A Thank-You to my Patrons

As a result of Saturday's Experiment, I now have two more patrons and proof that people will support me if I make promises of evil ideas.

Also as a result of these new patrons, I have hit two milestones in my Patreon campaign:  the removal of ads from my blog and a promise of an audio blogcast once a month.

Now, regarding the ads:  You will notice that the big Amazon ad up top and the flashy Luckygunner ad to the side have disappeared.  However, I have kept links to them, because I know for a fact that there are people who will want to do some shopping through one of my links and if I take them down completely these people won't be able to use them.  I've made those links as small as possible, and they're under my PayPal link off to the side. Hopefully this will not bother people; in my mind these are links, not advertisements, as they don't take up much space and don't blink or otherwise distract.

Regarding the Evyl Robot ad:  That links to a friend's business and it's there because I want to support him. I'm not getting paid to put it there.

Regarding the blogcast:  Yeah, I have no idea what to do for that. Suggestions?

Bleach for Water Purification

I don't normally link to Blue Collar Prepping more than once a week, but today we have an article that is timely and relevant to the water contamination in Toledo, OH.  I urge all of my readers to go to BCP and read today's article so that you will know how to purify your water should something similar happen.

I'll just leave this here, k?

Made by me.  Enjoy your weekend, and go see the movie; you won't be sorry.

An Experiment in Patronage

Last night I had a really nifty and really evil idea for a weapons system in Traveller that I could potentially loose upon my players.  So I investigated it, statted it up, and then realized it might be too evil, even for me.

Of course, this left me with a distressing dilemma that I think all Game Masters will understand: If I don't use it, then no one will appreciate my evil brilliance and tell me what a creative and disturbed individual I am. And if no one appreciates it and I don't use it, then it's a wasted idea. And since I still might tell my players about it, I don't want to just give the idea away because then the element of surprise is lost.

That's when it occurred to me:  Patreon is all about rewarding my Patrons.

I had initially resisted the idea of Patreon because 1) I wasn't sure how I could create patron-only content when my time was already limited, and 2) the idea of holding my ideas for ransom, after doing it for free for so long, seemed distasteful.

But I think that this is a solution I can be happy with. I've already done the work, and I can let people see it without just giving it away to my players -- and if they truly want to know what it is, they can become a patron as well. It is visible to any level patron of mine, and hopefully this will attract more patronage.

And so if you are a patron of mine (and if you're not, I encourage you to become one!), you can head over to Patreon and look at the weapon system for Traveller (Mongoose Edition) that was too evil for even my own use.

Probably.

SHTFriday: Hurricane Preparedness part 3

Today's SHTFriday concludes my three-part series on hurricanes, this time talking about what is necessary (i.e. the bare minimum) needed to dig in and ride out a hurricane so that you end up looking like this guy...

... and not this guy:

Because that would be BAD.


(Yes I know those are pictures from the 2011 Mississippi flood, just work with me here)

Institutionalized or Not, A Duck is a Duck

     Picking up the ball and running with points made in a recent post by our lovely Overlord Erin, I'd like to throw a few words at the screen on the topic of racism and generalizations. One of the favorite go-to's of the Social Justice Warrior is to claim that anyone in a social minority (that word itself being a difficult one to define, as women are considered a minority, and yet make up roughly 50% of the population pretty much everywhere short of a few outliers – seriously Oman, Qatar? What's up with that?) cannot be racist/sexist/etc. How can this be, you ask? How can someone literally not hold a certain type of attitude? Are they some ascended being of higher enlightenment? Possibly a lower life-form incapable of such thought? Of course not.

     Well, here's where things get interesting. A lot of current Social Justice language originated in Academia, and thus even out in the real world the proponents of these ideologies tend to persist in the usage of this language. Even in situations where it doesn't apply. To them, there is no such thing as just plain old racism, for example. The only racism that exists, or at least that matters, is institutionalized racism. This is where existing political or governmental systems can seem or even actually be stacked against a person or persons of a certain ethnicity or sex. Regardless of how they came to be or the reasoning behind these appearances, such things exist. The black population in the prison system is far higher than white population. It's difficult for trans-individuals to have their gender identity recognized. All valid examples.

