Kat and I saw The Prestige last night. Some spoiler-free thoughts:
This is a movie about bad people doing terrible things to themselves,
each other, and everybody nearby. My family and I came out with very
clear, distinct, and different ideas about who were justified and
righteous. This may have something to do with the differences in when
we picked up on what was going on: those who saw some of the Keyser
Söze moments coming tended to think better of the characters
involved, whereas those who were shocked tended to react harshly.

The editors did excellent work. Some bits, especially during and
right after the title sequence, came out rough.

Ohg urer’f gur ovt vffhrf sbe zr: qvq Zvpunry Pnvar xabj gung
Puevfgvna Onyr jnf tbvat gb fubbg Uhtu Wnpxzna? Vs fb, jul qvqa’g ur
fgbc gur fubbgvat? Sbe gung znggre, jul qvqa’g ur fgbc Puevfgvna Onyr
sebz orvat unatrq sbe n zheqre ur qvqa’g pbzzvg? Xng’f fhfcvpvba vf
gung guvf jnf gb niratr gur zheqre bs Whyvn ZpPhyybhtu, juvpu Pnvar
xabjf Onyr qvq pbzzvg. Ohg vg fgvyy yrnirf Pnvar nf n urnegyrff
onfgneq, va jvgu gur bgure urnegyrff onfgneqf.

Jul xvyy lbhe vafgnaprf? Vs lbh’er evpu, jul abg qvivqr hc lbhe
sbeghar nzbatfg lbhefryirf naq tb bhg gb qb guvatf ba lbhe bja? V
haqrefgnaq gung Cevrfg/Abyna jnagrq gb rfgnoyvfu gur qvssreraprf
orgjrra gur angheny gjvaf bs Onyr naq gur haangheny vafgnaprf bs
Wnpxzna, ohg gung oebxr cflpubybtvpny ernyvgl sbe zr, naq jvgu vg fbzr
fhfcrafvba bs qvforyvrs.

Ba gur fhowrpg bs haernyvgl: Jung nobhg trarengvba qrpnl? BX, BX, vg
znxrf ab frafr gb nfx guvf juvyr yrnivat gur pbafreingvba ceboyrzf
hagbhpurq.

Orlbaq gung, qvq Uhtu Wnpxzna yrnir nabgure vafgnapr? Fvapr ur jnf fb
zrgubqvpny nobhg xvyyvat zbfg bs gurz, cebonoyl abg.

Thank goodness for NTP. That was my first sign that time had changed.
Ah well, so we make it to early church this week.

The MPAA, much more media savvy, has figured out a way to deal with
the problem. Teaming up with the Boy Scouts in Los Angeles, the MPAA
has designed a merit badge for respecting copyrights (see picture of
the badge here).

Scouts lusting after the badge participate in curriculum the MPAA has
produced, which includes creating a video public service announcement,
and visiting a video-sharing website to identify copyrighted
material.

We’ve heard plenty of talk about this elsewhere, and plenty of
corrections to the phrase "merit badge": this is an activity patch,
comparable to those for attending Philmont or Sea Base. But
I’ve another concern:

Scouts lusting after the badge…

I knew several boys during my time in Scouts who were driven by the
advancement system. One scene from Heinlein’s Space Cadet made an
impression on me then—the bit with the Patrol and Marine uniforms.
Some of the same differentiation seemed to show up among the scouts.
But even those following the path of the Space Marines never reached
to lust for badges.

Our galaxy is on a crash course. However, ReallyRocketScience says we have time.

"Astronomers have predicted that
Andromeda and the Milky Way will collide in approximately 5 to 10
billion years. That collision will erase the separate identities of
each galaxy, leaving a single elliptical galaxy in their place."

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ReallyRocketScience/~3/41883720/382

We tried out [Nobilis][] recently. It’s a very attractive game. We
had some serious problems with it, though. Some are our own fault:
character creation can take a long time, we knew it, and we still
tried to do creation and run a short game in one session. Maybe with
more emphasis on alacrity, we’d have had more luck. But some are due
to mismatches between the game’s intent and the way we were playing.

