Simulating Public Opinion

            Understanding the nuances of public opinion is a challenge for me, as it is so hard to pin down what it actually is. Yet, for someone like me – who writes books and runs games where I need to know what entire societies are thinking – it’s important for me to continue striving to understand what they are, where they come from, and how they can be portrayed.

            Through my explorations, I have discovered two key points to understanding the currents of public opinion: the source of information, and how much the person receiving said information trusts the source. For example, one day I read two articles on the same political gathering – one from a right-wing source, and the other from a left-wing source. Due to my own leanings, I instinctively distrusted what was said in one of them, and wanted to believe what was in the other. However, being the type of person I am, the opinion I ended up with was that the truth was partway between the two – though I still favored the one I wanted to believe.

            Another factor that needs to be considered is how readily people will change their opinions. We see a lot of it these days, where one piece of information that goes viral on the internet can take people from thinking someone is amazing to hating them – or vise versa, though this seems to be less common. In many cases, it’s remarkable how easily people will flip their opinions – and they won’t even bother checking into the information before changing their opinions, which is remarkable in this age of satirical news sites and deliberately misleading article titles.

            It appears from this that people are quite fickle, but this isn’t entirely true. While there are some people who will change their opinions at the drop of a hat, there are others who will dig in their heels and refuse to change, and still others who will carefully consider before keeping or altering their opinion. However, the important thing to note about public opinion is that it isn’t really made up of all the opinions of the people who make up the public, and it isn’t even made up of the majority. It is defined by those who speak the loudest, and those who are heard the most. Since the people who refuse to change say the same thing all the time, they tend to blend into the background, and the people who take time to formulate their opinions aren’t there to be vocal at the beginning, this means the bulk of public opinion is formed by those who are fickle. And since having more people supporting an idea puts pressure on others to agree with them, the fickle masses drive and shift the overall perception of the world.

            So, as it turns out, public opinion is simply the opinions of the loudest, most easily swayed individuals in a society. People’s actual opinions can be pushed and swayed by public opinion – because it is within human nature to try to fit in – whereas other people can’t be swayed at all. From a governing perspective, this is a very useful tool – because if you can control the perceived public opinion, you can quiet the people with opposing views – but it isn’t so helpful for my purposes. Yes, it gives me an overall view to present, but it doesn’t help with narrowing down what an individual character thinks.

            For that, it’s important to go back to those two points I mentioned before: where did the person get the information from, and how much do they trust that source? Public opinion can sway them of, of course, but how much of the information has reached them? How diluted has the information become trough the telephone-game? What are their own opinions before receiving the new information? People are more likely to believe something if they want it to be true or if they’re afraid it is true, so how does that impact them?

            That’s all very complicated, though, and while it’s sometimes necessary to go that deep, often it can be simplified into 3 basic views: in favor, neutral, or opposed to any given concept. Sometimes a few more complicated options need to be added, but even with a few more added, it’s fairly simple to define those basic perspectives. From there, one can be designated as the public opinion, and then the others can be assigned to characters as it seems appropriate, and they can even be tweaked from there to personalize them to the character.

            And that is how it becomes possible to realistically simulate the currents of public opinion, based off of my own observations and experience. All opinions are my own.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

A Matter of Perspective

            This morning I was doing a touch of research on a magic item in my Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and I found myself reading an article (more of a rant, really) about what the writer believed to be some of the strangest items that have appeared in the in the D&D multiverse over the years. I found the premise of the article intriguing, but as I read it I found myself to be quite disappointed – because, apart from the basic descriptions of some magic items, everything the person said, from what makes a good D&D game to how magic items come into being, was wrong.

            Okay, not wrong; let’s be fair here. This was an opinion piece, and therefore couldn’t be wrong. However, the writer was suffering from the delusion that how they play and think about D&D is the one and only way to play and think about it – and, as a result, greatly misrepresented the entire game.

            They started off by explaining that every magical item must be made by someone, and therefore a lot of the more ridiculous magic items have no right to exist – because who would bother investing the large amount of time and resources needed in creating – for example – a ring that makes the person wearing it disagree with whatever anyone else says to them. Now, the beginning of the argument is sound. It does take considerable time and resources to make a magical object, however there are two very important considerations left out: the first is that a great many cursed items were created to guard treasures and strongholds from thieves, and the second is that people can make mistakes while crafting a magical item and end up with something entirely different from what they intended. These two points explain the existence of any magical item imaginable.

