30. January 2009 by Samldanach.

I just finished reading A. J. Jacobs’ excellent book The Year of Living Biblically. It is a memoir of his experiences trying to live as closely to the laws and rules of the Bible as possible. (This is the same author who wrote The Know-it-all, in which he read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica from A to Z, also a fabulous book.) I highly recommend the book to, well, pretty much everyone. It is funny, and thoughtful. It is fair and open-minded without waffling all over the place and agreeing with anyone and everyone. It also has some intriguing insights, both from the author himself and from the experts he consults.

Naturally, this has me thinking about my second-favorite topic, religion. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Religion, Essays | 2 Comments »

20. January 2009 by Samldanach.

OK, this was originally posted in my LJ a while ago. I’m moving it over here, to get a lot more of my RPG stuff in one place. Those who remember the original LJ entry may notice that a couple of names have changed. I leave it up to certain friends to notice the origins…

I will also say that I really wish I knew how to do cuts in Wordpress. Looks like I need to look into a couple of those tutorial things.

For today, we have my campaign world. Note, I have never actually run a game in this world. I started working on it many years ago, before D&D 3.0 was released. So, it was originally heavily influenced by the 2nd Ed AD&D rules. Then, I switched over and built it around the Rolemaster rules. Then, I switched back and rebuilt it under 3.0. Now, I’m trying to go for largely system-independent.

I’m going to put some stuff up here, just so I don’t lose it.

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Posted in 7 Kingdoms, Gaming | No Comments »

16. January 2009 by Samldanach.

Magic.

The name, almost literally, conjures up certain images for us. Certain assumptions, certain expectations, and certain dreams. Gandalf and Merlin. Ged and Elric. The enemies of Conan and allies of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. From Harry Potter to Harry Dresden. Even Old Ben Kenobi plays the part well.

And, yet, RPGs seem to consistently fail to capture the mystique and majesty of magic. It is a list of powers, a bit of extra book-keeping, and a pain in the ass to balance. Why is this? Well, it’s very easy to lay the blame at the feet of D&D. (And, admittedly, I tend to more often than I care to admit.) After all, they took one specific archetype that is quite deliberately unusual (”Vancian” magic), and then very deliberately devolved it into a system of rules suitable for miniatures combat. It was then re-evolved, if you will, into a system suitable for a true RPG. Mostly.

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7. January 2009 by Samldanach.

Well, that’s the damnedest thing.  I just spent several tries getting that post up, because it kept erroring out.  By doing multiple edits, I was able to narrow it down.

 Wordpress hates the phrase “data into information.”

(Except, of course, in this post….)

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

7. January 2009 by Samldanach.

Well, hello there, and welcome to my blog. I have been an avid user of LiveJournal (as samldanach) for a few years now. I’ve moved over here for a couple reasons. First, I can’t get to LJ from work, which makes keeping up with updating hard for me. (I know, I’m such a slacker that I have more free time at work than at home.) Second, LJ has undergone some major upheavals lately, including just laying off 20 of their 28 employees. Third, the community of friends I used to interact with on LJ seem to be posting with a lot less frequency, and the quality of the few posts that do go up is less and less.

As such, I’m making some changes to my online presence. First, this blog, where I will make longer posts. I’m hoping to actually kick-start my writing again. Essay-like posts, ficlets, bits about various game worlds, reviews of books and movies, and, occasionally, a brain dump of what’s going on in my life. However, the last bit is more likely to actually begin to consist of Twitter posts. That is where I plan to make random comments about what I’m eating, what coworkers are stressing me out, and general trivia. I’m probably going to adjust LoudTwitter to dump here eventually, but I might try to keep them separate. Finally, I’m going to actually look into this “RSS feed” thing the kids today are on about. I’ve actually got Google Reader on my phone, so I figure that will be the easiest app to use. If anyone has recommendations of a better app, I’m open to suggestions.

If you want to keep up with me, my Gmail/Gchat nick is samldanach, my AIM nick is samldanach, and my Twitter nick is samldanach. I might go ahead and start a MySpace and FaceBook account under that name, too, just to round it out. Maybe I should register “samldanach.com” as a domain? Nah, too much, I think. Anyway, if you see “samldanach” anywhere as a user, it’s probably me (the advantages of taking a terribly obscure word, Samildanach, misspelling it, as the original account was limited to 10 characters, and using it as a user name). I’m also on a number of forums as “Lugh,” though not as much anymore.

Of course, just to do this totally backwards, I should probably identify myself. I’m known in certain circles as Marshall Smith. I’m not too worried about people finding this blog with Google, as a science fiction writer and a disease pretty neatly split the first three pages of results between them (excepting, of course, www.marshallsmith.com, which is just some actor’s business card).

Anyway, I am a sometime writer, primarily of RPGs (I have credits in 7th Sea, Spycraft, and Edge of Midnight). I love gaming. It is my hobby, nay, my passion. If I could get away with it, I would play in a dozen concurrent campaigns, and go to a con at least once a month. If I ever win the lottery, I will spend a lot of time writing RPGs. However, I’ve talked to enough pro writers out there to know that I never want to make the leap from hobbyist and occasional freelancer to real pro.

I am a database guy to make money. Specifically, I am currently working as a Business Objects Administrator. I support a userbase of about 4000 people who create reports using the Business Objects Web Intelligence tool. I have in recent years discovered the concept of “business intelligence,” and decided that it was a good career path. Business intelligence is the art of turning data in to information.

I am married to a wonderful woman, and have been for 15 and a half years now. We don’t have kids, and don’t want kids. I came to a realization about that a couple years ago that I think serves me well. We went back and forth several times over our marriage about wanting kids. But, we were never sure. I finally decided that I would rather regret not having kids, than regret having them.

My political views tend towards the liberal. I am an atheist, or more specifically a mystic humanist. That is, I believe that there is no divinity higher than mankind, but that magic and the supernatural are real forces in this world. I’m sure I’ll write an essay or six on that topic, as it is near and dear to my heart.

What else do you want to know? Comment, and let me know you found this site. I look forward to using it.

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