Fantasist's Scroll

So, it’s been a long time since I wrote here, but this is the best place to share this.

Back in the early 80’s, I played a great science-fiction role-playing game called Traveller.  It was relatively simple and straight-forward and didn’t even require fancy dice, just regular 6-sided dice like everyone has.  It had a fairly generic feel to it, which some people found annoying, but really opened things up for the game master to let loose and develop a setting.  Of course, there was a lightly sketched background setting that was considered “official”, but it was fairly generic.
Anyway, I loved the game.  Recently, there was a ridiculously inexpensive sale on the scanned PDF documents from those original books.  Two of them were ones that I had never owned before, but only seen in bits and pieces.  Namely, “Supplement book 08-Library Data A-M” and “Supplement book 11-Library Data N-Z”.  Skimming through these really brought back memories!

A lot has changed since those good, old days of table-top gaming and there are a whole raft of fun tools that add a new dimension to gaming.  In the old days, one of my favorite things was always the various encyclopedias of in-game information, like those two supplements.  Now, one of my favorite things are wikis, like Wikipedia.  And, for some of my more creative work, I’ve really enjoyed using “personal wikis”, that never leave my desktop or private network.  (In fact, I wrote about just that on one of my other sites that’s updated more often; JKHoffman.com!)
Well, the other day, it occurred to me that I should combine the two!  So, I have, and I’m offering it here for you to download for free, per the very kind copyright restrictions of Far Future Enterprises: Traveller Library Data Wiki.

Now, this is not the same as or even derived from the excellent Citizens of the Imperium Traveller Wiki, but it’s also completely private for you and your players to edit as you please.  Also, per the requirements of Far Future Enterprises, this is being offered free and must remain free if you add to it and share it!  I did this mainly as an obsessive-compulsive exercise in data normalization in a private wiki, though also as a labor of love because I just can’t resist beautiful, well-organized, hyper-linked data about a reality that doesn’t quite exist except in our imaginations.
As faults go, this one isn’t bad.

Today is the birthday of Alfred M. Butts, the man who invented the game Scrabble.

Butts was born on this day in 1899, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He trademarked the game in 1949, but his game didn’t sell very well. Only a few thousand copies of the game were sold, until 1950s when the president of Macy’s played the game on vacation and got hooked. He ordered more for his store, and Scrabble became a great success.
Scrabble has been a favorite of many writers, including the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who had a special Russian version made for himself and his wife.

Today is the birthday of Alfred M. Butts, the man who invented the game Scrabble.

Butts was born on this day in 1899, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He trademarked the game in 1949, but his game didn’t sell very well. Only a few thousand copies of the game were sold, until 1950s when the president of Macy’s played the game on vacation and got hooked. He ordered more for his store, and Scrabble became a great success.
Scrabble has been a favorite of many writers, including the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who had a special Russian version made for himself and his wife.

Recycling old fun links.

Last year, two pretty ladies I knew on-line were having a rough time of it, so, to make them smile, I programmed up the New Year’s Resolution Generator. I based it, in part, on some ideas from the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays, but I have to admit, I threw in some of my own warped sense of humor. And, I weighted things a little more toward heavier drinking and looser morals. Hey, a guy can dream!

In any case, it was apparently funny enough that Comedy Central Insider linked it in their blog. Which is pretty cool, no matter how you slice it.
So, even though I’m travelling on last minute family business, you can still whip up a wacky New Year’s Resolution while I’m gone. Hope you all have a better day than I expect to!  (You can check the other blog, Diary of a Network Geek, for details about the family stuff, should you be so inclined.)

Building characters is as easy as writing their biography.
Okay, so maybe that’s not quite as easy as it sounds at first. The first step to knowing about what your character is going to do is knowing who they are and where they’ve been. What was their start in life? How has that shaped their desires, fears and goals? Get the answer to those questions and you should know your character pretty well. Of course, if you’ve never done this, it can be a challenge. Or, if you just want to flesh out a character in a game, but aren’t sure what questions to ask, it might be hard to get started.
Well, back in the day, when Advanced Dungeons and Dragons ruled the fantasy role-playing game universe, there was a handy, little magazine called Dragon that was put out by TSR, which got bought by Wizards of the Coast, which is now a subsidiary of Hasbro. One particular issue included an article titled “Characterization Made Easy” by Scott Bennie. Below is a list of questions cribbed from that article that, when answered, will help you get to know your character.

1. Background
• Where was your character born?
• Who raised them?
• What was happening in the region when they was growing up?
• Do they have any relatives? If so, how did they get along with them? What are they doing now?
2. Motivation
• What are your character’s immediate goals (i.e., what would they like to do in the coming year)?
• What are their long-term goals (i.e., what would they like to be doing 20 years from now)?
• What type of person would be their ideal mate?
• Who is their patron deity? Are they a devout worshiper?
• Are they a devout member of any nonreligious cause (i.e., Are they a loyal servant of a king or baron)?
• Is there any race, creed, alignment, religion, or the like against which they are strongly prejudiced?
• What is their greatest fear?
• What is the one task they absolutely refuses to do?
3. Idiosyncrasies
• What is your character’s motto or favorite saying?
• What is their favorite color?
• Describe what they would wear if money were no object.
• What is their favorite food? Their favorite drink?
• What is their favorite animal?
• What habits of their friends annoy them most?
4. Traits

Rate these behaviors for your character on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 means they has no trace of the trait, behaving in a completely opposite manner; 10 means they have great amounts of the trait).

