December 2008
22 posts
“You gotta get in there, ya know? You just gotta get in there. And you gotta try...”
– Gary Vaynerchuk, paraphrasing my approach to life.
WatchMy thoughts exactly.
The Fed and the Crisis
Great, readable, mini econ lecture about the why and what of the Federal Reserve, it’s role in the current economic crisis, and what that may mean to the future of everything.
The bottom line is that Bernanke has made a gamble with something approaching 2 trillion. If the gamble wins, taxpayers owe nothing. If the gamble loses, taxpayers are committed to borrow a sum equal to any losses and...
Oh Shit
EA has released SimCity for Mobile OS X.
There goes my life and career.
Bush Dodges EVERYTHING →
LOL!
Great Post-Finale Interview w/ Shawn Ryan →
Shawn Ryan is the creator of The Shield. This is a must-read if you’re a fan of the show, but it’s loaded with spoilers.
I Heart Movies
I’ve seen 58% of the films on the IMDB Top 250. How did you do?
The biggest gaps that stick out to me are the mid- to late-90s and pre-1960 or so, especially the 20s and 30s.
Dickerdoodles →
I made some last year, as well as, um, some for the guys, shall we say? and Erika was not impressed. I’ll have to enjoy them vicariously this year.
DS4E Updates
I’ve updated the Relevant Modifiers and Core Mechanic posts.
The Core Mechanic section should be all rules, while the Relevant Modifiers post should be just advisory.
Battlestar Galactica for Sale
Tons of props, costumes, concept drawings, etc., from the Battlestar Galactica series are being auctioned off in January. The full catalog is available for browsing.
Everything from a Raptor to Six’s red dress to Laura Roslin’s reading glasses will be up for sale.
I’m calling to increase my credit limits as soon as this is posted. What economic crisis?
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DS4E: Relevant Modifiers
Three Basic Rules
Three principles are at the heart of the game. Other rules will be based on these assumptions.
Simple rules, many exceptions
Specific beats general
Always round down
Checks & Ability Modifiers
The table below recommends which ability modifier to use for a check in a given situation.
Ability Type of Check
Str Athletics: Climbing, Escaping from a Grab,...
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DS4E: The Core Mechanic
Making Checks
When your character attempts to do something that has a chance of failure you make a check:
Roll a d20.
Add all relevant modifiers.
Announce the total, the check result.
The check result is compared to a target number, the Difficulty Class (DC) of the check.
If the total, the check result, is greater than or equal to the target number, the DC, you succeed. If your total is...
Darn It
My scheduled posts didn’t go up yesterday. Sorry about that.
Update: Also, sorry about the crappy tables. I’ll clean them up this weekend.
More Heads on Pikes at WotC →
Including that of Randy Buehler, the man behind the failure that was Gleemax and the waaay behind schedule D&D Insider.
There's a Good Reason I Voted Against Anyone Who...
On Daily Kos, No clue what they’re doing
And of course, we skeptics [were right](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/business/02tarp.html).
The head of a new Congressional panel set up to monitor the gigantic federal bailout says the government still does not seem to have a coherent strategy for easing the financial crisis, despite the billions it has already spent in that effort.
Of...
Clear Mandate
On Open Left: Still Counting & Counting & Counting & …
Large Obama mandate: Obama received votes from the second highest percentage of the American population ever. … currently 22.62% of the population voted for Obama. The all-time leader was Reagan in 1984, when he received the vote of 23.09% of the population. With up to another million votes to be added, Obama might still...
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DS4E: Making Characters
Six abilities provide a quick description of your character’s physical and mental characteristics:
Strength (Str) measures your character’s physical power.
Constitution (Con) measures your character’s health, stamina, and vital force.
Dexterity (Dex) measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance.
Intelligence (Int) measures how well your character...
Open Government →
“President-elect Obama has made a very clear commitment to changing the way government works with its citizens. To this end, we offer these three principles to guide the transition in its objective to build upon the very best of the Internet to produce the very best for government.”
I’ve signed (for what a signature on an online petition is worth) and hope you do to.
The Shield
Was planning on staying up and doing more typing, but just finished watching the series finale of The Shield and am pretty devastated. Really, really amazing, perfect ending to the past seven years (7 years I’ve been watching this!) Gotta go and hopefully sleep off this deep, deep funk.
Happy Birthday Recession! →
It’s official! I’d go back and dig up all the “recession, what recession?” pundit pieces from the past year, but the progressive netrooters will take care of that tomorrow, I’m sure. (via Across the Curve)
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Coming Soon!
Damn Small Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition (DS4E, for short).
This project is inspired by Damn Small Linux, this project’s namesake, and Linux From Scratch, this project’s spirtual leader. This is initially a personal project, an experiment to see how little is needed to create a roleplaying game that “feels” like Dungeons & Dragons, suitable for quick pick-up...