Linux Conf, Unitarians, Gaming

[tcpip]

The past week and a bit has been dominated by Linux Conf AU where I spent several mornings working as a volunteer on the rego desk. I managed to attend Bruce Schneier's keynote address on 'reconceptualising security', anthonybaxter's keynote on changes to the Python programming language, and two BOF presentations; Anthony David on Linux for High Performance Computing, and Hugh Blemings' presentation introducing a PowerPC box for developers (nice!). Schneier was a bit of a dud; lightweight management speak to a technical crowd, the "reconceptualization" seemed trivial and obvious and the one potentially interesting part of his presentation (asymmetric markets was insufficiently developed. In contrast Baxter's presentation was deeply informative, interesting, and with a requisite quantity of humour. Finally, much kudos are due to kattekrab for organising this internationally significant conference. Well done.

The following day after the conference was Linux Open Day, where I also attended the Joomla Day which was being held concurrently. Apart from being largely unimpressed with the quality and substance of the presentations (Norm Douglas' introductory presentation being an exception), the administration of the event was quite amateur. In summary, I'll be sticking to Drupal, which seems to me to have more features, makes better use of resources and a larger community of active developers.

In Unitarian news I took the opportunity a couple of weeks back to express my concerns at a presentation. To say the least, I have received extremely positive feedback on the presentation (with the exception of one person, who I knew wouldn't be happy anyway). A presentation last Sunday which concurs with the direction I think the church should be heading, Dr. John Perkins of the Secular Party of Australia, on "Atheism and Secularism", was very well attended. Next week I'm giving a presentation to the Philosophy Forum on "Biological Taxonomy: An Example of the Philosophy of Science".

Gaming over the past few weeks has quite fun. D&D Fantasy Australia went very well last week and my Legend of the Five Rings game continues its journey in ghostly island off the coast of Noto Province (now the Ishikawa Prefecture. I've recently had reviews of D3: The Vault of the Drow and Kill Puppies for Satan published. My HeroQuest Glorantha game bubbles along quite nicely with the game reaching the milestone of one year of play with a dramatic scene (in Gloranthan terms anyway).

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The core mechanics were pretty good although the implementation could have been much better. The real strength came from the opportunity in various Companions to build a set of rules which suited a group of players and still remain within the same game system as a whole.

[ytterbius.livejournal.com]

I liked the consistancy. Everything using 2d10 was great, though it required a very sharp GM to keep up with all of the charts. Thanksfully we had a masterful GM, and a very solid group, so it was almost as if the actual rules were invisible, just choose an action, roll the dice, and go from there. Of course there was that one guy in the party renowned for his luck with heroic open ended rolls. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The consistency of d100 was extremely good and something which all games should aspire to (god, remember all the variant resolution systems in AD&D1e?). Although the "roll high" method and chart references could slow things down a little.

One other thing I really liked about Rolemaster was the neat demarcations in the spell system...

What can I say tho'? There's always going to be a special spot for Rolemaster in my memory. Running a game for three years during uni and writing a Companion will do that.