Monthly Archives: March 2021

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author, Logic and Reasoning

#386: An Unsolicited Private Review

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #386, on the subject of An Unsolicited Private Review.

Sunday morning (3/14/2021) I received a private message from a new Patron (from the United Kingdom) on my Patreon page.  He had read Why I Believe, and wrote to thank me.  I wanted to share his comments with you, without exposing his identity; some personal notes have been expunged in what follows, and I’ve done a bit of formatting.

I just finished reading Why I Believe and I am grateful for having been given your name (you may remember our recent correspondence as to how your name came to me–quite mysteriously) and for working through your book.  It was worth the effort.  I feel as though I have attended a masterclass on the subject–not thinking, beforehand, that I had met the criteria needed to be enrolled….[T]his is a humourous comment–anyone with an enquiring mind can read and understand the book if they give it a chance.  I have learned something (things, actually) from you, of great value and importance in my life….I have just taken out a patronage which I will keep going for as long as I can….Before I continue into what could be a major ramble, I just wanted to say ‘thanks’ for offering to me an intelligent and extremely well explained reasoning as to why I do believe that which until some months ago I had only ever suspected, i.e., His existence and His purpose.

My best wishes to you, personally, and for your continuing and growing success and recognition.

[Name omitted for privacy] (UK)

I am very pleased and encouraged by these comments, the first independent and unsolicited response I have received to the book, and I hope that more of you are finding the book valuable.  Please feel free to share your thoughts with me, and of course with others who might benefit from reading it.

Books by the Author

#385: Characters Ascend

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #385, on the subject of Characters Ascend.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first six novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, Garden of Versers, and Versers Versus Versers, in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I am posting the seventh, Re Verse All,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the fifteenth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 85 through 90.  It was suggested that more shorter posts were a better choice than fewer longer ones, so there will be posts every six chapters, that is, every other week, for this book.  Previous entries were:

  1. #354:  Versers Reorienting, covering chapters 1 through 6;
  2. #355:  Versers Resettling, for chapters 7 through 12.
  3. #357:  Characters Connect, for chapters 13 through 18.
  4. #359:  Characters Engage, for chapters 19 through 24.
  5. #361:  Characters Explore, for chapters 25 through 30.
  6. #364:  Characters Learn, for chapters 31 through 36.
  7. #365:  Characters Travel, for chapters 37 through 42.
  8. #367:  Versers Encounter, for chapters 43 through 48.
  9. #370:  Characters Confront, for chapters 49 through 54.
  10. #373:  Nervous Characters, for chapters 55 through 60.
  11. #376:  Characters Arrive, for chapters 61 through 66.
  12. #379:  Character Conundrums, for chapters 67 through 72.
  13. #381:  World Complications, for chapters 73 through 78.
  14. #383:  Character Departures, for chapters 79 through 84.

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 85, Takano 40

I was creeping forward, wanting to move Tommy and Lauren together without disrupting Beam.  They would have different kinds of entrances and use different kinds of skills.

Chapter 86, Beam 85

In a game I would have rolled a general effects roll here, since there is no actual map and I need to know whether Beam is moving toward or away from the ramp he seeks.  I debated whether to do that here, but instead I think I used a technique I got from E. R. Jones I call “invisible dice”.  Often he was asked what he wanted to do, he would reach in a pocket, pretend to draw out a coin, throw nothing in the air, and then catch it and slap it on his wrist.  He would look at the nothing on his wrist and give his answer, as if it had been decided by the flip of an invisible coin.  It actually had not, of course–he once explained to me that the action had function, that while the invisible coin was in the air he found himself hoping it would come down one way or the other, and that was how he knew what he wanted to do.  I realized that I needed to move Beam forward several steps on this chapter, and that to do that I was going to have to get him to the ramp quickly.

