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mozi.
Snake is behind us and Horse has arrived! May all your worries slither away and wishing you'll be healthy as a horse in this fortuitous new year!
Currently recovering from working for dad. ^_^;;
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Context: I was reading an article on tabletop RPG design philosophy regarding crunch (aka number crunching, a short hand for "complex rules" in the TTRPG space) when I ran across some examples being given and suddenly have to headdesk as I realized the person is missing the point in terms of the literary difference between all the "Chinese kung-fu movies." Ok, let me explain a little more.
In the section titled "Different Rules for the Same Fictional Activity can be Completely Different" (scroll down or use Ctrl+F to find the section), the article uses three different games to illustrate how martial arts is mechanically different in three different games. The three examples are:
Rivers & Lakes, a game that focuses on using mechanics to generate tactical decisions during a fight that encourages learning the opponent's moves and devise a tactical move that leverages your strengths against an opponent's weakness.
Wushu, a game that rewards players mechanical benefits to encourage narrating complex choreography of fight scenes by handing out more dice for each detail the player includes in their "attack".
Hearts of Wulin, a narrative game that resolves fights in a single roll because it's more concerned with the narrative drama/consequence of the fight than the technical aspects of the fight itself.
Now, the article sums up this discussion with this:
Personally, I take a bit of issue with this (to me this combat system would be ideal for something like samurai fiction, westerns, gangster and crime fiction, etc. but is terrible for most forms of wuxia)... A Knight at the Opera
So my problems with this pointless aside is many. At the forefront, it speaks to a lack of understanding about Chinese martial arts movies. specifically a lack of nuanced understanding of the Wuxia genre. In fact, the three games listed as examples actually captures the three core engagements of the sub-genres of Chinese martial arts movies.
Allow me to get into the weeds a bit:
Chinese martial arts movies can be largely categorized into three sub-genre's:
Wushu (武术): in this genre, the movie's main theme is to communicate, ostensibly, anti-war messages. For you see, one of the unifying philosophy in Chinese martial arts schools is to stop war by improving one's self-defense strength. The belief is that military/martial strength is in service of defense and only defense. Expect some lesson about "self improvement to ward off bullies" to show up at some point. And if they fail on the philosophical aspect, the movie at least hopes to educate the audience a little bit on the actual design philosophy of a school of martial art, such as how Taiji was invented.
Kung-fu (功夫): this genre of movies is less concerned with the philosophy and more interested in showcasing awesome technical ability. Kung-fu (功夫) literally translates into "effort". In other words, the goal is to showcase the actor's ability to pull off stunts that took decades of training to perfect. This is the main type of "martial arts movies" that makes it into the West.
Wuxia (武侠): movies in this genre are less interested in the martial arts itself and more interested in the heroism and the interpersonal/political drama. The martial arts is more of a framing device to focus on the character rather than any interest in the actual fighting. And the books that inspired these movies often handwave away the nitty gritty details of the actual martial arts stuff.
So this is my very long winded way of explaining no, actually choosing the narrative focused resolution system when mimicking Wuxia is actually very appropriate. The game Wushu is inaccurately named and should have been called Kung-fu (or Gong Fu if you want to be culturally sensitive). Finally, Rivers & Lakes is more of a "Wushu"-esque game because it intends to use actual martial arts philosophy in the game design.
Aaand... yeah. That's my rant over.
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I've had a long week, because I've been basically moving on high gear for the past 5 days and I'm like exhausted as woah. So some brainless chatter.
Have you ever solo'd an MMO? Played solitaire board games? Played chess against yourself? Played any form of "multi-player" yourself?
There you go. If you enjoy a game, you wanna play it and you don't want to have to wait until you can wrangle 3-5 adults into setting up a schedule to play with you. Hence. Solo D&D.
Because it is the biggest TTRPG on the market. There's a lot of published adventures for D&D and once you figured out how to play D&D by yourself, you'll probably have a good idea of what kind of rules are fun for you versus what kind of rules you don't like. And you'll be comfortable running through any kind of system and hacking it into doing what you enjoy.
So, let's get to playing some solo D&D.
( Step-by-step walkthrough of how to play a published adventure by yourself. )
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Apparently "becoming Chinese" is a meme/phase now?
My feelings are... "Huh?"
