Open Source Thread currently on Names, with some Feline Holoprosencephaly by dreamtrove

This was posted first

Yes, YY, but is it Nihilism or Existentialism.
The thread exists, just because it is empty, does not mean that the thread does not exist.

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 11:57 AM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Okay. This is nothingness.

^.^

----------
"Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 12:37 PM

WHOZIT

The title of this thread should be; "When I look into the the dark, I see Obama". Good?

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 12:58 PM

DREAMTROVE

Nothingness is a cyclops cat. ^.^
Cycat?

Quote:
Frem
Or visit the deep south.

lol, but also Hey!

Hey I warned that some posts would be out of sequence

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 1:09 PM

CHRISISALL

Run Cycat, run!
See Cycat run.
Run AURaptor, run!
See Cycat eat AURaptor's brainz.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 2:33 PM

DREAMTROVE

Feline Holoprosencephaly is fatal it turns out, but on the other hand, velociraptors are extinct, unless he means raptors as birds of prey in general, or specifically those from australia, or made of gold, or colored gold, like the golden eagle, in which case it's clever, particuarly if it's a reference to AUH20.
Or it might have been a reference to the F-22.

Names are a curious thing. Yours is CIA, Finn's was "white whore", missing an extra "l" that would have made him "white knight." Mine was randomly generated by aol, for a first shot it was very nice, like rolling a lot of 6's on your character sheet. We didn't let people reroll. If it had been later aol, I would have been dream25278

Fremdfirma is german for outside firm, like a contractor, or perhaps an outsourcing operation. I'm not sure I get it, I suppose it refers to his own little group of catgirls.

Kwicko is just Mike's username, an excellent way to research and learn way too much about Mike. Note to self, next time I sign up for a board, make a less distinctive username. (let me save you the trouble, the only thing I've posted outside here is some reviews on imdb.)

RUE. Just curious. I know what it means, but ? Oh well, my original username was Sedge. That was before the web, I've had a lot of names. Like the beast. There was a reason for the name which related to my childhood memories.

That was how Masquerade was solved. The guy who found it skipped Kit William's puzzle, and just snooped until he found out his childhood haunts. Actually, the guy found the location, but not the solid gold rabbit. His dog found the rabbit. He said the pup went behind the bushes, and he figured it was a doggie duty, but then he came back with a rabbit made of gold. "I was dead Jammy" I remember the quote, briticisms. And I actually worked on that puzzle :)

Wulfenstar, would I be right in saying that German eezn't a languages eet eez an accent? My sis is fond of saying. Kirkules? No clue. Unless he's a long term sockpuppet of Finn. River6213 is a mystery, either a date, or a holdover from aol or something. Geezer is a good non searchable name. PirateNews is a good name.

Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers. A member or a fan?

I'm skipping all the whedonesque phrase names "can't take the sky" "out to the black" it's obvious. I just thought 6213 was odd.

Pismo Beach is where highway 1 starts. PizmoBeach might just be leaving a trail a mile wide.

Anyone else wanna give it a shot? Making me think about usernames more in the future maybe. I might go with Feline Holoprosencephaly

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 2:48 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
River6213 is a mystery, either a date, or a holdover from aol or something.

She's been here a while, I've wondered what the 6213 referred to myself.

Dreamtrove...DT...delerium tremours-?

Chrisisall...CIA...Clandestine inactive agent.

AURaptor...Auric Goldfinger + velociraptor- a biting meglomaniac.

The Omega Sector Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 3:22 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Kirkules is a pun on Hercules - and his Av is the original scale drawing of Conan of Cimerria.

But I guess it takes a fellow barbarian to get that.

Fremdfirma means "contractor" and in earlier history carried the same connotations as the word Condottieri in form and function - and is applied in both respects.

It's also a subtle nod to Wallenstein, for various reasons, not the least of which is David Drakes Colonel Hammer being loosely based on him initially, and the fact that he was the only bastard on the planet meaner than Tilly.

-F

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 3:36 PM

KIRKULES

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Kirkules is a pun on Hercules -

I got the idea from a couple of young guys that worked on my crew. They saw the Eddie Murphy movie "The Nutty Professor" and in one scene Eddie, playing Mama Klump says "Hercules! Hercules! Hercules!" which they transformed into "Kirkules! Kirkules! Kirkules!".

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 3:49 PM

CHRISISALL

hmmm, and I thought there was a Star Trek reference there....

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 4:56 PM

DREAMTROVE

Frem, ah. I was pronouncing it kir-cools. (It only would have taken and initial e, but then he'd be Kerk.) Kirkyulees. Yes. I knew the conan and the whole persona, which is why I call him caveman.

Quote:
Fremdfirma means "contractor"

Yah. I said that. I didn't get the reference though. Czech nobles, probably a relative. All czech leaders look like my dad for some reason. Family resemblence, but it would seem that other czechs would come to power, yet Vaclav Havel also does. But Valdštejna does also look like my dad. Scary.

