Concert, Gaming, Carl Jung is Evil, MySQL/PHP

[tcpip]

A quiet week as much of my productivity was hampered by the annoyance of hay/spring fever. It's exhausting, but you're not actually sick per se, so you end up annoyed. At least I don't suffer from it as bad as I did in Western Australia.

Pleased to hear that the love_diversity picnic and response to Sydney's race conflicts went OK on Sunday; I was at the end-of-year Unitarian concert which was just across the road. This "service" is invariably my least favourite gathering, as I both loathe Chrismas carols and jazz (which unfortunately a number of the congregation seem to play - and well too). Nevertheless, the cause was good - raising money for the victims of the earthquake in India/Pakistan. Some estimations of that quake put the number of dead now at 79,000.

After the typically elaborate Unitarian feast (with my carrot cake and caseopaya's almond shortbread well received) the gaming group conducted another episode of "Outbreak of Heresy", set in the town of Huedin and the commune of Beliş. Encounters included a primitive Khazar demons from several hundred years prior, renegade gypsies and werewolves. I think I know too much about Transylvania.

This week also witnessed the arrival of several books from the U.S. on game design (primarily C++, Java, Python, MUDs and artwork), I'm all prepared for 2006 ;-). Whilst on topic...

"Dungeons & Dragons, instead of a game is a teaching on demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, Satan-worship, gambling, jungian psychology, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination, and many more teachings, brought to you in living color direct from the pit of hell."

Thanks to Baptist Pillar for this fine piece of work. Huzzah for living colour from the pit of hell!

In other news I've been working my way through getting the MySQL library and PHP interface going for the Borderlands library. So far so good, although we are somewhat restricted by several years of bad design from Primasoft (this said their customer support has always been quite good).

Comments

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I wrote a satire of this, many years ago: 'Catacombs and Christians, is it more than just a game?' Great fun.

Catacombs and Christians

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That's not a bad title for an ancient Rome RPG campaign based on the period of persecution...

[zey.livejournal.com]

... Along with amazing laziness. Wouldn't most people remove their pants first?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Er, yes... At least that's how I remember it...

[livelurker.livejournal.com]

The Jungian Psychology reference makes me think that it's what The Sunday Slimes grabbed for their reference when they published their D&D is evil article many years ago (and probably still do on a regular basis, but I don't read the Sunday Times any more). This had the accompanying photo of the Demon from the front of the Players Handbook (or the DMG?), carefully cropped to not show the PC's fighting the Demon :)

While we're at it:

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Wicca%20&%20Witchcraft/harry_potter_is_of_the_devil.htm

[elzia.livejournal.com]

hey, this is kind of a stupid question but I'll ask it anyways. I know that there are different online booksellers in different contries, and that there are different versions of US websites in different countries, such as Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Well, I have been on some of the UK or Ireland ones but never on any Australian or New Zealand ones. I have got to believe that some Irish dancing books are published in some of these countries, but I don't know how to find them immediately. Can you tell me what some of the major corporate or independant online booksellers in either Australia or New Zealand are?

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

After the first encounter with some goblins she says "Right, now we loot the bodies".

And I assume does not get my standard answer along the lines of "20 copper and 17 tin pieces, a half eaten rat, three good luck charms (you don't want to know what they are made of) and a sparkly rock. Oh, and some trail rations which are probably best cremated."

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

And then subtract 1 per class of armour (light, medium or heavy) that the character is wearing to a minimum of 1. Knights in full-plate armour tended to find shields pretty pointless for anything other than jousting.

(And recreated battles tend to overrate shields because no one tries to chop through the shield and few use their armour to deflect minor blows.)

But I agree that shields are seriously underrated in D&D.

[lula-neith.livejournal.com]

Where'd you find that?! That's the funniest thing I've seen in a while!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Here you are.. Unfortunately the journal is subscription based, so you only have the abstract but you get the image for free!

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/60.1/images/foster_fig02a.jpg

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

(And recreated battles tend to overrate shields because no one tries to chop through the shield and few use their armour to deflect minor blows.)

Ahh, that's a good point. At least in GURPS you can hack through a shield...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hahaha... Ahhh, not exactly like that but fairly similar!

After a while you leave out the personal effects... Wasn't the rat the trail rations or was that a special treat?

Of course, being unfamiliar with the game system caseopaya was very surprised when we found the first collection of real treasure...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hope this helps...

Corporate
http://www.collinsbooks.com.au/

Independent

http://www.bookworm.com.au
http://www.booktopia.com.au
http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The Sunday Times had one reason for existence; the Reader's Mart. Now that there's the Internet it has no reason for existence.

According to the article buying a Harry Potter book makes you a member of the Church of Satan...

"In 1995, it was estimated that some 100,000 Americans, mostly adults, were involved in devil-worship of some sort. Today, more than 14 million children alone belong to the Church of Satan, thanks largely to the unassuming boy wizard from 4 Privet Drive. Yes, the numbers ARE horrific, but the total sales of Harry Potter books, plus the natural hand-me-down factor where many people read a book that has already been purchased, easily equals or exceeds this staggering figure of 14 million."

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

hang on to it.

No, no. Give it to ME
:-)

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

I'll have to send them a copy

Great for free advertising and RPG cred.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well... I'm a strong believer that the person who will receive the greatest pleasure from an object should be the recipient.

I actually quite like DnD original. It is so clearly a single-unit scale fantasy wargame.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Exactly right. If all the lunatic fundamentalists are complaining that it's most terrifying and realistic potrayal of occultism, demonology and paganism available then wouldn't you want a copy?

Must make sure I do a version in Arabic as well. Marketing demands that a fatwa is put out.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

D&D 3rd has the Sunder feat - but what sort of idiot lets his weapon be hacked through?

[greylock.livejournal.com]

You missed out Chainmail, didn't you?

Immortal rules?
I seem to remember having this discussion.
I should dig 'em out and look at them and puzzle.

/Incidentally, I've read that D&D article before. Somewhere. A long time ago.

[8mor.livejournal.com]

You don't like Jazz??
Oh well, to each their own I guess!
:P

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Don't like it an understatement. Deep seated loathing would be more accurate. At best it's trivially amusing (e.g., boogie-woogie) or serves as aural wallpaper (e.g., bebop, modal jazz). As a function of music, to raise the emotions through rhythm, it demonstrably destroys (particularly in swing) such an option.

I'm with Adorno when it comes to jazz: das Immergleiche (always-the-same), "Jazz is the false liquidation of art - instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture."

Adorno even went to so far to describe it "the music of slaves", which was perhaps a little cruel given its negro origins.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Chainmail (1971) is the precursor to DnD original.

Immortal rules were the final set from Basic (1-3), Expert (4-14), Companion (lvls 15-25), Masters (26-35).

[8mor.livejournal.com]

Tis an interesting view!

Myself, I've just put on one of my jazz CD's... lol

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

One who has nothing else left and has their back to a wall?

(Yeah, I know, desparate circumstances)