suffer. There are exceptions... Doctor Dire seems to get away with more malice, but that's usually due to the fact it's done for righteous reasons and never lightly. She STILL has horrible luck, and has to work hard for every pyrrhic victory she wrests from the jaws of cruel fate.

Drop an average human from our world into the Teslaverse, and they'd eventually find themselves tested or pulled into being a good or bad person. It's possible to stay neutral and just be an average sort, but it takes work and dedication and either cowardice or prudence depending upon your viewpoint.

GOLD: Gold 2. Tesla changed the world, but he didn't complete what he started... his technology replaced our power grid, our internet, our electronics, and advanced the general tech level of the world by a decade or two. But other areas are much the same. Superscience is useful but, well... stability, safety, cost, functionality... pick two. Then that goes down to one, when villains figure out how to mess it up. Magic is NOT safe, even for skilled practitioners, so you certainly don't want it in the hands of the mainstream populace. And sure, some supervillains could transmute continents into gold... but the banking conspiracies would pick up a phone and have them dead within minutes if they did.

It IS possible to change the world, but there are so many counterbalances and both heroes and villains who like it as it is, that you have to overcome a ton of challenges before you get anywhere close to making such changes lasting.

Drop an average human being from our world into the Teslaverse, and... well. Any human can change the world, really, given luck and skill.

Funny how often we forget that. Fortunately, we have our stories to remind us.

And on that note, I'll sign off. Peace, out!

Dayton, Ohio, was an interesting place to grow up.

Mind you, I grew up in the suburbs, in a little place called Huber Heights. But it was so close to Dayton that the city overshadowed everything. Most of the jobs were there. Huber Heights was just a place for the blue-and-white collar folks to come home to.

Then the eighties hit, and it was like there was a change on the wind. The jobs started going away. The last big factories shut their doors, and we started losing corporations. For a while there, Dayton was a solid part of the rustbelt. That lasted through the nineties... but for me it was just business as usual.

When I was growing up my Dad used to take me to fun places. We'd go shop at the Salem Mall every month or so. Sometimes he'd haul me to gun shows and computer shows at Hara Arena, and when the weather was good on a weekend we'd go to the flea maket out at the North Dixie Drive in. Sure, the surrounding areas were places you didn't want to be at night, but those trips? Those were joy.

Salem Mall had the best Waldenbooks around, and a KB toys with tons of neat stuff. Sometimes I'd find D&D sets there! Though I couldn't afford their prices, occasionally I'd find one that some jerk had opened, and quietly flip through the books, trying to understand the rules. I never opened the boxes myself, mind you. That would have been wrong.

The flea market was huge and riotous, with tons of people mingling, and random stuff filling groaning tables. I hoarded my meager allowance and hunted roleplaying games, board games, and old Avalon Hill bookcase games with determined fervor. The best prize I ever landed from that hallowed venue was a set of pewter D&D minis... about twenty or so, for the princely sum of $6. That was eighties dollars, mind you, but still a pretty good deal.

Hara arena was interesting, but it wasn't until we got a home PC in the nineties that the computer shows got interesting. And thanks to my job I had more of a budget, so I'd shell out for shareware diskettes, little 3.5 disks full of sample games. I still remember tweaking the computer to hell and back so it could handle Wolfenstein 3D without choking. Good times...

But nothing lasts.

The Salem Mall was the first to go, just too big for its own good. It never recovered from the unemployment spike of the eighties and nineties, and when the anchors folded, that was all she wrote. Didn't help that it was in a high crime area, and the gangs made it their own. In a way, its fall would preface the general decline of shopping malls across the nation. It's still there today, closed and ruined. A few years back my airsoft LARP had a chance to play there once, but the mall owners would only accept if we agreed to be locked in there overnight, so nobody else got in. I'd seen too many horror movies to accept that sort of bargain.

The North Dixie flea market didn't leave so much as fade away, losing attendance and vendors as time went on. You need a fairly prosperous lower and middle class to have a good flea market, and Dayton was bleeding jobs too badly to make it worthwhile. I hear that it's converted to mostly antiques... not the same, if it went that route. I'll stop by sometime when the construction isn't ripping the road to shreds and check it out. But I'm not holding my breath, there.

Hara Arena was the last to go. An old, sprawling 70s-era compound, it seemed to resist the march of time through sheer stubbornness. Tons of shows used it as a venue, a local hockey team made it their home, and all sorts of events went on in its concrete-floored halls. But it always seemed to get more rundown as time went on. For all the money it was making, it never seemed to get much more beyond the most basic maintenance. And this year I found out why; its owner had passed away in '98 or so, and his heirs had been fighting over it ever since. The money that would have renovated and saved it went to lawyers instead. It closed this summer. I was there to give her one last send-off.

Nothing stays the same.

Dayton is recovering from its rust-belt days, and the loss of several major corporations. The economic upturn's been good for it, but the city's having to scale down from last-century's grandeur. It'll never be Cincinnati or Cleveland, but it doesn't have to be. The days of my childhood will not come again, and that's okay, because new things come in to replace what's lost.

I'll always remember those trips with Dad, sorting through junk and looking for treasure. And when my daughter's old enough, I'll find places to take her where we can do just that.

Nothing lasts, but it doesn't have to. The cycle continues, and new eyes find joy in new things.

The deeper I get into self-publishing, the more the elephant in the room rears its head.

Simply put: There's not enough time to do every aspect of this job in the best manner possible.

So what you do, is find the best possible use of your time, that provides the most quality for your effort, and you maximize that.

Sounds simple, yeah? But a lot don't learn that. They don't figure out what their strengths are in time to figure out how to play to them. So a lot get fed up, frustrated after a book or two, and move on.

I'm still figuring out my strengths, and will be for years. But the basic message I seem to be getting is the same maxim I learned from Stephen King's book years ago. Usually, you're better off writing; there's no substitute for butt-in-seat time.

So if you're a starting writer, or one who isn't satisfied with their stuff to date... keep at it. Sit down and write. Make the time. Make yourself do it, get it done.

No substitute, and no excuses!

...with apologies to Bob Dylan.

I've seen a lot of protests, in the four decades I've been alive. The Rodney King riots were the first ones to stick in my mind.

Since then I've seen them come and go. And most had their day, and maybe some good came of them, here and there, but for the most part nothing really much changed. The big picture remained the same.

This feels different.

This one... this one has potential. Has SERIOUS potential.

It helps that the cause is righteous and unambiguous. Bad cops and white supremacists are murdering black people, and they are escaping just punishment for their crimes.

This needs to stop.

It IS that simple. There are no shades of gray.

Society wants this to stop.

Black lives do matter.

Because if they don't, then no lives matter.

And it is a horrible fate, to not matter to anyone. I wouldn't wish that on my enemies.

Well.

That's my take on it. You are free to believe as you like. I don't preach, I'm no good at it, and I don't have any special wisdom that you couldn't get off a Saturday morning cartoon with a very special message.

But just... eh, if you want my Saturday-morning wisdom, then I'd recommend you look at the big picture.

And feel the energy of it. Things are gonna change.

History's going to remember this.

It might do well for people who get involved to make sure they end up on the right side of it.

Peace, out.