Ideas
- There’s promise in psychedelics for treating mental illness & addiction
- Psychedelic results are affected by the intention & context of use
- Meditation & the Overview Effect have related results
- Checked to see if there are any play tests this year (more on that, later)
- Picked up an (additional) copy of Miseries & Misfortunes, to supplement the Kickstarter
- Got the small zine game Catch the Devil
- Most excitedly, I commissioned a toned paper sketch from David Peterson AKA Mouse Guard
- I’m a fan of the Vampire the Masquerade product line (before problems with 5th edition and their catering to abusers and the alt right, anyway). I’d been wanting Beckett’s Jyhad Diary for a while, but held off due to cost. IPR had a nice sale, so I got a copy.
- Also on the Vampire front, they had physical copies of the Prince’s Gambit. This is another type of game I’m always up for: parlor/social-deduction game.
- I also grabbed Companions’ Tale, because it’s a mapmaking and collaborative storytelling game. I like the idea of examining what version of the stories live, too.
- IPR also had physical decks for the small LARP Winterhorn, which is a game where you play the regime trying to stop peace & justice activists. Understandably, this is an educational LARP which can help to threat-model our own activism efforts, examining how we might be more resilient and effective.
- Torchbearer 2 has a ton of revisions, they’re very excited about it, and they’re looking at how they can get some great playtesting and feedback before publishing
- Miseries & Misfortunes is going to start having some setting, scenario, & lifepath expansions because the 5 years in Paris (1648-1652) is concurrent with interesting things happening in many other places in the world (and is apparently called “the general crisis” by some historians)
- The “secret playtest” we did at #GenCon2018 has had more playtests, and much of the design work is complete, but i’ts been a bit on the back burner as other projects have taken front stage (and the challenging parts of component, art, etc. production have come up)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finished Reading 📚 How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
I added a new resource to my Security Thinking for Big Data reference. “A Practical Way to Include an Ethics Review in Your Development Processes” from Laminar Group.
Sunday Quote
Sunday Quote: re: the famous marshmallow experiment. Social sciences are finding over and over that people don’t succeed based on “best willpower” but on how they align their habits, environment, and focus with their goals.
Links for Resilience #5, with “Coercion-Resistant Design”, horseshoe crabs, seaweed for cows, and more.
Finished 📚 How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Highly recommended. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fort Collins Mennonite Fellowship regains the right to provide storage lockers to homeless in their community. What if more Christians fought for the ability to help people, instead of the ability to harm them?
TIL: Indianapolis has the second highest number of evictions, second only to NYC (statistic courtesy of Eviction Lab and Family Promise of Greater Indianapolis)
Who’s surprised these newfound alt-right free speech warriors aren’t coming to the defense of meat-alternative producers? “officials in nearly 30 states have proposed bills to prohibit companies from using words such as meat, burger, sausage, jerky or hot dog”
Reading Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle and noting he’s in lock-step with Sally Williamson on the topic of Leading Executive Conversations. Great stuff here and throughout the book so far. 📚
The latest Links for Resilience newsletter is out, featuring stories on Security, Sustainability, Society, and Self.
Finished 📚: The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Highly recommended. I haven’t rated a book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in a long time! (There’s only 14 such books)
#GenCon2019 Day 1
I started GenCon off right by going to the gym before opening ceremonies! I am happy of myself!
When the expo hall opened, I made a straight line to the BWHQ booth, as has become my tradition:
Indie Press Revolution is always a good booth to check out physical RPG products. Bonus: they email you a copy of the digital book when you buy physical. I found some great stuff:
I also swung by Posthuman Studios, and picked up my Kickstarter version of Eclipse Phase 2nd Ed. As usual, these folks were really cool to chat with at the booth.
Our coupon book had a free copy of Dwar7s Duel so I had to grab that, because Dwarves. It looks to be a simpler version of Dwar7s Fall, maybe?
And finally, I couldn’t let a GenCon go buy without my customary Timid Monster. These are very cool and I have a little stand for them in my office.
After the expo hall, I enjoyed a hilarious game of Goblin Quest with Miles at Games on Demand, my favorite place to try cool RPGs.
Up next was the update panel from Burning Wheel Headquarters. We heard about what’s going on with the Burning Wheel universe. In summary:
Tonight, I’ll be joining a big game of Torchbearer that got coordinated via the Burning Wheel forums.
We need to change the institutions:
How to tie any knot: Animated Knots
Today’s quote:
Clever idea:
I started a “stress note” in my Notes app where I keep a list of whatever I’m anxious about. Anytime I add something new I reread my past worries and if they no longer matter (which is usually the case), instead of deleting them I apply the strikethrough style. There is something very calming and self-affirming in doing this, and as the list grows I actually find it very beautiful to look at.
from Cool Tools