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Month: July 2003

Sturm, drang, wolves

July 7, 2003
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Justin Achilli has spilled a few beans about his new fantasy setting. Elsewhere, he said simply “Frostholm. First quarter 2005.” In a way I sort of miss hanging out in the kind of crowd that picks up on news like this within seconds and savages it to within an inch of its life, but in a lot of ways I don’t.

Regardless, the setting looks like the kind of thing that I might well like a lot. On the other hand, I’ll continue to bet that the market for grim campaign settings is not all that huge, and Midnight might have locked it up by then. But we’ll see.

Yeah, he knew

July 6, 2003
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In February, 2002, the CIA asked an old Africa hand to visit Niger and look into the allegations that Niger sold uranium to Iraq. He reported that the allegations were highly doubtful. In January, 2003, Bush made those allegations as statements of fact.

Said Africa hand, Joseph Wilson, has a nice op-ed in today’s New York Times.

WISH 54: Background Hooks

July 6, 2003
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WISH 54 is about one of my favorite character generation issues, background hooks.

Do you like to have bits and pieces from your characters’ backgrounds appear in the game? Do you write hooks into your character background for the GM to use in the campaign for your character? Do you like it when the GM gives you a background hook into an adventure or scenario with a previously unknown hook, such as creating an old friend of your character’s who is somehow involved? What are some examples of cases where hooks have worked or not worked for you?

Yes! I love background hooks, I’m big on background hooks, background hooks make me squirm in glee. I don’t write big complex backstory for my characters before starting play, but I do sketch out loose backgrounds, and I invariably put some hooks in. Usually it’s something that would cause the PC problems if it came out.

I also tend to include a couple of strong attitudes. Paul was a devout Catholic, Reese is a bit jingoistic, and Amelia/Andy hates weak women. I’m not sure that’s the sort of hook Ginger had in mind, but I think it provides the same function.

Since I like hooks a lot, I like it when a GM pulls on ‘em. I’m also OK with it not happening. After all, sometimes people go through their lives without their little quirks ever causing serious issues.

Now, an interesting thing about hooks: they’re one of the ways in which you can buy spotlight time during character generation without spending any points or getting high rolls on the attribute dice. Spotlight time is one of the most important currencies in roleplaying. If the GM takes advantage of your hooks, you’re getting spotlight time for free — which touches on Scott’s point about overdoing hooks. Interesting.

Finally, I’m stealing Kynn’s PC requirements for my next game. Cool stuff.

Study hall

July 6, 2003
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Northern Iraq has been fairly peaceful, despite pre-war worries about Turkey’s reaction to Kurdish freedom. There’s been the occasional skirmish in Turkey and the Kurds clearly still intend to control the northern oil cities, but on the whole matters have gone all right.

Unfortunately, the situation doesn’t seem entirely stable. The US just detained 11 Turkish soldiers, who were reportedly trying to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk. It’s a touchy enough situation for Cheney to handle it personally.

Truth is, our alliance with Turkey was important because we needed another ally close to the Middle East. With troops in Iraq, that need diminishes. Armenia and Georgia aren’t really hotbeds of trouble right now.

Hey, that one sucks

July 6, 2003
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This is funny. The Texas House is currently in the middle of a special session, trying to get that pesky redistricting done. Unfortunately, the Republicans can’t agree on how they want to draw the new lines. Great stuff. Good times.

Best laid plans

July 5, 2003
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I dropped the Recent Leisure sidebar. Lovely in theory, but I’m two weeks behind updating it. Suffice it to say that I’ve come around to enjoying The Hulk, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was tons of fun and not very intelligent, and Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry is incredibly mawkish in the light of day. His more recent work holds up nicely, though.

Idle pursuits

July 5, 2003
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I try not to run out my weak Photoshop skills too often, but now and again I can’t resist. I’ve sent this into gbaMOD so I can buy it as a real skin, but rumor has it they’re running kind of slow so we’ll see.

Great Cthulhu loves the Gameboy.

Where? There.

July 4, 2003
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Right there, in the big tan building at the center-left of the picture. If you were driving northwest along the road that cuts from the east side to the north side, you’d take a left after the semicircular driveway; then drive down one block. See, it’s the tan building on the left side of the street. Can’t miss it.

(I’m pretty sure these wouldn’t actually work as directions if you didn’t know where I lived already. I hope, anyhow.)

They're not from around here

July 4, 2003
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The BBC (and others) report that three of the six Guantanamo prisoners who are to face a military tribunal are citizens of US allies. Specifically, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi are British and David Hicks is Australian.

Apparently, while we don’t try our own citizens in front of a military tribunal, we’re OK with trying Aussies and Brits in a closed court. There’s really no excuse for this. In particular, Australia has suffered Al Qaeda attacks — but Australian courts aren’t good enough to try Mr. Hicks? How insulting.

And, once more, the tribunals will have the authority to sentence prisoners to death. You can say the United States would never sentence someone to death without a public trial, but if that’s the case, why not explicitly remove that authority now?