Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in gerzel's LiveJournal:

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Monday, December 7th, 2009
9:26 am	Insomnia, Morning News Show and Children on the Internet Watched an oh-so-rational and oh-so-informative exposé on one of the morning shows talking about the problems of protecting a child from "accidentally" getting to "adult" material on internet enabled devices. With the hosts openly wondering how these software companies could be so cavalier about the issue, and not once mentioning that a parent should watch what their child watches or giving any suggestions what to do after the kid sees something. It all focused on chastising the companies for not making it harder for kids and talking about what products were good for parents to buy. So I wonder. If any of you out there who read this have any ideas what you might do to keep your sproglings healthy and safe on the Interwebs, if you have/were to have any. I for one would lock-out and log. Black list if they have been good, white list if they haven't. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
3:36 am	Flesh Seeder Adventures for Deadlands I've been working on a Deadlands adventure for the RPG group that I meet with Saturdays. The original idea was for it to be an alternate campaign for me to run with running Shadowrun but it has been taken as a one-shot for Halloween. If you are in that game DON'T READ FURTHER! Though I don't think anyone in that game reads my lj. I got a week to fully prep this and am running with Pre-genned characters each with their own bits of background as to who they are and how they got to be on the trail. The adventure is still under development and I greatly welcome any comments, feedback, questions or suggestions anyone might have. The adventure is set in a small town with an old mine, a few small farms and ranches and a missionary orphanage. The PCs are part of a wagon train on the Santa Fe trail that is stopping in the town to deliver goods and load up several wagons of ghost rock ore to take to Tombstone further down the trail. It is a somewhat routine stop on a small introverted but prosperous little town. Deep under the town in the mine grows a plant/fungus like fearmonger horror that runs the town through small venom sacks implanted somewhere on each of the townsfolks bodies(at least for the adults). It can cause any of the townsfolk to be racked by extreme pain, see/hear through their eyes, and communicate in a limited manner with any of them, but not control them. If a person venture too far from town the sacks burst and the person is in for a slow painful death. In the mine the “Flesh Seeder” fearmonger takes the form of a living carpet and growth of animal and human flesh, blended together and looking as if it melted and re-gelled with a fur of small fleshy tentacle like apandages covering most of the floor like grass. The mine still puts out some ghost rock but the main strike has been mined out. This ghost rock is used to pay the few townsfolk who aren't implanted and to pay off for other services such as deliveries of cattle for “speculation.” At least speculation is what is told to the cowboys that deliver the herd. The real seller knows exactly where the herd is going. The local ghost rock has high concentrations of Iron and silver ore mixed in and is of great interest to Dr Hellstrom who sends the herds down making sure to keep things quiet and safe for the town in return for regular deliveries. The local orphanage is being used by the monster as a front to distribute its seeds across the country. It is able to grow out parts of itself into the close likeness of a child. The thing even learns to think like a child and plays like a child not knowing of its own true nature. The wily fearmonger has been careful to keep a mix of real children among its own stock as its own stock tend to be similar to one another. The orphanage houses between 20 and 25 children at a time with only 4 to 6 of them being the fearmonger's seeds and the rest being normal orphaned children. The orphanage is being run by a small cloister of nuns, at least according to most any outward examination. On the inside the “nuns” are really working for Hellstrom who not only is interested in the local ore but the methods of the fearmonger itself. The flesh seeder is aware of the nun's loyalties having grown roots out under the ground to keep a close set of senses on the place, but so far it hasn't implanted or moved against them wanting to keep up appearances. In fact Hellstrom keeps close track of all children adopted from the orphanage and when he is able without too much suspicion kidnaps or exhumes them for examination with vivisection being the preferred method usually by a well-trained operative taking thorough notes. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