I mean, sure, whatever I guess. I'll just be over here enjoying my high speed rail and door-to-door grocery deliveries (with free delivery because my bank gave me a VIP membership) while y'all drink goji steeped hot water.
(Confession: I'm drinking goji steeped rose tea with dragon's eye daily because something something "good for skin and menstruation". So, y'know. I'm living the stereotype.)
Is this the promised Chinese century? Because it's a lot more banal than it was propagandized to be.
BTW, if anyone wants to visit China, I've just learned that there are 38 countries with Visa Free tourism for up to 30 days, and an additional 50-something countries that get Visa Free transit for up to 10 days. (I only know this because I'm preparing to host some friends who are planning to take advantage of the visa free travel.)
In other news, I had to replace my cabinet, because the bamboo material deformed under constant pressure from my PS3 sitting on it and now my muscles hate me. I don't even know how I pulled something, but I definitely pulled something.
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Ok, so I have my problems with AI, not because of major ethical concerns but because the damn thing doesn't deliver what I want. (I've once again dropped AI Dungeon because LLM cannot write a decently creative story even after I feed it explicit instructions on how the scene should go and what the characters should say, because all the AI does is reuse my own words back at me.) However, despite AI sucking and absolutely not delivering creativity (which is a personal problem I have with AI), the actual problem with AI is not with the AI technology itself.
The problem with AI is, pay attention now, CAPITALISM. So you know all that plagiarism and copyright stuff? Nobody gave a shit before CAPITALISM became the defacto economic system. I mean, remember how in pre-captialistic societies people snuck their own writings under the names of other people and were perfectly willing to not claim credit for their own labor? Stories were told, retold, remixed, rehashed, derived, and, yes, stolen, over and over and people didn't really care. Art was copied and reproduced and counterfeited as people tried to pass their own art off as someone else's.
Because, in this distant past, the economic system was not one in which an artist/writer had to consider their labor as something to be sold for money. No. They saw their labor as a creative outlet that needed to be expressed, not monetized. (And also because they had aristocratic patrons who fed and clothed them so they can focus on making art instead of learning a trade skill to make ends meet.)
It is the monetization of creative labor that causes AI to be a problem. It is the world, the economic system in which one has to sell labor to ensure survival, that turns creativity into a commodity, which causes AI automation to turn into "a problem". Just like the steam/combustion/electric engine obviated the need for carriage drivers, AI automation will take over and slowly replace a company's need to hire skilled drawers and writers of stuff to generate consumer products (be that illustration for animated movies or flavor text in a videogame).
And of course the discourse is constantly around the topic of "AI is stealing from these artists without compensation", as if the commodifying of art and artistic creativity is some kind universal constant, without anyone asking, "Hey, wait a minute. WHY IS ART COMMODITY?" Isn't art supposed to be expression of the self? (Plus, art pieces used to be collected by the aristocracy and bourgeois and had nothing to do with 99% of the population that were peasants who wouldn't have been able to enjoy the art because they were too busy tilling the fields. Just to be clear, I don't think feudalism is better.)
And the answer to why we've normalized the commodifying of art is because CAPITALISM. Because under a capitalistic society, labor must be sold to secure resources to stay alive. Because under capitalism, we live in a scarcity driven economy that incentivizes monopolizing labor to secure enough material goods to generate more stuff.
But guys. We currently live in a post-scarcity world. We make so much food that literally 60 million tons of food is thrown away every year in the US alone. Electronics are in such oversupply that planned obsolescence is a standard practice (Google it if you haven't heard of it by now). We can literally feed the entire world's population with the food we already grow without anyone having to work.
So. Why are we still selling our labor for money to exchange for food? Why do we still accept an economic system designed to stimulate production? When will we realize increased production does not guarantee distribution?
The problem with AI isn't its automation. The problem is the irrational system dictating the distribution of resources and the reliance on the selling of labor to gain a portion of the already overproduced resources to secure survival. We shouldn't be distributing material resources based on money. We can definitely just hand out food and housing for free at this point without production being impacted (because, again, automation is a thing now).
In a post-scarcity world, problem is a matter of getting stuff into the hands of people who need the stuff, not stimulating more production of stuff we already can't consume. Using money as the accounting method is outdated and unsuitable for the post-scarcity world we live in.
TL;DR - The problem isn't AI is stealing jobs. The problem is that for some reason selling labor is the economic system we're still using in a post-scarcity world when distribution is the problem we should be solving.
