Deconstructing Infinity

In addition to the montly newsletter of geekery that I publish each month through my (very) small-press online publishing business, about every three months I put together The Warbler which is the newsletter for the Friends of the Welty Environmental Center here in Beloit. The folks at the Welty Center promote green living, environmental awareness, and cool stuff like that. So, every few months I do some layout for them, turn it into a PDF, and send it off to a local printer to become a mailer. It’s one of those little things that keeps me busy.

Last night I downloaded the Chrome beta, the new open-source browser developed by Google. So far it seems nice but not particularly innovative and it doesn’t have any one feature that makes me say that you must download and use it now. It does seem to load pages faster than Firefox so that’s something.

In about six weeks or so, Britt and I are going to be heading back to Ithaca for a visit. Actually, I’m going entirely for the visit but really we’re just taking advantage of the happy coincidence that this year’s DPS meeting is being held in Ithaca. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing friends from Ithaca again.

So, for a while now I’ve been thinking about this abstract combat system for space combat and this is what I’ve come up with:

• Each PC vessel has a range chart like the one shown here.
• On each turn, competing vessels secretly choose a maneuver.
• Maneuvers are revealed.
• Dice are rolled, modified by each vessel’s maneuverability rating.
• Adjustments are made to range and positioning.
• Weapons are fired.
• Damage is resolved.
• Start over with choosing a maneuver.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. For more ease of use, I think a condition track may be used to mark damage.

Now I just need to determine the maneuvers that are available.

Well, Britt and I are back from another travel-filled weekend and once again I feel a little out of sorts as I try to get back into my normal groove.

Thursday night we drove up to LaCrosse, crashed for the night, and then drove to Minneapolis early Friday morning to attend the burial ceremony of Britt’s grandfather, who was interred at the National Cemetery at Fort Snelling.

The ceremony was short, interesting, and not unusual as these things go. Afterward, we were treated to a light lunch and a couple hours of socializing by some friendly folks who’s names, sadly, I do not recall.

Friday night we spent with Britt’s uncle Dave and aunt Cindy there in Minneapolis. Socialization and Benihana were the order of the evening.

Saturday, we tried to meet up with friends that live in Minneapolis but unfortunately the were both out of town. So, we ended up hitting The Source Comics and Games (the best gaming store that I know of) and the Tea Source (from which Britt orders all of her tea). Then we drove back to LaCrosse where we crashed with Britt’s sister and her family.

Yesterday, we drove home and last night I had trouble sleeping but Susan seems happy that we’re back, so that’s something.

Seriously, I woke up this morning and discovered that John McCain had selected someone that I had heard of for the first time only yesterday. My initial thought: Buh, WTF?

I mean, thinking about it, I can see some of the strategery that was involved in the decision but, at least to me, it seems like McCain is desperately clutching at straws in an attempt to make his campaign a “historic” one.

In other words, he continues to fall further down in my estimation of his character and decision-making ability. I’m sort of hoping he’s able to redeem himself in the next few months but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

And, just to be clear, I’ve got nothing against Palin or having a female VP. It would be nice to have someone, you know, qualified however.

Facebook has finally succeeded in beating me up and taking my stuff, where “beating me up” is sucking me into it’s vortex of time-wasting and “taking my stuff” is getting me to “play” Tiny Adventures.

For those of you unfamiliar or not wanting to follow the link, Tiny Adventures is a Facebook app created by some folks at Wizards of the Coast to promote the new fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Nominally, Tiny Adventures lets you play through D&D type adventures by letting you create a simplified D&D-like character and then going on pre-designed adventures.

Now, realistically, Tiny Adventures really isn’t much of a game. While a player has an array of choices to make both during and between adventures they aren’t what I would consider exciting choices, mostly what equipment to buy or sell, and what equipment and potions to use and when, respectively.

Encounters occur at regular intervals (about every ten minutes or so) which encourages players to check on their adventurer at regular increments to see whether he needs healing or something. This fulfills the app’s important Facebook function of keeping users logged into Facebook in another window while they are busy surfing the internet.

So, really, Tiny Adventures is like having a tamogachi that you send out to beat up monsters, which I find pretty funny now that I think about it.

Today will probably be the busiest day of the year for us at the bookstore. It’s add/drop day at Beloit College, the day when all of the students that didn’t get into the classes that they wanted hustle around and try to get into another class. It’s also the day before the first day of classes.

