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

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

If it's Latin jazz (straight rhythm) rather than American jazz (swing rhythm) it may just be tolerable ;-)

[8mor.livejournal.com]

Well I'm listening to Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

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

I recall owning them, but being puzzled by them.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I just got the PDF of the Rules Cyclopedia. They don't really seem to be included there.

IIRC there's a bookshop in Wellington NZ that has a copy. I may pick them up next month.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Immortal rules were in the MARS library, IIRC.

Valhalla had multiple copies, probably still does, wherever it is these days (A warehouse in Malaga, I think).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Don't seem to recall them there last time I had a look at the MARS library.

Valhalla website hasn't changed for over a year. Last time I chatted to Doug Thorpe he was running for parliament as in independent to change weekend trading laws. Frankly, that's just a little bit crazy, imo.

http://www.valhallagames.com.au/v01.html

Ahh, found the 2nd hand section. No Immortals.

http://www.valhallagames.com.au/games(used).txt

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Last I heard he'd complained to The West that the Government was sick of paying for storage and they were threatening to auction off all his stock.

Quite why it's taking years to re-start the shop I don't know.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Good lord. Dare I bid?

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

In 3rd Ed, any character with the Sunder feat and who does a reasonable amount of damage can attempt to cut the other weapon in half...

Of course, most PCs don't do this because any weapon worth cutting in half (rather than just cutting the monster in half) is probably quite valuble. On the other hand, sundering monsters are even less popular than Rust Monsters as creatures to face.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, yes. I've read it now (I have a the RTF files of SRD).

It seems... OK.

Heck, I'd be using it all the time. A person without a sword is a lot easier to defeat than a person with a sword. Value of the sword be damned, that can be reforged later!

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

And use it on what at higher levels? Wizards won't care, rogues won't be in the way and most melee creatures get natural attacks.