The whole name thing is very strange, it was true in my family, and even to me, and comes from the structure of the Austrian empire. All Bohemians were referred to by German names, I have a German name, which once was Czech. Wenceslaus was actually Václav. All of Europe was like this apparently, like the Joan of Arc thing, which has always bothered me. Jeanne d'arc is better, but Johanna or Jehanna, please. Another on: Marie Antoinette. Why? and Why was Arch-Duchess of Austria named "Maria Antonia" anyway? I think it's all part of the fantasy that the Austrian Empire was the Roman Empire, an idea descended from Charlemagne. (God knows what people really called him. I see wiki says Karolus Magnus, but that's for the latin. Karl der Uberlord?)

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Saturday, January 31, 2009 7:25 PM

KIRKULES

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
River6213 is a mystery, either a date, or a holdover from aol or something.
She's been here a while, I've wondered what the 6213 referred to myself.

Just a theory, but it could be related to Hebrew numerology. Hebrew is read right to left so the first number could be 13, which in Hebrew numerology means Love. The second number 62 could refer to Isaiah 62 which reads "For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,and her salvation as a burning torch".

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 4:05 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Pismo Beach is where highway 1 starts. PizmoBeach might just be leaving a trail a mile wide.

No story, just love the town and the sound - one of the best boardwalks in California. The "z"... frankly sounds better, and I like to mess with things. It was also my stage name back in college...

Speaking of non sequiturs... I like other people's usernames that you don't know what they mean so you give them your own meaning.
Sometimes it's just the literation that works, the rhythm: Frem D. Firma for example.
A new kind that I've just started to notice from flickr are the ones used by people for whom English is not a first language, like Whozit.

Seriously, the combinations they come up with are so different, mixing adverbs with nouns, etc., when it works it's pretty cool.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 9:00 AM

DREAMTROVE

Kirkules, intesting theory. Involved enough to make me think you were River ;)

Pizmo

I love that part of Cali. And yes, particularly the word combinations in east asia are nice.

I do'nt know what makes you think english is'nt whozit's native language.

Note: Some people know many languages, some know only one. Others, like our former president, know zero.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 12:26 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Good catch, Piz

Sometimes I like to go with subtle layers to what I say just to see who "gets it".

One of the random pool used to midway* folks I think are demanding info for nefarious purposes might amuse you for a while...

Justin Case
Stuckup@Yahoo.com
109 Paxton St
Centralia PA 17927
1-507-843-5673

It's pretty easy to figure out, but amusing all the same.

*Pulling a Midway is a term used by privacy advocates - it's based on a trick used to verify japanese intentions prior to the battle of midway, by transmitting a false message in a code we knew they had broken, that the water plant at midway island was down, and when intercepted transmissions were decoded and indicated "target X is short on water", they knew target X was midway.

In privacy useage, pulling a midway is giving specific false identities to each entity demanding or extorting them, and then using them to determine who "sold you out" so they can be called upon it.

For example if you tell the repair shop you're james, the email provider you're john, and the hardware store you're joe - and you suddenly start getting craploads of telemarketing calls for "joe", you know it was the hardware store that sold you out.

Of course, fair warning, should you try this, it'll negatively impact your worldview on who can and cannot be trusted - most of the folk you THINK you can trust, who very explicitly say they will not do so on their privacy agreements, are the very first to, and in addition, EVERYONE sells that shit to the credit reporting scum, who then sell it to anyone and everyone including the criminal underworld.

Such a nice scam, that, they dig for more and more info to 'verify your identity' and 'prevent ID theft' - and yet THEY are the ones handing over more and more specific data to the people making that crime a problem.

They're a problem masquerading as it's own cure, cause respecting folks privacy in the first place woulda prevented this, and morally is on the same level with a doctor "treating" a serious condition with something that's actually CAUSING the condition in the first place, so that he can profit.

I have some *really* mean tricks up my sleeve for folks who do that, but the only one I'll share is the no longer effective practice of the linetrap.

Ok, now in the movies, you know how they try to keep em on the line to trace the call - well, that's bullshit, the feddies had a widget called a lock n trace, see ?

I won't go into too much detail, but the lock part of it - each phone in a connection provides only HALF the juice to keep the connection, active, this is what allows you to hang up and disconnect the call, right ?

But the lock part of the lock n trace pumps extra voltage into the connection, so they can NOT hang up as the connection is maintained entirely by the machine pumping in enough juice to "lock" the line open no matter what the guy on the other end does, even if he rips the phone out of the wall, the connection will not close until THEY terminate the juice on their end, okay ?

Now, say you know how this device works, say you built your own lock unit - and some pissant telemarketer calls you.

You punch the LOCK button, and then their ass is YOURS, I had a second button that would run a loop of seriously annoying noise (breaking glass, crying babies, screeching brakes, etc) at high volume over and over till I turned it off.

Now, telemarketer hangs up, telemarketers phone rings, they pick it up, same loop - they can't shut it off, they can't hang it up, and UNTIL YOU CHOOSE TO LET GO, they are unable to call anyone else on that line, period, end of story, full stop.

So of course they whined to the politicos and made sure this tactic was illegal, but frankly, it shouldn't be - they called YOU, that was their choice, and they called you unsolicited for nefarious purposes that no one in their right mind would consider welcome, thus they have committed a form of trespassing at the very least if not B&E.

