Via NYMag. Weird Al, represent!
Speaking of simple pleasures, who among its earliest players would have imagined the NYTimes lauding “A Game as Literary Tutorial”?
When he was an immigrant boy growing up in New Jersey, the writer Junot Díaz said he felt marginalized. But that feeling was dispelled somewhat in 1981 when he was in sixth grade. He and his buddies, adventuring pals with roots in distant realms — Egypt, Ireland, Cuba and the Dominican Republic — became “totally sucked in,” he said, by a “completely radical concept: role-playing,” in the form of Dungeons & Dragons.
Playing D&D and spinning tales of heroic quests, “we welfare kids could travel,” Mr. Díaz, 45, said in an email interview, “have adventures, succeed, be powerful, triumph, fail and be in ways that would have been impossible in the larger real world.”…
The league of ex-gamer writers also includes the “weird fiction” author China Miéville (“The City & the City”); Brent Hartinger (author of “Geography Club,” a novel about gay and bisexual teenagers); the sci-fi and young adult author Cory Doctorow; the poet and fiction writer Sherman Alexie; the comedian Stephen Colbert; George R. R. Martin, author of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series (who still enjoys role-playing games). Others who have been influenced are television and film storytellers and entertainers like Robin Williams, Matt Groening (“The Simpsons”), Dan Harmon (“Community”) and Chris Weitz (“American Pie”).
With the release of the rebooted Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set on Tuesday, and more advanced D&D rule books throughout the summer, another generation of once-and-future wordsmiths may find inspiration in the scribbled dungeon map and the secret behind Queen of the Demonweb Pits…
The playwright and screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire, 44, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Rabbit Hole,” said D&D “harkens back to an incredibly primitive mode of storytelling,” one that was both “immersive and interactive.” The Dungeon Master resembles “the tribal storyteller who gathers everyone around the fire to tell stories about heroes and gods and monsters,” he said. “It’s a live, communal event, where anything can happen in the moment.”…
(Full disclosure, I was never a D&D player, but I did fall in love with a deeply committed Dungeon Master, some thirty-six years ago.)
***********
Apart from fond memories of endless narratives, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Central Planning
My kids (5 of them) have been playing a role-playing game they made up. They’ve been playing since their winter break in February. The whole process has been amazing. They have friends that come over and play, and it’s not the same ones all the time. They always include my youngest two kids (8 and 11) which is amazing to me as well.
Now that it’s summer, they spend hours out on the deck. Each person creates a character with all sorts of different attributes. They will draw a picture of the character on their card, and they use them to keep track of all the characters stats, abilities, and loot. Occasionally a character dies and they have started a “wall of fame” by taping them to the wall in my dining room. My wife and I don’t really care. One kid said “That is so cool that you let us put the dead characters on your wall. My mom wouldn’t really go for that.”
Someone is the game master for the mission, and they play for hours. We provide food (lots of it), so I think the hoards of teenage boys really like coming to our house for that. It’s all win/win: we know where our kids are and the kids they hang out with.
Ben Cisco
On the job and just read the news about Cole. Wow.
I’ll repeat my wishes for full recovery here.
Schlemizel
I played D&D once with a group of work friends. Given no instructions on the unwritten rules, I committed the unforgivable sin of creating a dwarf character. The rest of the party has elves and so in the prejudices of D&D, simply could not abide traveling with a dwarf. It was all so formalized, had to have pole weapons, had to have this, had to have that, it was all rather boring instead of adventuresome.
My boss and his boss will be in town today. In addition to wasting most of the day dealing with their BS I have to lie to get out of an evening of massive over-drinking and Hooters waitress harassment.
raven
No wonder there is an obesity crisis.
OzarkHillbilly
D&D came along in my early 20s I think. A buddy of mine and some of his sisters (he had 8) invited me to play a game with them. Once a week we’d get together to play. I have to admit I really didn’t get it.
My character was a dwarf. “What do you want to name him, Tom?” Name him? Name a character? Why? “Tom.” I replied, figuring if it was good enuf for me, ought to be good enuf for him. They had great fun with that.
Anyway, after a few weeks my interest was definitely on the wane and I started missing some game nights. They took the opportunity to send Tom the dwarf into ever increasingly dangerous situations. At first, Tom was more and more successful, gaining powers and magic shields and swords. Got to the point where he was all but invincible, almost a God. That was when they decided that Tom had to meet his end and sent him into a room full of fire breathing dragons or some such.
