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Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2005-12-19 04:21 pm

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

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 [livejournal.com profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] 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).

[identity profile] dcrisp.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:35 am (UTC)(link)
I dont know about you, but thats what I play Dungeons and Dragons for! :P All that can be summed up as Gratuitous Violence!

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
Borderlands?

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
And i just thought it was an excuse for drinking beer and cursing die rolls...

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:40 am (UTC)(link)

These things aren't contradictory of course... One can drink beer, curse die rolls and engage in gratuitous violence!

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:42 am (UTC)(link)
Coooool. Multi-tasking at its best!

*smirk*

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:48 am (UTC)(link)

Ahh, Borderlands , a community research group.

Not as in "The Keep on the Borderlands", which incidentally [livejournal.com profile] caseopaya and I are currently playing so I can introduce her to eighties-style gaming.

She's pretty good. After the first encounter with some goblins she says "Right, now we loot the bodies". ;-)

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
Oh god, D&D first edition. Noooooo. :-)

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:01 am (UTC)(link)

If you think homosexuality is Gratitious Violence you're doing it wrong ;-)

Now POUNDING SODOMY is a different matter entirely.



Now that's gratitious violence.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:05 am (UTC)(link)

Damn straight. It's going to be a riot..

Strangely enough I actually think that DnD (Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, Immortal etc) was actually a better game in many ways to AD&D.

[identity profile] tatjna.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
Gosh. They sure are covering their bases there..

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
I think i lost the plot with ad&d after a while. there was just so many rules, it became a lawyers game after a while...

[identity profile] baralier.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
What about the 2nd Edition expansions? The Complete Priest's Handbook etc.?

Now that got some serious rules lawyering going.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:11 am (UTC)(link)

*nods* One of the great problems of course that the game wasn't a consistent system, more of a collection of rules that we increasingly tacked on with no sense of consistency.

Not to denigrate the profound contribution to the hobby of course; heck DnD was first.

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
They was the reason i gave up :-)

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:14 am (UTC)(link)

Oh, they've left out astrology, Marian Papist Idoltary, the New Age, communism and ...

Ahh, yes. Quite.

My god they're going to flip when I get around to printing my rpg... I'll have to send them a copy.

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
It was? I thought DnD was Gary's second or third attempt? I remember something with Tower in the title or something. Memories waaay too fuzzy on that point tho. :-)

DnD was definately the tipping point tho.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:22 am (UTC)(link)

Despite the fact they were yet another set of books, I've found that the Complete Handbooks wren't really that bad in terms of advice and campaign material.

One thing I always have trouble with was the idea of a shield reducing AC by 1. It's like the designers had never seen a recreated medieval battle. Shields were very important.

[identity profile] lardarsegreg.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
Very important... meaning more than 1 ???

Besides, that's what house rules are for :-)

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:36 am (UTC)(link)

Oh, OK...

DnD (original) 1974 Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson (yes, being a deep nerd I have this as well).

AD&D 1977 Gary Gygax

DnD (Basic, Expert etc) 1978 onwards.

AD&D 2nd Ed 1989

D&D 3rd Ed 2000.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:37 am (UTC)(link)

Definately meaning more than one... Maybe 1 for a buckler, 2 for a small shield, 3 for a round shield, and 4 for a kite shield at least.

Yeah, house rules. Or systems that aren't just nuts.

[identity profile] domesticmouse.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
heh. Me calling you nerd would involve painting kettles and pots a deeper shade of black I suspect...

[identity profile] baralier.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 06:59 am (UTC)(link)
Is that the one in the little white box? I've been wondering about selling mine. It's nice to have it but it's really just become a dust collector.

[identity profile] charlesnaismith.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 07:07 am (UTC)(link)
You have to send me a copy too.
I would love to have a read.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 07:57 am (UTC)(link)

Hopefully I'll have a beta version done by the end of summer...

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2005-12-19 07:58 am (UTC)(link)

Yep, white box DnD OCE.. Well actually that's a 1977 printing IIRC. The 1974 edition was apparently grubby brown or something.

Seriously, how much space is it really taking up? You have a cultural artifact there, hang on to it.

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