     The problem happens when a person of this mindset refuses to believe that individual racism exists, or can be anything significant. The same people who will call out a fallacy of relative privation when addressing the standards of living for women in the western world versus those in the middle east will steadfastly refuse to believe that someone who is not a minority can be discriminated against, or cannot be discriminated against to a degree that will significantly impact them. Just because you feel someone's plight isn't relevant doesn't mean it isn't relevant to them. Human beings, in all their diversity, are built from the same chemical building blocks on the same basic template. To suggest that someone is incapable of holding discriminatory beliefs is to strip them of a part of their humanity, even if that's an unpleasant part to imagine of them. Humans deserve to be considered capable of both good and bad acts.

     The most amusing part of this mindset that I've seen is where they will unconsciously be racist themselves by lumping together many nationalities and ethnicities, assuming them to be one pure, innocent whole, and ignoring cultural attitudes like Korean anti-Japanese racism (and vice-versa), tribal/ethnic conflicts in various parts of Africa, or how North-East Indians are discriminated against by other parts of India due to having more Asian features. The world is full of diverse and beautiful people who are flawed, complicated, and cannot be generalized with one broad sweep, regardless of how noble you think your intentions may be. **coughtumblrcough**

     So while your Sociology 101 course may teach you all about cultural oppression (believe me, I've taken the course), and your academic definitions may work for some situations, they don't work for all situations. The world is a lot more complex than slapping labels on things and tweeting a hashtag. Generally, what we can do as individuals is remember to never be an asshole to someone based on the circumstance of their birth, and never forget that people are capable of being assholes to one another based on the circumstance of their birth. I openly admit to being an asshole, but generally I'm only an asshole to people based upon merit.

     I feel this really should end with a musical number. Lighten the mood and all that.

[AFHOTWTTGS] Doctor Who RPG Reviews

Every once in a while, the stars align and my nerd interests correlate in a moment of glorious synchronicity. Some kind-hearted soul saw fit to provide me with access to FASA's mid-Eighties Doctor Who RPG; like me, it was born during the terrible year of 1985, in which Colin Baker was taken off the air for perceived crimes against television (and one day, when I'm sufficiently drunk or cross, I shall regale you all with my explanation of how this accusation is both one hundred per cent true and absolute codswallop), and like me, it manages to combine a fundamental sense of elegance with a tendency toward rambling on unnecessarily.

I laid my paws on it at the implied request of a Mage player; we'll call this person Khaos, since all the cool kids use pseudonyms around here (I'm assuming Salem is either using a pseudonym or not cool). Khaos essentially wants to play a Time Lord, let's not mince words here, and their excitingly fizzy brain tends to disgorge thoughts about Doctor Who at roundabout the same rate as most people's autonomic functions. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that while Mage is still on the cards, the impression was given that a Who RPG would be a fitting follow-up... and so I promptly acquired the FASA book, had a read through, scratched my head, and looked up the other forms of roleplaying in the Whoniverse to see what they had to offer.

Over the next month I'll be talking about each of them in turn, and trying to playtest each one to boot. There'll doubtless be some dribble about the adventure design and GM style wrapped around it, but essentially we're looking at the system as a means of enabling a game. I might round up by cooing over some Doctor Who miniatures for those who like their square paper and playing with toys.

I'll also be eliciting input from my players, as is generally the way with my reviews. Khaos' comments will appear in Prydonian red; Erin's in Arcalian green; Hark's in the ghastly heliotrope of the Patrexes.

This post is going to serve as the index to the whole affair:

• The Doctor Who Role Playing Game (FASA, 1985)
• Time Lord (Virgin, 1991)
• Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (Cubicle 7, 2012)
• Miniatures... if you like that sort of thing.

Forgive the slight brevity of this instalment; I'm on holiday and off the grid. Normal service will resume next Wednesday.