Re: Wierdo Award Ideas Debunked

["Jonathan Blackbow" <blackbow@sprynet.com>]

Dafydd said, in part:

>We are not involved in playing D&D here.  I am not a 13th-level
>Fighter/15th-level Artisan/12th-level Drudge multiclass character, with
>134,392 experience points.  I'm in the SCA.

>Regards,
>
>Dafydd ap Gwystl, 7th Dan Pedant
>
>

>

[I'm sorry, (and let me know if I get this right) Count Sir Master Master
Dafydd, you're technically right.  You're not a multi-classed upper-level
critter from AD&D.  You're a multi-classed upper-level critter from the SCA.
The only differences between the awards you have and a multi-level
upper-classed critter from AD&D is that 1) the skills you exhibited to gain
those awards were real and not based on a FRPG, and 2)...

...REAL PEOPLE, and not some complicated system of rank, saw to it that you
received those awards.

Real people who don't have time/interest to keep track of every
up-and-coming Count Sir Master Master Dafydd wanna-be.

Real people who, if you weren't the likeable fellow that you are, might be
inclined to blow off every single good thing you ever did, and focus,
instead, on the fact that you once threw a tennis ball at a jetliner because
you were angry with the noise it made.  That would be John MacEnroe, the
tennis player.  Who remembers the brilliant tennis?  They'd rather remember
the temper tantrums.

REAL PEOPLE, unfortunately, (and this has been discussed before so I'm not
the only one who thinks this, otherwise we'd never be having this
conversation in the first place, because the people who deserved recognition
would be getting it) have demonstrated that the mass majority of them would
rather remember negative things about a person rather than any positive
things.  I submit that one's reputation can only cover so much negativity.
In Dafydd's case, the negative things that people say about him are far
outweighed by the positives.  But what if (hypothetically!!!!!!) Dafydd
turned out to be an axe murderer?  Would anybody remember the fact that he's
a quadruple peer?  Doubtful.  They'd gather in small groups and discuss his
mad, blood-soaked rampage in hushed whispers, because that's what most
people DO.

TNNP is a perfect example - it started off as a grand idea to the people on
the list, and yet many people are scoffing at it, whether they originally
thought it was a good idea or not, because they HEAR BAD THINGS about it.

Dafydd says that reality is probably somewhere between his rosy view and my
cynical view, and I think he's right.  But I think that reality is probably
closer to my cynical view than his rosy view, and that's a shame.  But it's
the reality that I have to operate in, because I got in all kinds of trouble
early on for thinking that reality was closer to Dafydd's view.

Dafydd's rosy view strikes me as very similar to the way friends are around
each other:  that friend may do something that makes you want to wallop him,
but you eventually ignore the whatever, because that person is your friend.
That "whatever" that makes you want to wallop your friend is merely a part
of what makes that person who and what he is, and he wouldn't be your friend
if you didn't argue occasionally, because if two people agree all the time
it's because one of them is the other's lapdog.  Which is not a friendship,
per se.]

Resigned,

Ld. Jonathan Blackbow
Clan O'Shannon