Sigh…. I expect to meet a similar fate someday when people I call “friends” become so jealous of my all but God like powers that they conspire to seal my doom.
raven
Yesterday a crazy cooking show, Offbeat Eats, filmed at my neighborhood restaurant all day. I was able to be part of it and this guy finished the show with a song. Check out Puddles the Pity Party.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Schlemizel: That sounds like a particularly nasty species of min-maxers. We were (and are) much more freewheeling.
BillinGlendaleCA
Anybody here have any experience with film(negative & slide) scanners? I used a flatbed to scan most of my stuff about 10 years ago. The results were sorta OK at the time, but now they look kinda crappy.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I highly recommend Darths and Droids for anyone who is a gamer and for anyone who just doesn’t get it. The comic itself is a delight, and a considerable improvement over the movies. The commentary below the comic touches on gamer culture (and frequently translates it for non-gamers) and is, IMO, the best part.
Tokyokie
Thirty years ago, I loved playing RPGs (I not only played them, but I ran them and eventually did a lot of freelance work for TSR), but I learned that how good a time one had depended upon the group with which one played. Good group, good time; bad group, boring. I didn’t realize how great the group with whom I initially played was until I moved out of town and tried to find a new one.
Suffern ACE
Well, as for me, I’ve been in the office since 4:40 and don’t think I’ll be getting out until 10pm.
And judging from the Newsmax headlines, Illegals, Illegals all day long will be the agenda.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Just saw a commercial while watching Morning Joe for AARP; they drive past a bowling alley that looked very familiar. It’s on the main street of the part of town where I lived for 20 years. Walked past it many a time.
Suffern ACE
@raven: Whatever do you mean?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: so what’s the offbeat eat there?
Central Planning
@raven:
Depends on where you are. My kids and their friends are on the crew team, ski, rugby, soccer, and track (and probably more that I don’t remember)
ETA – I didn’t mean to imply that all of them are on all of them, just that they are getting their physical exercise as well.
Southern Beale
Two items: Today in Corporate Personhood, in which the feds opt not to prosecute the corporation owned by Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Haslam for cheating customers.
And today’s Second Amendment Hero, a woman out of Michigan who grabbed her rifle during a family argument and slammed the butt on the floor “to make a point.” She ended up shooting herself in the face. Ta da.
The Pale Scot
@BillinGlendaleCA: Scanners? Yea you’ll get more info from a slide than a photo, but unless you think the slides have details that have decayed in the paper, you might be better off learning some Photoshop than getting another piece of equipment. If you’re just looking to bump up contrast and color, get an old copy PS CS6 isn’t necessary and there are other options also. Just look for “image adjustments”.
OzarkHillbilly
Roads in Yellowstone are melting:
“It basically turned the asphalt into soup. It turned the gravel road into oatmeal,” Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said….
Park officials also asked tourists not to hike into the affected areas, as the danger of stepping through what appears to be solid soil into boiling-hot water was “high.”
This global warming sh!t is getting out of hand.
BillinGlendaleCA
@The Pale Scot: The old scans have two problems: the resolution is low and the lighting on the flatbed scanner wasn’t even on some shots.
Baud
The state elected Ahnold, so who knows?
JPL
@Ben Cisco: John always takes care of others, whether it be the frat boys or his new roommate. It’s about time he focuses on himself. I wish him well,too.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
May not specifically be what you’re after in this case, but for basic image editing (things such as contrast, saturation, sharpening, gamma adjustment, cropping, adding text, copy/pasting, resizing, etc.), have always recommended (and been happy with) Irfanview. Been using it successfully since the mid-1990s.
1) It’s free.
2) It’s intuitive, unlike Photoshop (which is no slam against PS, as it is so much more powerful a tool than a basic editor).
3) There are some filters available for Irfanview for special effects and such.
4) It handles most any type of image file, and one can save to a wide variety of file types.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: My buddy is a CIA graduate but his thing is “food without an attitude”. It was funny because the director of the show wanted him to make up some complex bullshit dish to highlight and he wouldn’t do it. He’s always got vegan food but his bbq and burgers are really popular. The building is a funky old store and there are picnic tables outside that make for great family and doggie groups.
PurpleGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: No, this is heat coming up from the volcano that lies beneath the park. I wonder how long the closure will have to be.
JPL
@raven: That’s cool. I like to support family owned restaurants and although they are plentiful around me, many are also snooty.
jayboat
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve never used one, but I remember seeing a clever tool for converting slides to digital. It fits over the lens of a camera- you insert a slide, point it at a light source and wa-la. Seems legit, but I would guess a bit of post-processing would be in order to get things adjusted.
