Ketherian's Notebook

Utility spells part 1 (sailing spells) would probably be of interest to a certain GM of my acquaintance. Just saying...

The Life that's Mine
I'm snowed in by paperwork at home. Trust me, this is good (annoying, tiring, and aggregating, but good) because that means AnticipationSF has more members and more money. I've been loath to write about what's going on with the WorldCon because (a) my world view (haha) is so very small and (b) I deal with da money. So, really - how much should I write about data entry, cheque processing, credit card processing, and answering questions (everything from the very polite, very formal to the inane and back). I won't post the questions for fear of hurting someone's feelings or worse, invading someone's privacy.

I do need to know a lot more about badge security and creating regulations for registration. Fortunately, for me, most everything registration-related can be found online.

Otherwise, me and mine are well. I saw a few friends on Saturday night and went out to Kanda on Snowdon. I don't think they're quite as good as the one on Boulevard Sources in Pointe-Claire, but it might just have been an off night (or maybe I didn't order the right things). The restaurant was busy and it really showed on the black-attired staff. We left a decent tip then headed out. We tried to rent a movie but our tastes were so different that we couldn't agree on one. So we went back to RD's place to play a "quick" game of Talisman. 4th Ed is much prettier, but essentially the same game as 3rd. We played the speed version (you only have to trade in 5 pts to get a strength or craft); it doesn't seem like much--but it did speed things up.

We ended the game when RD got the Crown of Command. I was playing the Prophetess and I had the pixie, the princess and the unicorn as followers. Talk about being a girly-girl. RD played something more akin to Ash; which was pretty funny in all it's ass-holiness. BM played the monk with fervor, being the first in (and first out) of the second ring.

Monday everyone was back at work, and while it was busy it was also kind of fun hearing about vacations and seeing pictures. I went out to Lunch with lsoulban. He was fresh back from Gen*Con and (bless him) he brought me swag. He brought me back a signed Mouseguard book! *Glee* And dice. Oh goodness. The dice. I now have a crown royal box *filled* with dice (mostly miss-matched sets) and a small bag of my favourites. He also brought me the official gen con memorial set of dice (he called it the crayola explosion of dice). :) *happy dance*

I spoke with FT last night--mostly about Anticipation stuff. The question of how to process reg stuff more quickly came up. The answers (a) get more staff & give them homework (b) more people processing at once (c) don't validate before processing (d) scan it all and figure it out later.

The problem with all of them relates to data retention (I don't want to loose forms or have them damaged if I have to give them out to get them processed), and data security (if we don't validate, we're guaranteed to introduce errors which will take more time to get out later). My little home scanner really isn't up to the task, so maybe going to kinko's (or the Quebec equivalent) and getting it all scanned in is a good idea. So much to research...so little time.

Tonight PJ came over with her daughter in tow to do more Anticipation stuff. Lets just say it didn't go as planned. Dinner was fine (a fritatta, steamed broccoli and maple-glazed pork that was a bit overdry), but the paperwork took on a new dimension of FOOBAR. I've passed the problem up the ladder to see if it can be solved in good time. Fingers crossed. *Edited to add* and it's fixed. Now back to entering data.

In the PodCasts:
Listening to the Best of the Sunday Edition in the Summer (Aug 18, 2008) - Andrew Pyper comments that less and less people want to write about books and more people want to actually write books. It's an interesting statement. The podcast is interesting and Andrew Pyper is a good speaker.

On Cooking and Food:
I'm a big fan of Gordon Ramsy. Normally when someone drops the F bomb, I
find it rude and horrible, but somehow Gordon Ramsy makes it almost OK.
These short commercials are fantastic. I'm not really sure these adds show the attractiveness of the catering sector, but they are fun to watch. Thanks to Serious Eats for the link.

On Comics/Gaming:
David Peteren's blog brings great news and a cute Gencon poster. I've got the
mouseguard RPG on my wishlist. :)

General links
Talking to pirates. An interesting tale. The link to the game is here.

Wow. Marisa McClellan (over at Slashfood) found an amazing (and easy) desert on the net. Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill. It's one of those deserts I'm now really excited to try.

This is day two of me saving up my links.
After looking them all over there's only one thing I can say. I completely understand why lsoulban asked me to stop sending him stuff while he's at gencon. From now on - I'll just lj the links (except the zombie sex stuff. That I'll still send directly.*)

* Cruel joke because he won't see this for a week.
Crueler still because there is no zombie sex stuff. At least, not recently.

