The original game Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All (or just Fantasy Wargaming in some editions) was a 1981 book by Bruce Galloway, a clear variation on Dungeons and Dragons, based on Galloway’s home rules. Unlike it’s competition it was not afraid of using actual historical concepts like astrology and occultism in it’s descriptions, although it also was written so densely it was hard to make sense of it in any shape or form by someone not already familiar with roleplaying games. And, well, it was called Fantasy Wargaming.
Which made this a problem, as the game was published both in the UK and the US by mainstream publishers obviously trying to break into the nascent TTRPG market. The most available version was most likely the one published by the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club, which made the game available to many people who did not have any experience with roleplaying games before.
Unfortunately one has to say, as the game’s size (300pgs) and conceptual denseness made parsing the book quite a feat, meaning if people used this as an introduction to roleplaying, it might not have been very successful.
The Story of Fantasy Wargaming goes into this, and into the development of the game. It could have been a bit more thorough and a bit more critical, but for what it is it’s a nice look into the environment that created it. And well, it’s free.
(I learned about this book from an episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast which had the author on and talked about this project. Well worth a listen)
I’m excited to say that I turned in my manuscript for the ActivityPub book for O’Reilly Media today. I started working on it in September of 2023, with a lot of interim checkpoints and deadlines since. In April 2024, I finished the first draft of the manuscript. Over the month of May, I’ve been working on improvements suggested by the technical reviewers who agreed to look over the book, and from my own re-read.
In total, my TODO file for this month has about 250 changes to be made. Some are small — just changing a word or two — but one required adding a whole new chapter, and many required multi-paragraph sections.
I took the last week of May off from my work at Open Earth Foundation to concentrate on making changes. My team was really supportive, which I deeply appreciated. I went to our country house in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and I spent the week writing, editing, drawing and thinking.
Now, the next stage of book making starts: production. The production team at O’Reilly will be copyediting, indexing, and laying out the book. Their designers will be taking my UML diagrams and turning them into professional-looking illustrations. We have two rounds of quality control on code samples and fact checking on content.
In September 2024, the final e-book will be available for sale. I’ll have a link here for the pre-sale version when it comes out. If you’re eager to read the book, I highly recommend reviewing the early release version.
Thanks so much to my friends, family and colleagues who’ve made space and time for me to do this work. It has meant a lot to me. I hope the final product helps more developers create cool projects using ActivityPub.
This may be a silly question, but how does one actually read short story collections? Is it the same as if reading a novel? Do you put the book down between every story? Do you look for connections between the stories? Am I supposed to read them linearly?
"Affect and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism: Pedagogies for the Renewal of Democratic Education, suggests ideas about affective pedagogies for educators to use (along with recognizing the risks involved) to renew democratic education"
I am currently engrossed in reading the Expanse book series. In the universe of these books, humanity's advanced space-faring civilization still grapples with familiar issues like geopolitical tension, inequality, and exploitation.
The arrival of a mysterious new technology ignites intense reactions from governments, individuals, and political ideologies.
In these books, I see many parallels to how people currently interact with AI. #book#scifi
My #bookreview is brief/won't spoil, to spread good, great, & spectacular #horror#books far & wide.
💙📚 HOT DEMON BITCHES NEAR YOU from J.E. Erickson is an exuberant blast of gore & grue. The Horrors are heavy here, but balanced with deliciously devilish delights & a LOT of heart. (Lots of OTHER body parts, too.) You'll be disturbed, delighted, horrified- but also cackling. HELL, yeah! (Self-published)
"Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside." –Ursula K. Le Guin
From the author of the cult hit Boy Parts comes a chilling, brilliantly told story of murder among a group of teenage girls—a powerful and disturbing novel as piercing in its portrait of young women as Emma Cline’s The Girls.
Helpful podcast from @grammargirl: “Efficiency Hacks for Writers and Editors with Erin Brenner,” author of new #book The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors: How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-Up to Sustainability. https://tinyurl.com/24u5y6td . #AmEditing
My #bookreview is brief/won't spoil, to spread good, great, & spectacular #horror#books far & wide.
💙📚 You may presume you'll know the story that unfolds in I THINK I'M ALONE NOW, but you'll be wrong as hell. I read this novella in a single sitting: Ali Seay has written a thoroughly enjoyable, vivid, violent, deliciously dark chunk o' horror set in the 80's that's, like, totally rad. (Grindhouse Press)
#WordWeavers 6/3
Who is your most creative character?
Definitely the minstrel, Shawmelle. She sings, plays a lute and writes her own songs. Her father was a minstrel, as well, and was the one who taught her to play.
She's also very lucky, in that one of the kingdom's squires takes a liking to her. 🙂