I'm happy to say that I'm not experiencing some of the most unpleasant potential side effects of chemotherapy. For those who aren't aware of this, chemo can have a lot of unpleasant side effects: Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite, hair loss, fatigue, sleep disturbances, peripheral neuropathy, infections, skin disorders... The list is nearly endless, and almost all chemo drugs have these same potential effects. Last time I went through chemo, I had most of them. I still have neuropathy in my toes as a result of chemo, and my digestive system's behavior never returned to its pre-chemo state. I get nauseous easily, and have more lower GI issues than I did before I went through chemo.
My recollection of my previous chemo experience focuses mainly on diarrhea; it seems to me that I had one continuous eight-month stretch of it, though I think in reality I had a few periods of diarrhea-free time. All the antibiotics I was taking to prevent infections killed off my beneficial gut bacteria and allowed my mortal enemy Clostridium Difficile to overpopulate, turning my GI tract into an express tunnel. It was miserable. So diarrhea was my biggest fear this time around. But I haven't had any. Instead I seem to be having just the opposite. Food goes in the pie hole and nothing comes out the other end.
On top of that, since my immune system isn't at peak efficiency right now, my asthma inhaler has caused me to develop an oral fungal infestation, commonly known as thrush. It doesn't hurt, but it is uncomfortable and annoying. I have to take Nystatin, an antifungal mouthwash essentially. It comes in banana yellow, and oddly tastes a little like banana, too. Not the most offensive liquid medication I've ever taken, but not my favorite taste sensation. Good thing I like bananas. My oncologist has indicated that I should expect to be taking a lot of Nystatin during chemo.
But at least I'm not on the regimen of antibiotics, antifungals, and steroids that I had to take last time. I just have to get used to making Nystatin part of my daily beverage choices, and find what method works best to keep the train running smoothly in the intestinal tract. And deal with the fatigue. The fatigue should improve as I get farther away from my most recent chemo treatment. But this week I am feeling pretty worn out.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Cancer Saga, part 2
I've finished my first chemo treatment for this round. Only two days at the infusion center, and the second day was just a couple of hours. I didn't get nauseous, and the Dexamethasone didn't give me the jitters or keep me awake like it did last time. The dose is much less this time. I haven't had any "Shedding" yet, either, as Jay Lake likes to refer to one of the other lovely side effects of chemo. I'm just really fatigued, achy, and feeling a little down. It's harder to keep the morale up when the fatigue sets in.
Diet is fun during chemo. I love fresh fruits and vegetables, and sushi is one of my favorite foods - nigiri sushi, with raw fish. But I shouldn't have those things while my immune system is vulnerable. And then there are the people. I have to avoid people. They have germs. When I go to work on the bus I'll be wearing a mask and gloves to protect me from other people's germs. If my co-workers have colds, I'll probably work from home.
But all of the above is still better than being in the hospital a week out of every month, and having to take injections to increase my white blood count. I can work. I can watch television. I can drive, at least some of the time. I spent a lot of my first day of chemo studying my Chinese textbook. I wouldn't have been able to do that the first time through treatment.
That doesn't mean this is going to be super-easy. Just about the time I start to feel pretty good and back to normal, I'll have to have another treatment. But this time I won't miss OryCon. I've attended OryCon every year since 1990, except for 2003, when I missed it due to chemo. This time my next chemo session isn't until after the convention, so I should be able to attend. That makes me happy. It's a tradition, and this year my honey is a program participant so I want to be there to support him. I'll just have to support him while wearing a mask to avoid the germs.
Diet is fun during chemo. I love fresh fruits and vegetables, and sushi is one of my favorite foods - nigiri sushi, with raw fish. But I shouldn't have those things while my immune system is vulnerable. And then there are the people. I have to avoid people. They have germs. When I go to work on the bus I'll be wearing a mask and gloves to protect me from other people's germs. If my co-workers have colds, I'll probably work from home.
But all of the above is still better than being in the hospital a week out of every month, and having to take injections to increase my white blood count. I can work. I can watch television. I can drive, at least some of the time. I spent a lot of my first day of chemo studying my Chinese textbook. I wouldn't have been able to do that the first time through treatment.
That doesn't mean this is going to be super-easy. Just about the time I start to feel pretty good and back to normal, I'll have to have another treatment. But this time I won't miss OryCon. I've attended OryCon every year since 1990, except for 2003, when I missed it due to chemo. This time my next chemo session isn't until after the convention, so I should be able to attend. That makes me happy. It's a tradition, and this year my honey is a program participant so I want to be there to support him. I'll just have to support him while wearing a mask to avoid the germs.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Me Versus the C Word
I have cancer. It's not the first time.
Yes, that's right, I have cancer right now, and it's not my first entry in the cancer rodeo. That sounds pretty scary, doesn't it? It is scary. Cancer is scary. Cancer treatment is scary, too.
Nearly 10 years ago, I went in for surgery to have an ovarian fibroid removed. I had no thought of cancer, really. My doctor didn't think the fibroid was cancerous. It wasn't. But while the surgeon was looking at my innards, she noticed that I had some enlarged lymph nodes. She removed one and sent it for a biopsy.
I remember when I was told that I had cancer, I thought the doctor meant that I had ovarian cancer. I guess I was a little muddled after the surgery. What I had was Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Not just any old lymphoma, but an uncommon variety, Mantle Cell Lymphoma, that more typically affects people 20 years older than I was at the time. If you're interested in reading more about it, try here
They sent me home to recover from the surgery. I'd waited too long to have surgery and they couldn't do it laparoscopically, which in hindsight was a good thing. If they had done it as a laparascopy they probably wouldn't have found the cancer. My cancer history is a story of fortuitous coincidences like that, as I'll explain later.