Baud
@PurpleGirl:
LOL
debbie
@Southern Beale:
I blame the bullet.
JPL
@Baud: Wouldn’t Congress have to approve it? They would decide how many Senators would be repub and how many dem. Since D.C. will never have a Senator, it won’t happen. Let them waste money. (Or at least that’s what I think.)
raven
@JPL: Try Pallookavile. Jim is the host of the cooking show and opened this place in Avondale Estates.
Southern Beale
@debbie:
I blame the floor. Let’s ban floors!
/TeaBaggerSplooge
J.D. Rhoades
My son and his buddies played D & D and other RPGs all through high school. I kept urging him to write some of this stuff down and make a book out of it. Some of the characters and scenarios he came up with were so incredibly inventive, far beyond the stereotypical hack n’ slash n’ grab people associate with RPGs.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
I’m with him on that. I do most of the cooking in our house (my wife heats stuff up) and most all of my favorite recipes are short and simple. My little bro and his wife just opened a restaurant up in STL and the same can be said for their menu. Good food doesn’t need much help.
OzarkHillbilly
@PurpleGirl: Sarcasm is wasted around here.
rikyrah
I hope someone FrontPages this.
From Larry O last night.
Hospital’s closure may have claimed a life
Belhaven, North Carolina Mayor Adam O’Neal warned that citizens would die unnecessarily if Vidant Pungo Hospital closed its doors. Unfortunately, he may have been proven right.
http://on.msnbc.com/1n4DC6r
Baud
@JPL:
Congress has to approve it. Perhaps a GOP Congress would do that. I don’t know if that’s the type of thing the President has to also sign.
In all seriousness, I would be surprised if this passed the ballot. Californians aren’t that dumb.
rikyrah
Why Did Black Voters Flee The Republican Party In The 1960s?
by KAREN GRIGSBY BATES
July 14, 2014 5:05 AM ET
If you’d walked into a gathering of older black folks 100 years ago, you’d have found that most of them would have been Republican.
Wait… what?
Yep. Republican. Party of Lincoln. Party of the Emancipation. Party that pushed not only black votes but black politicians during that post-bellum period known as Reconstruction.
Today, it’s almost the exact opposite. That migration of black voters away from the GOP reached its last phase 50 years ago this week.
Walking through the Farmer’s Market at 18th Street and La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, a mixture of Angelenos strolled the asphalt parking lot, surveying rows of leafy produce and ripe stone fruit. Virtually all the people I approached who were registered voters were registered to one party.
“I’m affiliated with the Democratic party, of course!” laughs Arthur Little, a thin man in shorts and electric turquoise-framed sun glasses.
“Why ‘of course’?” I asked.
“Because I think of it as the party that is at least officially interested in putting people’s rights before corporate rights,” Little shakes his head. “I don’t even know why a black person even would be a Republican,” he muses, as he walks off with his teenaged son.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s
danielx
July 15th and it’s 58 degrees, feels like September instead of July. After some weeks of heat and humidity, this is a GOOD thing since I have to be up on the porch roof today wielding a paint sprayer.
Fun.
In other news, our boy Eric has achieved near-legendary status among the local veterinary community for being the only local cat – let alone a seventeen year old cat – known to have survived an encounter with a pit bull*, albeit with fairly horrendous wounds. He’s up and about at least some of the time, although still not eating satisfactorily. Drinking from the water bowl, yes, eating any of his multitudinous food choices…not so much. Although hopefully with his Fentanyl patch removed his appetite will start to recover. Thanks for all the good thoughts, and extending some of my own to Cole…again.
*Re pit bulls – I’ve revised my thinking about the breed in general from my stance immediately after the incident, at which point I would cheerfully have done away with every one I could reach personally. I was reproached by a couple of friends who maintain that a properly trained pit bull is a faithful, safe and sweet companion. Let’s say that if you are going to own a pit bull, or a couple, that you should exercise the same care with them that you would exercise if you kept loaded firearms in the house. You can’t let them ‘slip out the door’, for example – they are very protective and aggressive towards anything perceived as a threat or as prey, the trouble being that one can never be sure of what they will consider a threat or prey. Nor yet can one know how well such a dog is trained; my rule of thumb being that if it won’t release on command, like a police dog, it can’t be considered well trained.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: That entire plan is fucking insane. Perfectly reflects the IT glibertarian mindset that has no fucking clue as to how things are interconnected, and fails to understand historical reasons for why things are they way they are.