Technical Writing

Write to Done hosted this article by Jonathan Mead. It caught my eye this morning because, while I don't live without a template, I do understand the need to trust what you write. More than any other writing tip, this one has held true for me both in my daily career and my secret identity as an author. In technical writing, if you don't understand your topic and believe in what you're saying -- your reader won't understand and won't believe what they read. Either that or, if they are less observing, they just won't like it. It's not an easy lesson to apply to fiction, but rewrites, edits, and peer-reviews are all great ways to gain that trust.

Write River pointed me to a great article from Gryphon Mountain Journals about enhancements vs Just Documenting It. I agree with Write River: "NO. You can't just explain it in the manual." I want it on a pin too. Possibly a stamp I can use at work. Maybe even a power point slide that I can present at meetings when asked if we can just write around the error or (worse) explain the defect as a feature. The article at Gryphon Mountain Journals asks the question - how do you make the determination whether to enhance the product in a certain way or instead add to the documentation?

It's a tough question.

In my day job I tend to look at how things have been done in the past. If the new "feature" is the exception to the rule - my tendancy is to ask the engineers to change it. If, however, the new "feature" falls in line with the rule or at least the spirit of the rule - then I'd add to the documentation. It sounds strange for someone who is being paid to document products to say no to documentation; but it does happen.

I realize this is a pretty generic answer, but it sounds better than "it depends". :)

Gathering information is a topic most techical writers love to discuss. This blog post proposes an interesting idea that can provide more information than just taking notes as the SOI (Source of Information) talks. In addition, it's the type of data that we could pass on as "unstructured tutorials" when contractors or stagiers are replaced. It doesn't change the staffing problems we have (or lack of staff problem), but it might speed a few things up. I should forward this one to my boss.

Beautiful Pictures

Boing boing provided a link to the Coral Kingdom - a NOAA Photo library. The pictures are indexed and titled. Warning: visiting this site is a really beautiful time-waster.

Gizmodo featured a picture of the proposed Ras Al-Khaimah Gateway. It's a 2.9 million square feet hotel, conference and exhibition complex. At first glance it really does look like something from a sci-fi movie.

Springfield Punx looks like a great site if you're collecting pictures. Parodies of Dean's favorite characters -- only some of which have appeared on the Simpsons. Gizmodo says that Dean's simposnized superheroes are well worth looking up, but there are just so many others on the site. And the site keeps growing.

This fountain on YouTube is truly amazing!

TBritain from Above has some goregeous photography. Thanks to Gizmodo for the quicklink and great examples. Now if only I could figure out how to make these 1024x whatever wallpapers. The site is both wide and deep, so it's definitely a great time-waster. Bonus! It's still growing.

Humour

The Fail blog has a great video from youtube about a guy on a motorcycle texting. The people filming are in a passing car and laughing about it. Fortunately, there is no accident depicted and the video is SFW. The guy on the bike most definitely leads a charmed life.

Security & Passwords

Slashdot today posted an intersting stub: Let your Theme Song be Your Password. I definitely want to try the Firefox add in, but I'm going to have to improve my password keeper at home if I start using this. Other than using a Pad of paper to keep your passwords recorded, there are dozens of bits of software for creating and storing passwords.

Podcast review

The Right Kind of Town by Christian Klaver, read by Cunning Minx. The story is short (22 minutes) and set in a western sci-fi universe that the host reminisces is similar to that of FireFly. Minx's voice serves the tale well, but the story takes a sudden twist near the end that has polarized the reviewers who commented on the tale. To me the twist-ending is a classic trope found in many genres -- especially westerns. And so, while surprising, did not detract from the tale for me. The story sounds like you're sitting down with the main character who's reminiscing, perhaps over a cold glass of something. She's a bit sad about the tale, but not regretful. I enjoyed the story and was happy to learn that there's more fiction on the author's website.

Through this podcast I learned about PodCastle and added it to my Bloglines. I'll try it out and get back to you.

Presenting steven King's N. Thanks to Pulp 2.0 for pointing out an interesting experiment by Stephen King and Marvel Comics. It's a graphic novel told in webisodes as a prelude (prequel?) to the novel's release. No RSS feed. :( and they're already at episode 12. Here's hoping I remember to visit daily to catch the rest of the story.