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I've been trying to get a satisfying result from AI and so far, it's been bleh. I mean, it's possible that I'm just expecting something that isn't possible with AI, or it's just that AI requires more programming to network together modules/agents/whatever the term is so that it can actually do what AI Dungeon is proposing it does.
Long story short, I'm trying to reproduce a TTRPG experience with AI, with AI running the story, world lore, NPC characters, party members, and me roleplaying an adventurer in a typical D&D setting. I'd thought leaning on D&D IP could maybe help the AI to be more creative about its responses, but I'm finding it difficult to generate meaningful progression.
For example, the context fed to the AI contains information that my character's spellbook (which is necessary for casting of spells) is inside a magical hand purse that is bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. Yet, the AI insists on writing that the spellbook is retrieved from or put away into a satchel. Or in another example, a major bullet point in the context states that my character is an elf fostered and raised by humans, yet the AI insists on having characters in the story speak to my character as if she grew up in elven society. It's as if the concept of adoption by a different culture is completely foreign to the AI.
I often see people try to brush this off as "minor details" which is infuriating. I don't know if gamers are just terrible at understanding narrative or if AI has degraded people's understanding of how world building works. No, if a character is raised in a foreign culture that's a pretty fricking huge part of the characterization. I also can't figure out if "elf" is just has too much valence for the AI and anything else that come after is swamped out by all the training data on the "ethereal elf" trope that's all over fantasy or something. (Good luck trying to get the AI to associate elf with a Keebler elf, despite feeding it description after description. No, an elf must be graceful, WTF. Despite D&D wood elves being far more inspired by a brownie than a Tolkien-esque elf.)
And then there's the issue of AI not being able to create anything new. Tell AI to avoid A, B, C elements in the next section of the narrative and it will inevitably come up with nothing other than rephrasing and repeating A, B, and C elements. Tell it to pick an option between A or B and it will inevitably pick both.
At this point, I'm a bit annoyed at the company for releasing a product that over-promises and under-delivers. If I wanted to be in the driver's seat dictating the success and failure of every turn attempt and describing to the AI what is an in-character response and also managing the pacing of a scene while keeping track of world lore and overall plot progression, then I'll go write a story or play solo TTRPG.
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So, was out of town visiting a friend for two weeks. Haven't been able to check in with DW due to only having a phone and trying to type on phone browser is...less than ideal. Over the course of the two weeks, ended up binging on the third season of 《唐诡》(aka Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty), a semi-fantastical mystery drama set in, you guessed it, the Tang Dynasty.
Firstly, I genuinely enjoyed Season 1. Is it something I'd recommend? Eh... only in the context of current period dramas are shit and this one is semi-passable and uses decent grammar that doesn't feel "too modern" all the time. The mysteries are somewhat entertaining and despite the semi-fantastical setting (there is a heavy reliance on "weirdness" that isn't always explainable), the show definitively states ghosts are not real, which is kind of important in a good mystery. But also animals don't work like that, but whatever, I've given up hope when it comes to accurate portrayal of animal behavior in fiction. 😓
Secondly, despite my enjoyment, the show is not without problems and there are very, very many cringe moments. Yet, because it's directed at a domestic audience and unapologetically Chinese, I just keep giving the show a pass for the cringe. Like, is it xenophobic against foreigners? Yes. On the other hand, given the last 150 years of Chinese history...it's also kind of understandable why the xenophobia exists.
Thirdly, the latter seasons get worse and worse. Second season was mildly enjoyable if featuring way too many cryptids. Third season, which I just finished binging these past weeks while out of town, was... well, it's kind of straight up bad. None of the set up were paid off in a satisfactory manner, the main characters got sidelined for one-shot characters, plus the mysteries leaned way too hard on the horror aesthetic and just didn't have any real mystery pacing. The final arc was so deeply disappointing I'm still trying to find the words to properly describe how much it fails at being a mystery.
And yet.
Despite everything, despite all the crap, I suspect I'm going to end up watching season 4 and 5 (which have already been announced). I mildly hate myself for it. This is clearly my new fandom, but I'm so resentful, because it started off strong enough that I had hopes it will improve. Instead, what I got was an increasingly terrible series that simply cannot sustain the expectation of success.