M31
Played D&D once–I named my dwarf character “Spats” and took all kinds of shit for it.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Goldwater was practically a commie. /today’s tea party.
And I love that NPR just had to end that story with “both sides.” They are tools.
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale: I am sure there must be a video game or some mental illness that can take the blame for that woman shooting herself in the face.
We know with metaphysical certitude that the Dark Lord cannot be possibly be involved, however. This did not take place on some “hunting” farm.
JPL
@danielx: Great news about Eric. Hopefully his appetite returns soon.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m pretty much convinced that one of the reasons the biblethumpers are so adverse to games like D&D is that they do allow imaginations to flourish, and that scares them no end.
rikyrah
Youth Group Collective Launch New Freedom Summer Campaign
Jul 14, 2014
ByD.L. Chandler
Freedom Side, a collective of young activists of color, are launching a multi-state effort inspired by the efforts 50 years ago by the Freedom Summer campaign during the height the Civil Rights Movement. Comprised of young men and women from various organizations already on the ground fighting for racial and social justice, the new campaign has a specific aim in highlighting the mass criminalization of young people.
One year after the shocking verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, the Freedom Side collective hosted a press conference in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday and held a silent march Saturday as well. Freedom Side members wore black tape over their mouths in a solidarity protest in the city, which the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States, calls home.
Friday’s 11 a.m. CST press conference highlighted Freedom Ride’s ongoing mobilization efforts and also announced plans for the Saturday march and other related matters. The press conference also announced the actions of partner groups in their respective cities and regions in support of this ongoing campaign.
Five Freedom Side organizers were arrested Saturday while protesting the National Governors Association meeting in downtown Nashville: James Hayes, Malya Davis, Marshawn McCaroll, and Aaron Hayes of the Ohio Student Association, and Mike Sampson of the Dream Defenders were arrested without warning while trying to meet with their respective elected representatives. According to Freedom Side officials, they were released later on Monday, after a judge saw no probable cause for the arrest.
http://newsone.com/3035526/freedom-side-george-zimmerman/
danielx
@Baud:
So was Ronald Reagan.
Matter of fact, by the standards of today’s wingnut world the only pols of history worthy to be called real Republicans that I’ve been able to discover are Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun*.
*Cheerful-looking sonofabitch, isn’t he?
OzarkHillbilly
Over at the Raw Story: Trigger Happy: Can anything slow down America’s epidemic of gun violence?
It leads to a series of articles they have done. I suspect all are worth a read. The first one certainly was.
“In Iowa, it’s easier to sell a gun than lemonade. In Arkansas, it takes less time to buy a gun than to qualify for food stamps. In Arizona, you need a permit to cut hair, but not to carry a concealed weapon. In Florida you’re fingerprinted to be a substitute teacher, but not to buy or carry a gun. It’s easier to buy an assault weapon than it is to vote.”
The Pale Scot
@BillinGlendaleCA: Those are two problems you can’t photoshop away without turning it into an art project. If you need a scanner for just this one job and then you aren’t going to use again, I would go check out your library and see what kind of scanner they have. Get a big flash drive and scan everything at high res and make TIFF or RAW files. Remember unless
Like I said before, unless the slides have detail the paper doesn’t (like hair or off focus background) or the color has changed instead of just faded, or these are for a portfolio, you can get by with paper for such things as old family photos. You might find a good scan shows the granularity of the film stock if it’s from the <70's, that's the limit as to how high the scan res should be. But you might want to use slides just to get the very best scans for posterity.
There are tons of free tutorials on photo corrections. And you don't need a current version of PS or Adobe Elements, the image correction tools have been around since PS2. You could try pixlr on line.
another Holocene human
@Tokyokie: This is also true of jobs and marriages
Lurking Canadian
As a kid, I was so nerdy, I wasn’t even cool enough to play D&D. Also too shy for sci-fi cons.
And I’m not sure if it’s an art form, but whatever it is, Al Yankovic is its Grand Master.
another Holocene human
@Baud: That’s a hell of an over reaction to high speed rail.
Not sure why they hate it, but it’s a Cali tradition. In the 80s they fought commuter rail because those slacker tech slaves might get the notion they could knock off at 745pm for an 8pm train instead of staying overnight with the car drivers.
rikyrah
24 last night:
I enjoyed it. It was sad. Jack isn’t supposed to be happy. It was never going to have a ‘ Hollywood’ ending.
I want more 24, but if this was the end, I’m ok with it.
