Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

No, I'm not running 2 weeks behind for traveling to GAMA...it's bachelor party time! I'm heading to Sin City with 5 of my closest friends, a pint of ether, a pound of grass, uppers, downers....I mean, for a wholesome time in the city of rampant gambling, opulent casinos, and topless revues. Only plan is to eat $5 steak dinners, try and get a seat at a friend of a friend of a friend's club, and go shooting assualt rifles while we have the chance. Oh, and drinking. Lots of drinking. I'll report on what I can remember when I return. Now where's my cigarette holder...

A Civics Lesson in 7 minutes or Your Money Back

I never thought I'd say this but...for once TV got it right.

http://www.wingsofjustice.com/06/03/woj06012.html

The clip posits a good question - why AREN'T more people mad about what's happening to our country? Why AREN'T more kids doing something about it? I spent part of my brother's birthday dinner arguing with his best friend about the non-existence of Haliburton-funded poltical detainee camps and whether or not George W. Bush will willingly leave office in 2008 and now, I think I understand why. It's not laziness or stupidity or a glacial shift in social attitudes or mind control lasers that breed this apathy. It's 2 things - the impenetrability of our republic's bureaucracy, and post-modern anomie.

If you tried following any of the recent elections, or even politics in the US anymore, it's become clear it's all a game of smoke and mirrors. Unless you have CSPAN plugged into your brainpan 24/7, there's no way you can track what's happening in our government. We have drifted from the lean, small democracy we once were to a bloated, lumbering republic, where we must trust that the men and women we elect to office mean what they say on the campaign trail and that that they have our best interests at heart. As we have seen in recent political scandals as recent as Tom Delay's campaign fraud and illegal rezoning of Texas political districts to marginalize his competition, this is not the case. We just have to *hope* our government is doing the right thing in a time when ideology is at its most stringent, when the ruling party has emphasized solidarity over conscience, when our leaders have vested financial interests in the political actions they take. And that's foolish and dangerous at the same time.

Moreover, it's become clear the individual can no longer rise up to be a leader without money and pedigree and lobbies and a host of other vestments only afforded to those born with a silver spoon in their mouth or the ability to sell out all but their core beliefs to get there. For the outsider - that's pretty much everyone outside of the capitals of this nation - you can't even expect a reasonable accounting of all actions by governments, what with riders and subclauses and all the other bullshit that has crept into a system built on the simple system of audit and checks and balances. To know the machine you have to live it, and frankly in our economy and world of audio-visual assault who can afford the time and still live?

This leads to point two, anomie. Webster's defines it as "personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals", amongst other things, but let's use this one. I'm not talking about Values (with a capital V that is bandied about by politicians), but an sensory-emotional overload that comes with the shock of a true global community. Let's face it - the world's a pretty shitty place. Make no mistake, I love the world, wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but our history has been defined by our ability to do Bad Stuff to one another. Warlords starve and rape innocent countries in pursuit of wealth and power; natural disasters like the Asian tsunami (or Hurricane Katrina, for that matter) set back communities decades; governments engage in costly wars as a result of saber-rattling and posturing; cops torture for confessions; kangaroo courts try men for changing religions; priests declare war on entire hemispheres in the name of God...it pretty much sucks, but in spite of all that, our first human instinct is to try and care about it. That's not wrong, but it is impossible. At some point you have to shut it off so you don't lose your mind. And as our world gets bigger, as the problems pouring out of the media come into our homes - children murdered by their grandparents, priests molesting their youthful charges, drug dealers going to war in bedroom communities - the problems start to overwhelm your senses altogether.

Then the question comes - how does one prioritize sympathy? Does caring about one thing mean you get a pass on the rest? These are tough questions with no easy answers, and what most of us do is start to shut down to everything. We want to care but we can't, at least, not in a way we can really effect change. And so when the president sets up "free speech zones" where pro-presidential ralliers are supported and anti-presidential ralliers arrested, can we really try and put that above babies dying in AIDS epidemics?

I don't have any answers on how to fix this. I don't know if you can. The only thing we can do is ask the hard questions and say to ourselves, "You know, I don't know what's wrong with the world. But by God, I want to try and fix it anyway." That's hope - something entirely unique to us, and I'd like to think that that's what defines us as a nation, and as a species.

Say...My Penis Is Larger Already!

How's that for a title? Well it all relates to this corkin' little quiz:


Which Nigerian spammer are You?

