Only, I haven't had a pen and paper diary since high school, senior year. And the livejournal I created to replace it died off so long ago, it might as well be a different age. So I'm going to vent about life here, and at the end, I'll probably find some clever twist to apply it all to gaming.
That justifies things, right?
I want to start this with a single statement: I am not a bad person. If I had to assign myself a D&D style alignment, I would either be chaotic or neutral good. I believe that generally the law is in the right, and that people should be good to each other. But I struggle with depression and anxiety, which can lead to putting important things off.
But I would be far from the only person to struggle with procrastination. And lately, after getting on delicious, mind altering (but prescribed) drugs, I am dealing with things much better.
And then today happened, and the sky came crashing down.
The story starts on a dark September night. It's three am, overcast, and I'm driving along ill-lit roads. In front of me a rotary that I've driven through during the day a thousand times. But never from this direction. There's no other cars on the road. So I crawl up to the rotary entrance, look around, find that I'm the only traveler on the lonely road, and pull into the circle.
And suddenly there are flashing blue lights behind me, lighting up the night in strobes of near blinding light. I pull over, the police man asks me what I did, and I'm truly confused. Turns out that there was a stop sign before the rotary entrance, not a yield. Which is different than every other entrance onto the dang thing.
He runs my id, and comes back, hands it to me, and tells me I can be on my way.
Now, here's the thing. Memories are odd things. More and more science is realizing that memories aren't reliable at all. They get turned and twisted every time we think of something, tainted by our emotions. But if you had asked me yesterday, if you had pointed a gun at my boyfriend's head and demanded to know what had happened that night, I would have said this: he pulled me over. Informed me I ran a stop sign. We laughed about it a little, laughed even more that it's the only stop sign on the rotary. He left to run my id, came back, handed it to me, and sent me on my way.
I don't recall him handing me a ticket. Even now, after going through my afternoon, I just cannot get a visual of him walking out to my car, and handing me a ticket. Why? Well, I deal with pretty insane anxiety, and I loathe getting any sort of ticket. And I specifically remember a palpable sense of relief that flowed through me after I drove away. A feeling that said, "that went so much better than it could have."
So it makes no sense to me that the night went differently than I remember. But it must have. Because today I got pulled over for my inspection sticker being out of date. I know, I know. My fault. In fact, I knew it was out of date. So totally my fault. This is the pesky procrastination I was talking about.
Three blocks away from getting home today, blue lights flashed behind me. I rolled my eyes, because two or three weeks ago I got pulled over for going seven miles over the speed limit on the highway. Getting pulled over twice in a month is not like me at all, so I was annoyed. More, I hadn't been doing anything wrong.
So the officer comes up, and asks if I knew my inspection was out of date, and I wanted to smack my forehead. Of course I knew that. I was already resigned to the fact that I was going to get a ticket, MA is serious about their inspections. But the cop came over to my car after running my id, frowning.
"Excuse me, sir," he said (my id is still registered to my dead name), "do you know that the town of Ayer has a warrant out for your arrest."
I gaped at him. I am not a criminal. I don't rob convenience stores. I don't steal cars. I don't even trespass. So what in god's name would I have a warrant out for?!
"Well," he says, "do you remember getting pulled over?"
I did. I told him the story.
"And you know that was a warning?" he asks, and now I'm staring at him in horror.
"Uh... yes?" I say, trying to warp my memory into anything but what it's giving me without success.
"Wrong. You got a ticket. It looks like you had a Michigan licence at the time?"
"Oh. Yeah, I did, I was right in the process of moving."
"Well, you didn't pay your ticket. At because you haven't paid, as of last Tuesday you have an active warrant."
I'm panicking at this point. "Umm, okay, so... what does that mean exactly?"
"It means you're going to jail, sir. I need you to step out of the car."
So I stepped out, and got handcuffed, and put in the back of a police van. It was nice outside, and people walked all around, staring. And all I could think was, why is this happening?! What the hell?!
But I knew there was nothing I could do. So I managed to remain polite, and credit to the officers, they were all polite about everything too. They took me to the police station. Booked me. Made me take one of those profile picture things. Printed me. And then said, "alright, we're going to put you in a cell. But since you don't have a record, we just have to wait for the bondswoman to come release you. Your bail will be negligible since this is your very first arrest. She should be here in an hour or so."
Five hours later she finally arrived. Five. Hours. Later.
But the police did give me a tattered blanket and a tuna sandwich for dinner. They even gave me a soda to wash it down with. And as annoyed as I was, again, the officers were incredibly friendly about it all. So, happy privilege I guess.
I got out almost six hours after arriving, took a Lyft to get my car out of the towing company's lot where the police had stashed it, and finally I'm home. I have a court date tomorrow, and a brand new understanding of the entire arrest procedure that I would really like to refund.
So, how does this apply to gaming? Well, I did come away with all that insider knowledge, so, maybe we can go with that.
Town Guards and Police in Game
When utilizing the town guard and the police, most of the time they come in guns blazing or swords swinging. Rarely do they take the time to talk to characters about things. They are usually invoked because players have gotten out of control. But instead of throwing nameless mobs at your players, think about the following:
- Your security enforcement officers don't want to die. They will put their lives on the line if they have to, but only as a last defense.
- Your security enforcement is just doing their job. They want things to move as smoothly as possible, because that means less danger for everyone.
- Instead of getting up in your face, many security enforcement officers will instead try to calm a situation down.
Granted, all of those things are enhanced by my very white privilege, and wouldn't always hold true. But the most surprising thing of this evening to me, was just how friendly everyone was. No one there hated me, they were just doing their jobs. It was a perspective I've never thought about before.
But the real lesson here? Don't trust your memories. They will betray you at every point. Be vigilant. Never sleep. And never listen to your mind, it's a raving lunatic that can't be trusted.
So, uh, have a good night. I'll be back with regular content soon.
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