@zdl@mastodon.online
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zdl

@zdl@mastodon.online

Half-German, Half-Chinese, Half-Canadian, all-bad at math, currently living to her consternation in the People's Republic of China.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

tintenteufel, to ODnD German
@tintenteufel@pnpde.social avatar

Ganz prinzipiell: warum sollte mensch ein System aus diesem Jahrtausend spielen, welches das Spielgefühl der 1970er Jahre vermittelt, anstatt ein System aus den 1970er Jahren?

Ich mag bspw. und sehr gerne, aber das ist eine der Fragen die ich mir durch meine Beschäftigung mit aka und schon stelle.


zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@tintenteufel In my case (were I interested in regression to the '70s) it would be because the old rules were written and communicated badly. We've learned a lot about game design since then, meaning systems can be more coherent and easy to follow, and standards of writing have improved, meaning actually understanding the rules is easier.

So you can have easier rules, better-communicated, that bring back the desired feel.

deinol, to DnD
@deinol@dice.camp avatar

Not to start a war, but the Shadowdark Facebook group I saw a link to a YouTube claiming Shadowdark “won” the OGL war.

First, you can never “win” open gaming. You can temporarily become dominant. If anyone has, it’s Paizo who often gets as much or more shelf space as D&D.

Second, while Shadowdark uses the 5e CC-BY SRD, but it contributes nothing to open gaming itself. It’s got a 3rd party license, and it’s fine enough, but that isn’t open gaming.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@deinol The only "open gaming" I know is the gaming between friends around the table.

Everything else is corporate gaming.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@deinol Oh, absolutely. I just like to remind people that gaming, in the end, lies with the gamers, not with the corporate machinery (whether cottage- or industrial-corporate).

We seem to forget that all too often to our detriment.

Handout, to random
@Handout@mas.to avatar

Guardian interviewing Finkelstein - but no questions about Trans stuff.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Handout The Guardian is very British slightly-upper-middle-class "leftism". Comfort-oriented leftists. Or as I like to call them, cosplay leftists.

kyonshi, to random
@kyonshi@dice.camp avatar

The Highest Level of All: The Story of Fantasy Wargaming

The Highest Level of All: The Story of Fantasy Wargaming by Mike Monaco, is a free pdf download published at CMU Press under a CC BY-NC-ND license, and dealing with the history of the eponymous (if a bit incongruously titled) Fantasy Wargaming roleplaying game system. Yes, it turns out you can write whole books not only about DnD. At least if it's something as weird as that game at least.

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2024/05/17/the-highest-level-of-all-the-story-of-fantasy-wargaming/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@kyonshi I had that game. It was ... one of the very few games I deemed completely unplayable. (And I played Powers & Perils, albeit only two sessions!)

gmkeros.wordpress.com, to DnD
@gmkeros.wordpress.com@gmkeros.wordpress.com avatar

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/fantasy-wargaming.jpgThe Highest Level of All: The Story of Fantasy Wargaming by Mike Monaco, is a free pdf download published at CMU Press under a CC BY-NC-ND license, and dealing with the history of the eponymous (if a bit incongruously titled) Fantasy Wargaming roleplaying game system. Yes, it turns out you can write whole books not only about DnD. At least if it’s something as weird as that game at least.

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/715s3mfunvl._sl1360_.jpg

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)

Rate this:

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2024/05/17/the-highest-level-of-all-the-story-of-fantasy-wargaming/

#book #dnd #Fantasy #gaming #news #osr #rpg #ttrpg #wargaming

image/jpeg

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@gmkeros.wordpress.com@gmkeros.wordpress.com

> Unlike it’s competition it was not afraid of using actual historical concepts like astrology and occultism in it’s descriptions…

Chivalry & Sorcery. 1977.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@kyonshi @gmkeros.wordpress.com@gmkeros.wordpress.com C&S certainly was bigger competition than Fantasy Wargaming ever was.

People actually played C&S. 🤣

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@kyonshi @gmkeros.wordpress.com@gmkeros.wordpress.com If they'd used a good system that would have drastically changed the face of RPGs for certain.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@edheil @gmkeros.wordpress.com@gmkeros.wordpress.com I've read it. I've read (and played) several editions of C&S. I have no idea. The writing in Fantasy Wargaming was just that bad.

twostraws, to random
@twostraws@mastodon.social avatar

The most dangerous thing about ChatGPT is how utterly certain it is.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@twostraws ChatGPT has that white techbrodude energy in its responses: absolutely certain while being absolutely incorrect.

mrundkvist, to music
@mrundkvist@archaeo.social avatar

Odd fact of pop music history and UK politics: Roy Wood, a founding member of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra, was a member of UKIP för many years and then joined the Brexit Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Wood#Personal_life

#music #rock #ukpolitics

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@angiebaby @mrundkvist Roy Wood from the Daily Show?

zdl, to random
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

Can anybody explain to me why King Charles commissioned a painting that makes him look like he's bathing in blood?