I spent eight weeks healing from the surgery. Once I had recuperated, I started chemo treatments. They put me on a regimen called Hyper-CVAD-MTX/AraC supplemented by Rituxan. I think the Hyper stands for Hyper-intense. I had to have my treatments in the hospital, a week each month for eight months. I usually spent a couple of additional days in the hospital after the treatment was done, while they gave me blood or plasma transfusions and tried to get my white cell count back up.
I didn't throw up a lot, after they spent a lot of time finding the right anti-nausea medication. One medication they tried was Haldol, an anti-psychotic. Cancer treatment involves a lot of using medications for purposes for which they weren't originally intended. Haldol gave me weird muscle spasms in my neck. I couldn't stop turning my head to the left.
I also completely lost my appetite and stopped eating. My doctor had to prescribe an appetite-enhancing medication. I hated taking it, but it worked. Along with the anti-nausea meds and the appetite enhancer, I had to take a whole fleet of antibiotics, anti-fungals, steroids, drugs to counteract the side effects of the steroids, drugs to protect my kidneys from other drugs, drugs to prevent allergic reactions to the chemo drugs. My beneficial intestinal flora died and the less beneficial ones overpopulated, so that as Jay Lake put it, it was "like winning the toilet paper lottery". Every hair on my entire body fell out, not just my scalp hair but my eyebrows and lashes and even my nostril hair.
I was off work for a year. By the time I finished treatment, I could barely walk. I lost 40 or 50 pounds. I couldn't concentrate enough to read a book or watch an entire movie. I had become very isolated, seeing no one but the nurses and my doctor, and my Significant Other. My immune system was too weak to allow me to go out in public much, and I was too weak to visit with my friends, even on the phone.
During that time I learned a lot of things about cancer treatment I'd never known, despite the fact that both of my parents died of cancer. I didn't know that chemo can cause so many effects on the brain when it's not even being given for brain cancer. Chemo patients learn about something called "chemo brain", which describes how thick-headed you get on chemo. I don't remember some things that happened just before my treatment began, and my memories of that time period are foggy. That's chemo brain.
A month ago I went in for a routine mammogram. I'd recently been having a lot of health problems, which don't have any relevancy to the mammogram, but it's important to the overall story. My primary care had ordered a CT scan for me earlier, to look at my lungs, but I'd had to cancel because I didn't feel well that day. I hadn't got round to rescheduling. The mammogram found enlarged lymph nodes. I called my oncologist. I already had a routine followup scheduled with him, the first one in quite a while, but it wasn't for another month and a half. I wondered if I should see him sooner.
I got a call from the Imaging center to schedule a CT scan, which I thought was to reschedule the one I'd canceled. Then they told me it had been ordered by my oncologist. That worried me. I got more worried when he left me a voicemail message to tell me he suspected the lymphoma was back. I spent a weekend feeling pretty anxious as I worried about what my treatment would be this time and whether I'd be able to work during chemo. The oncologist told me this time I won't have to do inpatient treatment; I can go to the chemo infusion center once a month for my treatments. The treatment shouldn't be as hard on me this time. If this had happened three years ago, the treatment I'll be having wouldn't have existed. This time I'll get Rituxan again, combined with a new drug called Bendamustine.
When I read the potential side effects of both drugs, they're the same: nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, loss of appetite. The same stuff I went through last time. Chemo is largely composed of giving you poisons to kill the cancer cells. Unfortunately, that means killing some good stuff as well.
I have a biopsy tomorrow to confirm that it's really lymphoma. I start chemo on October 10th.
I'm still scared, but I'm not as scared as I was. I have a good doctor, and a great team of other medical professionals looking after me. My doctor thinks my prognosis is good for another full remission, though it probably won't last as long this time.
Everyone knows there is no cure for cancer. But until I had cancer myself, I didn't really understand what that meant. The variety of lymphoma I have almost always reoccurs. It's just a waiting game to see when it will come back yet again. And each time it will get harder to treat, harder to force into remission.
When I found out that I had cancer, I thought about my parents. Neither of them lived past age 60. My father was only 53. I'll be 52 in a month. I've often wondered if I will live past 60, either. I'll just have to wait and see. I feel optimistic. Not only will I be less isolated this time, I know someone else who's going through a similar situation and somehow that makes me feel less alone. And I have someone who loves me and will look after me, and great friends, and coworkers who are kind and caring. There's a lot to be said for a good support system.
Deep breaths. I got through it last time, I can do it again.
Yes, that's right, I have cancer right now, and it's not my first entry in the cancer rodeo. That sounds pretty scary, doesn't it? It is scary. Cancer is scary. Cancer treatment is scary, too.
Nearly 10 years ago, I went in for surgery to have an ovarian fibroid removed. I had no thought of cancer, really. My doctor didn't think the fibroid was cancerous. It wasn't. But while the surgeon was looking at my innards, she noticed that I had some enlarged lymph nodes. She removed one and sent it for a biopsy.
I remember when I was told that I had cancer, I thought the doctor meant that I had ovarian cancer. I guess I was a little muddled after the surgery. What I had was Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Not just any old lymphoma, but an uncommon variety, Mantle Cell Lymphoma, that more typically affects people 20 years older than I was at the time. If you're interested in reading more about it, try here
They sent me home to recover from the surgery. I'd waited too long to have surgery and they couldn't do it laparoscopically, which in hindsight was a good thing. If they had done it as a laparascopy they probably wouldn't have found the cancer. My cancer history is a story of fortuitous coincidences like that, as I'll explain later.
