Tiny Victories

Celebrating a Simple Life

It’s pretty commonly known that I absolutely love halflings. The first product ever released by Barrel Rider Games was halfling themed. I wrote The Shire supplement and the accompany Adventures for The One Ring Starter Set. The lead designer of The One Ring and creator of the War of the Ring board game, Francesco Nepitello even gave me the nickname “The American Hobbit.” This last bit is a particular point of pride for me. Outside of the RPG industry, the love of halflings runs deep. I live a rural life in a town of 200 people. My wife and I have, at different points in our life, kept bees, raised chickens, and grown our own tobacco. I smoke a tobacco pipe and love simple, hearty food.

Halflings are small creatures that treasure the small gifts of life. A good conversation with a loved one, a nice piece of fried fish, or just hearing a song that makes you smile. That’s what gives them strength. These tiny victories mean more than glory and gold to halflings. These tiny joys, tiny treasures, and tiny victories are a cornerstone of so many of the things I love to write and try to include these values in the games I write. They’re especially present in The Hero’s Journey and even more so in the forthcoming Disturbers of the Peace. I wanted to take a moment to talk about these tiny things and why they mean so much to me and show up so often in my writing.

This is my daughter and she’s amazing. She’s as clever and indomitable as a dragon, as agile as a cat. I’ve never met anyone in my life who experiences joy as deeply and completely as my daughter. She laughs loudly and freely, celebrates the tiniest slice of happiness as if it were new and fresh every time. She’s amazing.

She’s also diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder. She’s non-verbal and in spite of her uncanny gross motor ability, does not have the fine motor skills to sign. She makes limited use of an AAC device and has very limited means of communication with the world around her. Her fine motor difficulties are extensive. Things like making a point were her fingers are difficult and this level of difficulty extends to vocal cord and bowel control. In addition, and likely because of these struggles that no child should have to struggle with, she has pretty severe anxiety that can manifest when communication is difficult as emotional outbursts.

She is also among the small minority of those diagnosed with ASD who is sensory seeking instead of sensory adverse. This means that the stereotpyical image of the withdrawn, introverted ASD person is the opposite of how Trixie presents. She craves sensory input and needs it to regulate. Loud music, constant motion, tactical sensory things like Play Doh and sand. Without this sensory input, she becomes anxious and disregulated. This also means she craves these things to remain calm and to sleep. This makes sleeping difficult for her because to get calm enough to actually fall asleep she needs sensory input that can range from the above sources of stimulation to loud, often discordant music, or deep pressure sensory input like hugs, or tickling. Then as sleep starts to set in, her body craves more sensory input, thus creating a cycle.

Moreover, as she becomes more exhausted, her motor planning becomes even more of a struggle for her, thus increasing her frustration. That frustration makes her motor planning more difficult. You see this terrible feedback loop. These motor planning issues can include her body doing things she’s not able to control or against what she’s actually trying to do. A hug can turn into a hard pinch, a kiss into a bite, or seemingly out of nowhere her body might simply do something that appears is completely random and unrelated to the circumstance at hand. She might go to her AAC device and want to hit the button that says “Drink,” but instead hits the one that says “Popcorn,” “Car,” or “Angry.” It is a horrible, self-sabotaging cycle to be stuck in for her.

An important note that is easy for people to forget is that she is in all manners of intellect and awareness, like any other eight-year-old. She knows her efforts to communicate, to regulate, to interact, and even to use her own body seem thrawted at every front. She is betrayed by her own body, often seemingly living at every turn. Moreover, she’s doing it often times on days where she’s been awake for 18, 22, or even 40 hours straight. (Yes, she once stayed awake for 40 hours straight.)

Today, she brought her mother her shoes and socks. We know this is an indicator that she wants to go out. She couldn’t muster the control to tell us exactly where, but we assumed she wanted to go get McDonald’s french fries. They’re her favorite. Admit it, they’re you’re favorite too, right? Well, our schedule today didn’t really permit it. So, I told her that her mother couldn’t take her to McDonald’s (it is almost an hour away and she had lessons later in the day), but that I would take her to the corner store a mile down the road and we could get some chips. Because she couldn’t functionally reply to this, we weren’t sure if she was OK with this or if she understood.

Nevertheless, she and I got in the car and went to the corner store. She was happily playing with her My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic toys and listening to music from the show on her Kindle. And yes, I happily sang along to the song. She sings along in her own way, making long vowel songs. Because she wants to sing, she wants to share her voice, she wants to join in the joys of life.

We got to the store and you could tell from her expression she was disappointed that this wasn’t where she wanted to go or where she thought we were going. Nevertheless, she went into the store, picked out her favorite flavor of potato chips, gleefully explored the store, waved to the kindly women behind the counter, gave then high fives, and got back into the car a happy, satisfied girl.

A simple trip to the store, something we take for granted is a victory for her. She got to go out and be with people, be around people, interact with them, be treated with kindness and respect by them, and feel like a normal kid for 20 minutes. It was a tiny victory. The kind of victory most people don’t notice or take for granted.

Like a good conversation with a friend. Like a simple, hearty meal.

But halflings do not. They recognize the tiny victory. They celebrate it.

My products celebrate tiny victories because I have the honor of celebrating tiny victories every day by being a father to my amazing daughter. Tiny victories are how we survive the dungeon, make the journey to Mordor, and how we get through the troubles of life both here and in roleplaying games.

Tiny victories are everything. That is why I write about them. Because they are the victories that matter.

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