Worse was the bastards who made the mistake of calling me, being told off, and then BECAUSE I demanded they not call back, started harrassing calls at all hours of the night...

Drove down there, jackwired my cars ignition system to the phone line grid of their building, and melted the fucking wires for em thankee verra much.

I am *unprofitable* to mess with, and that's a fact.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 12:52 PM

KIRKULES

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Kirkules, intesting theory. Involved enough to make me think you were River ;)

That's the great thing about numbers, you can make them mean anything you want to.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that all the numbers are factors of 6. Maybe in someones mind it's the sign of the beast.

I am not River6213 or Dreamtrove, as far as you know.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 3:54 PM

DREAMTROVE

Frem,

Interesting post. As an early game designers who knew other game designers and had a lot of really good game structures and trouble getting published, lack of connections immho, I began to suspect my game ideas were being stolen by people I talked to, and so I started feeding random information into the game idea, making up bizarre names, leaving key elements out. It was very convincing. So, I shut up about game designs, and I'll make my own, but competing is tricky. You can't break into the network that exists, except to be their dog. I think you have to create the organization structure from the ground up. One of the people from my original gaming group is currently marketing one of my games as their own. It's a mess, overall.

Stuff like this has me so focused on organization and communication at this point.

[edit] adrenaline hydrochloride? Numbers are sometimes in our society for strange reasons, can have all sorts of reasons. 1394.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 6:12 PM

FREMDFIRMA

TSR/Wizards of the Coast was notorious for it, that was their little modus operandi in fact.
"Well, let us look it over for a bit, and we'll call you."
Hell, they'd "look it over" in their office, just photocopy it and send ya packing, then use whatever of the photocopied work they wanted - Gygax only got in how he did by quite literally SITTING on his stuff, and not releasing his physical grip on it whatsoever till there was real money in his other hand.

Avalon Hill was pretty bad about it too, but the very worst had to be Palladium, which suffered from some *very* well deserved sabotage and backlash which functionally destroyed it as a company.
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=66
02&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I love how Kevin S went on whining about "treachery" as if he didn't outright steal most of the TMNT character creation process from certain folks I knew personally, who later found themselves in picture perfect position to torpedo his ass good and proper - which they DID, and more power to them.

And yet these immoral thieving assholes are the first and strongest to run behind "intellectual property" laws to protect their ill gotten gains in an act of hypocrisy so vile it's downright nauseating.

Err.. one of those two people is here, his commentary...
I hope you're stuck eating ramen in a ditch somewhere to the day you fuckin die, Kevin - a slimy thief of epic scale like you deserves nothing less, and I hope you live a LONG time, you ratbastard, cause as many people as you ripped off, hell is too good a fate for you!"
-D.L.

As far as breaking into closed markets without kissing ass for a decade and more or being someones contract bitch - it's entirely doable, cause Larry Correia managed to do it with MHI.
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/mhi-sample/

I forget who the original publisher was, but they couldn't keep up with demand, and eventually this drew the attention of Baen Books, which are good people who do NOT have that kind of aggressive hypocrisy going for em... case in point and proof positive of this is the blistering rant against DRM, Copy Protection, Intellectual Properly Law and all the rest of that bullshit delivered by Eric Flint in the intro to the Baen Free Library.
http://www.baen.com/library/
And these sentiments are echoed by a noteable selection of damned good others and people in the business like the now departed Jim Baen, David Drake, Manly Wade Wellman, etc.

Believe me, if you got something worth the trouble and wanna get it to market without playing a cartels game, you *can* do it, you just gotta play a little rough, is all.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Monday, February 2, 2009 4:31 AM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
TSR/Wizards of the Coast was notorious for it, that was their little modus operandi in fact.
"Well, let us look it over for a bit, and we'll call you."

Wow. You're good. You can identify the perp on the MO :) You're correct of course, also:

Quote:
Hell, they'd "look it over" in their office, just photocopy it and send ya packing, then use whatever of the photocopied work they wanted - Gygax only got in how he did by quite literally SITTING on his stuff, and not releasing his physical grip on it whatsoever till there was real money in his other hand.

This is so true. I have this one game called Quadrant, a CCG. I took it to Wizards. That's what they did. The wanted to here about it, and did, I went to talk to them and they asked me a lot of questions. Then they asked me to send it to them. So I did. Then they sat on it for a year, while they secured the patent on CCGs, then they finally returned it, and then released an extremely similar game.

The game they released failed because I omitted two parts of the game. I let them know that this was part one, because I wasn't dumb, and if it interested them, They could see parts two and three, but not without some sort of written statement the "no, we won't steal this."

I'd built the first part, a starship combat trading card game, where the dynamic hinged on the physical layout of the cards. In play testing, I discovered that it had a flaw, it was too much of a slugfest, not enough strategy. I added a second level, and now it was stategic but methodical. Then I added a third level which made it chaotic and fun, and then it really worked.

Quote:

Avalon Hill was pretty bad about it too, but the very worst had to be Palladium, which suffered from some *very* well deserved sabotage and backlash which functionally destroyed it as a company.
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=66
02&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I love how Kevin S went on whining about "treachery" as if he didn't outright steal most of the TMNT character creation process from certain folks I knew personally, who later found themselves in picture perfect position to torpedo his ass good and proper - which they DID, and more power to them.