ChrisH
This is a great testament to how thoroughly D&D has won. I wanted to form a D&D group in high school but some of my friends religious parents forbid them and even my fairly liberalized parents were wary on the subject. Nowadays the idea of D&D being evil is relegated to the same underbelly of evangelical thought as those who ban children from reading Harry Potter (a friend of my brother was in that catagory)
The actual link is giving me a 503 error so here is someone making reference to the always insightful Fred Clark
Iowa Old Lady
When my kid was about 11, he went to a summer day camp where you could sign your kid up for various activities. He loved D&D. He’d been DMing since he was 7. So I signed him up for role play gaming. The camp felt they had to phone and warn me it was D&D. I didn’t even understand what the conversation was supposed to be about. What else would it be? Some sort of therapy?
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re both right. The volcano has been there for more than half a million years. What’s adding stress right now is how hot the air is, which obviously prevents the ground from cooling the way it used to do.
James Probis
The new D&D rules are notable for encouraging openness with regard to characters’ gender roles. D&D has always been open to players doing what they want, but it’s nice to see the sourcebook explicitly encourage GSM representation:
“You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture’s expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon’s image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character’s sexual orientation is for you to decide.”
Glocksman
I was heavily into AD&D, Shadowrun, and Star Trek roleplaying as a teenager and attended all of the local cons for years.
The best one was when Timothy Zahn was Guest of Honor (this was right after his first Blackcollar novel came out), and he signed a copy of it for me.
It didn’t hurt that the FASA owners were local guys and attended all the cons, either.
On another topic, I have XM radio in the car and when I have errands to run in the mornings before work, I listen to Joe Madison.
I don’t always agree with what he says, but he makes very good arguments and doesn’t scream or rant the way most of the radio hosts on the right (here’s looking at you Mark Levin) do.
Glocksman
Since this is an OT thread, has anyone else been seeing a lot of ads here for Harry’s razors?
I have and I can’t figure out why I’m targeted unless it’s because Google’s adsense is telling them that my searches for Harry Potter fanfiction means that I’m in the market for a razor.
They actually look like good razors and I’d try them except for the fact that I use a Panasonic electric wet/dry shaver that’s a joy to use.
Chyron HR
@Glocksman:
Searching for slash fiction, huh?
RedKitten
I adore Al Yankovic. He’s utterly delightful. And after viewing the “The Saga Begins” video, I realized that he’s surprisingly handsome.
Glocksman
@Chyron HR:
If there’s a good story with it and it’s not explicitly pornographic, I don’t mind slash.
The problem with all fanfiction is sorting out the the one gem among the 100,000 pieces of cubic zirconia.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: No. I know what is heating the ground. I thought it was obvious. I chose to make a joke out of it. An air temp increase of 2 degrees Fahrenheit has an effect of somewhere between zero and nil.00000000000001 on a groundwater temp heated to boiling by the molten bubble of magma thousands of feet below the surface and the ground water is well insulated from the air by ground which is heated to similar temps.
Global warming may have everything to do with it (the globe is warmer there!), but climate change has zero to do with it.
Glocksman
@Glocksman:
Also, the slash pairing has to make sense.
HP/DM or HP/Voldemort doesn’t.
I’m sure Harry Potter would fall in love with Draco Malfoy (who deserves a reducto to the back of the head) or the ‘man’ who killed his parents. :rolleyes:
HP/RW or HP/CD might might work if written well.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly: Here’s Mary Beth Griggs at the Smithsonian:
Steeplejack
@Glocksman:
What channel is Joe Madison on?
Glocksman
@Steeplejack:
Urban View.
It’s programmed in, so I don’t know the channel number offhand.
gene108
Wizards of the Coast, the current publisher of D&D, who TSR sold the license for the game to needs a serious reboot.
From what I’ve heard D&D 4.0 blew chunks and pushed people to other d20 D&D-like games (Pathfinder, by Paizo comes to mind) that are more in line with the D&D 3.5 rules.
I’ve heard from folks far more into D&D than I ever was that D&D 4.0 is no longer D&D and some sort of bastard abomination that no one should ever play.
I’m not sure if WoC can repair the damage done from D&D 4.0, but they do need a new version out.
Steeplejack
@Glocksman:
Thanks. I can find it by the name. I can never remember whether I have Sirius or XM in the car, anyway. (I think the channel numbers might be different.)
gene108
@James Probis:
I’ve never known D&D to force players to stick to strict gender roles.
Earlier editions had restrictions based on race, like Dwarves could not be wizards, but gender never came into it.
The only thing people tend to do is stick with their real life gender in character creation.
