3/12/07
So maribou says she wants to read Iain M. Banks's Algebraist along with the eight volume Tezuka hagiography of Buddha. Here's the rub, right now I can't get over how annoying S.M. Sterling's Dies the Fire is as a novel. So I really want to share it with maribou much more than the aforementioned books.

Seriously it's like Left Behind for Wiccans and SCAdians. The SCA being the Society of Corsets and Ale. Some anal retentives might know it as the Society of Creative Anachronism. Funny, they have a pretty narrow view of what constitutes an anachronism. Plus it's tacitly racist having embraced only the culture of the middle ages in northern Europe.

Why is Dies the Fire being dubbed Left Behind for Wiccans? Well it seems that Wicca is the best religion of all time and only Wicca can help people muddle through a grand event which turns most modern technology into useless scrap and nullifies gunpowder. Plus the opening scene takes place aboard an airplane just like in Left Behind.

my bloody valentine
Jaybird acquired the CD of My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless". I haven't heard this album in fifteen years or more. Now it's ripped to my hard drive and I have the tracks on demand when I want to hear them.
an elm grows in brooklyn
I would like to take a moment to extend my deepest gratitude to elmgrows. This fine gent with assistance from maribou has assisted me with understanding my health insurance along with finding a potential office which specializes in my particular, oral situation.

A prince among men.

Plus there's going to be a game this Friday. elmgrows says he'll be able to make it to the game even though he might be a touch late to the proceedings. No problem at all. Just need to make sure that I wrap up a certain plotline and advance everything to the return of elmgrows from his sabbatical in Colorado.

0x12C
On Saturday night I saw 300. The story was just something to frame the violence which portrays the legendary Battle of Thermopylae more than two thousand years ago. Three hundred Spartans hold their own against the enormous Persian army and Xerxes.

300 is a visual spectacle with very little in the way of story. My conspiracy theory is that someone wanted to make a film about facing the middle east in combat and if the Crusades had been chosen as a setting that would only serve to enflame passions on both sides. Instead this tale of facing insurmountable odds was chosen to be filmed by a studio.

A pleasant eight dollars was wasted on Saturday night.

And it's sooooo good to see that Sloth from The Goonies has found work once again as Ephialtes in the film adaptation of 300.

rpg
Right now I'm trying to hash out an idea for a roleplaying game which exclusively uses d12 dice. Y'know, dodecahedrons. Offhand I know of two systems which use one type of die for determining the outcomes of events and actions, HERO uses the d6 and the Storytelling System uses the d10. Both of these are easily available to a new gamer.

Yet the humble d12 is an oddball die which is rarely used outside of the setting of Dungeons & Dragons. Even in D&D, these regular polyhedra only receive attention from barbarians and users of greatswords.

So I reckon the system might have something to do with rolling 2d12 and seeing if the result on the two dice adds up to or is a multiple of twelve. Originally I was thinking about a system where a player rolls 12d12, adds the results and divides by twelve but such a system would be dauting, cumbersome and generally not fun except among mathematics majors.

Why the d12? This Platonic solid doesn't get much use in the gaming community. I find it aesthetically appealing because it's not as spherical as the icosahedral d20. Plus it uses the number twelve which I consider to be an important number in my life. If Coco Chanel could be a pentaphiliac then I can be a dodecophiliac.

One of the things I want to avoid is emulating other game systems and their respective mechanics.

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