Limited Access
Posted: June 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 7 CommentsIn other news, my desktop computer is kaput. I’ve ordered a new one (and am writing this from Annie’s old Macbook which has some sort of weird, intermittent video problem where the screen goes all snowy and unresponsive sometimes). Since the HP desktop I had been using was more than 6 years old and not so hot to begin with, I guess it was time, but now I have to engage in the pain-in-the-assery of trying to recover all my data from the old machine — mostly scans of artwork (and some of the artwork I don’t have anymore, so getting the scans is pretty important). I think the hard disk is OK, so I guess when I get the new machine I need to figure out how to set up the old one as an external drive and then just move the files.
Texas politicians oppose "higher order thinking skills"
Posted: June 30, 2012 Filed under: conspiracy, douchebaggery, politics, weird Leave a commentI hope this is fake but I worry it is not.
“Texas Republican Party Calls For Abstinence Only Sex Ed, Corporal Punishment In Schools”
My favorite nugget:
The position causing the most controversy, however, is the statement that they oppose the teaching of “higher order thinking skills” — a curriculum which strives to encourage critical thinking — arguing that it might challenge “student’s fixed beliefs” and undermine “parental authority.”
Yee-fucking-haw. We are doomed.
Addendum: I went to the source. Visit the homepage of the Texas GOP Convention and you can download a copy of their platform statement. I didn’t read the whole document, but found this:
“Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
Based on this, one of the ways in which the Texas GOP has been misrepresented is that they state opposition to a certain kind of teaching philosophy, and not “thinking” itself, but the meat of the criticism seems to stand. Since the platform statement is intended to be the ‘doorbuster’ that gets people fired up about what these politicians are going to do for them, this is some scary shit. Granted, based on past and current performance, the opposition isn’t any better, but sheee-it. So seldom have politicians been so honest.
Fantasy Economy Boondoggles
Posted: June 25, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 5 Comments![]() |
Is that a chastity belt on the counter? |
One of the curiousities of RPGs (computer or, my favorite, playing RPGs with people) is that I often seem to end up playing one of those characters who is always picking shit up all of the time and taking it with me, hoping that it will either prove useful, or, more often, selling it for money so I can buy goods and/or services that my in-game character wants or needs (usually healing and more weapons/armor). This is strange, because in real life I don’t ever kill someone, take their stuff and sell it. But I also wonder where all that stuff that I loot and sell goes. Does the merchant at the corner store have an absurdly large inventory? Do other adventurers walk into the store, decide what I just dropped off looks like something they need and then buy it? Or is there some ‘off the map’ market for all of these used goods? I imagine some gigantic underground cavern economy, far from the sight and knowledge of most, where goblins, kobolds, feral gnomes and mutants buy and sell used underpants, old shoes and rusty daggers by the cartload and do gods-know-what with it. I guess in real life I have bought a used firearm in a gunshop and I have been in the ‘Salvation Army’ thrift shop more than once; that (and bottle rocket fights or urban exploration) is probably about as close as living “La vida adventura” that I have come.
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Just a few of the 2,700 pairs of shoes of Imelda Marcos |
I fear my deep-seated natural greed becomes more assertive when I am playing computer games than in real life (or in ‘pencil and paper’ rpg games). Perhaps that is because in computer games, I can ‘take’ something by just clicking on it, whereas in the real world I have to pick it up and carry it with me and in pencil-and-paper games I have to (sigh) write it down. In some of my favorite computer games (Oblivion and Fallout 3), I have a penchant for playing real packrat characters. While playing ‘Oblivion’ I noticed that the designers had included an unusually large number of different kinds of shoes in the game (most of which had, as far as I could tell, no effect on game play— wearing ‘padded leather shoes’ did not make you walk faster/slower/noisier/more quietly than wearing any other kinds of shoes, which was curious because what kinds of boots you wore did make a difference). I made it my goal to collect at least one sample of each kind of shoe which I stored in a chest in my character’s house just so my character could have a “hobby.” ‘Collecting shoes’ was actually not strategic for gathering the most coins with the least trouble; in Oblivion, shoes have a much less favorable weight-to-value factor than many other things (like expensive wine or rare books).
