Robert’s blog (1.0)

I finally wrote my first Ruby program this week. I've been reading so many good things about it for so long now. The best way I can think of to describe Ruby is that it is a language like Smalltalk with enough syntactic sugar to make it look like Perl.

That description, however, probably doesn't really do it justice. It's an interesting language. It's design is very appealing to me. It seems equally capable for all the things I currently use Perl for. So far, I haven't found a practical reason to choose it over Perl for those tasks. I think, however, that for projects that reach a size at which I begin to want to switch from Perl to something else, Ruby might prove to be a better choice.

Shorter adventures usually only do well when they're linked to something very specific. When we released The Sunless Citadel, it was the first full-length 3.0 adventure and it did extraordinarily well. The later adventures in the series experienced typical series dropoff.

Ed Stark
Design Manager for Dungeons & Dragons

I did buy The Sunless Citadel because it was the first D&D3e adventure. I stopped buying the adventures from that series, not because I was uninterested, but because The Sunless Citadel was so bad. I suspect the extraordinary sales of The Sunless Citadel, if it had been good, would have been followed up by an atypical, slower dropoff in sales for the later adventures in the series.

On the topic of player knowledge versus character knowledge in roleplaying games, I tend to lean more towards a gamist rather than simulationist view in certain situations.

More about the terms gamist and simulationist.

For example: Riddles. I could come up with riddles that the characters could solve that the players couldn't. There are lots of riddles I can borrow that the players can solve, but that the characters couldn't.

The simulationist might argue that one should use riddles that are true to the game world and let the dice and character stats determine if the character can answer it correctly.

The gamist says, "That's no fun! Give them a riddle the player's can solve and let the players enjoy solving it."

Then the abstract simulationist in me comes along and claims that the gamist's choice is merely an abstract simulation. The characters are really (...er...fantastically?) given a character-knowledge-appropriate riddle and we simulate this by giving the players a similarly player-knowledge-appropriate riddle.

Then my gamist and simulationist sides, having reached consensus, join forces to torment my dramatist side...

OK, so that's just a sensational head line. Usenet isn't really dead, but--for whatever reason--I'm not enjoying it anymore.

There are two great things about usenet:

1. Usenet and NNTP are specifically designed for discussion fora. Sure, a mailing list or a web site can do the same job, but it can't do it as well.
2. Unity. It used to be that instead of 1000 web fora and 100 mailing lists dedicated to discussion of a topic, there was one newsgroup.

Of course, usenet has always had its problems: netcops, trolls, newbies, flamewars, etc. Today, though, I'm finding less and less of whatever the good stuff was that made all of that worth dealing with.

There's been a lot of talk today about marriage.

It seems that people are confusing the many things that we refer to by the word marriage.

1. A commitment between two (or more*) people. The participants decide the terms of the commitment.
2. The recognition of such a commitment by a religion. The religion decides what marriages (I) it will recognize as valid.
3. A legal status granted by a government. Each government decides what the qualifications and benefits of that status. Legal marriage really only exists as a qualification for certain benefits. Legal marriage is not a right.

Gays and polygamists anywhere in the world can be married (I). Marriage type I has nothing to do with government. Religions can recognize gay or polygamous marriages (II). Marriage type II has nothing to do with government.

Governments have every right to decide who qualifies for government granted benefits. In the US, each state legislature gets to decide the legal definition of type III marriage as state law applies to it. Congress gets to decide the legal definition of type III marriage as federal law applies to it.

The full faith and credit clause does not necessarily mean that a state has to grant benefits to married (III) persons based on another state's definition of marriage (III). We need to stop this trend of saying we need a nationwide standard for everything.

*Whether you believe in polygamy or not, you can't deny that it has existed.

Here's an article about the results of Ars Magica being available online for free. Ars Magica is one of my favorite RPGs that I've never had the opportunity to play.

Unfortunately, according to Nephew, sales of the Ars Magica core rulebook since it has been available online have declined by 56% compared with sales from the same period in 2002.

Yeah, well, what was the expected decline? It is typical for sales of books and games to decline pretty rapidly over time. (I don't know specifics for the RPG industry, but as an example, a novel usually sees 80% of its lifetime sales in the first three months!) I suspect Atlas had already made well into 90% of the expected lifetime sales of this book in the seven or so years between its release and being made available online for free.

[...] found a decline of 9% in sales of sourcebooks versus the same period in 2002 in which very comparable products were released.

I'm disappointed with this figure. Still, I don't think its a clear sign one way or the other for a "make the core rules free and charge for the supplements" business model for RPGs. There's a lot of factors that could contribute to that 9% decline: Differences in the products, even if they are "very comparable". Potential buyers expecting that a fifth edition is in the works. Fluctuations in the RPG market. The economy in general. Et cetera. In any case, such a short term analysis doesn't really tell us much.

While the rate of downloads (now in the 700-800 a month range) is far greater than sales of the core rulebook had been [...]

It boggles my mind that there are still people who don't get that a count of the number of times something has been downloaded is not directly comparable to sales figures. Many people who downloaded the file likely already had the book. Many people probably downloaded it multiple times, although they wouldn't have bought multiple copies of the book. Many people probably downloaded it and are waiting for a chance to make use of it. (When comparing to sales figures, these people really represent future sales.) I'm certain there are droves of people that downloaded it that would have never bought the book. You cannot compare free downloads to sales figures.

The pledge of allegiance was first published in 1892. It was officially recognized by the US government is 1942. The phrase "under God" was added by Congress in 1954.

As so often when ranting about things like this, I've got to say: Alleluia that our world is so good that this issue is worth anyone wasting their time with.

The phrase "under God" in the pledge does not constitute an establishment of religion. A kid somewhere being ostracized for being quiet during the pledge because his parent has forbidden him from uttering those two words does not make it unconstitutional.

Likewise, this is not some sacred text handed down by God to Moses or the Founding Fathers that will crumble to meaningless dust taking our whole society with it if those two words were stricken from it.

What is the distinctive characteristic of a roleplaying game? For me, I think it is the referee.

Of course, many games that aren't roleplaying games have referees. (The roleplaying referee, however, evolved from a non-roleplaying referee.) A roleplaying game referee doesn't just enforce the rules. Indeed, he effectively has the power to create or alter rules as necessary.

Although roleplaying referees try to stick to the rules, no set of rules can handle every situation. Indeed, it is the presence of the referee that allows a roleplaying game to go beyond the rules, to handle situations not accounted for in the rules.

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

John 8:7 KJV

I don't know what the qualifications for an Episcopal bishop are. I do know that if being free from sin was one of them, there'd be no Episcopal bishops. I think God would rather see the energy being spent on discussing whether Gene Robinson is sinning spent differently.

My wife sent me a link to this commentary about the hubbub over Mel Gibson's The Passion being anti-Semitic. (Check out the official website. You can read it in Latin or Aramaic!) It got me thinking about the subject more.

The Jews of the first century A.D. are not the Jews of today.

Simon Peter was a Jew. James was a Jew. The disciple whom Christ loved was a Jew. The other disciples? All Jews. Those books are lousy with Jews. Even Jesus was a Jew! About the only characters in the gospels who aren't Jews are Pontius Pilate and a handful of Roman soldiers. Oh, and a samaritan or two.

If I were alive c. 30 A.D., would I be a Christian? No! There were no Christians. I'd be a pagan* or a Jew.

The depiction of the Jews in the gospels doesn't tell me about Jews. It tells me about people. It tells me about me.

And it still was a good thing.

*I really don't mean to disparage other religions. The word "pagan" has no negative connotations for me. If it does for you, read it as "non-Christian and non-Jew".