A female person in real life, would make a female half-orc barbarian. A male person in real life would make a male dwarven cleric.
Frankensteinbeck
Tabletop roleplaying is a social event as much as anything else. Thus the good group/bad group discussions. Most of its impetus has moved to online games. WoW *is* D&D, is derived in an obvious straight line through Warhammer, and is just an adaptation to a computerized format. It’s why I only like to play MMOs in groups with friends. The design implies a social element.
I’m an author and I tabletop roleplayed like mad, so there’s that. Would do it again if I had the appropriate local social group.
@ChrisH:
The evangelical tradition is all about conformity, and in the 80s NEEEERDS were considered inferior. Looking back, it was a shockingly hateful decade, and the people who couldn’t get over it really set up our current political crisis. Evangelicals could throw a fit because kids were drifting towards a game that didn’t reflect Praise Jeebus ideals and didn’t look like something The Beaver would play. The rest of the nation would take them seriously. Religion has shrunk and nerds became mainstream since then. If computer gaming is mainstream, so are nerds.
@Glocksman:
I approve of fan fiction professionally, but can’t read it personally. It’s good training for novice writers, and if you’re having fun creating more power to you. Alas, it’s dominated by bad writers, and all the effort learning to write has left me unnaturally sensitive to even mediocre writing. I can’t stand it.
EDIT – @gene108:
WoC will be fine with that. They mostly just want to release as many new versions and books as possible. They have no priority other than squeezing every last dime out of their properties. They vex me sorely.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s kind of funny that people (not you, obviously) get all haughty about Kids Today and Their Fanfiction when I remember writing it 30-odd years ago and passing it around with my friends.
gene108
@Baud:
Little remembered fact: Goldwater hated Reagan teaming up with the fundies. Goldwater loathed guys like Falwell and Robertson.
ranchandsyrup
Day 3 of a juice cleanse. Down 7 lbs and feel pretty darn good. The one meal I get a day tastes fantastic. Like my taste buds are coming to life.
⚽️ Martin
My daughter has been asking about D&D. That caught me off guard. Sold off all my D&D stuff ages ago for a surprising sum. I’m inclined to pick it back up – anything to keep a teenage girl engaged with her family…
Frankensteinbeck
@⚽️ Martin:
There are a lot of tabletop roleplaying games. Suggest she look at the others before she picks up D&D. It is not the best by a long shot. I rather liked Palladium, but I don’t think it’s available anymore.
2liberal
waiting to see the first tbogg post
Iowa Old Lady
I usually watch MSNBC shows the next day online. I just had to turn off The Last Word because he showed tape of Dick Cheney. WTF. Why does anyone give this war criminal air time? If they do, why do they ask him anything other than why aren’t you in jail? Or what to you say to the people whose loved ones died because you lied?
⚽️ Martin
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, I’ve played a number of others as well. My fear is opening that particular Pandora’s box knowing that there’s a My Little Pony tabletop RPG out there, and that might easily be a bridge too far for the family. I’m just crossing my fingers hoping that daughter remains unaware of that one.
lamh36
Say whaaaa….
2liberal
@lamh36:
the first transgender superhero?
daveNYC
@Frankensteinbeck: I think Palladium is still around, but it’s not the easiest system to get a handle on. Plus some of the more interesting classes (Diabolist, for example) need a good GM and Player to have things work out.
If you’re going for straight forward fantasy role-playing, I’d suggest either Pathfinder (it’s basically just 3.5 D&D) or the new 5E, which I’ve heard has some good tools that make DMing easier. 4E was balls.
I remember seeing Gygax at GenCon years ago, a big fat dude just chilling at one of the booths. A really nice guy. RPGing was rather lucky that he helped start the whole thing.
I’d also recommend DM of the Rings.
Cassidy
@⚽️ Martin: There are a couple really good ones online that are free; Eclipse Phase In particular has gotten lots of accolades.
I’ve played tabletop since my teens. Me and a buddy wrote our own game last year. Unfortunately, it’s hard for a group of people who are over 30 and have kids to get together on a regular basis.
Seanly
@Schlemizel:
That sounds terrible. There are many, many people who are nowhere near that uptight about the rules. In fact, the game is nowhere near that uptight about anything (in fact, AD&D was famously ambiguous about a lot). It sounds like those people were just a bunch of douchenozzles.
I started with Basic D&D in 1980 at age 12 and soon graduated to AD&D 1st Edition. Met one of my best friends when I was sketching armor out of a rule book in 7th grade science class. Of course, dragged my 8 year brother into it. Played AD&D for 1980 through high school. Really slowed down when I left for college in 1986 though I did play during summer breaks. Pretty much hung it up after 1990.