2:42 am	Deadlands Pregens backstories Here are some back stories I'm working on for a Deadlands game. I'm making up all the Pregenned characters each with a back story told in the second person. The group is starting off in a wagon train on the Santa Fe trail headed for Tombstone and many onward to the Great Maze. Name: Devin Masterson Archetype: Veteran Lawman Background Age: 42 A few years ago you were just the sheriff of a normal quiet fair-sized town a-ways off the Santa Fe Trail, used to small farmers, and prospectors working on extracting mineral oils from out of the ground and selling it to various machinist and science folk for their uses. Then one day, evil bubbled up from under the ground. Liquid black demons ran rampant killing everyone in sight and turning them into horrible creatures of petroleum muck and gore. You took action, rounded up survivors gitin them in a near-bye cave for some shelter and managed to seal the well, and then made your way through the hoard of creatures, many of whom had caught fire in the melee and were sure to add you to the inferno, to get on a horse and to the nearest telegraph office, the next town over, and get some help. Then you headed back to your town to try and get the rest of the survivors out with the help of a few volunteers, most of whom ran off, or died tryin. By the time you got back to the cave where the survivors where holed up the creatures had almost broken through the barricade. You and the remaining men with you decided to make a diversion to get the creatures off of them and give the surviving townsfolk a chance to escape. Things didn't go exactly as planned and you were trapped between a rock and a black ichorous hellbeast that used to be your barber when the Rangers came and with their fancy gear and, as you were to learn, supernatural know-how managed to stop the remaining horrors in their tracks, killin most, capturing some. You still shudder to think that the boys out from New Mexico have re-opened the derricks, and what ever advantage that new supernatural oil brings to the Confederacy you hope it is worth the price. When you woke up on that fateful day you were the proud sheriff of a town of three-hundred and thirty-four God-fearing good souls, with your wife, Betsy, about to give you number three-hundred thirty-five any day now. By noon you were fighting for your life trying to warn as many folk as you could. Come evening you had to put both barrels of a shotgun to what remained of your sweet wife holding a twisted visage of your child in her arms. They call you a hero for saving nearly two dozen souls from that disaster, but every night that day comes back to you, and what you did. Name: Gabriel Mathers Archetype: Huckster Background (Not complete got another couple paragraphs) You've gotten yourself into some deep deep heaping strangeness and likely trouble. You always were too smart for yer age and you seem to keep working to prove that over and over again. It was on the morning of your thirteenth birthday that your momma gave you a shiny new quarter to buy what you liked when she took you shopin that day, mostly to distract you while she picked out a cake and had it delivered back home. You spent it on a piece of chewin gum and a paperback book of games, by some man named “Hoyle.” Your momma made you spit out the gum on account of her thinking it led to delinquency, but seeing as Hoyle's book had no gamblin games in it she let you keep it, as she enjoyed a few rounds o' solitare an bridge herself. Little did she know where that book o' games would get you. And less did you, as you read that little paperback for the first time fiddling with a deck and doin things but not quite understandin, but fascinated by it anyways. You cast your first hex when you were just a couple months away from fourteen, and you'll never forget fallin into one shadow, an out another, and the feelin you got deep in your head and down your spine of things out there watchin you do it. By then your parents were worried about you and decided to send you off to a high and reputable school for boys to prepare you for college. You hated the first couple months in that place getting picked on. Then one day after classes were done your Latin teacher, Prof. Hogart called you to his office. It was an old and dusty room and odd as he usually preferred to admonish boys out infront of the class. You knocked, he called for you to come in, and you did, with his back turned reading to himself from some ledger tellin you to have a seat. You sat and nearly jumped out of your skin when you noticed an old copy of Hoyle's book on his desk. Hogart knew what real mischief you'd been getting yourself into and a hole lot more. Name: Baron Sasha Orlova III Archetype: Eastern European Noble Mad Scientist Background First off, YES, you are legitimately a baron, granted you don't have any land or holdings attached to the title, and you have two older brothers back home making you third in line for any land or holdings, and the land is in a small cold dreary Eastern European country, but you are a real baron. Being the third or fourth in line means that you've had a lot of time to do things but often not a lot of things to do. Still you have used your time well; your family having enough wealth and influence to get you into some of the better universities in Europe and you have studied hard working on the practical sciences. Back home several moderately sized but low-grade seams of ghost-rock have been found and it is a state secret, for fear that Russia will simply annex your nation should it become known, that mines have been opened and the small nation is working on building up its industry and military in secret. You are in the states looking to learn the secrets of ghost-rock and its mining to bring back home. This country would be unbearable if not for your faithful servant Igor. Name: John Kane Archetype: Chicago Enforcer/Gunslinger