I spent eight weeks healing from the surgery. Once I had recuperated, I started chemo treatments. They put me on a regimen called Hyper-CVAD-MTX/AraC supplemented by Rituxan. I think the Hyper stands for Hyper-intense. I had to have my treatments in the hospital, a week each month for eight months. I usually spent a couple of additional days in the hospital after the treatment was done, while they gave me blood or plasma transfusions and tried to get my white cell count back up.
I didn't throw up a lot, after they spent a lot of time finding the right anti-nausea medication. One medication they tried was Haldol, an anti-psychotic. Cancer treatment involves a lot of using medications for purposes for which they weren't originally intended. Haldol gave me weird muscle spasms in my neck. I couldn't stop turning my head to the left.
I also completely lost my appetite and stopped eating. My doctor had to prescribe an appetite-enhancing medication. I hated taking it, but it worked. Along with the anti-nausea meds and the appetite enhancer, I had to take a whole fleet of antibiotics, anti-fungals, steroids, drugs to counteract the side effects of the steroids, drugs to protect my kidneys from other drugs, drugs to prevent allergic reactions to the chemo drugs. My beneficial intestinal flora died and the less beneficial ones overpopulated, so that as Jay Lake put it, it was "like winning the toilet paper lottery". Every hair on my entire body fell out, not just my scalp hair but my eyebrows and lashes and even my nostril hair.
I was off work for a year. By the time I finished treatment, I could barely walk. I lost 40 or 50 pounds. I couldn't concentrate enough to read a book or watch an entire movie. I had become very isolated, seeing no one but the nurses and my doctor, and my Significant Other. My immune system was too weak to allow me to go out in public much, and I was too weak to visit with my friends, even on the phone.
During that time I learned a lot of things about cancer treatment I'd never known, despite the fact that both of my parents died of cancer. I didn't know that chemo can cause so many effects on the brain when it's not even being given for brain cancer. Chemo patients learn about something called "chemo brain", which describes how thick-headed you get on chemo. I don't remember some things that happened just before my treatment began, and my memories of that time period are foggy. That's chemo brain.
A month ago I went in for a routine mammogram. I'd recently been having a lot of health problems, which don't have any relevancy to the mammogram, but it's important to the overall story. My primary care had ordered a CT scan for me earlier, to look at my lungs, but I'd had to cancel because I didn't feel well that day. I hadn't got round to rescheduling. The mammogram found enlarged lymph nodes. I called my oncologist. I already had a routine followup scheduled with him, the first one in quite a while, but it wasn't for another month and a half. I wondered if I should see him sooner.
I got a call from the Imaging center to schedule a CT scan, which I thought was to reschedule the one I'd canceled. Then they told me it had been ordered by my oncologist. That worried me. I got more worried when he left me a voicemail message to tell me he suspected the lymphoma was back. I spent a weekend feeling pretty anxious as I worried about what my treatment would be this time and whether I'd be able to work during chemo. The oncologist told me this time I won't have to do inpatient treatment; I can go to the chemo infusion center once a month for my treatments. The treatment shouldn't be as hard on me this time. If this had happened three years ago, the treatment I'll be having wouldn't have existed. This time I'll get Rituxan again, combined with a new drug called Bendamustine.
When I read the potential side effects of both drugs, they're the same: nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, loss of appetite. The same stuff I went through last time. Chemo is largely composed of giving you poisons to kill the cancer cells. Unfortunately, that means killing some good stuff as well.
I have a biopsy tomorrow to confirm that it's really lymphoma. I start chemo on October 10th.
I'm still scared, but I'm not as scared as I was. I have a good doctor, and a great team of other medical professionals looking after me. My doctor thinks my prognosis is good for another full remission, though it probably won't last as long this time.
Everyone knows there is no cure for cancer. But until I had cancer myself, I didn't really understand what that meant. The variety of lymphoma I have almost always reoccurs. It's just a waiting game to see when it will come back yet again. And each time it will get harder to treat, harder to force into remission.
When I found out that I had cancer, I thought about my parents. Neither of them lived past age 60. My father was only 53. I'll be 52 in a month. I've often wondered if I will live past 60, either. I'll just have to wait and see. I feel optimistic. Not only will I be less isolated this time, I know someone else who's going through a similar situation and somehow that makes me feel less alone. And I have someone who loves me and will look after me, and great friends, and coworkers who are kind and caring. There's a lot to be said for a good support system.
Deep breaths. I got through it last time, I can do it again.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Movie Review: The Four
The Four (Chinese, 2012)
Imagine that the X-Men lived in ancient China, that they were working for the imperial Secret Service, and that they were fighting zombies.
That is a rough description of the plot of this new film, which features Deng Chao (Judge Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame), Liu Yifei (Forbidden Kingdom), Collin Chou (Forbidden Kingdom, The Matrix) and Anthony Wong (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), among others. The story is inspired by a wuxia novel by Wen Ruian. But other than the setting and a few standard wuxia movie tropes, it doesn't bear much resemblance to wuxia films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero.
Though Wen's novel The Four Great Constables follows the tales of several constables serving the imperial justice system, this movie puts its protagonists in two organizations: Department Six, which is the more typical organization serving the emperor; and the Divine Constables, a group of pardoned criminals led by a former imperial bodyguard, who work among the common people to uphold justice and solve crimes. Complicating this is the presence of a group female constables from the mythical land of Penglai, who've been sent to assist Department Six. All three of these groups are trying to solve a counterfeiting plot, but there are plenty of hidden motives and political intrigues to complicate matters.