Role playing
Not too long ago I was introduced to Play Sorcerer from a link on the Midnight's Lair forums. It was described as an indespensable set of articles about how to build and use story. They're sitting in my Bloglines waiting to be read; I keep intending to read them (like I do with SpaceWestern stories). I'll review the articles after I read them. Which I intend to do. Sometime. Soon.

Health/Conspiracy
Scientific American answers a reader's question and reminds us to check the underside of our plastic containers.
2, 4 or 5: safe.
7: not safe for food storage or nuking!
1: single use. These are dangerous when they start to break down, so the safety in reusing them is questionable.
3: the common form of plastic used to wrap deli items. Swapping foods out of such wraps once the groceries are at home is advisable.
6: styrofoam is also one to be avoided.

If you can't keep the numbers straight - go with pyrex.

DIY/Projects

Lifehacker is finally having a battle of the Media Collection managers. There's a few on the list (like Ant and MeD's Movie Manager) I've been interested in trying. I currently use Libra, but it doesn't have the ability to log in VHS (of which I have many still). The post also asks how you organize things. My answer: badly. I really have to catalog stuff better. Ideally I'd have a nice little hard driver sitting somewhere with everything on it. It would certainly make finding things easier. Sigh. Just another project for my list.

Edited: Fixed the Scientific American link. Great catch Stirling!

More on the Kindle (sort of)
Wired has a list of E-book readers at a glance "(old crappy ones not included)". The E-book reader is the ultimate geek toy; expensive, unnecessary and overly complicated (anything dealing with DRM is overly-complicated). That doesn't deter the want (at least not my want) of the device, just delays it a bit until the price point drops some more. Odd that the Apple itouch isn't in the list.

Is anybody listening?. The BBC has (yet another) article warning about the dangers of posting disturbing, illegal or just reputation-crushing details (not just photos mind) to social websites. "Millions of young people could damage their future careers with the details about themselves they post on social networking websites, a watchdog warns." If you know someone just starting their career - ask to see their social sites. They might be surprised to learn there are a lot of people over 40 on both FaceBook and MySpace (and LJ, and all the other social groups). Have you googled your name to see what comes up? Could you show it to your mother, your boss, your mentor? If you can't - you've got a problem.

Sad news
Verity Lambert died on Thursday, November 22, 2007. She was 71. She also was Doctor Who's first producer and the BBC's first female TV producer. Wikipedia entry, Screenonline biography, Times Obit.

More for my wish list.
Sling Media. Featured on Ars Technica's 2007 holdiay gift guide, the intro ads are great - and so too is the device. It's got a low price and seems readily available for online purchase from a host of online retailers. I've not seen anything about it in Canada, so I'm guessing the only way to get this things would be through the internet.

Home Trebuchet Kit, a Few Feet Short of Perfection. Gizmodo made my day by showing me this kit. It's only 1/20th scale (aww shuks!) but it's supposibly fully functional. Now this would be the thing to make a get-together something special. And, with winter already here - can you just imagine using snowballs in this thing?

Thanks to the Evil DM for the update - The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Vol1 (12 DVDs include seven feature-length empisodes [My First Adventure, Passion for Life, The Perils of Cupid, Travels With Father, Journey of Radiance, Spring Break Adventure, Love's Sweet Song], 38 companion documentaries, a Historical overview, an Interactive game and an Interactive timeline). Amazon.Ca has it for $91.99. Chapters has it for $104.99. This will eventually be a 3 box set detailing all 22 episodes of the series.

Metafilter question about buying dice has some good links to dice sellers. But what makes a "nice set of dice"? Is it their appearance? Is it the fact that they roll well (strange-shaped dice and d100s do not roll well - well, actually they roll too well as they almost never seem to stop!)? I've never really thought about it. I buy dice based on their appearance.

Events in Montreal
The 52nd Salon des metiers d'art will be at the Bonaventure west exibition hall from December 7th through the 22nd. If you're looking for handicraft, odd, or different Christmas gifts - this is a great place to go looking. The show typically has lots of small industry/home craft items for display and sale. The site doesn't have all the exhibitors up yet, but the list of exhibitors that are up are a great example of the myriad of exhibitors typical to the event.

