Day: August 15, 2000

Free Role Playing Games

Even though I have not had time to play one in over a decade I am still fascinated
by roleplaying games and actually buy quite a few of them. But why buy role
playing games when there are dozens (approaching hundreds) of free role playing
systems available on the Internet?

The pen and pencil RPG market has always been relatively small compared to
other traditional publishing enterprises, so designing a system and profitably
publishing it is an iffy proposition at best. Instead, a lot of folks are putting
the roleplaying games they have designed on the web as free downloads. As with
anything free, the quality varies widely, but on the whole I am impressed at
how professional and playable many of the free games are.

So where do you find free RPG systems? There are several directories on the
web:

Unfortunately it us hard to find many reviews for free RPGs. Brian Gleichman
is trying to do something about that situation — on his site he posts a
new review of a free RPG on a monthly basis.

Independent RPG Companies

Another thing the Internet is doing is allowing for small independent roleplaying
game companies to sell their wares. The best example of this is Microtactix.
Microtactix sells a variety of products from a downloadable generic roleplaying
game, Simply Roleplaying,
to an entire line of cardstock miniature towns and people (again, in a form
that users download and print off).

I bought a copy of the Simply Roleplaying core book a few weeks ago
and while I have not had time to go through it thoroughly enough to do a review,
I was very impressed by the way it was packaged with multiple formats, and a
lot of extra goodies in the ZIP file. The whole package came across as very
professional — well worth the $9 I paid.

Play By E-Mail RPGs

One of the reason I have not played a role playing game in years is because of the logistics of it all. Finding mature individuals worth gaming with is one problem, and actually finding the time to set aside several hours to do so is another. Fortunately, just as the games and game companies are moving onto the web, so is the actual playing of games.

Many folks out there are playing RPGs online through e-mail or on web-based discussion forums. PBEM.Com is the best resource for getted started in playing RPGs over the Internet. They typically have over 500 announcements of games looking for players as well as extensive material on how to get started in e-gaming from both a player and a game master perspective.

Record Farm Harvests on the Way

    The deterioration of the earth’s ecosystem is slowing growth in world food production during the nineties and ushering in an era of scarcity.
      -Lester Brown, WorldWatch Press Release, August 16, 1997

    Poor Lester Brown. Just like clockwork, when grain prices were temporarily very high in 1996-1997, Brown and WorldWatch said the end was near. It was time to pay the piper for all of the “environmental degradation” around the world and the price would be in food supplies that would be in poorer crop yields and higher food prices — as much as a doubling of food prices.

    The reality was much different. The high grain prices in 1996-1997 were simply part of the regular boom/bust cycle of commodity prices and since WorldWatch released that report, crop yields have been near or above world record levels ever since. Grain prices, which WorldWatch thought would double, have collapsed throughout the world leading many countries, including the United States, scratching they’re heads to come up with multi-billion dollar bailouts to farmers who can’t sell their produce profitably thanks to the grain glut.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, recently released estimates that the size of this year’s corn crop was an incredible 10.4 billion bushels, breaking the record of 10 billion bushels set in 1994. Moreover, this represents more food on less land (i.e. yields are up). The average yield for corn is expected to set a record at 141.9 bushels per acre.

    As commodities analyst Bill Biedermann told the Associated Press, “These are massive crops.”

    Soybeans are expected to have hit record levels in 2000. American farmers grew almost 3 billion bushels of soybeans in 2000, up 9 percent from 1998’s record level. Yield levels are expected to be 40.7 bushels per acre, the second highest yield on record.

    Crops of cotton, wheat, grapes and other commodities are also extremely high, though short of record levels. Contrary to WorldWatch’s prediction that by now we’d be experiencing the horrors of widespread environmental degradation, instead we’re reaping the benefits of intelligent management of crops as well as free market incentives for farmers to produce food to feed both the United States and the world.

Source:

USDA: Farmers expect record corn, soybean harvest. The Associated Press, August 11, 2000.

Rising Grain Prices May Disrupt Global Economic Progress. World Watch Institute Press Release, August 16, 1997.

Turkey’s Wife Beating Manual

The BBC recently reported on a controversy over a state-run religious foundation in Turkey which published a booklet that advises men on the proper way to beat their wives.

The BBC reported that,

The booklet, published by the Poius Foundation, which is part of the government’s Relgious Affairs Directorate, says men can beat their wives as long as they do not strike the face and only beat them moderately.

Source:

Row over Turkey’s wife-beating book. The BBC, August 10, 2000.

The Anti-Urinal Crowd

I’m simply speechless after reading this account in a recent column by John Leo, You can’t make this up:

Now sit, Ingvar, sit. Young women in Sweden, Germany, and Australia have a new cause: They want men to sit down while urinating. This demand comes partly from concerns about hygiene?avoiding the splash factor?but, as Jasper Gerard reports in the English Spectator, “more crucially because a man standing up to urinate is deemed to be triumphing in his masculinity, and by extension, degrading women.” One argument is that if women can’t do it, then men shouldn’t either. Another is that standing upright while relieving oneself is “a nasty macho gesture,” suggestive of male violence. A feminist group at Stockholm University is campaigning to ban all urinals from campus, and one Swedish elementary school has already removed them. In Australia, an Internet survey shows that 17 percent of those polled think men ought to sit, while 70 percent believe they should be allowed to stand. Some Swedish women are pressuring their men to take a stand, so to speak. Yola, a 25-year-old Swedish trainee psychiatrist, says she dumps boyfriends who insist on standing. “What else can I do?” said her new boyfriend, Ingvar, who sits.