Richard

These Teachers Should be Fired (NSFW)

Okay, so while I’m a huge supporter of education. There’s an article from the Wall Street Journal that is something else. And it’s not the fault of the article or the reporting. It’s what the English teachers are doing to their students that I find abhorrent. It’s downright repellent that these instructors are telling their students that they cannot use certain words that are, in effect, the glue of our common language in a sea of over 500,000 words that make up the English language.

Think about that. There are over 500,000 words in this terribly fucked-up language we speak. The history of the language is so convoluted that if you turned it into a story, people would hate you because it would make no sense. English is the little language that could and it probably shouldn’t have if you look at how many times it came close to being wiped out by other languages. But, somehow it morphed into a massive mutated multilingual murdering monstrosity maintaining a lexicon of words.

Nobody remembers half of these words anymore, yet they’re maintained in the ginormous catalogue that is the Oxford English Dictionary along with all the variant spellings of words nobody cares about since they’ve fallen well out of favor for no other reason than they just did or someone’s standardization of spelling. And nobody cares unless they are either English majors or English language historians, and even then these are the people who describe how the language works without telling you how to use it.

So, this is where the problem with these asshats comes in. They’re telling kids that they have to chuck out all the words that essentially make up the core of good, concise writing for international business English. You know, the words everyone who speaks English with any level of skill has to know. These poor kids haven’t even gotten comfortable in their own skins and these fucking teachers have the audacity to tell their students that they can’t use words the teachers consider “dead?” Seriously? What in the ever loving fuck is this shit?

These failed writers are telling your kids that they have to be more expressive when they’re still trying to learn the basics of the language. I’m pretty sure that either these horrible people are trying to live vicariously through the writing of their students or want to make them feel as miserable as the teachers do and want to snuff their dreams in the cradle. If you’re not upset by this, you really should be. Just look at this little gem from the article:

Megan Riley, a sixth-grader in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., recently joined her classmates in chanting the words that their English teacher has pronounced dead: “Good, bad, nice, a lot, OK, fun, thing and stuff.” Later, the students were told, they might hold a mock funeral to bury those words.

A mock fucking funeral?!?! For “dead words” sixth-graders aren’t supposed to use anymore? These kids are experiencing all the terrible things hormones are doing to their bodies to make them feel self-conscious and awkward as hell and you want to pull out the rug from under them for the words they’re allowed to use? Who the fuck do you teachers think you are?

Look, I have no illusions that I’m an awesome writer as I’ve been doing this as a profession for 11 years now and buying a website had to be weighed as a monetary decision that was feasible and necessary. If I was awesome at this shit, I’d have a pile of money I could use to pay for websites without debating whether I should and it’s taken me years to get to the level I’m at. It was 10 years after high school that I fumbled through shitty draft after shitty draft before I could make a coherent thought artful enough to get paid for it.

Now I get wanting kids to expand their vocabulary, but that’s why we should be encouraging reading everything and anything available. We want kids to feel they can express themselves and to have all the tools at their disposal to do just that. This doesn’t encourage them to do so. It encourages them to be wordy and artistic before they’ve learned how to write the truth of their own observations? Besides, do you honestly think a business proposal avoiding “dead words” would be taken seriously?

All this purple prose bullshit is arrogance in the extreme. The students aren’t being taught how to use language effectively, but rather how to call attention to the very artifice that makes bad writing so terrible. If I proliferated this rant with nothing but profanity or used the largest words I could just to prove a point, there would no value to reading this or justifying the time I wasted figuratively throwing up in your eye holes.

So, here are a couple more gems from this article that should make you want to pressure the schools to get rid of these teachers who are harming their student’s education.

One recent afternoon after school, Josie and Josh agreed to take a stab at editing famous authors, starting with the closing words ofJames Joyce’s “Ulysses”: “….yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Head down, her pigtails brushing the paper, Josie examined the phrase and then suggested a small amendment: “…yes I hollered yes I will Definitely.”

Josh decided to let “said” stand, given Joyce’s reputation. He did, however, insert the commas neglected by Joyce.

No, no, no, no! This is truly audacious. The teachers have students “correcting” James motherfucking Joyce! Does no one understand that the whole of Ulysses is a deliberately designed piece of art that relies as much upon mythic structure as it does linguistic sound qualities? It seems that the teachers don’t as they’re allowing their students to misuse the very tools they’re trying to instill in their students.

“Said,” “walk,” and other such words are dry and factual and can be overused just like any other linguistic expression (clichés anyone?), but there’s a huge difference between expressing the emotional content in a character’s words as there is in the delivery of those very words. I don’t need to know that someone exclaimed or ejaculated a string of words if they’re followed by an exclamation point. I don’t even need to know how angry someone is or that they ambulated their way across the page if it’s clear what’s going on from the context alone.

At best, the words will be redundant; at worst, the writing will be tortured and a clear example of telling, not showing. And this is what these teachers fail to keep firmly in mind. They are quite literally failing their students and instilling in them a sense that language is used for reporting, not expression. Writers have to trust that their readers are smart enough to pick up on the emotional and literal context of their work.

So, when the kids stated:

Second-guessing famous authors was tricky, Josh cautioned: “It’s almost as though they’re given a free pass” to flout the rules. Josie submitted that she wasn’t sure they should get that pass.

Her brother winced: “You’ve got to remember,” he lectured, “most of these guys are dead.”

This shows you exactly how arrogant this practice is and that wince should speak volumes of the discomfort the kids should feel for what they’re being made to do, not to the structure of the literary works of Joyce and Hemingway. Letting the work speak for itself is what the teachers should be instilling. Understanding the hows and whys of written works is what you study after you have a firm grip on the basics.