Background You grew up on the rougher side of Chicago, and got caught up in the local gangs and criminal elements when you were young. You found you were pretty good with a gun at a young age and learned to keep your head about yourself when using it. The fact that you were as good with your left hand as your right just helped you throw more lead into the air when the bosses needed some fightin to go down, the fact that you worked for the bosses meant you stayed out of Jail. Recently though you got a bad break. You caught the rap for a copper you gunned down under the bosses' orders. Damned thing was the guy got back up. The Pinks didn't let him take the stand, but they did make sure you got in front of a real judge and jury. Best the bosses were able to do was to arrange you to make a break for it on bail and head South until the heat settles. You've gotten word that some of your Bosses' got friends that could use a gun out in the Great Maze and you've arranged some working passage on a wagon train heading down the Santa Fe trail towards tombstone as a guard. Tain't much: meals, ammo, tac for your horse and $5 at the end of the trail but it will get you there. Name: Rev. Jeremiah Swaggart Archetype: Fire N' Brimstone Blessed Baptist Preacher Backstory - No BG down yet. - He's got the flaw of randy and big britches and is heading to the Maze to spread the word to miners that need it. Name: James Lunn Malloy Archetype: Green Ghost Rock Prospector Background - No BG yet. He is heading to the Maze to look for ghost rock even though he really doesn't have much of a clue as to what he is doin. Name: Aubine Billaud Archetype: Cajun Voodooist Background - Again none down yet but she is a Voodoo healer following the path of many in her community heading for the Great Maze to help those in need. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
2:56 am	The most frightening word you can tell a player isn't “yes” or “no”. It's “maybe.” It is often difficult to do real horror or scares in tabletop roleplaying as the players have an abundance of information about the game that they can see far more than their characters ever could. Thus situations which would put their characters in a sanitarium or the grave with a heart attack would bore the players. There are many different types of fear, horror and scares and thus there are many different approaches to such things in roleplaying games. The biggest thing that most have in common is doubt, as doubt is more often than not the source of fear. Sure, you can have horror and fear by presenting the characters with a gruesome or frightening image or story that leaves no doubt and hits them in the gut, but we'll leave that for another time. There are many ways to put doubt into players' heads but a GM needs to be careful as not to over do it. The players need some control in order for them to feel they are risking something. Risk is an absolute necessity for a role-played story to be a roleplaying game. without risk or control the players are just along for the ride and all the GM is doing is telling a story and the players are just actors working from a script. If the GM is a great story teller and the players like acting that may be enough, but we're talking about a game not an interactive story here. Risk and doubt are two different things and while risk requires doubt, doubt does not require risk, and both are essential for a good roleplaying game of any genre, that goes double for horror. The most common source of doubt and risk in RPGs are the dice. Well not all RPGs use dice, but most use some randomizing element be it cards, paper-rock-scissors, a jenga tower or even a vote of some or all the other players. The point of all of these is to put the consequences of the players or GM's decisions to an uncontrolled element and run with the result. This helps us make the story element of a RPG into a game by leaving some parts to our willful decisions and some to chance. Still the dice can't rule over all aspects of the game's plot, both the GM and players need some amount of control. GMs should think long and hard about what kinds of dice schemes they use for their games and when to use them. It is the GM's job to regulate how much control the dice have over the plot, giving them enough to keep the players uncertain of how things will go, but with them able to wield enough control to get them feeling like they have some control over their characters. The next most common source of doubt and risk for players in RPGs is simply what they don't know about what the GM has planned. This works out as the GM keeping secrets about the game letting them go slowly as things progress and some never letting go at all. “What's behind the door?” or “What's in the box?” are some of the most common and simplest secrets thought of for a GM to keep, but there are other secrets that the GM can use. Such as how strong a monster is, or if the dice really are being used to decide what happens. This can be as simple as simply changing the stats on a well-known monster to a complex game of lies half-truths and behind the screen dice rattling. The GM shouldn't be afraid to change his or her plan mid stream and should make their plans with a certain amount of contingency planning. Good contingency planning ahead of time can give players the feeling that they have control while still keeping them on the right track and the plot