There's a game on the market right now from a small company formed by one of my players, which uses the dynamics of my rpg, which are pretty radically just stolen. I've dev'ed the game a great deal since then, but when I finish the game, I'll probably release it open source, and if they want to complain about "stolen game dynamics" I'll say bring it on.

Quote:
And yet these immoral thieving assholes are the first and strongest to run behind "intellectual property" laws to protect their ill gotten gains in an act of hypocrisy so vile it's downright nauseating.

Yes, all of this is making me think there's something about the character of gamers... I've been a gamer for a long time, and this sort of behavior is pretty endemic to the subculture.

For the biggest prize of ideas, one of my sister's had been working on a fantasy novel now published which was based on one of my RPGs. She called me and said "I don't know if I can include the Skavens, because now they're a Warhammer copyright." I said "Include them, if GW wants to call with a cease and desist, I'm just going to ask them one question. Okay, man-rat race worships a horned rat god and make great little pack fighters, etc. could be coincidence, but where'd you come up with the name?" ;)

I don't really begrudge people their profits for their work. GW put a lot of work into it, but I'm irritated by the snub. Also, the sheer number of things in my life that I think "If I had gotten my share of this, I wouldn't have to work." Very annoying. I guess that actually goes way beyond gamer culture, but there is endemic backstabbing among gamers.

There's also what I call the "mutual denegration society":

Bob, Joe and Sam are in a room of gamers. Bob leaves and Job and Sam will tell you everything that is wrong with Bob. Collectively, this behavior makes all of them look terrible to any outsider.

Quote:

Err.. one of those two people is here, his commentary...
I hope you're stuck eating ramen in a ditch somewhere to the day you fuckin die, Kevin - a slimy thief of epic scale like you deserves nothing less, and I hope you live a LONG time, you ratbastard, cause as many people as you ripped off, hell is too good a fate for you!"
-D.L.

Was this the guy Wizards wouldn't hire? I remember reading that they on failed to hire two people, and one I knew, and the other was 'an infamous character named Kevin"

I actually know someone who was at Wizards at the time they screwed me over, and we get along quite well, with I knew them then.

Quote:
As far as breaking into closed markets without kissing ass for a decade and more or being someones contract bitch - it's entirely doable, cause Larry Correia managed to do it with MHI.
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/mhi-sample/

The internet is a new age.

Quote:

I forget who the original publisher was, but they couldn't keep up with demand, and eventually this drew the attention of Baen Books, which are good people who do NOT have that kind of aggressive hypocrisy going for em... case in point and proof positive of this is the blistering rant against DRM, Copy Protection, Intellectual Properly Law and all the rest of that bullshit delivered by Eric Flint in the intro to the Baen Free Library.
http://www.baen.com/library/
And these sentiments are echoed by a noteable selection of damned good others and people in the business like the now departed Jim Baen, David Drake, Manly Wade Wellman, etc.

I know Baen, actually, this is striking very close to home on a lot of levels. I'm afraid the degrees of separation between us might be down to one: I suspect we know people in common.

Quote:

Believe me, if you got something worth the trouble and wanna get it to market without playing a cartels game, you *can* do it, you just gotta play a little rough, is all.

You need organization.

9:30, time for pain

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Monday, February 2, 2009 10:43 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
I suspect we know people in common.

Well, well, well, isn't this interesting.

Yes, I know you, probably - not too many folk have dealt with both TSR and Baen considering their mutual antogonism.

Dave Drake kinda went on a rampage when writing an in-world story for an anthology called "All the way to the Gallows" and they handed him eight pages worth of political correctness guidelines...
To a guy who writes some of the most brutally realistic sci-fi, mind you.
He did manage to pull it off, not break the guidelines and not only write a funny story, he *BRUTALLY* mocked those guidelines by hanging lampshades on most of them.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
Needless to say, TSR wasn't too happy about it.

The story, mind you, is called "Airborne all the way!" and involves (I kid thee not) Goblin Paratroopers... it's roll on the floor hi-larious.

Given the time period in question, then you might have caught some of the brutal stripping several Traveller players delivered unto TSR due to Steve completely ripping off the engine entire for Star Frontiers, a property that on occasion, mind you, they have denied ever producing.

I was more Steve Jacksons Melee/Wizard at the time, and only dealt with TSR initially before their true colors started shining through, lets just say I still have the original playtest kit, blue dragon cover and all.

Although not under any real name, I do creep the conventions, both public and professional, and often while on other business - and will usually be hanging around somewhere near Ed, waiting for some moron to provoke him into one of his highly entertaining verbal rampages...

For them unfamiliar with the biz, that'd be Ed Greenwood, the guy who writes/plays Elminster (himself a blatant Gandalf ripoff, but at least Ed will admit it, he refers to himself in the novels as Mithrandir more than once) and let's just say he didn't have to dig very deep to come up with the personality, heh heh heh.

