Curufea

http://www.htmlcomics.com/

Some titles here I wouldn't mind reading :)
(such as the old 2000 A.D.s )

I find his legal claims page to be a bit dubious - at least under Australian copyright laws.

I'm now in the beta tester list which means I may receive it before mid-march, we shall see...

In the meantime I found a video from the hardware manufacture at some convetnion doing a demo of the device (before BeBook became the content provider for it) -


The software for the Neo is slightly different, and it has more features.

I should add that the criteria has changed from "Not Apple" to be more detailed-

Description does not include “proprietry”, “DRM” or “our store” (ie not Apple, Amazon or Sony)

A very cool papercraft.

The instructions are in Japanese, but the step-by-step images are very useful

And spoiler free - unless you regard knowledge that a writer is going to do an episode in season 6 of the new series.

If you do, then don't click on this link.

Whilst still waiting for the Que Reader which isn't out until April - and then in the USA only, I'm thinking of getting the BeBook Neo in the meantime, which will be out at the end of this month

It comes in three flavours - the 5" (BeBook Mini), 6" (BeBook One) and the Neo which has wifi. Availability looks good as the site has Australian dollars and the first two versions are currently available in co-op bookshops (I'm thinking of getting it for my online course).

Here's a comparison of the 5" with the Kindle. I've not seen comparisons of the other versions with the other types of Kindle yet.

From what I can see the advantages are-
Touchscreen with stylus
Not Apple
Actually available
Only has 0.5gb memory, but has an SD slot for up to 16gb
PDF support (including text search)

Nice concept of camera + projector + elementary shape recognition (in this case hexagons or fingers)

Only a few questions to be answered-
How many rooms should be in the castle / manor
How many cards of each type should be?
Is 20 morale counters enough/too much?
How does the number of players affect all that?

And finally - should speed be a passive characteristic, rather than spending morale on it?

http://www.curufea.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=StormTheCastle

Just got a call this morning from the course convener for the online Master of Information Studies. The offer comes this week and I start Monday.

It's good to have some professional recognition - even if it did mean hounding old supervisors of mine, some of whom had since retired :)

Thanks kaffles for the encouragement!

Now, I wonder how much it costs...
I really should look that up some time :)

Following some of the suggestions from homoncolus I've got rid of the dice in the game. However I'm still keeping the special powers of the villagers, I like the idea of making players specialize.

I've also thought of a traitor variant as well if folk want to try that-
When the traitor reveals themselves, they can look at all unrevealed room cards and move them around how they like. However they can now be attacked. They win if the Evil Tyrant wins. They lose if their Hero character dies or the Evil Tyrant is defeated.

http://www.curufea.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=StormTheCastle

Parts 2 and 3 are now up-

http://www.curufea.com/rassilon/part_2.xml
http://www.curufea.com/rassilon/part_3.xml

Dalek pages are now up-

Dalek Stuff-
http://www.curufea.com/rassilon/dalek_stuff.xml
Dalek Timeline-
http://www.curufea.com/rassilon/dalek_timeline.xml

I can see I'll have to include some way of hiding the table of contents, or at least accordian the results so it doesn't overlap the text.

Bought my first ever GM screen since Champions 3rd ed :)

Arrived in the post to today - undamaged! Unlike the DWAITAS box set also through Mongoose Publishing, which had its corner crumpled.
Picked it up this morning before work - nice 5mm thick cardboard, 4 page screen - it's like the cover of two hardcover books.

Lots of useful tables - although their more charts or lists of advice as DWAITAS is a rules-light game and use some metagaming.

I'm not sure yet why exactly I'm collecting this stuff. Maybe it's the possibility that I can find some new friends willing to play the game and run it or maybe it's just that it's an RPG with licensing from the BBC and I find the novelty of it collectible - because there are so many ways the BBC could change their mind on a whim about it.

Snurched from fred_bear and arthwollipot

Age: 39
Bed Size: Queen
Chore you hate: Any that have to be done in the heat of the day
Dog's name: Never owned one
Essential start your day item: Check computer for downloads and emails, take iRiver for audio dramas and files
Favourite colour(s): Green
Gold or silver: Gold - it's a better conductor.
Height: 6'1"
Instruments you play: Violin
Job title: None (new position) - but probably would be along the lines of "RDS Support"
Kids: Okay at a distance when not nicking stuff from our lawn.
Living arrangements: Mostly vertical, occasional intake of food, breathing regularly. Married with 3 cats.
Mom's name: Gwendoline Elva Holmes.
Nicknames: Pete, Petey.
Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Fever when 2 years old.
Pet peeve: Misuse of the word "decimate".
Quote from a movie: "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
Right or left handed: Mostly right
Siblings: Younger brother
Time you wake up: 6am
Underwear: Jockey, hate boxers
Vegetable you dislike: Spinach - so much has to be done to it to make the flavour likable it isn't worth the effort.
Workout style: ad hoc gym
X-rays you've had: None
Yesterday's best moment: Yum Cha at Four Rivers
Zoo favourite: Anything feline

New game I'm working on based on an angry mob taking down a mad scientist in his evil lair.
http://www.curufea.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=StormTheCastle

Each player controls a group of similar villagers that all have similar traits and vary from hero level to arrow fodder.

The main mechanic is 2D6 modified by expending counters - the counters represent morale, and once that is gone, you flee.

I am cheating slighly by making the creations that infest the mansion or castle nameless - but rewarding players with a mechanic for making their own names for them :)

I've been converting a website to XML.
Mostly because it is an ideal candidate and would benefit from that format, but also in the hopes that it will be easier to maintain by the original creator of the website. Because he's been using tools to design it that have resulted in some pretty horrendous HTML.
I'm improving the accessability.

Currently I've converted 1 out of 11 pages now (the Gallifrey Stuff page).
I'm splitting the pages into smaller parts, but you can still see the whole original page by choosing the root menu option - it causes your browser to load the smaller pages and combine them in XML. E.g. choosing Time Lords->Gallifrey combines all the subpages from Time Lords->Gallifrey->The Planet all the way to Time Lords->Gallifrey->Culture.
I've also implemented a CSS popup menu, popup legend for the colour cataloguing used, and an automatically generated table of contents for each page. Note however that I've not yet fixed the table of contents to work on the combined pages.

Once I have the site converted over - then I'll go and fix the tremendous amount of spelling and grammar mistakes :)

Anyhow, the original site-
http://meshyfish.com/~roo/

My XML version-
http://www.curufea.com/rassilon/summary.xml

Compare the source view of the original compared to the XML version, and the print preview (although I'm still working on that CSS).

http://www.mcmorran.org/pages.php?page_id=15

Released as free PDF downloads here-
http://www.thewriterstale.com/scr.html

These are the shooting scripts for the recent specials - including the Christmas and New Years specials that will not be shown in Australia until next month.

So - Spoiler Alert!!!!

This is just to get people's ideas :) Answers do not imply a willingness to ever actually play in a game.

If you weren't sure of the setting or style of a campaign, but knew it was in the universe of Doctor Who - what character would you like to play?

Storm - the official trailer for a 10 minute movie that should be seen by anyone who has had fell affronted on the behalf of science :)