I had worked out in my mind that at least once on the climb the people would eat successfully at a restaurant, and given that I was figuring each level was about half a kilometer (about the maximum I could stretch it) and I was starting on level 27, roughly six to seven miles deep, I thought that the first climb would be the toughest for Beam and have the greatest incentive for ordering from the computer.  I was considering what could go wrong, but decided to hold off on that.

Chapter 87, Hastings 214

I was to some degree struggling to produce chapters that were long enough.  However, the Hastings/Takano story was requiring me to shift viewpoints more frequently than I anticipated.  I’m hoping that the next Takano chapter will let me break out a bit.

Chapter 88, Beam 86

I recognized the problems with camping in the halls and restaurant while I was thinking through this chapter–which I did quite a bit, because I was thirteen days hospitalized.  I also gave some thought to the next Takano and Hastings chapters.

Chapter 89, Takano 41

I needed to get Tommy’s equipment upgraded and give Lauren time to find her, and this seemed to do the trick.  After all, Tommy is a bit like Derek, in that her computing skills are her strong suit, and in a world like this I have to make that matter.

Chapter 90, Beam 87

This chapter came from nowhere–I had not thought of any of it before I started writing and realized that Beam had a tendency not to sleep when he wasn’t drinking, and had no means of knowing the time.  I drifted with him in the silence of the compound, and sent him back to bed.

This has been the fifteenth behind the writings look at Re Verse All.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with another novel and more behind the writings posts for it.

Games

#384: Game Ideas Unlimited Introduction

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #384, on the subject of Game Ideas Unlimited:  Introduction.

I must begin by thanking Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating copies of many of the Game Ideas Unlimited articles which were lost with the crash of the Gaming Outpost website on which they were originally published.  An effort has begun to restore as many of these as possible as entries in the RPG-ology series at the Christian Gamers Guild.  However, the first article in the original series was primarily an introduction to the author–that is, to me–and as I had been introduced in several articles in Christian Gamers Guild series (Faith and Gaming and Faith in Play in addition to the one already linked)  it was decided that the additional redundancy of yet another introduction was unnecessary.

I suppose the same argument could be made here.  However, at the Christian Gamers Guild there is the limit that I post two articles a month, one in each series (sometimes an extra here or there if there’s something that needs to be posted that doesn’t fit either of the series), and here the limit is really just that I need to post things when I have something to post.  In the interest of historical completeness I am here publishing the original first article in the Game Ideas Unlimited series.  It was originally published June 1st, 2001.  The links have been updated where possible and necessary, and there are a few [bracketed] editorial notes.

*****

Game Ideas Unlimited:

Introduction

by Multiverser author M. Joseph Young

  I play Multiverser, and I love the game.  But that's expected--my name is on the cover.  E. R. Jones had been refining the idea for half a decade when he brought it to me, and I spent five years working with him to hammer out the details and the text.  So you can take my opinion with however many grains of salt you wish.  As long as it doesn't bother you that I'm a raving fanboy of my own game, we should get along fine.  And I promise to mention it only when it matters.

  So why do I mention it now?  Well, for all of its strengths, the game is voracious.  It consumes worlds and stories and creatures and ideas at an alarming rate.  I've run as many as eight worlds in a single night, each of them completely different.  It's one of the things that most frightens people about the game:  where do you keep getting ideas?  It's not that hard, really.  I just mentioned an idea I'd written up to one of our long-time fans (someone who playtested the game before it went to print), and he said that he never needs to look for ideas because there are so many of them out there.  He's right; ideas come easily, once you get in the habit.  But if you're not in the habit, it's easy to get stumped.  In fact, you don't have to play Multiverser to run short on ideas.

  And that's where this column comes in.  I've become something of an expert on generating ideas.  I run my own games; I write game tips for Valdron Inc's Tip of the Week site; I develop ideas for game worlds and games for future publication.  I've got some tricks I use, and some ideas I can share.  And this column gives me the chance to share them.