Amazing pictures of horrible things.
http://www.containershipping.nl/casualties.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wjpbennett/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81032371@N00/

Hack Attack: Back up your Google Apps
http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/136910824/back-up-your-google-
apps-data-281635.php

Interesting looking podcasts
http://www.sliceofscifi.com/index.php

Is this a copyright viloation?
http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16307&cat=0&
page=1&featured

RPG'ing in all walks of life
http://www.chorewars.com/ 

Menu for this week

Saturday
BBQ Chicken and corn
Romaine salad with cheese and red wine vinagrette

SUNDAY
AM: Breakfast Burritos (OAMC) (recipe)
Cheeseburgers & Salad

MONDAY
BBQ Trout with
mixed vegetables and dip
(Happy Canada Day!)

TUESDAY
Grilled chipotle Flank steak (recipe) pitas
with mixed vegetables and dip

WEDNESDAY
Balsamic soy glazed chicken parts (recipe)
and romain salad

THURSDAY
Chicken fried rice (recipe)

FRIDAY
Tacos (recipe for taco seasoning)

RPG

OMG! Dice at 150 US$. Would you actually use them? The copper are pretty, but I'd hate to see them tarnish.

Link Roundup

In 2004 this (PDF) was a military proposal, then it was an internet meme. Now it's a movie.

The ultimate rube goldberg machine Video. (Thanks Boing Boing).

The following is a Link to the boing boing post titled "Legal guide for Canadian podcasters. It's well worth reading for Canadians producing podcasts.

Lifehacker this week offered a link to Diet television. I'm still playing with it, but it does look interesting.

Steampunk

Brass goggles is an incredible steampunk site.
Thee posts from this site (now part of my bloglines) include:

• Edgar and the Voyagers! Steampunk Cartoons.
• A be-goggled paper squirrel.
• The Electrodynamic Engineer’s Primer in Five Parts

All worth reading. But then again I am a steampunk fan.

Slashdot pointed out this pair of essays. I'm a SF fan myself, and I find myself agreeing with Charlie Stross's essay. (The summary for those who don't want to read it - is that, currently, space colonization is neither feasable nor possible, nor is it even realistic. To do it at all - travel (and the means to safely communicate as well as send live cargo) would have to be unbelievably cheap.)

Treasure tables pointed me to a great article on ars lundi Plot vs Premise: Running Crime Games. It's pretty short, but I liked the article enough to add it to my bloglines. There was a great article on this topic from a while back; but now all I can find is this great book on the SJG site. Which isn't such a bad idea.

If you're like me (and already collecting background images from NASA,
National Geographic and Wikipedia's picture of the day) here's 17 more that might interst you from Wired. Steam-driven Dreams: The wonderously whimsical workld of Steampunk.

And here's three more good ones from Boing Boing today:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/125711439/what_steampunk_means.html
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/125713460/good_copy_bad_copy_s.html
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/125823586/john_heilemann_in_ny.html

Yeah, I can see myself getting a lot done tonight. ;)

Lobscouse and Spotted Dog - it's a cookbook. I've added it to my Chapters Wish list. Hrm. If I started a sailing RPG set in Royal Navy during the Napolenoic Wars Patrick O'Brien wrote - this would be a great guide as to what to serve on game night.

Speaking of which, I really must add the rest of his 20 books to my wish list. I keep forgetting which ones I've already got. *And* I need to finish adding my books to Library Thing. My goal (eventually) is to finish entering all my books and print the list out so that, when next I go book shopping, I know what I have. Every time they change a cover I find myself wondering - do I have that book? It sounds so familiar; but then, when you read a lot - a lot of books sound familiar.

Last night I added frozen fieldberries to oatmeal muffins and baked a loaf of banana bread. I swear I could bake banana bread weekly and never get tired of it. The oatmeal muffins dissapeared fast - but I have enough mix left to make one more batch. That's right dear readers, I use pre-packaged mixes when I make muffins. Sure I could make them from scratch - but this is so much easier.

Carrot Sheet Cake with Cream cheese Frosting - it's something I've been wanting to cook for a while, and there's a game coming up on Saturday...

Cat cam! see a series of stills from a camera weilding cat. (thanks Boing Boing)

Don't know much biology a rebuttal to Senator Sam Brownback's NYT editorial. (Thanks Boing Boing)

LOL Cats what a great collection of time wasters.

I'm playing catchup today... here's the links from the past few days.

Writing
I Don't know what to write... (from diyplanner.com)

http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html
http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/
http://community.livejournal.com/embodiment/tag/seven+for+seven
And of course:
http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/Acquire.html#download

Technology
The surface story continues: (from slashdot, and Ars Technica).

Roleplaying.
Rumor-mongering continues about the release of 4E..

