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Archives for August 2019

Mike’s Free Encounter #9: Alena Trel the Eye Piercer

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This is the ninth in an ongoing series aimed to provide the overworked DM with ready-to run encounters. The PCs encounter the legendary assassin Alena Trel the Eye Piercer. A CR 5+ encounter.

The encounter includes:

  • History/Background for Alena and her team.
  • Encounter guide.
  • New Magic Items: Assassin’s Crossbow and Gloves of the Crossbowperson.
  • New Items: Kelok’s Light Crossbow and Kelok’s Heavy Crossbow.
  • Two Color Maps.

The companion ZIP file contains:

  • JPEG and Campaign Cartographer versions of the maps (with and without grid).
  • Hero Lab file for the encounter.
  • Word file of the encounter.
  • PDF of the character sheets for all the monsters.

Free on DriveThruRPG!

Deathworld & School Shootings

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My adopted state of Florida, like many other states, is trying to address the problem of school shootings. Since the state legislature is not inclined to address the gun component of shootings, the focus has been on security: armed guards in all schools, hardened facilities, cameras, monitoring social media, and software designed to collect and collate data on students. Having recently reread Harry Harrison’s sci-fi novel Deathworld, I was struck by the similarities between the story and Florida’s official approach to school shootings. In the novel, a human colony is struggling to survive a world of ever-increasing hostility. The colonists respond to the threat by hardening the colony structures and arming the colonists—even the children.

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The main character of the novel is an outsider who is thus able to see the situation from a different perspective than the colonists. He does not simply accept the constant danger as a fact of life, nor does he assume that the only response to the threat should be improving the colony’s defenses. Instead he wants to consider the cause of the hostility and asks the critical question: why is the colony under attack? When he merely suggests this as an option, he is met with incredible hostility and even violence—for the colonists, to consider why it is happening and to think about options other than hardening the colony and arming the colonists are seen as unthinkable awful.

This is analogous to how Florida and other states are approaching school shootings: the focus is on shoring up the defenses of schools and countering the threat of guns in schools by putting armed guards in schools.

While many Republicans are willing to blame video games, the internet and mental illness for mass shootings, efforts to determine the actual causes are met with denial and hostility. For example, the Dickey amendment has effectively prevented the use of federal funds to research gun violence.

It could be contended that the Republicans are offering explanations, although they have (like the colonists) focused entirely on armed defense. While it is certainly true that they are putting forth explanations, these explanations have no real merit—as has been argued in previous essays.

Democrats tend to fixate on guns as the cause, which leads some pro-gun people to unceasing repetition of the mantra that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” On the one hand, this is true: guns are tools that lack moral agency, they do not kill (aside from accidents) unless they are used by a person to kill.  

Guns are not like cursed magical swords that can kill on their own or force their wielders to commit murder—most gun owners never engage in gun violence. People can obviously also kill by means other than guns—knifes, bombs and vehicles are popular tools of murder around the world.

On the other hand, to “say guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and use that to justify doing nothing about guns is analogous to saying, “drugs don’t get people high, people get people high. If the line works for guns, then it should also apply to drugs as well—and to anything that people can use in a dangerous way (such as poison, radioactive material, anthrax and such).  As such if this mantra warrants doing nothing about guns, then it warrants doing nothing about anything people use to harm themselves or others. This approach is certainly an option and some drugs have been decriminalized and even legalized, so perhaps the same should apply to guns as well. But this analogy does have value—almost everyone has easy access to drugs, but most people do not use heroin.

While it is true that if there were no drugs, there would be no drug problem there is the obvious fact that there is more to the drug problem than the existence of drugs. As such, simply getting rid of drugs would not solve the problems that lead people to use drugs. In the novel, the hero learns that the planetary life is trying to kill the colonists because the colonists are killers—ironically, the more they try to solve the problem with guns and security, the worse the problem becomes. So perhaps getting rid of guns would solve the problem of gun violence.

Eliminating all guns would eliminate gun violence—but it would not address why people engage in that violence and people can, as they have done, turn to other means to engage in violence. An obvious reply is that eliminating guns would significantly reduce violence, even if it would obviously not eliminate all of it. This is what happens in the novel—when the colonists change their approach, everything is not perfect—but the colony is far safer.

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Mike’s Free Encounter #8: Bonewalkers

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This is the eighth in an ongoing series aimed to provide the overworked DM with ready-to run encounters. The PCs encounter orcs from the necromantic Bonewalker tribe exploring the ruins of a temple. A CR 2+ encounter.