My brother & I did develop a lifelong love of role playing, but it’s been mostly computer games like the Baldur’s Gate series, Fallout series (one of my favorites but my brother didn’t like). We played WoW for a long, long time and have tried a few other MMO’s like Star Wars Old Republic & Neverwinter. None of those really scratched the itch – we kept lamenting that nothing was as fun the old days of our time playing AD&D.
I have to give my mother some significant thanks for not only letting me play Dungeons & Dragons, but recognizing that it was a worthwhile endeavor. Mom saw it not as a gateway to demon-worship or live roleplaying in sewers, but as a great way for a shy, scrawny kid to hang out with friends. She also loved that it fostered the imagination and math skills. As an English prof, she loved the interest we gained in mythology and fantasy literature. In 1983, my mom’s boyfriend and his son (a big scary guy) moved in with us. We got him to play AD&D with us. He is dyslexic (before that became a thing) and hated reading – however, his year of gaming with us got him interested in reading. He’s thanked us quite a few times for awakening a love of reading in him.
About a year & a half ago, we were bored with the pale imitation of pen & paper RPG that MMOs offer. We looked at the playtesting that WoC was doing for AD&D Next (their much-needed reboot after the 4.0 fiasco), but then decided to go back to 1st edition. We started getting the 1st edition books on eBay (my paper box of old books & modules lost in a move). Almost the entire library of books, magazines & modules are available as PDFs (some better copies than others). My brother & I play via Skype (though we’re on hiatus playing Titanfall). My wife met a guy at the dogpark who had a shirt on about D&D – he & I are now friends. He sold all his 1st, 2nd & 3rd edition stuff and is concentrating on playing Pathfinder (the most popular successor to AD&D 3.5). I recently joined one of his sessions and am having to learn Pathfinder now…
wenchacha
I knew precious little about D&D until my 40s. A bookselling msg bd was surprised at the big bucks going to buy old beat-up pamphlets of the game rules and whatnot. I didn’t get it until I saw them all play it on a “Community” episode.
My son, 22, plays Magic The Gathering, and I don’t know if there is any Role Play involved. One of my daughter’s friends does LARPing, makes costumes. The photos she posts on FB probably don’t do justice to the actual play.
I found improv a couple years ago, and it is perfect for RPG people, plus you get to move around. Improv really made me see the point/value/interest in the fantasy game stuff. For adults and teens, it’s usually sports-type games that are available for play. If sports isn’t your thing, it can be limiting.
I have been extremely fortunate to live in a small city that happens to be overflowing with improv at many venues. Playing with other people who enjoy laughing and puns and pop cultural references mixed with history and astronomy plus the occasional zoo animal has been a great addition to my life.
⚽️ Martin
@Cassidy: I started with D&D in the 80s and followed to AD&D 2nd ed. I DMed for years so I can do it pretty easily. I play a pretty light rules game. I know the rules, and I’ll nudge the players in-game. The problem with any heavy rules system is striking the balance for the players between challenging and frustrating. It’s easy to kill the whole party inside the first 10 minutes by following the rules. Not much fun, though.
Eclipse Phase might be a bit much for the girl. I think she’s going to need unicorns and pretty elves and shit. I’ll look into it a bit more.
I have all the 2nd Ed stuff in PDF. I can just toss it on the iPad to get started. I see that they released the AD&D Next starter for free, so I’ll look at that as well. Don’t need to do very much to gauge everyone’s interest. We’ll know inside a few hours if it will continue.
Punchy
This seems a bit shocking, especially considering it’s freakin’ Kansas….
Trollhattan
Borowitz FTW.
The Other Chuck
@gene108: D&D 4.0 does blow chunks, it is awful and terribad, and what all my player friends call “WoW on Paper”.
That said, It’s good that they tried. They had to do something bold and not just tinker around the edges if they wanted the genre to do anything but continue to shrink. People who crave intricate storylines and fleshed-out settings can use their imagination and creativity and build on any ruleset, so if the rules are simplistic, then as long as they’re consistent and balanced, I got no problem with that. I’ll stick with 3.5 myself, but godspeed to 4.0.