For all that Nobilis is an avant-garde, indie RPG, it still uses a
task-resolution system. The mechanics provide support for answering
whether your character can perform particular miraculous activities,
and for answering questions about resource management. They don’t
provide good support for answering which of two debaters convinces an
audience. I screwed up: I ran a game about convincing a doubting soul
to either reject his faith or to confirm it. And I presented the
central conflict as being about convincing him. This left us without
mechanical support for the central question of the game. Whoops!
Now we’re playing Convince the GM, a boring game at the best of times.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have left things there. I should have
pushed the players harder—rather than letting the bad guys give them
an easy time, playing by the rules, the bad guys should have cheated.
Abduct the guy they’re all trying to convince and don’t let the PCs
have access. Then I can assume that, if given access, the PCs will
win the war of words—they just need to get there in the first
place. That gets us out of Convince the GM, and into territory
supported by the game’s system. From this experience, I set forth a
law for conflict-based games with task-resolution systems:

The only conflicts playable in the game are composed of tasks
supported by the game.

If something can’t be done with tasks supported by the game, it can’t
become a subject of conflict within the game—it has to be resolved
by GM fiat. For example, the ultimate outcome of a Flower Rite in
Nobilis can’t be resolved with miracles. So it has to be done by
fiat. Therefore, any conflict around the flower rite has to come from
something else, like getting to the center, finding it, or removing
opposing elements. No moves in the game can lead the players to
occupy the winning position in the central conflict, so they must
already occupy it—and the question becomes how to secure that
victory.

I got some neat AirBake cookie sheets for a wedding present, so I’ve
been using them almost exclusively since then. It has been a series
of interesting failures—all tasty, but none cohesive.

The first set were much too soft—my usual oatmeal cookie recipe with
fresh cranberries instead of rasins or chocolate chips. They came out
like partially-cooked dough, and all stuck together in the cookie jar,
even though I waited for them to cool on the rack.

The second set, made with apples and wheat instead of white flour
(I thought we were out of white flour, and found it too late) turned
out pretty soft, too. I cooked these in three batches, with three
pretty different results:

350F, 12 minutes
This is the high range of the usual time, but the cookies
came out too soft to even stay stuck together. I ended up
rebaking some of them.
350F, 15 minutes
Still soft, but darker—bottom still not burned, which is
supposed to be the magic of airbake.
375F, 12 minutes
Better, but still really sticky. Some are still gooey
375F, 15 minutes
Still sticky, but quite thoroughly cooked—I have no raw egg
worries with these.

I suspect the stickyness has something to do with the flour. The
Internet tells me [whole wheat flour makes baked goods denser and
coarser in texture][], and that I should replace no more than half of
my all-purpose flour with whole wheat. It does not say why, though.
Another site tells me "whole-wheat pastry flour is milled from a
soft, or low-protein, variety of wheat that doesn’t form much gluten
(strong, elastic strands of protein) when it’s mixed."
But I did not have pastry flour, I had normal wheat flour.
It is pretty finely milled, though, so that is still my going theory.

This was a really really fun series of pulp space-adventure novels. I
started with Galactic Patrol, per the recommendation of some very
opinionated people in MITSFS. (According to wikipedia Smith wrote
Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensman and
Children of the Lens as one story, and then carefully separated them
so that they could be published in Astounding magazine in
1937-1948.) Triplanetary, which he published in 1934 in
Astounding, was not originally in the same universe, and First
Lensman was written after the rest.

I have not actually gone back and read Triplanetary and First
Lensman yet, but they were spoiled in the introduction to Gray
Lensman and again in the intro to Second Stage Lensman.

Galactic Patrol is a bright, flashy space opera. If I didn’t
realize that it was the original space opera, I’d say it was
cliche. Kim Kinnison is better, faster, stronger, smarter, and more
handsome that anyone in the whole universe. The Galactic Patrol is a
universe-spanning police force with almost no corruption in the higher
ranks—an entirely benevolent police state. And all the varied and
diverse worlds of Civilization are willing to band together to fight
Boskone, the (other-galaxy) spanning entity. And it all makes
sense! There is a reason, explained in-universe, Kinnison is the
epitome of human evolution, and a reason that the Lensmen are
benevolent dictators. By Children of the Lens, which is about
Kinnison’s kids, you’d think that the premise would have gotten old,
but Smith ties the series together with an agreeable conclusion and
confrontation with the Big Evil Guys.