If you contact me AS SOON AS POSSIBLE I can get you a key to where your relative left an UNDERGROUND LAIR full of GOLD guarded by MAN-EATING SHARKS. Just send me your CREDIT CARD INFORMATION and a valid PIECE OF IDENTIFICATION and we'll be good.

Laughable

So I got the Origins Awards listing from GAMA today...what a flippin' joke! Here's the roleplaying list:

* Army of Darkness by Eden Studios
* Artesia by Archia Studios Press
* Deryni Adventure Game by Grey Ghost Press Inc.
* Serenity by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.
* World of Warcraft by Sword and Sorcery Studios

Let's look over at this set of winners:

* FIVE licensed games and not a single original property. CORRECTION: The imitable Matt Forbeck has pointed out that Artesia RPG was created at roughly the same time as the RPG, and so is not in fact licensed. My apologies. -- Ed.
* 2 properties were licensed not because they were necessarily good or intended to be original, but in a more cynical grab at the almighty dollar (Serenity, WoW). Note I'm not including AoD because Eden's done excellent things with Buffy and Angel in the past.
* Only ONE d20 product, despite a year where many fantastic games were released in the OGL/D20 brand.
* NO Warhammer FRP, Iron Heroes, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition, Spycraft 2.0, Shadowrun 4th edition, Weapons of the Gods or Dogs in the Vineyard - all very successful, high-quality, cutting edge products that could actually BENEFIT from recognition.

At least FUDGE gets some recognition (Deryni). It really saddens me that the Academy, which made such a big deal about "restructuring" and looking at the way products were judged post the Indy Heroclix sweep a few years back, still is obviously under some level of thrall to somebody else and afraid to recognize the many steps forward in what many retailers look at in the "retail poison" d20 system or the little guys who are really trying hard to do something new and cool. Apparently they're not afraid of reinforcing their own insignificance, though :roll:

Supplements are better:

* Exalted Autochthonians by Whitewolf
* GURPS Infinite Worlds by Steve Jackson Games
* Mage by RPG Whitewolf
* Midnight 2nd ed. RPG by Fantasy Flight
* Shackled City by Paizo Publishing, LLC.

2 d20 offerings here, both of which are not bad (there's been better than Midnight 2e, IMO - and wasn't that released in 2004?). I've heard good things about Shackled City and Autochtonians. GURPS Infinite Worlds is pretty damn cool, as many GURPS books tend to be. Mage: the Awakening still turns my stomach, but I recognize it as a high quality treatment of the setting and that my reaction could be colored as an ardent fan of Mage: the Ascension :P However, still no 2nd+ editions here that really were awesome - WHFRP, Spycraft 2.0, M&M, or Shadowrun. Sheesh.

I can't say I'm terribly surprised or disappointed that 2.0 has been shut out yet again, though; it's happened every time we've *almost* won something (see our 2002 ENnies loss to Call of Cthulhu d20 - shudder), plus with the shifting of Spycraft over to Crafty's hands it probably cast some doubts onto the future of the brand. It's still a damn shame that we seem unable to break the glass ceiling that has now come down on non-licensed d20 games in general, particularly those not put out by non-WotC companies.

In the end, though, it's not about the awards (though they would be nice) but about the fan recognition. I'm not saying Spycraft 2.0 is setting fire to the gaming world - it's been a year of rain for our industry - but the word on the street is good. We're converting many of the non-rabid d20 Modern adherents, receiving critical praise from our peers (most notably Ken Hite and Mike Mearls), seeing an wave of new third party applicants for Powered by Spycraft licenses, and getting good fan reviews like this one. I like where I see this game going with the fans, and I like what I see Crafty Games being able to do with it. Once we get these kinks worked out, we should have an exciting year lined up for you Spycraft fans :)

EDIT: Sounds like Mike Mearls is of the same mind I am - only more eloquent.

Now, Short Attention Span Theatre Presents...

Scarface (not safe for work...or in front of the kids).

Hey kids! Just a quick note to remind you all that I'm not dead - only buried with preparations for a visit from the in-laws :) Crafty plugs along (I'm sure you're tired of hearing that and are asking, "so where's the frakking PRODUCT?") - we're finally getting the last of the business documentation done and website together. You remember those old FedEx commercials with the slogan, 'Moving at the Speed of Business?' Yeah, that's not actually fast. Not anything resembling fast, as a matter of fact. Just so you know.