  There will be something a bit different here each week.  Sometimes you'll find ideas for creatures, or for characters, with which to populate your game world.  These will be suitably generic, so you can use them with whatever game you're currently playing.  Sometimes I'll give you the basics of an entire game world, something you can use for a campaign, or perhaps something smaller like an unusual adventure situation.  I'll also throw around ideas in game theory, ways to achieve different effects in your games, referee and player techniques, and other things I find useful in games I've played.  You won't find every column useful to you.  If you're into fantasy only, my forays into sci-fi might be of only passing interest; and similarly if you're a sci-fi gamer when I get talking about a challenging dungeon level concept you might find it less than practical.  But I hope to go beyond just the practical ideas themselves to something far more practical:  the patterns of thought that generate these ideas, the way I can always find new and creative ideas that keep my players going and constantly bring them back for the next game.  I'm convinced that creative thought patterns can be taught and learned.  I've learned them from others.  I hope by this medium to teach them to you.  Who knows?  Maybe some of you will wind up writing brilliant new worlds for my future Multiverser sessions.

  But perhaps some of you don't know me.  I'd like to introduce myself.  The best way I know to do that and make this column useful to you is to point you to a few of the things I've written that relate to gaming.  That will give you some idea of how I think and what I think, and maybe whether it will be worth your time to come back next week for the second installment.  It will also give you a fairly substantial reading list if you try to tackle all of it; there's a lot more out there than I'm going to mention here.  But I think you'll find some of this useful.  This isn't the only kind of thing I'll be writing; but it is the way I think about things.  Oh--some of these are on other game support sites.  I really don't want to send you away from the fine materials here at Gaming Outpost; but a writer's credentials are usually that he's been published in other places, so I'm going to have to offer you those other publications as a reference.  As my father's Mississippi family might say, "Y'all come back now, y'hear?"

  A couple years ago I tackled the problem of players who like playing evil characters.  I'm not opposed to evil characters in my games; but I think that too many of them get away with murder.  This was the first of my half dozen previous contributions to this site, Morality and Consequences:  Overlooked Gaming Essentials [republished version], in which I examine how a referee should respond to the criminal, unethical, and immoral acts of player characters.

  If you've seen the Australian e-zine Places to Go, People to Be, you know they have some wonderful material.  It includes a three part series of mine, Law and Enforcement in Imaginary Realms.  The three parts, The Source of Law, The Course of Law, and The Force of Law, look at how to understand and build legal systems including laws, courts, police, and prisons, which are consistent with the worlds you play but surprising to the players.  Gaming Outpost liked this enough to reprint the first of these [here].

  A lot of gamers today complain about what they see as the old-style gamer who focuses too much on winning and not enough on story.  I gave some thoughts on this to Wounds Unlimited in Re-educating the Power Gamer.  Johnn Four of RoleplayingTips.com thought the article so helpful he reprinted it on his site.

  I've published quite a few web pages without the help of an e-zine; I won't burden you with all of them here.  But I will mention Confessions of a Dungeons & Dragons Addict, my entry in the debate about whether role playing games are satanic.  Obviously you know my answer (I'm writing for an RPG site); but my arguments might help yours, and there's a fair amount of my personal and gaming history included in the piece.  This one gets a lot of attention--GAMA and the Christian Gamers Guild are among those linking to it.

  You might be wondering why I haven't mentioned RPGnet.  Well, I can't mention everybody.  I've got articles in a lot of out of the way places (WebCMO has one of my contributions on One-to-One Marketing; I have some interests besides gaming).  But indeed I do have an article there which might be of interest to you:  Intuition and Surprise looks at just exactly what it is that gives a character that "feeling" that something is amiss, and how to use that in your games.

  I try to keep current an index [alas, an effort abandoned years ago] of everything that isn't just a forum post or newsletter contribution.  It's not all about games, but a lot of it is.  And I make myself available by e-mail to discuss these or just about anything else.