Even so, I think the idealism required to create such a world, and to
believe that it could thrive, is something that has died in our
culture. Apparently, Smith was a superman himself—"a large, blond,
athletic, very intelligent, very gallant man, married to a remarkably
beautiful, intelligent red-haired woman named MacDougal (thus perhaps
the prototypes of ‘Kimball Kinnison’ and ‘Clarissa MacDougal’)." (says
wikipedia) so perhaps Smith himself never saw a reason to doubt
that the world could really work as it did in his Lensman stories. I
find myself less optimistic—wishing such a place could exist, and
knowing that it probably can not.

*Books in 2006: 29

From HubbleSite via Really Rocket Science Blogs, a merging
pair of spiral galaxies.

This last Wednesday I ran a one-shot session of Dogs in the
Vineyard. What
a great game. The system is interesting in play, and the direct
instructions for game preparation are wonderful.

System in play

Dogs uses a randomness-first conflict resolution system. Players
establish stakes, then each roll a giant pool of dice. Able to see
the others’ results, they take turns "raising" with the total of a
pair of dice, then "seeing" with enough pips to equal that total.
When you run out of dice, you lose. If you can see with few dice,
you’re doing well. If you need many dice to see, you’re doing
poorly—not only are you falling behind in the dice economy, but you
also take "Fallout": changes to your character’s traits and
relationships, including experience, personal growth, and wounds.

This is a neat tactical minigame. In a many-sided conflict, it’s
interesting to play. There are definitely tactics to be exploited,
drawing out particular high dice and ensuring you’ll be able to see
forthcoming raises with singleton dice.

Because each See and each Raise require narration, there’s a nice flow
of interaction in the conflict. Everybody knows what they can say
when: you can’t narrate a finishing move unless you’re actually
finishing, but then you know you can. You know to narrate a weak,
misapplied thrust when raising with a 2, and to narrate a crushing
blow when raising with a 20.

Also, it lets us use all our polyhedral dice. This is fun.

Building towns and NPCs

D. Vincent Baker, the author of Dogs, has made several innovations in
gaming. I hope he’s remembered for this one: clear, systematic
instructions to the games-master for how to generate background,
non-player characters, situation, and conflict. There’s an algorithm
and a recipe for creating cool supernatural Westerns here. You can
see it reflected in my notes: all problems start with Pride. Pride
leads to an Injustice. The response to Injustice is Sin. Sin permits
Demonic Attacks. Either the victims of the Demonic Attacks or
observers will come to believe False Doctrine, seeking to explain why
some are receiving supernatural punishment and others are not.
Practicing that False Doctrine is Corrupt Worship. If three or more
do this, one is a False Priest. Demons obey False Priests, and they
become Sorcerers. Eventually, the Demons induce them to ritualistic,
senseless Hate and Murder.

Pride

Children were playing, pretending to be Dogs and priests. They used a
real Book of Life. The father of Abraham, Brother Jeremiah, finds
them. He punishes them, falsely exercising Stewardship over the
children of other men. This is Pride. In particular, he punishes
Ezekial and Amos, the sons of other men.

Jeremiah doesn’t want the issue to come up again; he’s ashamed of his
sons sins, but doesn’t see them as long-term or important.

Abraham’s learned his lesson. That was a righteous punishment, so it
works!

Ezekial and Amos are bitter. Amos wants the Dogs to punish Jeremiah
and bring him down. Ezekial has joined Gideon, and thinks he’ll take
vengeance himself!

The players ran off with this and got involved with the kids before
Amos had a chance to find them, so they never met him or Jeremiah.
Then things were on a roller-coaster, so they didn’t find out about
any of this Pride stage until the postgame, after they’d burned down
the church and engaged in a raging gun-battle with the Sorcerer.