Funny as hell to watch, but have some time on your hands cause it takes him a while to run outta gas, especially when the damn fool in question keeps provoking it by offering stupid arguments.

About the only personal involvement I've ever had in design though was doing to the research for R. Tal which evolved into the Friday Night Firefight ruleset for the original Cyberpunk release, and that was a freebie anyhow cause I admired the idea of using a combat system based on a real gunfight statistics.
Some of the commentary in FNFF might sound a bit familiar to you, I think.

It all went prettymuch downhill with the rise of the internet anyhow, and it was certainly helped along by the Rules-Lawyering pricks (which every GM totally despises, mind you) that made up the core of TSR, resulting in the horror that was second edition and further attempts beyond to paper every single potential aspect of everything in draconian rules.

Somewhere in there, they forgot that the idea was to have fun, not make money, and it showed.

GW never had that problem, since they never gave a damn about fun in the first place - they're the only gaming company I've ever seen completely wreck a game by changing the rules repeatedly for profit.
(Example, setting up units in sets of five, and selling the miniatures in packs of four...)
Not to mention dealing with them involves putting up with a downright cultlike aspect - they pulled my preferred customer status for using a non-sanctioned unit organisation, and they'll go so far as to bitch at you for not using only approved paints, paint schemes, etc...
Considering their paints were overpriced crap not much better than childrens watercolors, I found that particular bit of bitching offensive.

I did get my revenge, though, I caught out one of their corp-sponsored kids (complete with VERY expensive army he didn't have to pay for, which is a massive advantage) at an open challenge promo at the hotel in Baltimore and proceeded to completely dismantle his ass, given that his ability to win was entirely based on using an army provided by the folk who wrote the rules, and designed to crush any standard unit organisation of equal point value easily.

They were so pissed about it, they had security remove me from the hotel and refund my ENTIRE room charges despite having been there a day and a half.

It was actually from tabletop gaming that I learned how devastating a proper set-piece engagement can be, and eventually adopted the practice politically, socially and operationally as well.

Even a broken one can, as long as you have most of the set up in place when things start going rodeo - all it really requires is understanding your opponents well enough to predict their actions reliably, or even provoke them into actions you want them to take by pushing their mental buttons.

And it's even EASIER politically than it is on a gaming table, especially when you're dealing with really stupid opponents with a worldview so damned narrow that their course of action is OBVIOUS six miles away.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Monday, February 2, 2009 4:38 PM

DREAMTROVE

FREM

Quote:

Well, well, well, isn't this interesting.

Yes, I know you, probably - not too many folk have dealt with both TSR and Baen considering their mutual antogonism.

It's possible ;) the zero degrees of separation theory. This has happened to me before. The most bizarre being many years ago, someone I was talking to for over a year on an online forum turned out to be in the door room directly across from mine. We knew each other quite well offline as well, the thought had just never occurred to us.

Quote:

Dave Drake kinda went on a rampage when writing an in-world story for an anthology called "All the way to the Gallows" and they handed him eight pages worth of political correctness guidelines...
To a guy who writes some of the most brutally realistic sci-fi, mind you.
He did manage to pull it off, not break the guidelines and not only write a funny story, he *BRUTALLY* mocked those guidelines by hanging lampshades on most of them.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
Needless to say, TSR wasn't too happy about it.

Ah. Interesting. Writing as you know, a personal interest. I am still working on writing, because I know there are things that I don't know. There's stuff I've written that's publishable, but it's things like this that make me pause at the term 'selling.' One of my sisters is on contract with a major publisher, and gets major editing, the other with a minor press and limited editing. I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both. I want an editor, but not a dictator. Everyone needs someone to point out when something is bogus, or has been used, is confusing (a problem for everyone, eg. we forget that the reader doesn't know the characters and world like we do.)

Lampshades. I remember commenting when the mayor turned into a giant snake that I thought joss was doing that intentionally, as a pete's evil overlord list ref.

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"I feel like I'm in a badly written TV show."

sorry, reminds me. end of the cold war, getting caught by nazis, real nazis, not this neo kind, who were trying to take over slovakia, and succeeded briefly, and escaping, telling the story to a guy on the train, I finished by saying "it was like a bad spy novel" and he said, oh you mean like this" and he picked up the book he was reading and through it in the trash.

As for the story itself, that can wait.

Anyway, nice wiki, I'll have to spend some time there. Thanks.

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The story, mind you, is called "Airborne all the way!" and involves (I kid thee not) Goblin Paratroopers... it's roll on the floor hi-larious.

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Given the time period in question, then you might have caught some of the brutal stripping several Traveller players delivered unto TSR due to Steve completely ripping off the engine entire for Star Frontiers, a property that on occasion, mind you, they have denied ever producing.

My brother went to college with some of the people who were involved with the U of C's mainframe RPG, on which like the tabletop D&D was partly based. The only significance of this was that it threw competing ideas into my role playing and I found my self a DM rewriting the rules of AD&D at the age of 11.

This has given me many years of enjoyment at playing on D&D tropes and causing players grief. I recall a long time ago...