            It’s also worth mentioning that the writer stumbled upon the latter of these two points part way through the list – with a magic item that specifically states in its description that it was a mistake – but they failed to amend the premise at the beginning, making me wonder if they didn’t think of it, couldn’t be bothered, or didn’t make the connection that other magical items could be mistakes as well.

            A few numbers in came another comment – about an item that gives players a bonus for agricultural abilities for a year. The writer went on at length about how any game where such a thing would be useful would mean there’s something wrong with the game. A later comment about an item that allows anything to be turned into something edible is that someone who is worried about that is missing the greater point of D&D.

            From this, I gathered that the writer believes D&D is about one thing: delving into dungeons, defeating monsters, and leveling up. And, you know what? That’s true of one type of D&D game – called a dungeon crawl. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s dangerous, and it’s essentially the same as playing a hack-and-slash video game. However, D&D offers far more than that. It can be a survival game, where a lack of food might actually become a serious problem. It can be a game focused on the story, where the dungeons are hardly important at all. It could be focused on the roleplaying aspect, which could even lead to never even going into a dungeon at all – indeed, even spending a year tending a farm.

            In fact, the game actually has a large number of rules laid out for “downtime”, which is when players aren’t out adventuring. Because, let’s face it – there are only so many adventures to be had, and even the most seasoned adventurers need a break some time. There can be weeks, months, even years between adventures – and there’s a lot of fun to be had in those times as well.

            The final statement that told me a lot about the writer was that an item known as the Wand of Wonder was included on this list. This is a magic item that causes a random effect when used, from powerful offensive magic to a harmless cloud of butterflies. The writer believes this is a useless item, because of its unpredictability – would you carry a gun into battle that sometimes shoots bubbles and sometimes shoots bullets? Which tells me everything I need to know about this person. They believe that D&D is a combat game, and all that matters is making your character as powerful as possible. Which is perfectly acceptable for some games, but it isn’t representative of all D&D games.

            Why would you take such an item into battle as your weapon? Because this is a game, and that wand can do some amazing things. What’s more, it provides a wonderful storytelling opportunity because you don’t know what’s going to happen until you use it – and I grantee that the big bad villain getting peppered with butterflies will be a moment everyone at the table remembers and laughs about for a long time!

            So, if you find yourself so inclined to write an article about the odd magic items in D&D, try to do your research and find the items that truly are wacky (they exist!) rather than rather ordinary ones that have no point for your preferred style of play.

            In fact, if you find yourself inclined to write about anything, particularly if you’re presenting something in a less-than-positive light, take the time to find out why things are being done the way they are. You may discover that your frustration comes from your particular outlook on the subject, and that if you take the time to understand someone else’s experiences you may come to understand why things are the way they are. This may not make you any happier about it, but at least your article will come across as enlightened.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Artistic Judgement

            One of the fun (here, fun means “horrible”) things about being an artist – no matter the medium – is an inability to judge the quality of your own work. Or, rather, we can judge our own work, but we do so on a scale of Dreadful to I Guess It’s Kinda Okay.

            When I was just out of high school, and still fairly new to making chainmaille, I made a project that was my then-crowning achievement. It was a chainmaille vest made using a pattern known as elf-weave – one of the most complicated chainmaille weaves in existence. The shirt has over 100 hours of work in it, and looks great. But it has a flaw in it. Somehow, while I was making it, I managed to combine two rows into one, losing half a row.

            Even though the flaw isn’t visible to anyone not looking for it – and someone without excellent pattern recognition skills is unlikely to spot it – it is very hard to see. But to me, the creator, that tiny flaw is a horrible oversight, all but ruining the shirt.

            Talk to any artist and they’ll tell you similar tales. Ask them about a specific project and they’ll be able to tell you every flaw in minute detail. This line is out of place, that note was performed slightly off, and that part that goes in should have gone out but it couldn’t be fixed without destroying the whole thing.

            Each new created piece of artwork that manages to meet the artist’s approval is the best piece they’ve made to date – in fact, it’s so good, it makes all the previous pieces rubbish. Not that it’s any good....

            I think that this harsh self-judgement is part of what pushes artists forward, encouraging them to strive to improve their craft and make more projects. But, at the same time it’s disheartening, because nothing is ever good enough. People may shower our work with praise, but can’t they see that flaw right there? They must be lying.