Nearly everyone in this film has a superpower, not limited to the usual wuxia abilities like qinggong (superleap), qigong (internal energy), running up walls, and performing incredible feats of swordplay. These people can transform into monsters, exhibit telepathy and telekinesis, summon fire and ice, and other powers. There's nothing that is too obviously an imitation of Western comic book superheroes, with the possible exception of Liu Yifei's character, whose need for a wheelchair is awfully reminiscent of a certain X-Men character (though the filmmakers gave the baldness to Collin Chou).
In addition to the detective story and the superpowers, there are a couple of romantic subplots. Despite spending most of the movie looking sullen and never smiling, Deng Chao is the object of affection for two of the female characters. He's an indecisive sort: he can't make up his mind which girl to pursue, and he can't make up his mind whether to join the Divine Constables or return to Department Six. He's not the most compelling character, and his ability to serve as lead is compromised by the large cast and convoluted plot.
With so much going on, this movie is a bit confusing, especially at the beginning, where it follows the tradition of many Asian films by throwing the viewer in at the deep end and letting you tread water until you figure out who all these people are and what's going on. But once you get past that, it becomes interesting. The interaction between the characters, especially the members of the Divine Constables, is a lot of fun, and it's nice to see Collin Chou doing something besides showing off his martial arts skills. Anthony Wong also makes more than a cameo appearance, putting in an enjoyable turn as the gentlemanly leader of the Divine Constables Zhang Zhengwo. The superpowers aren't overused or overpowering, the villain doesn't do too much maniacal laughing, and the acting is uniformly good.
Oh, yeah, there are zombies, too. It's not a zombie movie, and they're not Western-style gore-coated, brain-eating zombies. But there are zombies, and they're kinda cool.
The Four is supposed to be part one of a trilogy. If the sequels are produced, I'll take a look.
Imagine that the X-Men lived in ancient China, that they were working for the imperial Secret Service, and that they were fighting zombies.
That is a rough description of the plot of this new film, which features Deng Chao (Judge Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame), Liu Yifei (Forbidden Kingdom), Collin Chou (Forbidden Kingdom, The Matrix) and Anthony Wong (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), among others. The story is inspired by a wuxia novel by Wen Ruian. But other than the setting and a few standard wuxia movie tropes, it doesn't bear much resemblance to wuxia films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero.
Though Wen's novel The Four Great Constables follows the tales of several constables serving the imperial justice system, this movie puts its protagonists in two organizations: Department Six, which is the more typical organization serving the emperor; and the Divine Constables, a group of pardoned criminals led by a former imperial bodyguard, who work among the common people to uphold justice and solve crimes. Complicating this is the presence of a group female constables from the mythical land of Penglai, who've been sent to assist Department Six. All three of these groups are trying to solve a counterfeiting plot, but there are plenty of hidden motives and political intrigues to complicate matters.
Nearly everyone in this film has a superpower, not limited to the usual wuxia abilities like qinggong (superleap), qigong (internal energy), running up walls, and performing incredible feats of swordplay. These people can transform into monsters, exhibit telepathy and telekinesis, summon fire and ice, and other powers. There's nothing that is too obviously an imitation of Western comic book superheroes, with the possible exception of Liu Yifei's character, whose need for a wheelchair is awfully reminiscent of a certain X-Men character (though the filmmakers gave the baldness to Collin Chou).
In addition to the detective story and the superpowers, there are a couple of romantic subplots. Despite spending most of the movie looking sullen and never smiling, Deng Chao is the object of affection for two of the female characters. He's an indecisive sort: he can't make up his mind which girl to pursue, and he can't make up his mind whether to join the Divine Constables or return to Department Six. He's not the most compelling character, and his ability to serve as lead is compromised by the large cast and convoluted plot.
With so much going on, this movie is a bit confusing, especially at the beginning, where it follows the tradition of many Asian films by throwing the viewer in at the deep end and letting you tread water until you figure out who all these people are and what's going on. But once you get past that, it becomes interesting. The interaction between the characters, especially the members of the Divine Constables, is a lot of fun, and it's nice to see Collin Chou doing something besides showing off his martial arts skills. Anthony Wong also makes more than a cameo appearance, putting in an enjoyable turn as the gentlemanly leader of the Divine Constables Zhang Zhengwo. The superpowers aren't overused or overpowering, the villain doesn't do too much maniacal laughing, and the acting is uniformly good.
Oh, yeah, there are zombies, too. It's not a zombie movie, and they're not Western-style gore-coated, brain-eating zombies. But there are zombies, and they're kinda cool.
The Four is supposed to be part one of a trilogy. If the sequels are produced, I'll take a look.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Why I Love the Doctor
I've been a fan of Doctor Who for more than 20 years now. I've enjoyed the series as he regenerated from his 6th incarnation to the 7th, from the 7th to the sadly brief 8th, and during the long hiatus until Auntie Beeb brought him back to the small screen a few years ago in his 9th version. I made the effort to see everything I could of his earlier incarnations as well, and grew, like many fans, to have a special fondness for his 4th self.
Like many long-time fans, I was a bit apprehensive when he returned in 2005 with an entirely new production team and actor. What would the new creative team do with him? Would he start having romances? Spend all his time on Earth because the new show had an even more limited budget than the old series? Would all his prior history be treated as if it never happened? Would he stop being a Time Lord? Would he stop being so innately British?