The encounter includes:

  • History/Background for the Bonewalker tribe.
  • Encounter guide.
  • New Monster: Bonewalker.
  • New Monster: Boneguard.
  • New Magic Item: Standard of the Necromancer.
  • Two Color Maps.

The companion ZIP file contains:

  • JPEG and Campaign Cartographer versions of the maps (with and without grid).
  • Hero Lab file for the encounter.
  • Word file of the encounter.
  • PDF of the character sheets for all the monsters.

Free on DriveThruRPG.

Mental Illness & Gun Violence

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It seems a matter of common sense to think that a mass shooter must have “something wrong” with them. Well-adjusted, moral people do not engage in mass murder. But are mass shooters mentally ill? Mental illness is a medical matter, not a matter for common sense pop psychology to resolve.

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Looked at in strict medical terms, mentally ill people do not make up the majority of mass shooters and about 3% of violent criminals are mentally ill. The mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence rather than perpetrators. Violence on the part of the mentally ill tends to be self-directed rather than directed at others.

Self-injury is certainly a matter of concern, but mass shootings and gun violence are not, if one looks at the data, primarily a mental health issue. While the mentally ill commit some gun violence, focusing on mental illness as a primary means to reduce gun violence would be an error—except to address cases of self-harm.

It could be objected that the definition of mental illness used above is too narrow—engaging in a mass shooting is clear evidence of mental illness since a sane person would not do this. While this does have some appeal, expanding the scope of mental illness to automatically include those who engage in mass shootings as mentally ill would be problematic.

One obvious concern is that soldiers and police who have engaged in shootings with multiple casualties would thus be classified as mentally ill. In war, soldiers regularly kill large numbers of people, including the innocent and unarmed. Yet they are not classified as mentally ill simply because they use violence as a tool to achieve their ends (or the ends of others).

It could be countered that soldiers and the police (usually) use violence legally and rationally while mass shooters and people engaging in other gun violence do not. While it is true that mass shootings and gun violence are illegal, mass shooters do often act from grievances and ideology—just as soldiers are sent to kill to address grievances and in accord with an ideology. As such, killing people for these reasons does not make someone mentally ill, unless we want to classify combat veterans as mentally ill. As far as the legal aspect is concerned, breaking the law hardly seems to show someone is mentally ill, otherwise all criminals would be insane and thus would always succeed in the insanity defense.

A second concern is that assuming mass shooters are mentally ill would seem to eliminate the notion of evil. If people do bad things because of mental illness, then they are not evil in a morally meaningful sense. While this could be true, such an approach to evil would need to be applied consistently and not just to mass shootings. So, for example, when terrorists crash planes into buildings or blow up a wedding, they are just suffering from mental illness and are not evil. One could attempt to work out accounts of ethics and mental illness that put the blame for gun violence on mental illness while putting the blame for terrorism on evil, but this would certainly be challenging. After all, if a white supremacist kills people with guns because he is mentally ill, then the same would apply to a member of ISIS who kills people with guns or bombs. Interesting enough, while Republicans and the NRA rush to blame mass shootings on mental illness, they do not do the same for terrorism or other crimes—it is interesting to compare the rhetoric used by the same person to describe these situations. This is not to say that a case cannot be made for eliminating the concept of evil in favor of the concept of mental illness—but this must be done in a principled manner and applied consistently.

In light of the above discussion, the mental illness explanation for mass shootings (and gun violence) does not provide an adequate account. While seriously addressing mental illness would be laudable, it would not eliminate mass shootings and would have an insignificant impact on violence (other than self-inflicted violence). This is not to say that mental illness should not be addressed—it should! But to give speeches about mental illness to explain gun violence is an error and a distraction from addressing the significant causes of gun violence.

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The Value of Mass Shootings

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On the face of it, the value generated by a mass shooting is negative. People are murdered and injured. But it is important to go beneath the bloody surface and explore the depths in terms of value.

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From an economic standpoint, a mass shooting has obvious negative value; but it also has positive economic value for some. Most obviously there is the death cost of a mass shooting. There is lost income, lost taxes, lost consumption of goods and services, and funeral expenses. The injured also suffer economic loss—they typically must pay their own medical expenses and they lose time from their life. But the medical bills they pay are income for others.

While it does not always occur, the building where a mass shooting occurs is sometimes closed and replaced. This comes at a high cost but does generate positive value for those constructing the new building.