            What is it that makes a creator so hard on their work? Seeing all the minute details that they had to be aware of in order to create it. An outside observer – even other artists – didn’t painstakingly draw each line, write each word, or link each ring together. As such, they look at the whole – the completed project. They don’t see the mistakes, because they have no idea that they are mistakes. They’re too busy being distracted by everything that was done right to notice what was done wrong.

            A valuable lesson that all artists should learn is how to step back from the project and observe it without their artistic lens. It is true that we must always strive to better our art, but sometimes we need to step back, look at the whole, and appreciate what we’ve accomplished. Otherwise we may forget how well we’re doing and give up.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Individual Experiences

            When you look at the world, sometimes it’s hard to believe that society is as functional as it is. Yes, it could be much better, but it could be far worse as well. It all comes down to one thing: the perspective of each individual person in the world.

            When it comes right down to it, everyone has their own unique experience – and, therefore, perspective – of life, the universe and everything. That doesn’t mean there aren’t similarities. In fact, there are so many similarities that we fool ourselves into thinking that everyone knows certain things that are intrinsic to our lives.

            Each of us builds up our own little world around ourselves and core values. When someone doesn’t understand something that is a major part of our lives, we’re often shocked. Not with things we know are aberrant – for example, I never expect people to know what LARP is, and several years of my life centred around that. On the other hand, when people don’t know what chainmaille is (and I’ve encountered a large number of them), I’m truly shocked. It’s not only something that’s historical, but it’s present in a large number of books and movies. Plus, it’s even used for modern day purposes by butchers and loggers (and some police forces, I’m given to understand).

            Now, for me, chainmaille is obviously a normal thing – since I make it for a living. Before that it was a hobby, but even prior to then I knew what it was. I’ve been obsessed with fantasy since The Hobbit was read to me when I was five – you can’t get very far in that genre without knowing what chainmaille is. So when someone doesn’t know, I suddenly have to adjust my perspective to accommodate someone who hasn’t read any of my favorite books, seen my favorite movies, or been exposed to any of the things I’m most passionate about. And it’s not because the opportunity hasn’t been available to them, but because their interests are so vastly different than mine that they’ve never investigated them.

            That’s simply from my own experience – everyone has interests that others don’t understand. Everyone has their own perspective and their own ways of looking at the world. Everyone has a great many things that they don’t know about and can’t even begin to understand.

            Yet, somehow, society holds together. In spite of vastly different views on everything from... well, just on everything (the list is too long and I’m tired), the world functions. I think that’s incredible. I mean, yes, as a totally accepting person, I think that’s how it should be, but the world in general isn’t an accepting place.

            So, how is it that, in a world where there are so many people less accepting than me who, were they in my place, would say to kill everyone who doesn’t know what chainmaille is (to be fair, there are far worse ideas), how is it that the human race has survived everyone’s individual experiences? How has society not collapsed?

            It’s hard to believe.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Aliens and Abduction

            While I’ve always been open to the idea of other life in the universe (it’s such a big place, after all), I’ve also always been quite sceptical about the idea of said life abducting and experimenting on humans. Then I had a look at how humans treat the wildlife of the planet.

            Now, I’m not suddenly a believer in such things, but my scepticism has shifted from “That’s ridiculous, why would they do such a thing?” to “Well... we do it, why wouldn’t they?”

            Our biologists and other experts regularly traipse out into the wild. They will observe animals in their natural habitats and, sometimes, capture them. They will then do various medical examinations on the animals before releasing them. Sometimes, they’ll tag them or give them tracking collars – or implants.

            This all seems quite normal to us, but what must it be like from the animals’ perspective? Does a captured sloth, upon being returned to its family, saying (very slowly), “I swear! I was abducted by humans! They experimented on me and put in this implant.” The poor thing would, of course, be met with jeers. “Phaw! Humans don’t exist! Even if they did, they wouldn’t experiment on you.”

            So, I’ve come to conclude that, in the unlikely event that there is a species out there so advanced and so different from humans that they view us as wild animals, there is a possibility that they would abduct and experiment on humans.

            On the other hand, for a species to be so vastly different from humans that they need to study us to understand us, I wonder if we aren’t imposing upon these hypothetical beings more human nature than they would have.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.