Pride 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️at the Westfield World Trade Center
Of DnD, Shadowrun, and attempting my own thing
Back in 1984, William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, a book that gave birth to the Cyberpunk genre along with Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner. Dungeons and Dragons (D&D, or DnD) was already in the geek scene for ten years at the time. I’m a little surprised that it took Shadowrun, ten more to show up, and still somehow miss the point.
I’ve spent the last week or so reading up Shadowrun rules. I want to bring up the DnD gang back together to explore a new world, one that I’ve been cooking in my head for months. It takes place in the far future. Human cloning failed unexpectedly and spectacularly, giving birth to a certain form of “magic” in the process. I wanted a roleplaying game that brings into play huge corporations, cybernetics, and computer systems, and Shadowrun was an obvious spot to revisit. But I dropped it pretty quickly.
First, we already know and understand DnD 5e. Learning a new system of rules, especially a confusing and complex one like Shadowrun’s, is not appealing. That, and the fact that I don’t think the human hand is meant to roll 12 dice at once (a bad Shadowrun joke).
Second, I don’t like the lore of Shadowrun. Magic is fantastical, Dragons are real, and dwarves and elves show up because of some sort of disease… eck. I already have my own story, as I mentioned above. I wanted the system to adopt my world, not the other way around.
Third, making your own rules is fun. I am not an experienced DnD DM and I will never memorize all those rules. I count on my players not just as guests to my creation, but also equal in its making. We will shape and adjust rules as needed. Taking out the Big Book of Rules and searching if something can be done and how or is not as fun.
So nowadays I’m expanding on my rules and lore where it makes sense: my wiki. It’s mostly DnD rules that will remain unchanged with a couple of twists influenced by Shadowrun and my own inventions. My goal is to get to a “beta” point where we can test it, perhaps during a session 0 of sorts.
my two cents about facebook & ActivityHub
My niece graduated from kindergarten, and I wanted to send a reply in a short video. I don’t usually use my iPhone on a whim for personal messaging, but my sister is deep in Apple’s world. Here’s the process:
- I Recorded a short video using the iPhone’s camera app
- Realizing I wanted to cut two parts out, I sent it over to the Mac with Airdrop
- On the Mac, I opened it in Snagit and edited it to my liking
- I dropped the MP4 into Messages and sent it to my sister
I haven’t done this before, but the process was so intuitive and seamless that it blew my mind. As a person who uses Linux on a daily basis, I forget how nice it is that technology is so seamless these days. 10 years ago, this was all science fiction.
When I read the pro and con arguments about Facebook federating, I feel the same way. Maybe Facebook’s integration with ActivityPub means I could reach my friends from college who never left Facebook and will always stay there. Maybe they’ll see my posts on their feed, and I could communicate with them without ever logging into Facebook Messenger. To me, that’s a win.
Does this mean Facebook’s motives are anything but profit and closed walls? No. This is the same way I think about Apple and Messages. But I like having options.
It’s easy for me to say, “Join Mastodon! Chat with me on Signal! It’s easy!” But to my sister and my college friends, it’s not. And yelling louder would only make me more obnoxious and these alternatives even less appealing.
I now have an official email with my domain…! Hooray. It’s my name here at the domain, also added to the About page.
I’ve been busy with a couple of updates, mostly on the wiki. More on that soon. Time to eat some Indian food, one of my favorite cuisines.
The flowers decided to show face and enjoy the breeze. I did the same. 📷📷📷
From Wired:
The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens wired.com
Read: www.wired.com
Wired doesn’t do much besides pointing fingers and raising the alarm, but it did lead me to this PDF from the DNI (Director of National Intelligence):
www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022.pdf dni.gov
Read: www.dni.gov
Data brokers “maintain large, sophisticated databases with consumer information that can include credit histories, insurance claims, criminal records, employment histories, incomes, ethnicities, purchase histories, and interests,” among other things. They are so effective that even the government prefers to go to them to get whatever their after.
In turn, these data brokers have special rates for local and federal governments to encourage these entities to buy this information.
The fireworks started here in NYC. Since COVID, I hate those with passion. The sleepless nights for these couple of weeks is not something I want to experience again. Glad to take a vacation for the 4th.
The Thing, 2011 - ★★★
I'm not sure I watched The Thing, or I don't remember if I did, but this movie makes me want to watch the original. The story is not too unique, but the execution kept me guessing and entertained. This is a good movie to watch with friends while eating popcorn. Don't eat meat though; it might come back up.
The Thing, 2011 - ★★★
I'm not sure I watched The Thing, or I don't remember if I did, but this movie makes me want to watch the original. The story is not too unique, but the execution kept me guessing and entertained. This is a good movie to watch with friends while eating popcorn. Don't eat meat though; it might come back up.