Injustice

Gideon sees the beating. He figures he can be Steward to others as
well, if it’s done in short violent bursts. He starts correcting
younger children, often brutally.

Gideon can mean "he that bruises," by the way. So when the PCs start
noticing weird bruises and hemophilia, it’s possible for linguist
players to notice this and do something about it. It’s not likely and
in fact it’s almost impossible, but the hook is there.

Gideon wants the Dogs to see him as a prophet, but not until he’s
ready! He may set up contests against them, where the Demons help rig
it.

Sin

Gideon lies to his parents about what he’s doing, beats other kids, and
tries to exercise Stewardship not his own.

Gideon’s parents, Brother David and Sister Leah, are proud of their
son. They want the Dogs to override Brother Caleb’s righteous failure
to take Gideon as a dog, accept him as a new Dog and take him to the
Temple.

This worked! I was shocked. Half the PCs did seem to side with David
& Leah and want to help Gideon, suspecting the Steward. Half backed
the Steward. They ended up all on the right side, of course, but I’m
not sure I’ve ever intentionally gotten that sort of ambiguity
before. Dogs provided a nice lab environment to play with it.

Demonic Attacks

Lots of kids are showing up bruised and beaten, even those not in
Gideon’s club.

The children of the town cannot bear the touch of their parents.

Parents in general are concerned about the kids. The town doctor,
Richard, from Back East, thinks it may be a contagious hemophelia and
wants to quarantine the town until it’s solved. The Dogs can’t leave.

The urban, civilized players believed the Doctor, who was mostly full
of himself and an Eastern Atheist. They pretty quickly figured out
that "hemophilia" meant "demon attacks," though.

False Doctrine

Beatings continue, but morale improves. Gideon’s now leading a sort of
micro-Dogs unit, and believes he can train these kids as well as the
Dogs’ Temple could.

• Track 2: Parents misinterpret. Brother Achab and Sister Kallai
  think their kids, Joanna, Myra, and Tarta are getting bullied.
  They want the Steward to track down who it was.

• Track 3: Kids blame others. Luke says it was the Branch Steward,
  Brother Caleb. His father, Madiah, decides the Steward probably
  can beat his kids and it’s OK!

Mark and Rebekah blame "a Mountain Person" they hadn’t seen
before. Violence is brewing against the mountain folk, but hasn’t
broken out yet. Their parents, Brother Daniel and Sister Deborah,
only kind of believe them. He does, she’s not quite sure. So he
wants a crusade led by Dogs, and she’s holding him back.

Leah and Darah blame their parents when the Dogs ask, and aren’t
quite lying. Their parents do beat them sometimes.

Corrupt Worship

The kids take Gideon as their Steward (oops), call themselves Lions of
Gideon (double oops) and start directing their prayer through
self-torture and through Gideon (oh dear)

The Steward’s own witch-hunt for the demons, breaking up families.
The Steward wants his way of doing things endorsed. He’s got Leah and
Darah staying with him now, and wants Luke.

This really got the players nervous about the Steward. Apparently the
goal of protecting children from predators is deeply ingrained—they
saw a weird relationship with children, and a fostering system, and
freaked.

False Priesthood

Gideon, duh.

The Steward has exceeded his bounds

Sorcery and What the Demons Want

Help the kids solve problems. Gideon shows up as a regular
Encyclopedia Brown, helping the Dogs and being a great kid and an
Obvious Leader.

Also, encourage the Steward to go to far, fostering kids away from
suspect parents. But don’t encourage the Dogs to do this, because if
they do it it’s probably OK!

Along the way are subprotocols for involving player characters,
ensuring that they will find relatives, foils, and sympathetic folk
among the NPCs. Taken all together, this is genius. I want this sort
of support from more of my games! It means I can prepare for an
adventure and know I’m generating something good. I’ve got lots of
room for flexibility, but know I’m staying on-message and in-theme.

I can see descendants of this system in Weapons of the Gods and in
Burning Empires.