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Donkey thinks, “Well, this sucks more than usual.” |
I don’t have a lot of experience with CRPGs, but the few I have played always make me want to find/buy a house for my character because that is usually the way you can get around the carrying capacity limitation. Your character can only carry ‘X’ amount, and each item is given a weight — once the total of that weight surpasses your carrying capacity you start to move at a snail’s pace (or, if you are playing Oblivion, you suddenly can’t move at all). I discovered the hard way that if you just found a cabinet or box in the game and stuffed your extra belongings into it, they might not be there when you came back to collect them, but if you owned the house, your stuff wouldn’t dissapear. My Fallout 3 character has/had piles of spare weapons, armor, food, liquor, clothing, etc., squirreled away in his house’s storage lockers. How does he fit 14 Assault rifles in various states of disrepair in a desk drawer? I have no idea. How does he carry over 800 shotgun shells in his pockets? Curiously, in Fallout 3, ammunition has no weight but empty whiskey bottles, tin cans and mole rat meat do, so I can carry enough ammo to supply an army, no problem, but pick up one too many bits of road kill or trash and suddenly I can barely move.
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You can eat the mole rat, but would you want to? |
The realities of spoilage are similarly usually ignored in rpgs, whether computer-based or played in the real world with books and pencils. If I remember right, my Fallout 3 guy had mole rat steaks and other disgusting meats stuffed into a filing cabinet where it stayed, without rotting, for weeks. My Oblivion character similarly kept mutton, beef, venison, etc., in his pockets or his cupboard without ever suffering food poisoning. In real life, I’m constantly sniffing and tasting things because I’d rather be hungry than have food poisoning. In Dungeons & Dragons, I think my characters always ate ‘iron rations.’ I’m not sure what ‘iron rations’ were supposed to be but I always assumed they were the medieval equivalent of c-rations/MREs. Aside from pretzels and ‘Panneforte,’ I can’t think of any medieval foods made specifically for travel — any ideas?
Search Terms
Posted: June 24, 2012 Filed under: art, blogs, culture 1 CommentThese are the search terms people used yesterday morning to find their way to this blog. I don’t know if ‘search terms’ means someone entered this and then clicked on my blog or if it just means that they entered the search terms and my blog showed up in their umpteen gajillion results (I suspect the former due to the size of the internet and the numbers involved… search term #1 topped out at 4 times this morning which seems too low for ‘appeared in google search’).
The terms are:
galaxy of terror worm scene
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4
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a bug eating a guys face
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2
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cat faced spider florida
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2
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crystal eyeglasses prometheus
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2
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aldeboran
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1
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freak scene art show
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1
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old man zombie skull
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1
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prometheus absurd
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1
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prometheus she eats like a chinese
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1
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torches angry crowd
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The one that has me curious us “prometheus she eats like a chinese.” What does “eats like a chinese” mean? I’ve seen Chinese people in China Town hold a bowl close to their chin with one hand and put the food in their mouth with the other hand — is that what they were thinking of when they entered that? And what does that have to do with “Prometheus” (the movie or the myth)? And “cat faced spider florida“?
I love this unintentionally dadaist shit.
What is ‘good RPG writing’?
Posted: June 22, 2012 Filed under: adventures, campaigns, Dungeons and Dragons, publishing 6 CommentsAs a part of my day job, I have been doing some very tedious but necessary technical writing. Basically, I’m writing manuals with step by step instructions on such fascinating things as to how to fill out a purchase requisition based on a vendor quote. In order to be useful, the ‘process documents’ I am writing need to be correct in the details and their order, clear and not subject to multiple interpretations, and as short as possible since the longer the boring document or memo, the less likely it will be read. The document that results could most kindly be described as ‘utilitarian.’
At the same time, I enjoy reading fiction that is filled with possible multiple interpretations and ambiguity (current favorite: Thomas Ligotti; my all-time favorite book is hard to choose, but might be either “Heart of Darkness” by Conrad or “The Crying of Lot 49” by Pynchon), which seems funny since I have to write stuff that (hopefully) can be understood only one way by the reader for my day job yet my favorite books are ones that seem to delight in leaving the reader more confused than when they started. Providence is always giving us the finger — the guy who likes ambiguity and multiple meanings in writing has to write as precisely as he can to earn a buck.*
The Old Grind
Posted: June 20, 2012 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, rules 2 CommentsI was reading Paul’s “Quickly, Quietly, Carefully” blog recently where he was posting about treasure and XP. Paul was looking at a published dungeon and pondering how much XP could be gathered from it in the form of XP for monsters, gold, etc., and whether or not that would be enough to raise the average party to the appropriate level for the next dungeon or adventure and it made me think a bit on of one of the staples of the old school games that seems to have fallen out of favor with many contemporary players… a little thing we call “The Grind.”