running ahead. On the other hand the GM should feel free to leave things unknown, or secretly(or perhaps not so secretly) up to the players so that the GM doesn't know fostering similar feelings of risk, doubt and excitement. One common but often over-looked source of doubt and risk is the other players themselves. More often than not players in a RPG are working together all with similar or the same goal, such as kill monsters and take their treasure, and inter-player conflict is often minimized to save possible hurt feelings or bruised egos outside the game world. Also the amount of competition between players is often one of the defining characteristics between RPGs and their ancestor tactical games, along with the amount of control of the dice. Still it often works well to let players, at least for a time think that one has the upper hand on the others, only to shift it away at the right moment to another player, perhaps as a reward for some creativity or amusement by the GM or perhaps as sheer randomness. A good GM should work to know his or her group and to set up cross purposes and player competition to build excitement, create risk and foster a healthy amount of doubt in the players minds. Really when you think about it all games involve control, doubt and risk, without which it might not even be a game at all. Without control the players have nothing to lose with any risk and the game would just be a story being told in part by the dice. Without doubt then the game would simply be a linear plot which the players either are making up themselves or are being told by another person or agent. The sources of risk and doubt can loosely be classified as three groups. Doubt caused by an outside agency, or dice; doubt caused by unknown parts of the game, which for RPGs are determined by the GM; and doubt about the other players' actions and intentions. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
3:15 am	My RPG and tabletop games resolutions I will play-test my game at least once with a group of players who are entirely new to the game/rules/book. For games with parts I will include a parts list, including number of cards, tokens, dice, rulebooks, and all other parts that should be in the box or package. Included on this list will be an address or phone number or email, or any combination there-of, for the buyer of that game to request and/or report missing/damaged tokens. I will have an errata page on the internet. It will have an email to report errors and ask questions about the game and for clarifications of the game's rules. Any book over pamphlet size will have an index. All books over ten pages will have a table of contents. If I can afford to print in color then I will strongly consider using color coding for sections and if I decide against I will have a good reason not to. My PDFs will have section and chapter bookmarks if they have sections and chapters. I will play-test all releases. Bibliographies are wonderful things and I will strive to include them in my books. If I reference a rule from somewhere else in a book or another book I will include at least a note giving the book and/or page number, preferably both. If I refer to a table, any table or figure set, in the text of my book I will include a page reference where that table is. I will always double check my copy before it goes to the printers. I will have at least one other person check the copy before it goes to the printers. The rules and guidelines for good editing and style apply the the world of tabletop games and RPGs and I shall strive to use them well. Clarity of the rules is important. Consistency of the rules is important. Great cover art will sell a book. Great editing will sell the next edition. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
2:11 pm	Punishment != Just because something isn't or doesn't seem as good for YOU doesn't mean that that thing is punishing you. Bills != Punishment Taxes != Punishment Speed Limits != Punishment Rules you don't like != Punishment There may be reason to argue for these things to change or be lessened but don't act as if you're being crucified. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
12:07 am	The END IS NEIGH!  That's right! The end of the world is coming today, if today is indeed July 5th, 1998, which it probably is!  The Xists will soon be upon us with their pleasure saucers and deathrays of love to rupture up the just dues paying subgenies, and all their stuff too!, as the Earth(really Mars) fries along with the pink boys under said rays of death. 7 AM IS NEAR! THE SAUCERS ARE COMING! (Comment on this)
Friday, May 29th, 2009
12:14 am	Post a day: Bonsai + Fishy? Trying to do a post a day  Still looking for bonsai material, esp soil, and debating merits of mixing it myself vs ordering it online as I can't seem to locate a local supplier. Also need to figure out where fishpros moved to and get my aquarium back up and running...hope the pump/filter is still good... I wonder if there are any salt-water species that would work for bonsai...  Pretty plant pluss ugly fishy = art? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