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Anatomy of Game Design: Adjustments and Derived Values

As far as measurements go, ability/attribute scores are pretty abstract. They’re a great tool for comparing creatures and characters, but that is it. Something is missing if a game leaves it at that. While some systems will use dice pools for a measurement, they will still not fully explain how the numbers work. What it comes down to is this: it is one thing to have a quantitative measure of a character’s ability to interact with the world and another to provide a definition of what that truly means. This is where derived values and modifiers come into play.

Regardless of your familiarity with roleplaying games, it helps for everyone to have the same definitions with which we can work without too much confusion. To start, we must borrow from computer programming terminology. In a program there are two types of variables: global and local. Global values are applied to different routines as needed to keep various functions synchronized with user input, data flow, etc. These values do not change globally unless mandated to do so. The same happens in RPGs, but less often and will be discussed elsewhere. Local variables are more specific as they apply to a specific routine and are internal to it and do not affect anything else.

In the language of the roleplaying game community, global variables are termed “adjustments” and local variables as “derived values/stats.” Both categories function in much the same way. The difference between the two types is often expressed in mathematical terms unique to the value in question. Adjustments are often static for all ability/attribute scores in the game. This allows the core mechanic to work with all of them using the same formulae and language. Hence the global nature of these numbers. The adjustment scores also get applied to skills, attacks, health, and so on. Derived values are calculated for specific purposes such as how much weight one can lift, how well armored one is, the ease at which magic can be learned, etc. These do not affect the core mechanic as much as they do subsystems in a game.

So why do games require these secondary stats? In truth, games can only simulate so much through their core mechanics. The rest has to be handled by subsystems, some of which are used in conjunction with the core mechanic. What is really being provided is a method (or series therein) for describing exactly how a character’s ability/attribute scores translate from abstract measures to how he interacts with the world and vice versa. In effect, these values are more important than the stats they are derived from because of their tangibility. There are fewer instance in which an attribute/ability score is used other than as a generic, catch-all, or raw ability. Such uses boil down to a roll with the stat as the threshold against which success is determined.

A question that may come up in the design process is how many derived values does a game need. There is no simple answer to their inquiry. The complexity of the system should suggest the number needed. The more present, the more subsystems or calculations necessary to define character interactions. Too few and the game may fail to address fundamental situations, leading to player dissatisfaction or arguments impeding play. It is a fine line a designer has to walk in order to simulate reality without ruining the entertainment the system is meant to facilitate. What is important is that a player is armed with enough information to determine what his character can or cannot do. Anything unique that comes up and players will be smart enough to improvise.

Anatomy of Game Design: Attributes/Ability Scores

Anatomy of Game Design: Cheating Death and Avoiding Injury

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Anatomy of Game Design: Attributes/Ability Scores

The heart of any RPG is its ability/attribute score system. This reflects the ways in which the characters interact within the fictional world. In effect, it is the physics of the world as experienced by an individual. Thus, the refinement of the mechanics must always be based on the categories that represent the basic capacities. In these styles of games, this is, at minimum, a score for physical aptitude and one for mental faculties.

A two-stat system is simple and possibly quite malleable, but probably not deep enough to simulate anything but film. This is not to say that cinematic action isn’t enjoyable, only that it is limited in scope and the value of diminishing returns. To prevent this requires a third stat to measure the character’s strength of will or spirit. This creates the illusion of the so-called three-dimensional character so highly prized in the literary arts. Or, for the modern reader of novels, the minimum elements for believability in the “reality” of a character’s ability to leap off the page. Games of this type are more robust, but run the risk of straining options and limitations placed upon the game as inherent in a genre.

To combat these issues and provide a multiplicity of genres and accommodations for play styles, a greater number of attributes are needed, which both increases the game’s complexity and the number of dimensions of interaction between the character and the world. The single limiting factor that prevents the system from collapsing under its own weight is the reliance of a core mechanic that not only serves as the glue and underpinnings of the game, but doubles as the simplifying device that prevents potential players from abandoning the game before having given the game a chance to reveal its possibilities.

Any system employing multiple categories for attributes must maintain as close as possible an equal number of physical and mental stats. The reason for this is to preserve a balance of actions between the two prominent plot types common to dramatic forms: plots of the mind and plots of the body. Why is this the case? Because one of the primary sources for these games is literature, to include the works of playwrights. The format of the game is rooted in oral storytelling techniques, but everything else defaults to the technology of writing.

Like film, the RPG must borrow from the novel to create characters that serve as more than images if a story is privileged above the act of moving pictures. Stage techniques are mainly useful for the gamemaster to create the game world, thus it doesn’t readily aid in seeing how multiple attributes expand the game’s interfaces. That is if one is unwilling or unable to discern how an actor’s performance is infused with a different skill set that dictates the strengths and dimensions of the character portrayed when compared to another actor. This isn’t just a different set of stats in an RPG, but rather potentially an entirely new set of attributes. Reaching? Maybe, but inspiration for how many points of entry/interface between players and the world of their characters nonetheless.

These are the considerations one must make when defining what the game can handle while setting the complexity level of the simulation. The dividing line between nuance and simplicity of storytelling and character design, not game mechanics, lies in the number and type of attributes. The core mechanic remains untouched, it is the design of character creation that colors the view of the system’s complexity. The fewer the number of rules governing how to generate a character, the easier the entry into the hobby, but it comes at the cost of exactness in how and when the rules are applied. In the parlance of the literary community: do you prefer plot or character? For the gamer: few stats or many? This determines the core audience of the game.

Anatomy of Game Design: Adjustments and Derived Values

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New Home

Okay, so there’s not much to see at the moment, but I’m working on that. I’ll be setting up things as time and my writing schedule permits. Until then, hope you’ll stay tuned.