[player is in the city, sees goblin] I attack him with my broadsword. I hit it! Double damage!
[me]Okay, you have killed the baker.
[player, triumphant]I loot his body. What does he have?
[me]Muffins, mostly, and a few silver. a number of city guardsmen have gathered on the cobblestone street and taken great interest in what you are doing.
[player]I tell them I killed the goblin and ask them if there are more. Oh, first I take the silver, how much is there?
[me]about 35... the guards arrest you.
[player, shocked and confused]I demand to see the king!
[me]don't worry, you will, he has to oversee all murder trials in his city...

:)

Traveller was a great game. I still have the boxed set. The original boxed set of D&D, B1:Search of the Unknown aka Questqueton:

The difference between this and B2, AD&D etc. was the gradual replacement of imagination with math.
imho

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I was more Steve Jacksons Melee/Wizard at the time, and only dealt with TSR initially before their true colors started shining through, lets just say I still have the original playtest kit, blue dragon cover and all.

lol. me too.

Ah, and the marble. that original white d20.

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Although not under any real name, I do creep the conventions, both public and professional, and often while on other business - and will usually be hanging around somewhere near Ed, waiting for some moron to provoke him into one of his highly entertaining verbal rampages...

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For them unfamiliar with the biz, that'd be Ed Greenwood, the guy who writes/plays Elminster (himself a blatant Gandalf ripoff, but at least Ed will admit it, he refers to himself in the novels as Mithrandir more than once) and let's just say he didn't have to dig very deep to come up with the personality, heh heh heh.

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Funny as hell to watch, but have some time on your hands cause it takes him a while to run outta gas, especially when the damn fool in question keeps provoking it by offering stupid arguments.

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About the only personal involvement I've ever had in design though was doing to the research for R. Tal which evolved into the Friday Night Firefight ruleset for the original Cyberpunk release, and that was a freebie anyhow cause I admired the idea of using a combat system based on a real gunfight statistics.

I only played Cyberpunk a couple times, but I spent a lot of time going through sourcebooks for ideas to steal. I remember the weapons system because I tried to copy that for primitive weapons such as sword fights, and did, but in doing so, led me in a different direction, and I ended up with something that I'm not going to post because no one has this yet in an RPG :)

The weapons system I came up with at first was very good on accuracy, and very slow for gameplay. The ultra-realist medieval system was later done by someone else for TSR, (and probably others,) but with the same flaw: took to long to resolve

But there was something critical about it which I discovered and am not going to say until it's published (sorry) One of many projects for me to work on. Probably this will be produced online, rather than published, but not as an mmorpg or mud. Just a game resource with built in virtual tabletop for online play.

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Some of the commentary in FNFF might sound a bit familiar to you, I think.

It all went prettymuch downhill with the rise of the internet anyhow, and it was certainly helped along by the Rules-Lawyering pricks

Does everyone say Rules-Lawyers? I thought I made that term up :) A lot of ideas are just common coincidence, everyone running on the same base information, which is why I throw random trackers into my ideas so I'll recognize them. (I got the tracker idea from a very young age: My sister was in a baskin and robins and started talking about a giant cone idea that she called "the matterhorn" Strangely, the marketing campaign appeared 6 months later, along with the name. Sort of like when I got kicked off ebay and so I sent them an email which was a filk of "my way" followed months later by ebay running a similar filk of my way as an ad.)

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(which every GM totally despises, mind you) that made up the core of TSR, resulting in the horror that was second edition and further attempts beyond to paper every single potential aspect of everything in draconian rules.

Oh, DMs despise it. Do tell

I've made it impossible in my system, but it was a problem in D&D before the internet. Sure, more so afterwords.

probably many people replaced the D&D spell system with "spell points." My brother got the idea from one of the original U of C crowd, but it's something that people might come up with independently.

Here's something Ironic, later I found out, when my brother became a lawyer, that lawyers refer to lawyers who do that to the legal system as rules gamers, because they game the system. In theory, a lawyer is supposed to follow the spirit of the law, and interpret what is intended, rather than exploit an endless string of technicalities to try to win a case.

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Somewhere in there, they forgot that the idea was to have fun, not make money, and it showed.

No kidding. Somewhere in there, they forgot to have fun. And yes, it shows also not just in the mercenary aspect of the marketing, and lack of care to the games, but in the structure of the end products: Four and a half hours of combat resolution.

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GW never had that problem, since they never gave a damn about fun in the first place - they're the only gaming company I've ever seen completely wreck a game by changing the rules repeatedly for profit.

Oh, do tell, again. Can we say "Ah, people are playing the game.... but they're not paying anymore! how can we make they keep paying to keep playing?!"

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(Example, setting up units in sets of five, and selling the miniatures in packs of four...)

lol, oh yeah, that.

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Not to mention dealing with them involves putting up with a downright cultlike aspect - they pulled my preferred customer status for using a non-sanctioned unit organisation, and they'll go so far as to bitch at you for not using only approved paints, paint schemes, etc...
Considering their paints were overpriced crap not much better than childrens watercolors, I found that particular bit of bitching offensive.