I was immensely relieved when it turned out that the new series runners wanted to behave much as if that hiatus between 1989 and 2005 had never happened. The new Doctor was the 9th. They even acknowledged that the American-made 8th Doctor story was part of Doctor Who canon. The Doctor was still a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He still traveled through time and space in his TARDIS, which still looked externally like a 1960s British police public call box. I gave a sigh of relief that the BBC hadn't tried to completely re-imagine the concept - just bring it into the 21st century television world.
Suddenly my beloved series had a real special-effects budget. The aliens weren't just people in ill-fitting rubber masks. We could see thousands of Cybermen or Daleks instead of 6, because the effects were no longer limited by how many extras and props were available. But more importantly, and this is why I love Doctor Who more than ever: The series has a heart.
The old series made me laugh, it made me excited and joyful and occasionally a little irritated. But to a large extent, despite the history of the Doctor, everything seemed to happen in a vacuum. There were times when a story would make reference to past events, when you felt there was something the Doctor was feeling, but in some ways it seemed that the Doctor had an even stiffer upper lip than a real Brit. He didn't often show his heart. He didn't seem to miss his companions when they left, or even remember that they'd ever been. He didn't mention his 'granddaughter' Susan. His human companions were the ones who did much of the emoting. The Doctor was usually just benevolent or indignant, like a distant relative you don't often see.
And except for bringing back recurring villains, the series didn't have much sense of its own history. There were a few plotlines that connected the events of more than one story, such as the Key to Time saga. But most of the time, once a story was complete, whether it had taken an hour or three hours to tell it, it was never mentioned again. The companions didn't have conversations about how scary it was to be chased across time by the Daleks, or demand to know why the Doctor had apparently abandoned them at some point in a previous adventure, or make the Doctor explain more about his race and where he came from. Each story was basically the same basic concept: The Doctor and his companions arrived somewhere (usually not where they intended to go), there was a monster menacing the local residents or a sinister plot brewing that would result in something awful happening, the Doctor and his companion(s) became separated from each other and from the TARDIS, and the Doctor finally saved the day.
The new series does many of the same things. There are still monsters and sinister plots, the TARDIS still doesn't always take the Doctor where he intends to go, he and his traveling companions often get separated, and the companions still frequently serve as the "heart" of the series. But now the Doctor has a heart, too. He has towering rages and grief and regret and loneliness. He sheds tears. And he loves his companions. They are not just audience-identification devices to allow him to explain plot elements. They are real people who are meaningful to him . He misses them when they're gone. We know why he needs them. He's lonely, he needs company, and he needs someone to keep him humble. Without them, he might transform into something more horrible than any enemy he has ever faced.
The companions have changed, too. They're not just people who ended up with him out of curiosity, or even by accident. They want to be there, because they feel a connection to the Doctor. Sometimes they get angry with him, or doubt him, or are even afraid of him. And they're genuinely useful to him as something other than a glorified puppy. They can do things on their own that will help his plans, and they can make their own plans.
Some of them have loved him, too, or wanted to love and be loved by him. Sexuality has entered the Doctor Who universe. Fortunately the producers haven't let that progress into showing all the details. The Doctor is, after all, a non-Terrestrial being. He is somewhat asexual. The producers seem to realize that a 900+-year-old Time Lord having a romance with a human may be the worst kind of May-December romance - though if they have a story that calls for the Doctor to have a romance, they aren't afraid to proceed with it. They are willing to explore every facet of human experience, not just fleeing from monsters.
Another facet of the series that the new series has eagerly explored is time travel. Yes, that's in large part what the show has always been about. But more recently the producers and screenwriters have really played with that concept. The Doctor doesn't just use time travel to go to the past or the future, he uses it to affect events in ways he couldn't otherwise do. In the new series we have seen characters grow from childhood to adulthood knowing the Doctor, while he from their perspective never changed. We have seen the Doctor run in and out of his own timeline. We have seen time bent back on itself until every moment in history was occurring simultaneously. We have even seen the Doctor and one of his companions living their lives in parallel but in chronologically reverse order. Time travel has become an important element of the series, not just a sort of conveyance, and the writers aren't afraid to make the audiences' brains hurt a bit when we are posed with a temporal paradox.
There are some things that make me less happy about the new series, but I won't go into those here. Overall I love the new show. I love everything they've done with it. I won't lose any affection for the original series, but I'm glad to say that as I've matured and changed, so has Doctor Who. I hope we can continue to grow up together.
Like many long-time fans, I was a bit apprehensive when he returned in 2005 with an entirely new production team and actor. What would the new creative team do with him? Would he start having romances? Spend all his time on Earth because the new show had an even more limited budget than the old series? Would all his prior history be treated as if it never happened? Would he stop being a Time Lord? Would he stop being so innately British?
I was immensely relieved when it turned out that the new series runners wanted to behave much as if that hiatus between 1989 and 2005 had never happened. The new Doctor was the 9th. They even acknowledged that the American-made 8th Doctor story was part of Doctor Who canon. The Doctor was still a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He still traveled through time and space in his TARDIS, which still looked externally like a 1960s British police public call box. I gave a sigh of relief that the BBC hadn't tried to completely re-imagine the concept - just bring it into the 21st century television world.
Suddenly my beloved series had a real special-effects budget. The aliens weren't just people in ill-fitting rubber masks. We could see thousands of Cybermen or Daleks instead of 6, because the effects were no longer limited by how many extras and props were available. But more importantly, and this is why I love Doctor Who more than ever: The series has a heart.
