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

[domesticmouse.livejournal.com]

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...

[baralier.livejournal.com]

What about the 2nd Edition expansions? The Complete Priest's Handbook etc.?

Now that got some serious rules lawyering going.

[domesticmouse.livejournal.com]

They was the reason i gave up :-)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

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.

[lardarsegreg.livejournal.com]

Very important... meaning more than 1 ???

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

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

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.

[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.

[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...

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

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

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

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

(Yeah, I know, desparate circumstances)

[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]

*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.

[domesticmouse.livejournal.com]

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.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

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.

[domesticmouse.livejournal.com]

heh. Me calling you nerd would involve painting kettles and pots a deeper shade of black I suspect...

[baralier.livejournal.com]

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.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

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.

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

hang on to it.

No, no. Give it to ME
:-)

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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).