“The Grind” is where you have to earn x amount of experience points in order to advance in power so you can advance to greater challenges. The adventurer’s desire for more power turns him/her/it into a little XP whore who may start killing everything and looting everything just to earn the needed XP for ‘one more level.’ This can seem dull and mechanical, hence the term, ‘the grind.’
And ‘grinds’ seem to have fallen out of favor, at least in gaming circles I am in touch with. I used to count up every monster killed, treasure found, etc., after the session and calculate it all up, then divide it by the number of participants (with NPCs getting 1/2 share) and then letting everyone know how many XP they had at the start of the next session. I was never particularly good at (or fond of) math, but I remember enjoying this bit of book keeping, maybe because it made me feel like the rewards (XP) were not handed out by me via some system where the DM gives the players XP like some nobleman distributing favors to his courtiers. I liked to establish rules (you will get XP for X, Y and Z) and players knew the rules and would get whatever XP they earn.
One of the arguments against the grind is that it can lead to ridiculous situations in which players will notice they are just a handful of XP away from gaining a level and will then wander around looking for some weak little monster to kill so they can earn the last few XP they need to level up. Many groups of players I am familiar with simplify or handwave the process — “everyone earns X number of XP per session” or “You level up every X number of sessions,” etc. I understand why people would want to do of this: less book keeping and the rules for XP seem somewhat arbitrary (i.e.: 1 xp per gold piece FREX). I also remember the silly players in my teenage group (myself included) would do in order to earn the XP needed. I seem to remember a debate as to whether or not fireballing a herd of sheep would earn the handful of XP needed to push a character over the threshold…
However, the ‘levelling up by DM decree’ or ‘everybody gets XP just for showing up’ can also feel like the race where everyone gets a trophy no matter when they finish. One loses the feeling of accomplishment you get when your little hero earns just enough to hit the next level. When you have had to scrabble for every point, a ‘level up’ can feel like a real accomplishment.
Mob Rule
Posted: June 20, 2012 Filed under: bitching, douchebaggery, ideas 3 CommentsI was reading J.R. IV’s post, “In Case Anyone is Unclear,” over on his blog this morning. I wanted to comment there, but comments are disabled, so I’ll do it here.

Prometheus and Humans
Posted: June 19, 2012 Filed under: movies 1 CommentThe internets have been ablaze with white-hot nerd rage over Ridley Scott’s movie,’Prometheus.’ “Absurd and unrealistic,” the masses cry. “Geologists getting lost? Never going to happen! People taking their helmets off on another planet when the risks are obvious? Nobody could be that stupid! Completely destroyed of my suspension of disbelief!” And etc., etc., etc. and so forth.
As far as “people being stupid” is unrealistic, well, given the evidence that surrounds us — constant, non stop stupidity, I’m surprised that we expect fictional people to be smarter than actual people. In the real world you see people crowding around those concrete ashtrays with cigarettes outside of hospitals. I wonder how many of those smokers are going to go take care of cancer patients after their smoke break? If you didn’t think the eidence was clear that humanity is a pretty self deluding species, consider this: Burger King thinks a bacon sundae is a good idea. And then there are those three words that prove that humanity is just smart enough to get itself into all kinds of complicated messes but not smart enough to get out of those same messes: sub-prime mortgage crisis.
And as far as geologists getting lost in tunnels, well, I can completely buy that. NASA spent 125 million dollars on a Mars probe in 1999 that failed because one team was doing calculations in metric while the other was doing calculations in miles and quarts and pounds. I would have thought someone at NASA would have asked, “What does this ‘km’ after this number mean?” or something similar before they sent 125 million up into space, but apparently not.
And a helmet isn’t going to help you anyway:
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Fred Phelp’s nightmare. |
Entertain Me
Posted: June 18, 2012 Filed under: art, creativity, movies Leave a comment
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Not a scene from Prometheus… this is a parasite in some dude’s eyeball |
Due to a combination of getting a new day job (been on it since May 2nd so it still feels new)… and this being gardening season (so I’m doing a some work outside on the garden — and, yes, it is a garden since we are growing food and flowers and not grass and shrubs) plus some commissions, I’ve been pretty busy and the blogs have been languishing a bit. I’ve closed the other ‘word press’ blog down for now just to reduce the number of things I am ignoring, intending a re-design. I don’t know when I’ll get to that… if I never do, no big loss. Since I’ve been ignoring the blogs and haven’t been writing anything controversial or interesting anyway, my readership seems to have plunged, so I guess the world can afford to wait.