Worse yet, they have it ingrained into the culture, so does wizards: Other players, who themselves have shelled out cash, will pounce on players who use non official miniatures. I used the the original ratlings, from whom I got the skavens idea, as skavens. They're about half the size, another fact that irked players ;) My ratlings could hide behind anything

The name, I admit, I took from the ratlings, it was a profession a ratling could have. I looked up the word, it's old english for scavenger. A lot of words just grow over time like that now you hear "scavengering" The root is Skave. Anyway, I redubbed the species, and created a culture, one of my players made the religion. It's always possible that GW did the same, but since I ran the campaign at conventions for years and had to explain to people at the beginning what a skaven was, I wasn't exactly keeping a lid on the idea.

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I did get my revenge, though, I caught out one of their corp-sponsored kids (complete with VERY expensive army he didn't have to pay for, which is a massive advantage) at an open challenge promo at the hotel in Baltimore and proceeded to completely dismantle his ass, given that his ability to win was entirely based on using an army provided by the folk who wrote the rules, and designed to crush any standard unit organisation of equal point value easily.

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They were so pissed about it, they had security remove me from the hotel and refund my ENTIRE room charges despite having been there a day and a half.

lol. different world to. Though the power of the refund is mighty. Just last year when I was flat broke on went on a refund rampage against everyone who might own me one and made 500 bucks back in a couple days. But now you have to fight for it. Used to be people would just shrug and hand it over. Like at one con, I told them that they had advertised rates for the con as $99 for the weekend, and then moved it to the marriot which was like $199 a night, and I showed them the con site, and they'd agreed to host the con, so they shrugged and said, okay, $33 bucks a night for you sir ;)

Now they'd probably be like "

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It was actually from tabletop gaming that I learned how devastating a proper set-piece engagement can be, and eventually adopted the practice politically, socially and operationally as well.

? <-- just checking, are we still on games? If not, please elaborate :)

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Even a broken one can, as long as you have most of the set up in place when things start going rodeo - all it really requires is understanding your opponents well enough to predict their actions reliably, or even provoke them into actions you want them to take by pushing their mental buttons.

Which reminds me, I was digging for that thread where you said Emmanuel Goldstein. I was going to make another comment to that... I posted that to a list serve 4 or 5 years ago, obl=eg, and my brother said "i know you think that you just came up with that, but you're two years too late :)"

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And it's even EASIER politically than it is on a gaming table, especially when you're dealing with really stupid opponents with a worldview so damned narrow that their course of action is OBVIOUS six miles away.

I feel I would devastate the neocons, but I will give them credit, the depth of their strategy is more than most people see. the Orwell reference in the right area. Most people don't get close to that. Take Iraq: they failed in the intended goal, and succeeded in the stated goals. Ironic. I was in a convo yesterday about how that came about, and how various orgs gather in support of your stated goal, and not behind your secret agenda. This of course is not a problem for people who *want* to achieve the stated goal, even if only to set up the secret agenda, but neocons made the mistake that the secret agenda required the stated goals to fail. IMHO: A stable, peaceful democratic Iraq with no WMDs will indeed come out of this, and will be absolutely no use to the west, regionally, or for launching a war with Iran. As an added door prize, it might just be crashing the price of oil.

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Monday, February 2, 2009 10:31 PM

FREMDFIRMA

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A lot of ideas are just common coincidence, everyone running on the same base information, which is why I throw random trackers into my ideas so I'll recognize them.

This is called a Mountweasel, and I use em too, but initially discovered the concept from Saberhagens "The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron" set in his Berserker universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

Actually, with what you're hinting at, especially anything cardbased, you *could* take it to Blade, aka Flying Buffalo, now - they're right decent folk, just tell em the "second turn warmonger" sent ya.
(reference to a VERY memorable game of Nuclear War/Escalation way back when)
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/nucwar.htm
*sings Nuke the Viiii-rus to wagner*

Their main page is here, and on my word, they're stand up folks.
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/index.htm

-Frem

Turn 1

Turn 2

THERE IS NO TURN THREE.
*laugh*

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 6:07 AM

DREAMTROVE

FREM,

Thanks. I might do that. It's a project which got shelved, but I might pull down again. The game is space conquest, but the part which made it fun is very irreverent. I love the game actually, I might take it down an take a look.

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This is called a Mountweasel

Ah. Yes, seeding your work with them, and deliberately sabotaging the demonstration item is tricky. You can't kill the idea, make it look bad, it has to be subtle. As does your Mountweasel. Someone might change it if they thought they had to.

Relentless theft of ideas is a problem of this society. I think we should have a built in nod, so there's no great "all or nothing," like royalties, and then if the origination of an idea can be challenged, but you would *have* to pay someone. There would be a lot more creativity if you had nothing to fear from theft. I mean GW took skavens far further than I would have. I was tired of the old roleplaying races, and the game needed spice, so I thought, what would it have? The world is set in the future, after the collapse of civilization, mutant fantasy. the ratling figures fit because of lab rats, if everything creature was genetically engineered, highly evolved rats were a natural.

Typesetters did, and maybe still do, include a few errors so that they will be able to recognize a blatant copy. Microchip makers. Intel put into the circuitry of one chip lines that spell out "for those who care to steal the very best." Commodore went with "welcome my son, welcome to the machine"

As for the game, a lot of projects on hold, for a long time. The hamster wheel of life is a drag. I need to get my organizational structure down to make things roll.