A common response to mass shootings, especially those in schools, is to increase security. Guards are hired, people are trained, buildings are hardened, software is purchased—a loss for some, a gain for others.

While it might seem odd, the gun industry can benefit economically from a mass shooting. After the most recent shootings in August, the stock of gun manufacturers increased. This is because people think that tougher gun laws might be passed, so there is a rush to buy weapons and ammunition. However, the long-term impact of mass shootings on the gun industry is likely to be negative. While the above are important (most especially the deaths and injuries) my focus will be on the political value of mass shootings.

Republican politicians clearly recognize the political value of mass shootings—at least to Democrats who favor gun control. When a mass shooting occurs, two standard tactics are to assert that it is not time to talk about gun control and to accuse Democrats of trying to score political points. I will consider each of these in turn.

The assertion that after a mass shooting is not the right time to talk about gun control does have some merit. Emotion driven decisions made in haste tend to be inferior to those resulting from cool and deliberate consideration. A good example of this is the flood of laws passed in response to 9/11. That said, there is also a negative side to waiting for people to cool down: motivation and political will can fade thus leading to nothing being done. When people debated acting against slavery in the United States, there was a similar dispute between those who proposed gradualism and those who demanded action. Those in favor of immediate action often used an analogy to rescuing people from a fire: gradually removing them from a burning house would be a terrible idea. Likewise for addressing slavery and, perhaps, gun violence.

One obvious response to the Republicans who use this tactic is to point out that they do not hold to it consistently—they say it after every mass shooting, but not across the board in situations of intense emotion and calls for hasty action. As such, it seems likely they are using the “not the time” rhetorical device. The goal of this device is not to call for calm deliberation but to delay or prevent action. Since the Republicans tend to not act against gun violence, it seems reasonable to infer that they are using “not the time” rhetorically rather than as a serious call for calm deliberation. Now to the second tactic. To be fair, Democrats who use this rhetorical tactic against Republicans are equally as guilty of using it.

When the Democrats try to act in response to a mass shooting, Republican politicians typically accuse them of trying to score political points (of playing politics). Ironically, people who make this accusation often seem to be trying to score political points by accusing the other side of trying to score political points.

On the one hand, this charge can have merit. If a Democrat is cynically using a mass shooting politically without care or concern for the victims, then they would be acting in a morally problematic way. That said, there is the question of whether a specific accused Democrat is doing this or not—the challenge is to determine their motivation. While this is relevant to the ethics of the person, what is more important is that motivations are irrelevant to whether the person’s claims are true and whether their proposals are good.

Attacking someone for playing politics and rejecting their claims would be to fall into a type of ad hominem which could be called the “accusation of playing politics fallacy.” The form is as follows:

Premise 1: Politician A accuses politician B of trying to score political points by playing politics about subject S.

Premise 2: Politician B makes claim C about subject S.

Conclusion: Claim C is false.

This is obviously bad logic—even if one politician is trying to score political points, this does not prove that their claim is not true. While assessing their motives is relevant to assessing their ethics, their motives have no bearing on their claim being true or false.

The “accusation of playing politics” can also be a rhetorical device—it can be seen as a type of red herring in which one tries to switch the discussion from one issue to another. In the case of mass shootings, the goal is to switch the issue from whether there should be more gun control to whether Democrats are playing politics. The end game is, of course, to keep attention away from the original issue.

This is not to deny that Democrats and Republicans are playing politics. Democrats do try to use mass shootings to get more gun laws passed, Republicans try to prevent this with the two methods described above. Some pro-gun people also try to score political points off mass shootings by appealing to fear that the Democrats will try to do something about mass shootings. But what is important, at least to people who would prefer less mass shootings, is addressing the problem of mass shootings and gun violence. This does require doing politics and the time to do so, as always, is now.

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Mike’s Free Encounter #7: Capraemortu

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This is the seventh in an ongoing series aimed to provide the overworked DM with ready-to run encounters. The PCs encounter a hunting party of Ashenhounds and Capraemortu in search of bones to offer as tribute to Shadash.

 It includes a history/background for the encounter, a map, new magic items, and monster stats.

The companion ZIP file contains JPEG versions of the maps (with and without grid), a Hero Lab file, the Word file of the encounter, and a PDF with character sheets for all the monsters.

Scalable from CR1 all the way to CR TPK. 

Free on DriveThruRPG

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