The old series made me laugh, it made me excited and joyful and occasionally a little irritated. But to a large extent, despite the history of the Doctor, everything seemed to happen in a vacuum. There were times when a story would make reference to past events, when you felt there was something the Doctor was feeling, but in some ways it seemed that the Doctor had an even stiffer upper lip than a real Brit. He didn't often show his heart. He didn't seem to miss his companions when they left, or even remember that they'd ever been. He didn't mention his 'granddaughter' Susan. His human companions were the ones who did much of the emoting. The Doctor was usually just benevolent or indignant, like a distant relative you don't often see.
And except for bringing back recurring villains, the series didn't have much sense of its own history. There were a few plotlines that connected the events of more than one story, such as the Key to Time saga. But most of the time, once a story was complete, whether it had taken an hour or three hours to tell it, it was never mentioned again. The companions didn't have conversations about how scary it was to be chased across time by the Daleks, or demand to know why the Doctor had apparently abandoned them at some point in a previous adventure, or make the Doctor explain more about his race and where he came from. Each story was basically the same basic concept: The Doctor and his companions arrived somewhere (usually not where they intended to go), there was a monster menacing the local residents or a sinister plot brewing that would result in something awful happening, the Doctor and his companion(s) became separated from each other and from the TARDIS, and the Doctor finally saved the day.
The new series does many of the same things. There are still monsters and sinister plots, the TARDIS still doesn't always take the Doctor where he intends to go, he and his traveling companions often get separated, and the companions still frequently serve as the "heart" of the series. But now the Doctor has a heart, too. He has towering rages and grief and regret and loneliness. He sheds tears. And he loves his companions. They are not just audience-identification devices to allow him to explain plot elements. They are real people who are meaningful to him . He misses them when they're gone. We know why he needs them. He's lonely, he needs company, and he needs someone to keep him humble. Without them, he might transform into something more horrible than any enemy he has ever faced.
The companions have changed, too. They're not just people who ended up with him out of curiosity, or even by accident. They want to be there, because they feel a connection to the Doctor. Sometimes they get angry with him, or doubt him, or are even afraid of him. And they're genuinely useful to him as something other than a glorified puppy. They can do things on their own that will help his plans, and they can make their own plans.
Some of them have loved him, too, or wanted to love and be loved by him. Sexuality has entered the Doctor Who universe. Fortunately the producers haven't let that progress into showing all the details. The Doctor is, after all, a non-Terrestrial being. He is somewhat asexual. The producers seem to realize that a 900+-year-old Time Lord having a romance with a human may be the worst kind of May-December romance - though if they have a story that calls for the Doctor to have a romance, they aren't afraid to proceed with it. They are willing to explore every facet of human experience, not just fleeing from monsters.
Another facet of the series that the new series has eagerly explored is time travel. Yes, that's in large part what the show has always been about. But more recently the producers and screenwriters have really played with that concept. The Doctor doesn't just use time travel to go to the past or the future, he uses it to affect events in ways he couldn't otherwise do. In the new series we have seen characters grow from childhood to adulthood knowing the Doctor, while he from their perspective never changed. We have seen the Doctor run in and out of his own timeline. We have seen time bent back on itself until every moment in history was occurring simultaneously. We have even seen the Doctor and one of his companions living their lives in parallel but in chronologically reverse order. Time travel has become an important element of the series, not just a sort of conveyance, and the writers aren't afraid to make the audiences' brains hurt a bit when we are posed with a temporal paradox.
There are some things that make me less happy about the new series, but I won't go into those here. Overall I love the new show. I love everything they've done with it. I won't lose any affection for the original series, but I'm glad to say that as I've matured and changed, so has Doctor Who. I hope we can continue to grow up together.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Making Magic Magical
Roleplaying is a challenge. It's always difficult to balance the rules with player choice, to keep the story flowing, to give each player sufficient 'screen time'. Sometimes it seems that just following the rules takes up so much time that there isn't room for, well, the roleplaying part of a tabletop RPG.
There are lots of areas of roleplaying that I could go on about, but in this post I'm talking about roleplaying magic. Magic has a lot of rules controlling it, as I mentioned in my previous posts. Consequently it often gets short shrift in the roleplaying department. Years ago, when I took my first stab at playing a spellcaster in a D&D game, I thought I'd try to make it more interesting by coming up with a 'trigger' word for each spell, that could act as a code word between myself and the other players so they would know which spell I meant to cast without my having to state openly, "I cast magic missile".
Most magic spells in D&D require a verbal component, the equivalent of characters in Harry Potter shouting out "Petrificus totalus!" when they paralyze someone. But the descriptions of the spells in the manuals don't tell the player what the verbal component of each spell is, they just indicate whether or not a verbal component is required. I thought it would be fun to come up with my own verbal components, personal to me. But it quickly became too much trouble to maintain. Whenever I added new spells to my character's spell list, I had to invent new verbal components. It didn't do the GM or the other players any good, either, because they couldn't remember what my invented command words were; they were too preoccupied with managing their own characters. And it interrupted the flow of play because in addition to looking up how the spell worked I also had to find out what my command word was. I was disappointed that I couldn't use that idea to enhance my roleplaying.
How spells look when cast is another item that I wish could receive more attention during actual play, yet it seldom does. Spells typically include a description of the spell's appearance or effect, but in my experience no one ever uses them to enhance the verisimilitude of roleplaying. We just say "I cast fireball" and leave it at that, going on to roll the dice for damage and move on as quickly as possible to the next player's combat action. There's no cinematic description of what happens to the victims of the fireball from the GM, either, because that would take too much time, and the GM's already juggling too many other tasks.
