All Entries in the "rant" Category
The Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Rant
I consider 4th edition to be the “Star Trek: Enterprise” of the RPG world. An utter turd spawned from a beloved franchise, floating along on the river of franchise goodwill. Until it is justifiably flushed… That sucking sound you hear is the last breath of 4th edition going to a sewery grave. This also marks [...]
Piracy Must Be Our Fault
Do you remember when Total Recall freaked out business analysts with its skyrocketing $65 million budget? That was 1990. In 1994, Roger Ebert commented on the exuberant cost of Stargate’s $55 million stating, “They must have had a lot of lunches.” A year later the world was up in arms over the bloated production of [...]
NDAs, 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons and RPG Media Sell-Outs
Non-disclosure agreements protect games during development from idea/concept theft and premature release of less-than-perfect versions. All well and good, but the recent flood of NDAs signed by various web sites regarding 5th Editon (or whatever the final name is ) D&D I find troubling. Some RPG blog sites, which I shall not name, got early [...]
Gen Con 2011–The Rant
Gen Con 2011 is now one week past and it is time for my last thoughts. Forgive me as I wander through my disjointed thoughts of Gen Con 2011 because in addition to some great games, I picked up a “Con Crud” infection. What fun. Let me start with my initial thoughts about the shows’ [...]
Paper vs. Pixels. Part 2: Mass Effect is a Dirty Whore
This is a bizarre time we live in, where gamers praise if not outright command open world settings in which to explore. It’s one aspect of digital gaming that paper gaming often does better. With the right GM, a group can go anywhere and do pretty much anything and still encounter an interesting story when [...]
The Little Moments
If someone asks me why my hobby is role-playing games my stock answer is “they are fun.” It was not until last Saturday night’s game that I experienced an epiphany. In one encounter I finally understood why I enjoy role-playing games so very much. I play the game for the little moments. My RPG sessions [...]
Threshold: 10,000 Unique Visitors This Month!
I have never posted about Livingdice’s traffic before because no one really cares but me. That said, I reached a threshold I had as a personal goal for the past couple of years and just felt the urge to share my joy: 10,000 unique visitors this month! It only took a mere three years and [...]
DARPA Needs Gamers
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is famous for putting money into all kinds of projects with defense applications. Arpanet, the precursor of the Internet being the most famous but hardly their only effort. Other DARPA-funded projects include powered exoskeletons, driverless car competitions, molten munitions, onion network routing and stealth boats. Given their track [...]
Can You Survive the 12 Mile Gen Con Death March?
The Gen Con 2010 gaming convention was a twelve-mile hike over four days. This is not an estimate, it is a fact. My collaborator on this site wears a pedometer as part of his fitness program and recorded slightly over 12 miles as his total for Gen Con 2010. I suspect many people exceed that [...]