To be read:
I-Spy. A master class in online shopping (lifehacker source)
Steam Punk Magazine #2
The NYTimes (May 31) has an article titled Comedy Business Turns to the Web (by Laura M Holson) which features a link to the FunnyOrDie.com website where "the Landlord" was initially posted. Interesting article. Apparently there's a sequel to the Landlord - Good Cop, Baby Cop. Don't know if it's up yet.

To be downloaded:
Allocate your money in envelopes. (lifehacker source)

To be done:
How to: Maintain threaded view in Thunderbird (lifehacker source)
Worldwide Adventure Writing Month Begins Now! (treasure tables)

Recipes
Casserole of Beef in red wine. While it's not the season for slow-braised dishes, this one is guaranteed to please.
Minced beef cobbler. Sheppard's pie has a thousand possible variations. Here then is one more.

Worth listening to (does that make it listen-worthy?)

• The Open Culture sight article from way back (February 8th) links to sources to listen to Orson Well's famous recording of War of the worlds. Well with listening to. While Open culture isn't really a podcast - I've subscribed to its RSS feed in Bloglines under that heading. The blog is all about the podcasts that the Open culture site finds and links to. They are a library, of sorts, that regularly updates their catalog.
• Open source sex. No I've not listened to it yet, but the blurbs seem interesting, and with that title -- well, I'll be saving this one for after dinner.
• Heroes has its own podcast. Go figure. It seems to be episode specific and features the voices of the cast members as well as citing stuff from the forum and the blogs. This is one TV show that is totally wired to the web. (Ug. That was a bit of social jargon I didn't need to see myself write.)
• The Jazz Vinyl Podcast. Old vinyl records played as a podcast. Good quality MP3s the website lists the tracks and other "liner notes". There's an associated blog available too. http:\\jazzvinyl.blogspot.com, I'm definitely subscribing to this one as I love old Jazz!
• 60 minutes has a podcast (who knew)? At least now I know where to go if I miss a report. http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml has all their up to date articles (available to be read, exported or watched). and http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/06/utility/main706903.shtml seems to be the general list of RSS feeds for the podcasts, downloading, iTunes or checking the archive (the first link).

As an aside - I'm subscribed the del.icio.us link rss feed for "podcasts". Each times Bloglines updates there's a good 50 of them showing up. This is more links than RPGS (which averages at about 25 an update)!

Roleplaying

• D&D Counters. A great collection of free images to print & use at your game. Got it from my rss of RPG links and added it to my own bookmarks.

In the humorous yet painful category:

• Boing Boing today pointed out LOLCODE - LOLCats meets programming. And I quote: "programming using the strange, ungrammatical argot of the LOLCats mem." I'll spare the programmers who read this site the example. But check out the link if you're perversely curious.
• Global nerdy posted a fascinating comparison entitled "Cyberwar ain't what it use to be". It compares terms from Cyberpunk stores to "similar" real world scenarios. It makes for interesting reading. With a name like Global Nerdy you know it's so going on my bloglines daily tally for a while. If anyone reminds me (in a week or so) I'll even review it.

Thus ends the links of the day

The party is travelling from Coranan to Cinar, a trip of about 3-4 days in length (3 days at quick march, 4 days if you're a noble on horseback, as the saying goes). They're equipped and use to doing this sort of jog. They'll stick to the high road, it's very early spring so it's cold enough to keep the ground from being too muddy; so they should make good time.
They leave Coranan, saying good by to the wall-rats at the gate (nickname for the city's guards who live in the walls and towers, and only rarely in the Caer; hey - some readers might have thought they were anthropomorphic rats. Nope, just regular humans. But I digress...). The first day of travel follows the high road to Geishtei in Gerim province. They push on into the night to make it to Fobin, their old stomping ground. A Jeredosta is now the Triberties (Captain) of the place, and there's lot of men here who are either very new, or originally from Gerium. The townfolk are familiar as are the places (surprisingly they stayed in the Caer rather than the Green Gate Inn; a place that - 4 years ago real time, they could only afford to visit a few times a year. Now most of them could buy the place).
The next day they set out before dawn, and pressed on to Themeson. They arrived there several hours before dark, but stayed overnight to reminish with their old Triberties, Horik Barral. He treated them like equals and invited them in to dinner. His officers (many of whom the party did not recognize) weren't too fond of this, but the party's reputation stilled most of the ego-based trouble. They again left in the fake-dawn and stopped at Cinar for the night. On the way along the high road, they passed an area where they stopped three calvary troups from overtaking their legion's flank by holding the road. I described the torn up roadway, patches of burnt ground and deep ruts. Nearby was a graveyard, but they didn't tarry.
From Cinar they took a barge up the river, travelling on an Agrikan Rethemi barge. The fee was pretty low, but then again the bargeman didn't ask many questions. They made landfall in Rethem land, and made camp in the last of the early dusk.
It was a good game, just one major problem -- I talked all game and they did very little other than set their destination. Some nights I feel like I'm the autopilot system. They didn't want to talk to the NPCs I presented. At least, not as PCs. I'd rant harder about this one but I'm as guilty of letting a GM rattle on (and on, and on) as the next player. How can I like this so much as a player and hate it as a GM?
Argh.