I never know how much to say about commissions I have been working on. If it is for a published product, I think it is probably best to let the publisher make the first announcement, and, once they do, I’ll try to make a mention of it here. I think I can say that there are some crowdfunding projects I have been associated with that are bearing fruit and others that are not without stepping on any toes. There are also some new adventures and things coming out of Goodman Games that I have been working on (some for DCC game, others not specifically aligned with DCC but more ‘general game freak interest’ things).
I have a bunch of artwork I would love to put in the etsy shop, but have been having trouble even imagining first matching scans and prices and sizes and descriptions with artwork, then loading all that info up on Etsy, then packing it all and shipping it out… taken by themselves, each of those tasks seems tiny, but you add ‘em all up and start wondering where your break-even point is as far as hours and aggravation spent versus dollars obtained.
This brings me to a problem. I like a lot of ‘bubblegum’ movies for what they are… thrills and action and near-mindless entertainment… so it seems unfair to compare ‘John Carter’ with ‘Prometheus’ simply because Prometheus was much more ambitious in its storytelling. And, honestly, the only reason I think to compare them are the fact that they are both ‘sci-fi’ and we happened to see them both on the same weekend. In the end, ‘John Carter’ failed for me because after the first 30 minutes I was willing to turn it off, whereas halfway through Prometheus I had to go to the bathroom but didn’t want to leave the theatre because I didn’t want to miss any of it. And I guess that was the key difference between the two films for me. One of them left me not caring whether or not I saw it and the other had me wanting to see the whole thing. Maybe thats the thing I want from art/entertainment/whatever. I want it to be like an addictive drug. I want it to make me keep wanting it.
Things I learned from Fallout 3
Posted: June 15, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsThings I learned from Fallout 3:
A bomb made from a child’s lunch box, an explosive fruit, 10 bottle caps and something called a ‘sensor module’ is a lot more deadly than a ‘frag mine’ manufactured according to military grade specs.
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“Rock-it” Launcher. |
A weapon called a ‘rock-it launcher’ is made from the spare parts of a leaf blower and a vacuum cleaner and fires teddy bears, pool balls, books, boxes of detergent, coffee cups, empty whiskey bottles, etc. It is a lot more effective than most pistols if you goal is to kill your opponent. I shot a raider in the forehead with a 10mm pistol and he cursed at me and stabbed me with his knife. I had to shoot him several more times before he went down. I then used my rock-it launcher to shoot his buddy in the face with a box of detergent and his buddy’s head exploded.
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Super Mutant head shot |
If you shoot someone and they explode into fragments, you only need to find one fragment, no matter how tiny, and search THAT fragment in order to retrieve all of their possessions. There was a raider up on a balcony shooting at me, so I shot him with my hunting rifle. His head exploded and I found an eyeball lying on the ground. I ‘searched’ the eyeball and was able to retrieve his weapons, his ammo, his armor, etc. Later I went up on the balcony and found his headless body lying there, dressed only in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt.
The ‘Fat Boy’ will allow you to launch miniature nuclear bombs, which is great fun. You can use your Fat boy to kill a whole mess of raiders all at once and scatter their broken bodies all over the landscape, but the Fatboy will not blow a rotted wooden door off of its hinges, shatter an empty whiskey bottle or kill a child.
Some things look like weapons and ARE weapons. Other things look like weapons and are not weapons. You can hit an enemy with a tire iron, pool cue, baseball bat or sledgehammer and hurt or kill them. You cannot injure or hit an enemy with an ordinary hammer, wrench, crutch or frying pan (unless you are firing these things from the aforementioned rock-it launcher).
Reading a comic book will make you better at smashing your enemies with a baseball bat. Reading a book about Nikolai Tesla will make you better at shooting them with laser guns.
When I fire my weapons, I can see the brass cartridges fly out of the gun and land on the ground. Then they quickly evaporate.
Raiders are bad-guys who look like those dudes from the ‘Mad Max’ movies. They have mohawks and wear S&M armor outfits that consist of leather straps, codpieces, spiked shoulder pads, etc., and this raider armor leaves most of their torso bare. If you kill a raider and take his/her armor, you will suddenly see him/her lying on the ground wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, even though previous to you removing their ‘armor’ all they had covering their chest was a few straps and maybe a metal bra-like thing if they were female. So, somehow, mysteriously, between the time you killed them and the time you took their armor, they somehow managed to put on a white t-shirt, despite being dead at the time.