It's like the powers that be aren't even TRYING to hide any longer.

zdl, to random
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I present to you American-style "Buddhism".

https://americanbuddhist.net/2024/05/16/the-jewish-plot-to-enslave-humanity/

For my friends who wonder why I'm instantly suspicious of any westerner I encounter who claims to be "Buddhist", here's why.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@deinol Oh, I'm positive they're not "actual Buddhists". Most westerners who claim to be Buddhist aren't actual Buddhists, see. This dudebro is just a rather extreme example of it. On the other extreme I saw someone claiming to be a Buddhist. Who uses Tarot cards. And is a Witch. And...

Now far be it that I, of all people, would denounce syncretic beliefs, but Holy Hell at least BE HONEST ABOUT IT!? Don't claim to follow a tradition if you're doing Chinese Restaurant Menu-style spirituality.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@deinol That particular site is choosing one from the anti-semitism column, one from the NLP column, one from the American "patriot" thug column, one from the "paranoid git" column, one from the ...

yogthos, to random
@yogthos@mas.to avatar
zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@yogthos Which one is which?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@yogthos Also, I think the correct choice might be to vote "Hell NO!" with the weapon of your choice at this point.

zdl, to random
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

Well, it looks like I'm going to be seeing the 2024 soon-to-be-documentary Civil War in a local cinema in a couple of weeks.

Ticket pre-sales have been crazy here, so I expect a loud and boisterous audience applauding everything blowing up in depicted American cities.

This world-wide reaction should probably worry Americans ... but it won't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_(film)

rebeccawatson, to random
@rebeccawatson@mstdn.social avatar

Guys like this are the exact reason I casually mention Israel's genocide in videos. I would like them to know that history will see them as enablers of atrocity, because let's be honest: in 20 years when it's obvious to everyone, they'll pretend they were on the other side.
https://mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson/112452736835887696

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@rebeccawatson How much do you want to bet that the same dudebro thinks OJ Simpson is guilty despite being found not guilty in an open trial?

Johnnephew, to random
@Johnnephew@dice.camp avatar

Streisand Effect Alert!

Gina Rinehart: Australia’s richest woman seeks removal of her portrait from exhibition | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/style/gina-rinehart-namatjira-portrait-australia-intl-scli/index.html

zdl, (edited )
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Johnnephew Wouldn't it be terrible if people got a photo of her portrait and shared it all over social media?

Absolutely terrible. Only a true miscreant would do such a thing, right?

luckytran, to random
@luckytran@med-mastodon.com avatar

An NPR reporter collected samples of raw milk from 4 farms in Texas, and asked a USDA-authorized lab to test for bird flu. The lab refused to do it, because the farms wouldn't give them permission to test, even though permission isn't required. Wow.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/15/1251647612/a-bird-flu-outbreak-among-dairy-cows-sparks-new-warnings-about-unpasteurized-mil

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@luckytran We call this "good public health policy", right?

garry, to internet
@garry@mstdn.social avatar

Studies Show We Have Better Well-Being With Internet Access

'We’ve been left to think that being on the Internet is a waste of time and not good for us overall. However, results of a recently-published survey shows that we have a better well-being with access to the Internet.'

https://www.maketecheasier.com/studies-on-internet-access-well-being/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@garry The modern version of "it is written in scripture" is "studies show".

chloe, to random
@chloe@chadthundercock.com avatar

What the FUCK did I do?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@chloe Calculated things that resulted in 8008135.

Snowshadow, to news
@Snowshadow@mastodon.social avatar

So all those of you protesters refusing to vote for Biden I hope you realize this is your future with a Trump presidency:👇

" Trump Wants to Deport Pro-Palestine Protesters—and GOP Lawmakers Are Filing Bills to Make It Happen"

@TonyStark
@GottaLaff


https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/trump-protesters-gop-marco-rubio-palestine-college-deport/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@argv_minus_one If you insist on being wilfully thick, please do so elsewhere.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@argv_minus_one And there it is. The misanthropy that that solves all problems.

Piss off.

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