So last game the party killed an Anhu (Fire/Red) Dragon.
Now I have to generate the hoard.
This being Hârn, there's been lots of jokes about the hoard containing forbidden fruits (like root crops), a three-mast sailing ship and a dragon-sized book (Ships in Bottles, A step-by-step guide to a venerable craft), and so forth. Some of these ideas will be making it into the hoard. They have to.

Hârn has this very odd idea about monsters (well two ideas really).
1. Monsters are rare.
2. Monsters must make sense in relation to where and how they are used.

The Anhu Dragon originally lived at the farthest northern tip of the island of Harn. It hunted off the steppes of Lythia and occasionally fishing in the waters between northern Lythia and Harn. While it also occasionally attacked ships, it did not eat or hunt people as they were far too small (and too dangerous). Instead, it would either trap game by starting a wild fire and panicking the fauna into a canyon or trap, or find something bigger to eat. It attacked ships purely because they were in its territory.

The Anhu got pushed south after a family of Dhivu (Cold/Water/Blue) Dragons came to live there. The Dhivu had recently mated and their eight offspring combined with the Anhu's territorial nature - led it to decide to find a place further south.

So that's how it got so very close to human habitation.
Now I've decided that (a) it does have a hoard and (b) it moved that first.

So for the past few nights I've been randomly rolling on the Harnic treasure tables to generate a few key items.
At first I was thinking of giant vases of potions; but who'd make dragon-sized vases? So instead, I've had to come up with logic behind most of the items I'm putting together for the hoard, and I'm quickly learning why most hoards contain chests of coins and uncut gems. They're easier to generate, if not justify. If a dragon likes to burrow (like the Anhu does), wouldn't they have more ore (processed or not) than actual minted coins? I suppose it depends where the coins are minted. If it raided a mine (or a mint), it kind of makes sense - but picking up coins for a dragon must be like picking up rice grains for us. They'd be spilled over everywhere anytime he (the dragon) touched the coins.

One things for sure. If the party complains of small hauls again after this - I now have the right to tell them to shut up. ;)

It never fails.
Whenever my gamers meet up with a charismatic set of NPCs, they'll let the NPCs talk. And talk, and talk ... sometimes it seems they enjoy hearing me talk more than anything else. I don't mind it on some nights, but my efforts to draw player-characters out often seem to fail. Ah well, I'll try again in two weeks. :)

This episode:
An interesting piece of flash
How one live journal is creating an RPG world
Food and Sci-Fi

All this and more 

From the press release of kino_kid:

Free screening of Howl's Moving Castle this weekend. fps will also be at the exhibitor's tables all weekend.

HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE & FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN TO BE SHOWN AT OTAKUTHON 2006.

Montreal, Quebec, Canada (June 7, 2006) – Otakuthon, the first fan-run anime convention hosted in Montreal, is proud to present two excellent upcoming feature movies: Howl’s Moving Castle® and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children®! Sponsored by fps Magazine (http://www.fpsmagazine.com/).

Howl's Moving Castle®

Directed by internationally acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away®, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind®) Howl's Moving Castle ® depicts the journey of Sophie, an average teenage girl working in a hat shop, when she sets off on a fabulous journey to lift the curse set on her by the vengeful Witch of the Waste with the help of the dashing and debonair wizard Howl. Talking fire, spy dogs, scarecrows with turnip heads and a flying castle, oh my!