  Beyond that, there are a couple things I should mention.  I've got two undergraduate degrees in theology and a juris doctore, that is, a graduate degree in law.  I was accepted into membership in Mensa years ago.  I'm the father of five boys, all of whom are avid and creative gamers.  I've always been serious about my fun, playing and inventing games of many types since before I knew about role playing games.  My interests have been quite diverse over the decades; expect that to show from time to time.

  I look forward to sharing some of my as yet unpublished ideas.  Next week, something different.

*****

As mentioned, additional entries are available at the Christian Gamers Guild.

Books by the Author

#383: Character Departures

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #383, on the subject of Character Departures.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first six novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, Garden of Versers, and Versers Versus Versers, in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book).  Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages.  Now as I am posting the seventh, Re Verse All,  I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed.  You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them.  Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.

There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.

This is the fourteenth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 79 through 84.  It was suggested that more shorter posts were a better choice than fewer longer ones, so there will be posts every six chapters, that is, every other week, for this book.  Previous entries were:

  1. #354:  Versers Reorienting, covering chapters 1 through 6;
  2. #355:  Versers Resettling, for chapters 7 through 12.
  3. #357:  Characters Connect, for chapters 13 through 18.
  4. #359:  Characters Engage, for chapters 19 through 24.
  5. #361:  Characters Explore, for chapters 25 through 30.
  6. #364:  Characters Learn, for chapters 31 through 36.
  7. #365:  Characters Travel, for chapters 37 through 42.
  8. #367:  Versers Encounter, for chapters 43 through 48.
  9. #370:  Characters Confront, for chapters 49 through 54.
  10. #373:  Nervous Characters, for chapters 55 through 60.
  11. #376:  Characters Arrive, for chapters 61 through 66.
  12. #379:  Character Conundrums, for chapters 67 through 72.
  13. #381:  World Complications, for chapters 73 through 78.

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 79, Hastings 212

I honestly did not know what I was going to do at this point, with options including that Serona would know what to say, that the party would pass unmolested, and that there would be a fight after the party began exiting.  I thought of Lauren’s response after I’d written the intervening chapters, and went with that.

I was having the same problem with Lauren that I was having with Tommy:  she was going to verse out now, and I wasn’t ready for her in the final world.  I realized I was just going to have to deal with that as well as I could, because if I didn’t have her die here I would be stuck for how to get her out down the road.

Chapter 80, Beam 82

I realized that I had versed out both Lauren and Tommy in a sense too soon, because I had too much still to do with Beam before I could bring them to him.  It probably took me a day (longer, really, because I saw the trouble coming from several days away) to realize that my answer was to accelerate the Beam chapters against the others.  I didn’t especially like this because the Takano chapters were furthest behind, but it was going to prove to be the best answer.

I also accelerated the dull part to give him a very long stay in this world before the others arrived.

I got hung up in the middle of this chapter, because I knew that I was reaching the critical turning point and had to bring in the berserk mining mole, but it would be such a disruptive event that I couldn’t figure out how to do it smoothly.

Chapter 81, Takano 39

This was definitely a stall world, that is, a place to drop the character temporarily while preparing the next significant world for her.  I was readying Beam’s world for Lauren and Tommy to reach, and it was almost ready but not quite.

Chapter 82, Beam 83

I was pushing Beam out the door so that he would be on the move by the time Lauren arrived.  I had to think through his speech a bit to make sure I had all the necessities, but I wrote it at one shot.

Chapter 83, Hastings 213

This was a bit of a juggling act, but it worked.  I needed Lauren to find Tommy first, which meant that she and Tommy both had to be in this world immediately.

Chapter 84, Beam 84

The question “Left or right” is one that comes from a Game Ideas Unlimited article I wrote about an illusionist technique that puts the next encounter wherever the player character decides to go, so the adventure doesn’t really depend on his choices and he can’t derail it simply by not knowing which way to go.

This chapter did not take me nearly far enough, but it was about to get disjointed if I didn’t stop, so I did.

This has been the fourteenth behind the writings look at Re Verse All.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with another novel and more behind the writings posts for it.