So, there are going to be a lot of students flooding the store for one reason or another and for most of the day we’ll have lines at the registers fifty to a hundred strong.

Yep, I’m looking forward to it.

In Houses of the Blooded, characters get a set number of dice for Invoking and Tagging, 3 and 2 respectively. For the Amber-ish hack I’ve already decided that the number of dice that a player can get for Invoking a devotion is equal to its rank.

For Tagging, I’m thinking that a player can get half of the Tagged character’s rank, rounded up. So, if I Tag Edward’s relationship with his mother in a  contest in which trust matters (because, dude, everyone knows how sneaky Rebmans are) I would get 3 extra dice [5/2=2.5 rounded up to 3].

See also: Hacking Houses (part 1), Hacking Houses (part 2)

A few thoughts that occurred to me this morning while I was thinking about my bi-weekly Houses of the Blooded game. Once again these have to do with using the Houses mechanics for other types of games, particularly Amber-ish games.

I’m still hung up on Devotions. I think they are pretty spiffy and could be put to a few uses. Specifically, I think that they could make up a big chunk of the core mechanics for an Amber/Courts of Chaos game. Here’s how it works:

Players get a number of points to put in their character’s Devotions which represent how important something is to the character. The important thing here is that a character’s Devotions can be anything: a person, a Power, a place, an ideal, anything. And, because these things are important to the character, they are treated kind of like Aspects in that they can be Invoked, Tagged, or Compelled.

Now, for those of you not familiar with Aspects from FATE, Spirit of the Century, or Houses of the Blooded, here’s how it works:

Shawn makes up this character:

Edward, Son of Random and Vialle, Prince of Amber

Pattern [2], Trump [4], Bleys [3], Random [3], Vialle [5], Amber [4], Estameeri [2], Gambling [2]

So, you can see from this that Edward has learned the powers Pattern and Trump but that he is much better at Trump than he is Pattern. He has a better relationship with his mother, Vialle, than he does with his father and he’s got some connection to his uncle Bleys (perhaps Bleys taught him some powers?). He also likes Amber and some Shadow called Estameeri, and enjoys gambling like his father.

Now, mechanically, when Edward gets into a contest that involves Pattern or Trump he can invoke his devotion to those powers to gain an additional 2 or 4 dice respectively (or just a bonus if you want to play diceless, but right now I’m just sticking to the Houses system). I’m not sure how to handle a Tag for powers but if a situation that involves Pattern or Trump crops up, Edward could be Compelled to investigate.

The relationships would work similarly but provide a better chance for Tagging. So, if a situation involved knowing something about Random or, if Random is threatened, how much Edward cares about his father then he could Invoke his devotion to his father to get 3 extra dice to roll. If Edward is in a situation where he wants to appear trustworthy but Random has a reputation of being a deceitful jerk, a character opposing Edward could Tag his relationship to Random and gain a bonus by claiming that Edward is a deceitful jerk by proximity. If Random is in danger, Edward could be Compelled to go to his aid.

Obviously, this needs a little work especially to mark out the differences between different types of devotions and how they might be used in play.

More to think about.

See also: Hacking Houses (part 1)

I would say that a good 80% of the time I’ve got something to say, something to write. Just as as frequently I don’t say or write those things.

In some circumstances it’s because I don’t have the opportunity. I can’t just drop everything to write at the drop of a hat while I’m working at the bookstore. That’s not what they pay me for, after all.

Other times, I just can’t seem to get started. I know that I could, or should, be writing but rather than doing that I find other things to do whether it be surfing the internet, reading a book, watching TV, etc.

It’s not that I don’t want to write, it’s as if there is some mental threshold that I must hit before I can get started. I’ve been trying to overcome it in different ways, one of which is this blog.

It just doesn’t seem to be working all that well.

So, I didn’t post Tuesday or Wednesday morning because I was reading The Dreaming Void, the first book in Peter F. Hamilton’s latest SF opus. Now that I’ve finished it, free of the obsessive drive to get to the end, to understand what’s happening, I’m finally able to return to posting.

There really aren’t that many authors that can get me engaged enough to ignore my usual routine. In fact, I can only think of two (currently writing) off the top of my head: Lois McMasters Bujold and Peter F. Hamilton.

Of course, there may be more and I just can’t think of them at the moment.