Final Fantasy VII : Advent Children®

Two years after the events played out in the popular roleplaying video game Final Fantasy VII ®, Midgar still lies in ruins. Cloud has become a transporter and Tifa has converted 7th Heaven to an orphanage, but they must soon take up the sword again as a mysterious illness is sweeping the land and the arrival of three men who are on a quest to seek out Jenova.


Howl's Moving Castle® will be shown on Saturday June 10th at 12 noon, and Final Fantasy VII : Advent Children® will be shown on Sunday June 11th at 1:20pm. Both movies will be shown in the main auditorium (H-110) in the Henry F. Hall building of Concordia University on a 40-feet projector screen with Dolby Digital® Surround sound.

(Howl's Moving Castle® is a registered trademark of Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Final Fantasy VII : Advent Children® is a registered trademark of SquareEnix, Dolby Digital® is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories)

About Otakuthon:
Otakuthon is Montreal's premiere fan-run anime convention to be held on Saturday June 10 and Sunday June 11, 2006 in the Henry F. Hall building of Concordia University, located in the heart of downtown Montreal. Organized by the Otaku Anime of Concordia University club, Otakuthon will host many activities and events that will feature Anime, Manga, video games, artwork, Japanese culture, and special guests. For more infomation check our website.

Potions are a staple in d20 gaming. Quaff a potion, get an effect, get into the fight - sounds pretty straight forward. It's a bit of a leap from the d20 image of a potion to the herbwife's cure in the fake-roleplaying-reality of the "middle ages" that most "realistik" rpgs claim to be based on. In those "realistik" settings the potion is a less powerful draught, often administered by someone who doesn't care how it tastes (foul) or how it makes you feel (worse), only in its final effect.

These effects, while often colorful and having lots of interesting side-effects, are rarely as powerful as their d20 cousins. A potion of owls wisdom in d20, for example, has no drawbacks, but a similar potion in a "real" setting would induce headaches and dizziness as its effects wore off. Both fit the setting for which they were designed, one with a lot of magic and one with magic being a bit more gritty.

In both types of settings - creating a magic item starts with the same step: think of an effect you want and how, using the system's rules, it can be achieved. From there on, however, everything's different - and therein lies my question. A good portion of the description of magical items of all kinds is just that - a description; how it's made, how long it's good for, what it does, how it does it (etc). But how much is too much?

I'm starting to think the more the merrier, especially in systems that rely on previously published work to strengthen their rules (every system with a magic system seems to do this). But coming up with a good list of rules (either from scratch or from a list of existing samples) is hard. I've been working on a home-made magic system (yeah, I know, who hasn't done this one) for quite some time and I regularly find the math involved bewildering. I keep thinking if I could chart it out somehow it might be more clear to me ... but I'm delusional, I'm sure.

Still. Given a set magic system (that is, admittedly, rather vague) and a few examples - you are left only with the game's feel. Matching that feel is more art than science. And it's proving my preference for the feel of the science of magic rather than the art. Maybe it's because I'm a baker. Bakers follow recipes and only once they are certain the recipe works do they start to experiment. I've always applied the same logic to magic systems, but I'm quite willing to admit I'm mistaken. In d20 this seems to be the wizard way of doing magic and, to a certain extent the cleric, but it doesn't quite fit the sorcerer or the druid.

In more "realalistik" settings -- I have to wonder if my idea of how magic works fits at all. It's certainly not the way things are described. A bit of work has been done to try and limit this feel of art over science; but converting to science over art just leaves me further confused. Going back to potions - should the side-effects be a standardized result of the positive effects modified by the cost/time/difficulty of making the potion?

Off to brew this idea some more.

I found this on muskrat_john's livejournal. I think this is the second, or third, of such thing's I've posted. But I guess it prooves that wickedthoughts and I were ment to roleplay together. ... and everyone else mentioned.

Fine by me. ... You folk do play HarnMaster right?

My entry to the Treasure Tables GMing Tools Contest.

Nothing can bring forth cries of pain or pleausre from players as when a GM brings forth the army of faceless minions to use in her game. A handful of glass beads matched with a battlemat and dry erase markers are the cornerstone props of most battle-hardened GMs. But unlike the battlemat and the dry erase markers, the humble glass bead is not as well known or used.

By using a white pen (or a paint pen), to inscribe each with a number so that it can be identified out of the multitude scattered across the battlemat, you can keep track of your faceless minions without making them any less ... faceless. Easier (and quicker) to use than miniatures, a glass bead can be a heroic ally
in one game, a true horror from beyond in the next, and a secret agent on yet another night.

