The current strip is our reponse to the vagaries of Our Times. Valkyrie's quarterly turnaround means that political cartooning is nigh impossible; with the Taliban going from entrenched to daisy-cutter chow in a matter of days, we decided on a deeper study of ethics and responsibility: The issue of when to blow up your fantasy planet.

Why do gamers love their characters so much, but GMs, after such hard work and toil, kick their worlds in the nethers as soon as they get a little fed up?

It has to do with good old-fashioned unbridled power. The kind that corrupts absolutely; the breakfast that Ringwraiths come running for. If you can destroy something, well, jiminy, go and destroy it! Video game technology is only now beginning to catch up to the idea that instead of limiting the player to just killing his fellow creatures, he or she should be able to destroy anything on the screen (a la Twisted Metal: Black).

When applied to the carefully crafted realm of Paper & Pencil RPGs, this means an instant perpetual Wheel of Samsara, gamers gluttoning themselves on infinite and eternal multiverses of pain and suffering. GMs have long arranged for beings to exist only to perish, all faith, hope, charity, mercy and pity not staying their dice-chucking hands.

We just thought a small consideration of this attitude was necessary in the light that some Great Gamer In The Sky has been fooling around with the "Disaster" button on his ultimate 3-D version of Sim City– and playing with various war sims and secret agent first-person shooters too. He might be getting bored. With us.

Bored gods are very very dangerous things, just slightly more dangerous than some bored idiot who thinks he's a god, and has goddish powers at his command. It's a reliable part of the vicious cycle of absolute power, which always turns back to somebody declaring war on the entire planet, who doesn't really care if– or secretly hopes that– it goes up in an exciting burst of fire and screams. Just ask Gollum. Or just ask the government of Spain, whose long ordeal under fascism* has taught them what big evil really is. And how to be politic in warning the world about its return.

So here's a toast to all the sane gamers out there. Yes, you, the roleplayers. The ones that want their characters to live, to enjoy the mystery and struggle of free will, the ones who are willing to learn from their sub-creations instead of just dominate them– or even just to watch them heap up fabulous amounts of treasure and run debauched through their fantasy worlds' streets. Let's show to ourselves and our children that life is in the living, and instead of roasting the creations of our minds, we have enough restraint, courage and self-respect to let them find, in time, relative happiness.

Because, precious, power gamers don't kill. But a power gamer's attitude, sooner or later, will.

Related story:
The Lord of the Rings

*Actual fascism. Not "oo, I'll say 'Hitler' to make my point about X uncontestable" fascism.

NASA Loses Manned Jupiter Mission
All Hands Perish; Agency Set to Close

The ill-fated Discovery  mission to Jupiter. Oh well.

by CHRIS ADAMS for Radio Free Wyhtl
 
CAPE CANAVERAL, 30 December 2001
After losing several probes, a manned interstellar flight and the moon itself, NASA's book came to close today when it was reported that a secret manned mission to seek aid from a higher alien intelligence has ended in the demise of all aboard.