Poetry & Presentations, Interviews & Games, Linux & Conventions

[tcpip]

Last Sunday was a poetry service at the Unitarians. I presented three pieces from my favourite Unitarian-Universalist poet, ee cummings; Ballad of the Scholar's Lament, The Way to Hump A Cow (yes, I really did read that in church full of little old ladies), and There Are So Many Tictoc Clocks. This Sunday I'll be presenting at the Church with the subject "A Unitarian-Universalist View of the Economic Crisis". Some might think in advance that I'll make mention of an view of economics espoused by past unitarians like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and Herbert Simon (how come so few people seem to know of the latter?).

After that we're planning an educational game where each player is one the various factions in the early Christian Church and attempt to establish their own version of the Credo: The Game of Duelling Dogmas. This Friday at the "Melbourne Roleplaying Salon" we're having another shot at Dragon Warriors; after that it'll be back to beingfrank's game of The Shadow of Yesterday. My review for Pathfinder Beta Edition has been put up at RPG.net. I have been interviewed for my opinions on game design etc on gametime. In two weeks I take over from our current D&D3.5/Pathfinder DM in the Richmond gaming group to run Fantasy Australia. Two weeks ago, recumbenteer and Louise visited and we played "Unexploded Cow"; quite good work - am interested in any other suggestion from the "Cheap Ass" line.

Work's summer students are testing various scientific applications on GPU and are getting some very good results. On a related topic, last Saturday attended the annual LUV "Penguin Picnic". Afterwards, headed off to _zombiemonkey's birthday gathering, which was very enjoyable. Next week will be in Tasmania to attend Linux Conference Australia (do I go to enough conferences and conventions?).

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads-up on Kill Dr. Lucky, I'll see if my FLGS has that one.

As for D&D4e, as I whole I think I prefer D&D3.5 and even more so the directions of Pathfinder. Now 4e might be what some people are after, it is well constructed and I said as much when I reviewed it, but it's not really my sort of game. I was trying to put my finger on exactly why this is the case then I discovered a criticism that basically says it is too well constructed and as a result ends up - systematically - being a very obvious trumps-based card game.

Economics in the next post, I promise!

[engelhardtlm1.livejournal.com]

Looking at the Cheap Ass website, Kill Dr. Lucky has, sadly, gone out of print. However, there is still Save Dr. Lucky... which is the game you play before you play Kill Dr. Lucky.

Interesting thoughts on 4e. My guess is that I wouldn't like it if it is that combat-oriented. I was introduced to RPGs in college, and the group I was in was very "combat light" - which is probably part of why a lot of us liked White Wolf's (old) World of Darkness so well. Their combat system was so clunky that the GM would generally avoid having much combat... and none of us missed it.

Oh, and don't worry about getting economics in. Just a case of expectations being violated - and that's not necessarily a bad thing!