This is possibly why I've been diving into D&D. Because despite my general dislike for D&D settings and annoyance with a lot of the game mechanics, at least I can take as little or as much as I want from the source material and simply do my own thing with it. And honestly, I just never expected solo D&D to take so very long. But also, because I needed a change of pace because working on my own game has been feeling a bit like running in a hamster wheel.
Sometimes I question my decision making.
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So, I've been doing some solo D&D (maybe I'll have the energy to write up on the hobby at some point), but anyway, point is, I have issues with the Wizard.
The biggest problem balancing D&D wizard is the fact that, in this game, every other spell casting class faces significant spell casting limitations.
Before I go through each class, a quick primer on how spell casting works in D&D:
( Vancian Magic )
So, let's run through the list of full spell casters (aka the classes that can cast level 9 spells) and see how they stack up:
( Read more... )
So, we've identified the wizard's problem. It's got the power of a sorcerer, the selection variety of a bard, the flexibility of a druid, and the ... OK, see, I'd say that a wizard and a cleric fulfills two very different niches until you realize WISH exists. See, the thing about WISH is that it is effectively a spell that replicates any spell (even 9th level spells if you are willing to take the stress).
And that's only getting into the core wizard without touching on all the subclass bonuses that comes along.
It really becomes a case of why play anything else other than wizard when everyone else is effectively a down grade of wizard? (Again, with maaaaaaaybe an argument made for cleric due to wizards having to resort to necromancy when it comes to restoring the team in early levels, but that poofs away in late game when there are many, many other ways negate damage.)
And all you really need to do is see this optimization video to realize oh, akshually, fuck playing anything not a wizard.
Yes, yes, there is the basic fantasy of "but I just wanna swing a big sword", but beyond the narrative reason, game mechanics doesn't really offer a compelling reason to try something else out.
So. Here's my very simple proposed fix:
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Recently have been sucked back into fighting AI logic on AIDungeon.
Honestly, I'm not even sure why I'm doing it, because most of the time it's me trying to figure out how I can get the AI to spit out text that makes narrative sense. AI seems to be favoring really stupid descriptions, like "You pick up the notebook with practiced ease." Yes, yes AI, picking up a notebook is fucking easy. Stop.
Anyway.
At least I figured out how to stop the AI from trying to sexually assault the player character. Don't let conversation continue for longer than two turns. Apparently, AI thinks talking about anything beyond "Good day, sir" is sexual interest.
Which isn't as far away from how real men act as one would like, sadly enough.
Also, never, ever, ever write a character cares about another character anywhere in the prompt, because apparently AI only understand care in the framework of sex.
(I know, I know, AI doesn't actually understand shit. It's because of the proximity of those words in the written data that AI gets trained on causing the word "care" and smut get linked together constantly in the algorithm.)
Also, anyone who argues that AI makes them a better writer is lying. I can feel my writing skills deteriorating as I battle the AI to use sentence structures beyond "verb with practiced ease" or "verb with practiced precision". All it tells me is the descriptor "practiced" is used way, way too often in genre fiction. Ugh.
Anyhoo.
Oh, yeah, and I also continue moonlighting as Dad's zero-draft editor. 😑
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(Am sick, so brain rambling.)
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And speaking of lore... Well, what can I say? It's been a while since I've dipped into HSR but what I've read has not filled me with much enthusiasm. Such is the unfortunate fate for those of us who have a tendency to prefer side characters. It's really a bit dispiriting to see HSR drop the opportunity to push more Chinese-cultural framing into their storytelling. If you can't rely on a Chinese company to incorporate Chinese themes, then...well.
And I'm also a bit annoyed at the Wuxia/Xianxia genre becoming the international "representation" of Chinese culture. Mostly because for me, I always found the political imperial dramas (such as the Three Kingdoms/Water Margins in the classics and 《汉武帝》/《唐太宗李世民》 for the more modern representatives) to be more defining of Chinese media. And I don't mean that it has to be a period piece, but political maneuvering and machinations always makes its way into most Chinese stories, regardless of whether the story is modern or a period piece or futuristic science fiction.
So I was really hoping to see more political machinations, deal making, treaty negotiation (but y'know, on a stellar level given HSR's sci-fi setting), yet we keep getting the same old same old "adventurers on a journey and beat up baddies" type of story. And the abandonment of the traditional aesthetic for the bog-standard "Western" aesthetic when it comes to basically well...everything.
Anyway, am disappointed in HSR. Not sure what else to really say at this point.
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