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 8:22 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Well, now that he's dead and no harm will come of it...

Gygax buried one in *everything*, the most obvious was his commonly used mindtrick of taking the last three words from one page and starting the next page with them, someone won't quite catch that if you bury it in the books climax and they're not looking for it specifically.

Battle off Dead Star 31, from Drake's "The Fleet" series, contains an example of this with the words "in a classic T-crossing maneuver" just as a random example.

Reason for that is that he knew who he was getting in bed with, and privately his exact description was something along the lines of "Yes, i'm sleeping with the devil, but she's a sexy bitch and I never let her get on top."

As for the rats, meh heh heh, Andre Norton does a damned good job of that concept in the novel Breed to Come, up to and including said rats.
http://www.amazon.com/Breed-Come-Vintage-Ace-07895/dp/0441078958

Actually it's pretty hard to come up with an idea that NO ONE else has thought of yet, even if they never did put it into practice - but even so, two different folk with the same idea might very well take it in different directions.

All locking up knowledge does is cripple our development as a species, the modern equivalent of book burning (regardless of the excuses given) to destroy literacy back in the middle ages.

Of course, the bible bumpers pushed for literacy so they could become the dominant religion, and that oh so totally backfired when those folks threw down the imperial state marriage of religion and government.

And just as such, the DMCA and related lunacy has pushed folk into pushing back, and in the doing learning more than they otherwise would have, resulting in a smart, crafty and technologically adept base of people who have a pre-existing axe to grind against the powers that be.

"Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit"
- Philip Pullman
From: The Subtle Knife

As I have said so many times, it's like holding a handful of sand, the harder you tighten your grip, the more slips right out through your fingers until in the end, you're holding nothing but a clenched fist.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:34 PM

DREAMTROVE

FREM

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"Yes, i'm sleeping with the devil, but she's a sexy bitch and I never let her get on top."

lol

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As for the rats, meh heh heh, Andre Norton does a damned good job of that concept in the novel Breed to Come, up to and including said rats.

I'll put it on the list.

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Actually it's pretty hard to come up with an idea that NO ONE else has thought of yet, even if they never did put it into practice - but even so, two different folk with the same idea might very well take it in different directions.

Yes, I always take this attitude. Everyone has a different take. yes, it's all been done, but from different angles. I am writing an epic fantasy about a war. That's not new. Many of the elements are not new. I think the perspective is unique, and the characters are interesting.

Like what gets me about bladerunner, my Pris Stratton fixation. It's not Darryl Hannah, she's hot, maybe more so in other films. It's Pris I'd really like to meet. I think this say something about me.

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All locking up knowledge does is cripple our development as a species, the modern equivalent of book burning (regardless of the excuses given) to destroy literacy back in the middle ages.

We disable information exchange, and we're still doing it. we need a new information system. We also need an efficiency of information. More than one take on a story idea is good. 200 people writing the same take on the same story is redundant. Our non-fiction world is worse with this, and focuses on useless and irrelevant information.

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Of course, the bible bumpers pushed for literacy so they could become the dominant religion, and that oh so totally backfired when those folks threw down the imperial state marriage of religion and government.

Oh this is a long and complicated issue. imho, I think the RCC made the mistake with the crusades that the crusaders would ultimately side with Jerusalem over Palestine. I think this was arrogance. I think the heirs of that power are making the same mistake right now.

What the Byzantine empire had was greek heritage, which included plato and aristotle. Keeping a lid on that was a full time job for the vatican for a while, and then they locked it away and forgot about it, got lazy. Ergo they were doomed.

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And just as such, the DMCA and related lunacy has pushed folk into pushing back, and in the doing learning more than they otherwise would have, resulting in a smart, crafty and technologically adept base of people who have a pre-existing axe to grind against the powers that be.

I know how this story ends, and I'm not going to post it to a public forum because it's just to beautiful. It's far better than the way people think it's going to end :)

Of course, after years as Cassandra, I have learned that I need to have my own organization so I can take advantage of knowing the future. Yes, it's true, no one will ever believe you. OTOH, if you will believe in yourself, and other people believe in you, then you don't need anyone to believe your predictions.

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"Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit"
- Philip Pullman
From: The Subtle Knife

I haven't read any Pullman. My sibs hate him, which is reason enough to read him. They have great taste in fiction, but they have a political moral compass that guides their selection, and so they after eschew the most idea-challenging works.

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As I have said so many times, it's like holding a handful of sand, the harder you tighten your grip, the more slips right out through your fingers until in the end, you're holding nothing but a clenched fist.

?

If I get you, I think we're on the same page. This would be, like for me, re: the NWO. I want them to succeed in everything they dream, so they'll stop fighting for it, because it's that fight that causes so much harm. But when they have their center of power in the middle of the desert with their minions of unquestioning obedient fools, and they have all the halls of power, and all the gold in the world, I want the rest of the world to shrug, and move on. Enjoy your sand and shiny things, nice tower. We'll keep telling you that you rule the world as long as you're will it believe it

Ultimate power is to be king of nothing.

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