I understand the reasons behind this lack of description, but I can't help feeling just a bit sad that our roleplaying sessions often tend to be just a lot of in-game terminology instead of something more flavorful. We don't stab enemies viciously in the gut, we do a power attack for 26 points of damage. The fireball doesn't send the orcs screaming into the distance with their hair on fire; it does 16 points of fire damage. One could argue that good players and a good GM could add lots of descriptive color to the game, but when the game already has so many detailed rules to keep track of and the players only have a limited amount of time to play each week, adding 'flavor text' requires extra time and energy that no one can spare.
The origins of magic and its workings within the setting of the game often don't get much attention, either. Nearly every setting for D&D includes the concept of wizards guilds or colleges, and supplementary books may contain the names of a few, but it never makes any difference in actual game play. I've seldom seen a player get a discount on magic items by purchasing from an old schoolmate, or be required to pay annual dues to her guild, or wear a particular insignia to represent where she was trained. Magic items also tend to become commonplace in most high-magic settings. Ordinary non-player character citizens are very seldom impressed by magic. It seems old hat, like something you see every day. Someday I'd like to take my wizard character into a small rural village and cast a light spell, and have the locals respond with awe, or even fear, rather than looking at my character as if she's just yawned. I'd like to be required to present my magical credentials to the local authorities when I enter a city, or get into rivalries with other schools, or be very secretive and refuse to tell anyone about my magical training if they ask. Actually I could do that last one, but usually no one asks.
I suppose I may be asking too much to add all this cinematic description to a roleplaying game. If I want cinematic, perhaps I should just watch a movie, or play a console RPG like Skyrim that has exciting cut scenes, or read a book. But I can't help it; the writer and movie watcher in me wants my roleplaying experience to be a little more like a book or movie, and a little less like playing Monopoly.
There are lots of areas of roleplaying that I could go on about, but in this post I'm talking about roleplaying magic. Magic has a lot of rules controlling it, as I mentioned in my previous posts. Consequently it often gets short shrift in the roleplaying department. Years ago, when I took my first stab at playing a spellcaster in a D&D game, I thought I'd try to make it more interesting by coming up with a 'trigger' word for each spell, that could act as a code word between myself and the other players so they would know which spell I meant to cast without my having to state openly, "I cast magic missile".
Most magic spells in D&D require a verbal component, the equivalent of characters in Harry Potter shouting out "Petrificus totalus!" when they paralyze someone. But the descriptions of the spells in the manuals don't tell the player what the verbal component of each spell is, they just indicate whether or not a verbal component is required. I thought it would be fun to come up with my own verbal components, personal to me. But it quickly became too much trouble to maintain. Whenever I added new spells to my character's spell list, I had to invent new verbal components. It didn't do the GM or the other players any good, either, because they couldn't remember what my invented command words were; they were too preoccupied with managing their own characters. And it interrupted the flow of play because in addition to looking up how the spell worked I also had to find out what my command word was. I was disappointed that I couldn't use that idea to enhance my roleplaying.
How spells look when cast is another item that I wish could receive more attention during actual play, yet it seldom does. Spells typically include a description of the spell's appearance or effect, but in my experience no one ever uses them to enhance the verisimilitude of roleplaying. We just say "I cast fireball" and leave it at that, going on to roll the dice for damage and move on as quickly as possible to the next player's combat action. There's no cinematic description of what happens to the victims of the fireball from the GM, either, because that would take too much time, and the GM's already juggling too many other tasks.
I understand the reasons behind this lack of description, but I can't help feeling just a bit sad that our roleplaying sessions often tend to be just a lot of in-game terminology instead of something more flavorful. We don't stab enemies viciously in the gut, we do a power attack for 26 points of damage. The fireball doesn't send the orcs screaming into the distance with their hair on fire; it does 16 points of fire damage. One could argue that good players and a good GM could add lots of descriptive color to the game, but when the game already has so many detailed rules to keep track of and the players only have a limited amount of time to play each week, adding 'flavor text' requires extra time and energy that no one can spare.
The origins of magic and its workings within the setting of the game often don't get much attention, either. Nearly every setting for D&D includes the concept of wizards guilds or colleges, and supplementary books may contain the names of a few, but it never makes any difference in actual game play. I've seldom seen a player get a discount on magic items by purchasing from an old schoolmate, or be required to pay annual dues to her guild, or wear a particular insignia to represent where she was trained. Magic items also tend to become commonplace in most high-magic settings. Ordinary non-player character citizens are very seldom impressed by magic. It seems old hat, like something you see every day. Someday I'd like to take my wizard character into a small rural village and cast a light spell, and have the locals respond with awe, or even fear, rather than looking at my character as if she's just yawned. I'd like to be required to present my magical credentials to the local authorities when I enter a city, or get into rivalries with other schools, or be very secretive and refuse to tell anyone about my magical training if they ask. Actually I could do that last one, but usually no one asks.
I suppose I may be asking too much to add all this cinematic description to a roleplaying game. If I want cinematic, perhaps I should just watch a movie, or play a console RPG like Skyrim that has exciting cut scenes, or read a book. But I can't help it; the writer and movie watcher in me wants my roleplaying experience to be a little more like a book or movie, and a little less like playing Monopoly.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Magic Without Limits, part 2
As I write I'm sitting here watching my Significant Other play Skyrim. There are a lot of things to like about the magic system in Skyrim: All spells can grow more powerful with the character's level; there are no forbidden schools so you can be good at every kind of spell if you desire; magic is fueled by magicka that regenerates automatically or can be replenished with potions; you can summon magical creatures to your aid freely as long as you have enough magicka; you don't have to spend any time preparing spells or sleep a certain amount before you prep them; and you can wield magic and weapons at the same time. That's not to say that magic is unlimited in the game; you still need magicka, you have to learn spells, and you have to learn special abilities to create magic items. Naturally since Skyrim is a single-player game and your in-game companions can only do so much, character abilities don't have to be as balanced as they would be in a multiplayer game such as a tabletop RPG. In Skyrim your character is the star of the show and doesn't have to share the limelight with anyone. But I still wouldn't mind if tabletop RPG designers would take a page or two from the Skyrim book of magic.
