Whiplash Emotions - Burning Man edition

I am experiencing some powerful conflicting emotions right now.

On the one hand, I know we can't go to the Burn this year. Halford's Liver, we'd end up in adjacent beds in Renown Regional's ICU by Thursday. Even without the breast cancer, my suck year would have put us so far behind in fitness and readiness. . . after last year, I need to be PREPARED. I am not ready for the Playa physically, mentally, or emotionally.

On the other hand, I need to be there. I need to walk to the inner edge of Esplanade to tell the Black Rock Desert to test me because I am stronger than it is. I need to tell stories as my gift and be with my family of choice. I sent them a Kooshball for Kirsten, but I left myself out as usual. I need to be 1SG Bullhorn, a role I love. I had been invited to work with Gate, Perimeter, & Exodus, which I was really looking forward to. As with my job as a Crossing Guard, it would be giving back to the community.

But the main thing is that since 2014, Burning Man has done more to help me return to being me than any therapy or rehab ever could. Like every infantryman, I was forged in fire and shaped by hammers. I had steel inserted in place of a spine (that explains the lower back pain, I suppose) and learned that pain is temporary, pride is forever, and what you thought were the walls of your limitations need to be broken down to open your possibilities.

In short, I am not a Sensitive New Age Guy. (However, I do want to see the Barbie movie.) Kid gloves don't work on me. Give me a mission and an op order. Tell me to make shit happen. Sua Sponte!

On my very first night at Burning Man, I broke down into a fucking crying, exhausted mess. A bunch of drunks I didn't know were trying to build our tent. I didn't know where I was, I was a year out from nearly dying and needed sleep. We were given cots in what I later learned was Rosie's Bar.

The next day morning, I was standing outside my tent in my underwear, screaming death threats at whatever camp was playing "Sunshine Day" at 0-fucking-700.

Later that day, while walking to a jot (portosan) bank, a camp on our street needed line volunteers to help lift their climbing tower. Without thinking, I took my place and Gung Ho!* I would never climb the thing, but people needed my help.

By Monday, I was in the street being a barker for our bar. "Sir! You obviously have a drinking problem! You're not drinking!" This earned me the precious gift of a roll of a 2-year-old's favorite Life Savers. I still have the candy on my desk.

By Wednesday? "Now, next year. . ."

Those drunks, now my family, gifted me the name "Uncle Bullhorn." Some wanted to christen me "Uncle Grandpa" for my storytelling abilities, some "Bullhorn" for my Army-trained command voice. A compromise was reached.

*Gung Ho, from the Chinese gōnghé, literally means "work/pull together."

Gods of Metal: Ragnarock. First Read Reactions

It took three years, but it was mostly worth the wait.

I'm a Metalhead. I have been since 1983. I love almost all forms of the genre, so to see a TTRPG dedicated to the concept of a freewheeling, horns-flashing, headbanging game made me happy to back the Kickstarter.

Let's pretend we're all at a late-night restaurant after a show, sharing french fries and ranch dressing—first, the complaints.

The game is jargon-heavy. Successes are "Tributes," for example. Several important concepts are buried in the text. I had to keep flipping back to the glossary to comprehend the rule I was reading. The rules could be slightly better organized. Many simple proofreading and editing errors should have been caught in the layout process. Each of the six Metal Gods gets a single "art page" describing them and their goals. One of them is cut off mid-sentence. Later in the book, extraneous letters and odd cuts appear. I get meeting an already blown shipping date, but two extra pairs of eyes and one week of rewriting would have fixed these issues.

Now the things that make us throw up the horns, sing along, and get thrown out of Denny's at 3 A.M.

The tone of the writing and the artwork all build the setting and feel of Ragnarock perfectly. One of my early misconceptions was this was a game about being a metal band in Ragnarock. No, this is about being fucking Metal Demigods in Ragnarock. If this means your Avatar is Hammerhead Türzertrümmerer, who literally has a giant hammer for a head and two giant fucking Teutonic hammers for hands? Go for it!

Attributes and Skills are combined. For example, our friend Hammerhead should put some points in Brute if he wants to break down doors. You also choose a Metal God and a Tone. I'll detail character generation later because it is an adventure in itself, and yes, you can die during character generation.

The world-building requires two encores because there are two worlds. Mundania, where all of us Work Units (formerly known as People) are trapped, and Raganrock, where a few lucky souls can escape to fight the good fight. Your mortal body is still in Mundania, filling out TPS reports or stamping passports or whatever soul-destroying job the Executors and Upper Management have bestowed on you. They desire absolute obedience and conformity. Think of the worst dystopian SF you've ever read or seen. The Adjustment Bureau. Matrix Revolutions without the happy ending. A Stalinist gray wasteland if Stalin and J.P. Morgan joined forces.

But you have escaped, been drawn to the Spiral Umbilical, and if you survived. . . welcome to the party, pal!

So, there will be a second reading in the near future. I'll run my idea for a character through the introductory adventure, which is also an ideal Session Zero and character-building exercise.

What do I want? Aside from a corrected book. . .

• A proper atlas and gazetteer of Ragnarok.
• A handout of the basic creation myth.
• The Spiral Umbilical adventure as a download.

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Update from kshandra, 23 Nov 2023: One of the mutual friends Doug and I had through social media is laurenthemself, who among other things works with Ivan Van Norman, the man behind Gods of Metal. I can't find the comment currently, but they promised that they would hold a ceremonial bonfire and "send" Doug a copy of the errata that way. That's metal AF, if you ask me.