Bible and Theology, Music

#382: The Song “Not Going to Notice”

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This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #382, on the subject of The Song “Not Going to Notice”.

I am guessing that I wrote this sometime in the late ’70s, although it might have been as late as the early ’80s.  It’s a country song, and I have never taken country music terribly seriously.  Perhaps that influenced my rating on it, putting it number thirty-one for quality of the song, number 17 for quality of the recording and performance.  Tristan, though, ranked it tied for fifth, pulling it up to number twenty-two, tied with another to be published next month.

I am persuaded that country songs need to be funny.  My favorite country song is still Put Another Log On the Fire.  This one is light-hearted, with several parts of it very tongue-in-cheek, and I hope it brings a smile to the faces of at least a few listeners.  I connect it in my mind to my Sandy Becker Theory of Eschatology which I was starting to develop around the same time.  Both say that there’s no point to our arguments about the second coming or the end of the world or what heaven is like.  We can’t really know anyway, until it is ultimately revealed.

The recording, three vocals over midi instruments, is here.  If I could do it again it would be a tad faster, but it’s decent as is.

Not Going to Notice.

So here are the words:

You know that Jesus said He’d come again,
And raise us all from death, immortal men,
And then He’ll take us home
With a body like His own,
And we will be in heaven with Him then.

But I’m not going to notice, no siree!
‘Cuz when I finally reach eternity
Through the laughter and the tears,
For at least a million years
My precious Savior Jesus is all I’ll see.

You know the dead will rise out of their graves.
Well, that’s the kind of news that should make waves,
And then we’re going to fly
Just to meet Him in the sky,
And all the world will know that Jesus saves.

But I’m not going to notice, no siree!
‘Cuz when I finally reach eternity
Through the laughter and the tears,
For at least a million years
My precious Savior Jesus is all I’ll see.

They say that I can walk through any wall,
Or step off of high buildings and not fall,
And I’ll mount with eagle’s wings,
And do a million crazy things
That now I just can’t understand at all.

But I’m not going to notice, no siree!
‘Cuz when I finally reach eternity
Through the laughter and the tears,
For at least a million years
My precious Savior Jesus is all I’ll see.

Maybe I’ll meet Moses or have a chat with Paul;
Andrew, Peter, James, and John, I’m sure to meet them all!
I’ll have a chance to get to know each famous chosen man:
Eat breakfast with Isaiah and lunch with Abraham.

Many of my friends will meet me there;
We’ll have a great reunion in the air.
Won’t you come now?  Don’t be late!
Turn to Jesus, then go straight.
It’s a party to which nothing can compare.

But I’m not going to notice, no siree!
‘Cuz when I finally reach eternity
Through the laughter and the tears,
For at least a million years
My precious Savior Jesus is all I’ll see.

No, I’m not going to notice, no, not me,
‘Cuz when I finally reach eternity
Through the laughter and the tears,
For at least a million years
My precious Savior Jesus is all I’ll see.

I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way.  I will continue with additional songs in the future.

*****

Previous web log song posts:

#301:  The Song “Holocaust” | #307:  The Song “Time Bomb” | #311:  The Song “Passing Through the Portal” | #314:  The Song “Walkin’ In the Woods” | #317:  The Song “That’s When I’ll Believe” | #320:  The Song “Free” | #322:  The Song “Voices” | #326:  The Song “Mountain, Mountain” | #328:  The Song “Still Small Voice” | #334:  The Song “Convinced” | #337:  The Song “Selfish Love” | #340:  The Song “A Man Like Paul” | #341:  The Song “Joined Together” | #346:  The Song “If We Don’t Tell Them” | #349: The Song “I Can’t Resist You’re Love” | #353:  The Song “I Use to Think” | #356:  The Song “God Said It Is Good” | #362:  My Life to You | #366:  The Song “Sometimes” | #372:  The Song “Heavenly Kingdom” | #378:  The Song “A Song of Joy”

Next Song:  #387:  Our God Is Good