The glass bead is heavily reliant on the battlemat, this is true; but they are more resiliant than minis, easier to keep and sort than paper tokens, and cheaper by far than either. And the multitude of sizes, shapes, colors, and even textures available is almost awe-inspring. Since gamers often have more imagination than most - it is easy to assume that lump of colored glass is a hill-giant, a cop, or anything in between.

Other entries include:
- Mass Combat Generator
- NPC Stat Block Bank
- AutoCalc Experience Sheet v1.1
- DM Buddy
- En-world's Encounter Calcuator
- DMs Familiar
- Fractal Mapper
- DM Genie
- TreeDBNotes
- The lowly Index Card
- Laser printer + computer
- The Shackled City Adventure
- Jamis Buck's NPC generator
- Offline Searchable SRD
- Hypertext d20 SRD
- Making Natural Caverns (with bonus inhabitants) (A general How to)
- Microsoft Excel
- Google and Google Earth
- TiddlyWiki
- An hourglass
- Hand-held dry-erase board
- Poker set
- Magic Item Cards
- Location, Location, Location
- Cardstock Cowboys
- Deck of Cards.

Second entry: Whimsy cards

Orignally published by Lion Rampant in conjunction with Ars Magica, this is a deck of cards that each bears a generic plot device. To use them, each player gets one (or more) cards at the start of the game. At any time within the game, the player may elect to play a whimsy card on the situation, an NPC or a PC.

To play the card, the player presents the card to the GM and, based on the wording of the card, explains how the situation, or the character, reacts to the change intended by the card. For example, the Change of Heart card is played.

The player announces that he's caught the journeyman's eye in the shop. The journeyman manages to intercede with his master and the shopkeeper agrees that perhaps, just perhaps, he was being a bit too harsh on the player character, that anyone could have knocked that ricketty old shelving unit down. The watch need not get involved at all if the player-character help him clean up and pay some recompense for lost wares...

If played on another PC - that PC may decline, and the originating player gets to keep his card. The GM may also disallow the play if it doesn't fit the story; although it is heartily suggested that the GM go with the play as it often creates a more detailed and interesting story.

If played successfully additional XPs are awarded to the player (based on the quality of the play and the success of the situation). And the card goes into the discard pile.

This page has a list of the cards in the deck and gives a general description of each card.

For an additional challenge, the GM should deal themselves two or more cards to use in game. The whimsy cards allow for a strong random element into your game. Use at your own risk.

Hope these tools are useful to you.
Enjoy, let me know what your favorite tools are and... good night.

Over the weekend I was playing with e-tools; and I was truly amazed at just how much it can do. The program has come a long way.

Last week two friends (a GM and the Official Initiative Keeper of a game I'm in) brought up the topic of how best to keep the Initiative order. There are programs for your Palm that can track this, and there is even a paper resource from TheOtherGamingCompany. Both require the user (probably the GM) to write out a lot of information because neither product is designed as a character generator.

Using e-tools to generate your d20 character allows you to print out an initiative card straight from the program. Not only would this give the GM the ability to maintain and update all the PCs, they could use them as cheat-sheets for their NPCs.

But how do you limit the amount of information the GM must provide to the Official Initiative Keeper? The answer is very simple: blank cards of the same size. Just put a descriptive name (bad guy #1 will suffice in most cases) and a number. If bad guy #1 readys or delays, erase the number and write the new number on the card - then reorder the cards in their initiative order.

This should be easier to do than writing all the names out in a list on paper - then rewriting the list each time someone readys or delays. Blank cards could be used for everyone - with the party's "blank cards" bearing their names. Since everyone sits with the character written out in front of them anyways, duplication of data should always be kept to a minimum.

Prices:

• e-tools: $36.00 US (base system and 3.5 data set)
• Combat-Q 1.3: $8.96 US
• Initiative Cards: $18.00 US (Monster Set 1 & 2)

When you prepare a campaign, to what degree do you go? How much information do you accumulate before inviting players to create characters? How many restrictions do you place upon your players? Do you provide world-based handouts, to bring the players up to speed, or not?

I ask because I am in a quandary. I came across a neat idea for a campaign, but it's unlike anything I've done before and I want to gather enough information so that if/when I shelve it - I can retrieve it later as a usable item. Right now I have no time for starting a new campaign, so I'll probably just write articles about it.

Looking forward to answers from the wisdom of the great masses (that's you lot). ;)