The Other Chuck
@wenchacha:
Not in the slightest, but there’s tons of overlap in the CCG (Collecter Card Games) and RPG communities. There’s even hybrid CCG/RPG games on the market now, and they really look like a ton of fun.
rikyrah
WHAT THE DEMS IN NORTH CAROLINA HAVE TO DEATH WITH
…………………………
House Dems accuse Tillis of abuse of power
Posted 12:31 p.m. today
By Laura Leslie
RALEIGH, N.C. — House Democrats are accusing Republican Speaker Thom Tillis of abuse of power for refusing to release funds for caucus staff and using parliamentary maneuvers to cut off debate.
Minority Leader Larry Hall said Tuesday that Tillis “has decided to defund the House Democratic caucus.”
Hall, D-Durham, also said House Republicans have used “tabling” to cut off debate in the current session more than twice as many times as it was used by Democrats from 2001 to 2009.
“It’s a disturbing and destructive pattern of persecuting those who don’t agree with whatever the leadership says they want to have done,” he said.
Leaders of both the majority and minority caucuses are traditionally allowed at least one full-time staffer to coordinate meetings, communicate with members and help with research and bill drafting. The money for those staffers is allocated in the state budget.
Hall told WRAL News that he, Tillis and other leaders had agreed on a 2014 budget of $85,000 for staff for the Democratic caucus.
However, Hall said, the speaker changed his mind and refused to release the money or approve the caucus’ request to hire a chief of staff because of Hall’s outspoken opposition to new legislative building rules.
http://www.wral.com/house-dems-accuse-tillis-of-abuse-of-power/13812387/#8RHjWo8gWfj9K2bO.99
soonergrunt
back in the early 90s, I played D&D with some guys in my Army unit. We’d sneak into Battalion HQ, where the good photocopier was, and copy the pages of our manuals, shrinking them to 50% size and we’d take them to the field, and play while in the defense (digging fighting positions and trenches and stringing concertina wire and so forth.) It was a great way to kill the time while doing backbreaking physical labor that took very little brainpower. I played D&D in Germany with some friends and we’d go to castles and map them out for use in our games.
rikyrah
If Boehner Sues Obama, Roberts Wins
Jul 11, 2014 12:58 PM EDT
By Jonathan Bernstein
The story on House Speaker John Boehner’s lawsuit against President Barack Obama is pretty simple: regardless of whether the administration overstepped, what’s at stake is whether the courts are being empowered at the expense of the elected branches of government.
For starters, there’s zero evidence that Obama has been unusual in his use of executive powers. If he’s overdone it, then all the recent presidents have done so, too. The idea that he’s some sort of tyrant who acts differently than other modern presidents is nonsense.
Related: Is Boehner Lawsuit a Warm Welcome to Immigrants?
In fact, It’s perfectly normal for presidents and executive branch departments and agencies to make broad interpretations of law that look a lot like legislating. It’s how the system works, and pretty much how it always worked. Thus Richard Neustadt’s famous claim that the system isn’t “separation of powers,” but separated institutions sharing powers.
Nonetheless, there are rules constraining how laws may be interpreted, and it is possible that in specific instances, the administration may have acted beyond what the law allows.
Indeed, experts have made the case that this kind of overreach occurred with the delayed implementation of the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act (which, apparently, is going to be central to the House Republicans’ lawsuit), though other experts disagree.
In any case, it would be unprecedented, and in fact would constitute a significant change to the constitutional system, if the courts allowed Congress to sue the president over the ACA delay.
The technical issue is “standing.” For the courts to consider a lawsuit, the person or group bringing the suit has to show they were harmed in some direct way. So, for example, in the recent recess appointment case, Noel Canning Corp. was able to show that it had directly been harmed by an action taken by members of the National Labor Relations Board who had been recess-appointed. Generally, the courts have ruled (Vox has a good explainer on this) that Congress isn’t eligible to sue the president just because it doesn’t like what he’s done.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-11/if-boehner-sues-obama-roberts-wins
BillinGlendaleCA
@The Pale Scot: Though the thread is quite dead, I probably didn’t explain the existing scans and their source. I had a Epson scanner that would allow direct scanning of slides and negatives, but the resolution is poor and so is the evenness of the backlighting. That’s what the existing files are the result of. I may have prints of many of the negatives(some were given away) and I can scan those with my existing scanner. Slides are slides, mostly Kodachrome from the 50’s to early 80’s, there are no prints.
Stephen
PDFs of most of the 3.5 series of D&D manuals are available at http://minus.com/mdnd35 – be warned though, they can come to 50MB for some of the larger ones.
Mo MacArbie
There are a lot of games out now that clone and tidy up the older rules of D&D. Some of the pdfs are even offered for free. OSRIC is like the 1st. edition Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual all rolled up in one.