• Courtesy
• Valor
• Self-sacrifice
• Generosity
• Sobriety
• Calm temper
• Optimism
• Curiosity
• Forgiveness
• Cheerfulness
• Patience
• Honesty
• Helpfulness
• Loyalty

Name at least one other trait in which your character possesses a rating of 8 or better.

5. Miscellaneous
• What well-known media figure from sports, movies, or politics most closely resembles your character?
• What would be their theme song?
• If their friends were to write your character’s epitaph, what would it be?
• What would their job be in modern society?

And, here are some stereotypes to avoid:

1. All wizards are old men with long beards and robes.
2. All evil characters wear black.
3. All good characters wear white.
4. All giants are stupid.
5. All fighters are stupid jocks.
6. All thieves are small and cowardly.
7. Evil characters are irredeemably awful.
8. Elves are flighty and carefree.
9. Major bridges are guarded by trolls, who ask for a toll.

Obviously, this is geared toward a fantasy setting, but, with some small variation, it can apply to almost any character in almost any fictional setting.
If you’d like to read the whole article, you can still find it in the Dragon Magazine Archive on CD-ROM.

So, I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress not too long ago so I could test a little project of mine.  Way back in the early days of blogging, when all these fancy programs were new and not so user friendly, I concieved of a beautiful way to present fiction to a large audience for free.  Well, okay, me and about a million other people, but, still, I had an artistic vision.  No, really!  My idea was to keep a journal in the manner and style of a character from a fictional world via a blog.  I saw it as a return to the roots of the novel which, in the early days, used things like journal entries and faux personal letters to tell a story.  Naturally, a blog would be a perfect way to do just that.
But, as a curmudgeon and creative person who was not content to just record something in the standard calendar, I set about trying to adapt the blog I was using to a new, fictional calendar.  Sadly, my first efforts met with very limited success, but, then I upgraded to the first version of WordPress and started learning a bit of PHP.  It wasn’t long after that before I had a decent working plugin that would allow me to make my blog appear to be recorded in the calendar used for the Forgotten Realms setting by Wizards of the Coast, formerly TSR.  It took many, many cycles of development and testing before I was satisfied, but, I finally got something that I thought was worth sharing and, then, they did a major overhaul of WordPress.  So, I waited for all the bugs to get found and fixed.  And, I waited and waited and waited some more for good measure.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, I actually found the time to upgrade to the latest version and test my plugin again.  A few minor corrections later, I had fixed all the quirks I could find and, so, without further ado, I present, for your wacky, fantasy blogging pleasure, the Dale Reckoning plugin for WordPress!

Use it in good health and enjoy!

Hey, it’s not too early to get this for Christmas!
Last week, I was talking about a little “hair of the dog”, so it seems like an appropriate time to mention the coolest stuffed toy I have seen in a long time: The Transforming Werewolf Plush. I mean, a toy that turns inside-out and makes a whole other toy?! They didn’t have stuff this cool when I was a kid! This rates right up there with the Cthulhu Plush Slippers and the Cthulhu Claus as my “most lusted after, but totally senseless, gift item”. Another new favorite, is the Giant Tube of Plush Polyhedron Dice, but that’s not as cool as the werewolf. Ah, now, if only I had someone to buy them for me…
Oh, well, maybe I’ll get them for myself next year!

Look, kids, it’s been a brutal week for your Uncle Jim, so we need us some fun.
I won’t go into the gorey details, but it seems like anything that didn’t go wrong in my life this week either went wrong in someone else’s life I know or is about to go wrong, so it’s just been a long, damn week. But, today is Friday. The weekend is almost here and you can start your fun early with some of these links.
I dipped into my collection of weird links, and boy have got some doosies, to bring you a little Friday Fun.
First, there’s an old favorite, Spamusement. This guy draws very funny cartoons based on spam that we’ve all gotten one time or another. It’s silly, goofy and always makes me chuckle.
Then, there’s this wild casemod by, well, by someone in Japan, I guess since the entire page is in Japanese. It’s a PC sphere and looks cool. I think there’s instructions for making it, or buying it, somewhere on this page. Good luck figuring out which and where!
Next, we have something to make the sinners repent: The Bible Prophecy Page! Yes, now you, too, can bring the rantings of Bible Prophecy fringe groups to the conveniece of your own home via the Internet. What will they think of next!?!
And, for those of you who are homeless wanderers, or just on vactaion and away from you computers, here’s the Cyber Cafe Search Engine. It’ll help you find your next Internet fix away from home. Of course, if you’re looking for a place to check e-mail because you don’t have a computer then you’ll have to find that first spot on your own…

Well, whatever, these were just four semi-random links I grabbed out of my mess o’ weird sites. What the heck, kids, it’s Friday and Uncle Jim says “Click the links!”