unlike a lot of angry folks, i have no real problem with people who have cultivated their assets over a few generations and have a million or two in property and investments. that’s something you can actually do with hard work, time, and enough luck that medical surprises or other misfortune doesn’t take it from you. i know actually quite a few families that could pool that much across three generations or a handful of siblings and cousins. that’s the kind of wealth that gave rise to the story of wealth being the result of hard work and intelligence – because if there are a couple doctors or lawyers in the family, or someone bought IBM stock in the 70′s, some attention and elbow grease can give you seven figure results.
which is NOT to say ‘everyone can do it, if you’re poor you’re just not trying’. there are a lot of factors that go into that, and a lucky start is the biggest one. in america, abled whites get that lucky start a lot more than everyone else, and yadda yadda you know the rest.
but the point is, people with like 1.5 million, or 4 million, can end up there by taking advantage of their luck and applying work to it over decades. if that’s what their priority is, of course. so i don’t look at someone with a lake house and an investment portfolio and instantly think EVIL BAD. i think: i don’t really agree with their priorities and we probably wouldn’t get along socially, but the instinct to grow your family’s prosperity is universal, and i’m not going to condemn them without evidence of wrongdoing.
ok, that said?
the ultra-rich?
the billionaires? the hundreds-of-billions-aires?
monstrous.
you cannot cultivate money like that. you cannot grow it as a family project. it starts with an absurd windfall, and then you grow it through crimes compounding upon crimes. crimes against humanity, if not crimes by the law. you acquire billions by making money your god, and flushing your soul down the toilet.
Death offers a game for your life. You decide on D&D.
“I assume you’ve never played?” I asked.
The cloaked figure across from me shook their head slowly.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll be the DM. I’ll walk you through everything. First, character creation.”
Six hours later Death sat leaned over the table with a mountain dew in one hand and a D20 in the other. Their hood was thrown back to reveal a bleached grinning skull.
We were in the company of four infernals from the depths of the Abyss. I don’t remember which of us invited each of them. Turned out we had quite a few friends in common.
They rolled a one.
“Oohh, tough luck,” I said with a smile.
“Fuck. This is the best time I’ve had in centuries, but I really should get back to work,” they said reluctantly.
“Yeah…” One of the demons agreed. “I actually have a meeting with some senators in like an hour.”
“Same time next week?” Death asked.
“I’ll be here,” I agreed.
I suspected they knew before we started that this was a game that didn’t have to have an end and didn’t have a winner.
For those who don’t know, this xkcd strip was done as a memorial when Gary Gygax died.
They came back the next week, and the week after that. After a month of weekly sessions, Death pulled me aside.
“Hey,” he muttered, shuffling his skeletal feet a bit and rubbing his arm. “I don’t want to be That Guy, but this game does have an end, right? I’m having a blast, but this is still technically work for me, and I have to file reports, especially with all the loopholes I had to pull on to get a multi-session game approved in the first place.”
“Oh, yeah, for sure!” I told him. “There’s lots of ways for it to end. “Your characters could all die, we could finish the story we’re telling together, or our group could even just stop playing.”
Satisfied, he took his place at the table, but for months thereafter, he would cock his head at me every time I ended a session with excitement to play again. All I could do was shrug.
The weeks turned into months, turned into years, and Death stopped his reminders that our game, like everything else in the world, would eventually have to die. He told me, once, that he was determined to see this through to the end because my absurdly long game would make for a good story, but I think he had grown attached to his gnome cleric. Her magic was from the Life domain, and his grin always seemed just a touch wider every time he healed someone.
Half a decade after we began, my players were as seasoned as their level 20 characters, and I was running out of curveballs that would challenge them, so I wrote an end to the campaign. I spent months on it, carefully tying up every loose plot thread I could think of and giving all five members of the party the best resolution I could muster. Three of them got married to each other.
There were tears flowing from every eye that wasn’t an empty socket as I narrated their proverbial rides into the sunset, before finally I folded my screen, looked at each of them in turn, and said “The end. Death, you can take my soul now.”
He froze, and the demons around the table turned as one to stare at him.
Then, slowly, he cocked his head the same way he used to. “But you won,” he said. “The object of the game is to tell a story with your friends, and you did.”
“But so did you!” I cried. “And everyone knows that when Death wins a game, he gets your soul.”
Death’s grin spread wider than it ever had when he saved someone’s life in-game. “Didn’t you just finish pouring it into a game that you shared with me?”
Death By Catchphrase 