In addition to just the general magic rules, another area where I'd like to see some change is the concept of familiars. In D&D, a wizard can have a familiar that grants the PC some bonuses and advantages. But familiars must be chosen from a limited list of creatures. Most of those creatures are ordinary animals. You have a cat, a rat, or if you're Harry Potter fan, an owl. Sure, familiars are handy, but they're also a bit of a liability. In previous iterations of D&D, if your familiar died, you lost a character level and couldn't summon another familiar for a year. To me that always seemed like rather a harsh punishment when a familiar just gave you a bonus to perception and a conduit through which to cast spells. In general I found few players who were willing to use their familiars to deliver spells for them, since that risked possible injury or death of the familiar and harm to the spellcaster. It just wasn't worth it. The game designers also made odd rulings, such as that bonuses provided by the presence of a familiar were only available if the familiar was within a limited distance of the PC, meaning that if you sent your familiar off to do something you lost your bonus. Having to recalculate bonuses just so my familiar could serve as a messenger never seemed worthwhile, either. I found that when I did have a familiar, I never really made use of it. I was too worried about losing it.
Not only was I frustrated by the liabilities of having a familiar, I was also frustrated by the sheer banality of the familiar choices. I've always felt magic should be mysterious, and at least somewhat unique to the individual. Yes, my mage learned the same spells as every other mage, but why couldn't her spells look different when they took effect, without having to take a special feat to achieve that? And why couldn't her familiar be unique to her, a representation of her personality, not just another cat or rat or bird? I'd like to see a system in which the mage crafts her own familiar, a kind of homonculus, as part of a sort of graduation ceremony. Let the player choose from among a menu of options for the familiar's abilities. And make the familiar a little tougher, so the mage won't have to expend so much energy being concerned about the familiar's safety. Let protective spells cast on the familiar keep it safe even when it is far from the mage character. Perhaps even let it learn to cast a few spells of its own. It should never be as powerful as the PC, but let it do a little more than just add a couple of points to perception rolls. Make familiars unique and interesting and useful.
One can argue that the rules of D&D, at least the 3.5 edition (I know nothing about 4th edition) do allow for a number of the above alterations to familiars. A player can select feats to strengthen and enhance a familiar, to select something other than the standard familiar types, and to allow the familiar and PC to get more benefits out of the relationship. But all of those things are character options that have to be chosen instead of something else. You have to sacrifice being able to do something cool with your own spells in order to do something cool with your familiar. I honestly don't see how allowing familiars to be a little more exciting would seriously unbalance gameplay.
Paizo's Pathfinder RPG has offered a substitution of a bonded magic item in place of a familiar, but that too has limits, and doesn't address the inherent dullness of familiars that I perceive. I just don't want a cat; I want a weird creature that didn't exist until my mage created it. I want something that is inherently mine, something special to me. Pathfinder also offers an alternate character class that can summon a strange creature to serve, but I don't want to have to take a different class (and learn different rules) just to get a weird critter as companion for my character. The closest I've ever come to satisfying my desire for such a creature was having a druid character create a bogun. It wasn't a terribly useful creature, and I had to wait a ridiculously long time to be able to cast the spell, but it did so much toward satisfying my desire for a cool little buddy that was all my own. I never understood why there wasn't an equivalent spells available to wizards.
As another observation, I don't think there should be multiple arcane spellcasting classes anyway. There should just be mages, or wizards, or whatever you choose to call them, and all the different flavors of how spellcasting works should be variations on that base class. If you want to play a wizard who draws magic inherently from within instead of learning spells by rote, you should be able to do that with a minimum of alterations to the core class. I find that in practice the sorcerer class and the wizard class don't really differ that much, particularly since both draw from the same spell list. I've always thought that if you're going to have a class that functions differently, it should do so right down to the basic spells list, no overlaps. If players had more control over the look and feel of their spells, it would make these overlaps less obvious, and less irritating to players like me who want to be unique.
While I'm on a roll, why not let mages use weapons? The argument has always been that wizards spend so much time studying magic they don't have time to learn any combat skills. I don't contend that a wizard should be as good a fighter as, well, a fighter. But at least let my wizard pick up a sword without incurring a penalty. And let me have two attacks per round, like everyone else. Let me attack and then turn invisible, or summon a light and detect magic. Is that really going to ruin it for everyone else? I doubt it. I can concede the argument for not letting spellcasters have increasing iterative attacks like some other classes, but I don't really see the point for keeping them eternally at a single attack per round. I've seen plenty of games where the fighter goes through the battlefield like a whirlwind at higher levels, when fighters can have many attacks per round, while the mage is still stuck in "cast then move" mode. Wizards do have some very powerful high-level spells available to them, but the assumption that the wizard is like a guy with a rocket launcher at a knife fight is exaggerated in my experience. I find that I seldom have the right spell prepared at the right time, or if I have the ultimate spell ready I can't get a clear shot to use it without risking harm to the other player-characters. And most well-prepared GMs will make sure that there's plenty of magical opposition to keep a high-level wizard busy in a boss fight.
Well, that's enough harping about magic rules for now. Perhaps my next entry will be on some issues around the roleplaying of spellcasters that have been on my mind.
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