12:52 am	Bonsai Trees, Pessemisim, Health and Sleep Well I am working on getting my hands on a supply of bonsai soil for potting some trees.  I got the wires and tools needed to start out with and a couple of good looking pots as well as a slew of roadside test subjects to kill and maim in the name of learning bonsai.  I think dad has the seives to make his own soil, need to check with him on that. I could order the stuff online but it is bulky and I think I probably can get it quicker localy, but my abilities of navigation are nil.  Will figure out more tommorow. Read a nice article in the Skeptic Society Newsletter email about how a moderate level of Optimism is good for one's health.  And how pessemism seems to have few to no beneficail effects, at least the high level optimists have poor risk assesment skills.  How does one go about becoming a moderate optimist?  Perhaps the anti-depressants I'm starting on and the psyciatrist I'll be seeing soon will help? Tommorow around 11 I have a meeting with offically my personal trainer, as I'll be paying him now, at the gym.   I still have a lingering case of con crud from Animazement, but the three sessions of Jade Claw were worth it. Now for sleep to prepare for tommorow. PS.  I am sending feelers out for people who live in the Chapel Hill/Pittsboro and surrounding area who might want to form a weekly/bi weekly RPG group specifically to play Jade/Iron Claw.  (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
9:00 pm	Sonia Sotomayor So what's wrong with her? What wil Mt. Rushlimbaugh be spouting about in the next couple of days/weeks/months? Or will she get through with strong bi-partisan support? (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
1:56 am	thought snippet I find it ironic that because of the way Gitmo has been handled the just course of action would be to give them trials and if no adequate trial conviction could be passed down we'd have to set them free. I think that probably applies at least to part of the detainees. Because no one will accept them the only just thing may be to give them citizenship in the US and allow them to live here. Though that probably won't happen and we'll have political prisoners, just like other regimes that we are supposedly so much better than.  (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 15th, 2009
6:53 pm	break down It often seems like I spend a lot of times trying to keep myself from going down into a darker place of mind, and tonight in an arguement over a potatoe wether to bake or microwave I tripped and fell down into there. Its the nagging feeling that everything I've aspired to for the past decade since high-school has failed.  Job, writing, career, studies, health weight...all on the short list.  The feeling that the only reason I don't kill myself is that it would be a bother to my parents who have been nice enough to let me live under their roof.  I have this feeling every single day and all it takes is one comment about cooking a few potatoes one way than the other and I lose. It would probably help to see a psycologist go back on anti-depresants but I damn well knwo they cost money, a lot of money, which my parents will pay for, which is the biggest source of guilt which makes the failure even worse. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 14th, 2009
5:40 pm	Pelosi You had better be telling the truth. Seriously if she knew about it before hand she really should just admit it.  It was wrong of her if she did, but that doesn't change how wrong torture was, is or will be and how much that policy has damaged and endagered US lives for likely years to decades to come. As for the photos not released by Obama.  While yes I would generally be on the side of releasing them, depending on what they are they may be inflamatory enough that they would in fact put US troops in danger if opened to the public.    (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
4:47 pm	an unconnected bit of bile saved for latter from a slashdot reply This is how the US government works.  The wealthy class are taught the language of money and law, and given the ability, clout and means to use it(all three are known by the rest of us as capital or simply money).  The non-wealthy classes may aspire to become wealthy, but until they do must not know their place and must be kept in the dark as to how the legal system works.  This is simple as the language of the legal and financial system is kept so abstruse and threatening that no one without a constant immersion and direct means to use it would ever be willing to try and navigate it.  There are of course colleges that teach these things but the cost is kept at a high enough rate that only the cream who are willing to keep the status safely quo are allowed to pass through the rest are generally given such crushing financial debts that they are never able to wield these instruments against their makers. We have a wonderful financial system.  It has replaced the government without the people ever realizing it.  No matter how much is blustered about reform and regulation just look who is in office under those elected.  Sure you could have voted for the other guy, because the system is so perfect that he'd be in the same pocket just on the other side of the button.  All blame is shifted to abstractions-today called "Red" and "Blue"-and the system works right on around all the outrage and indignaty of the unwealthy undeserving majority, the loser classes, while the winners reap all the benefits. The RIAA is a good scape goat and fine working piece of this machinery slowly but surely shutting down all of the loser ability to speak out in any meaningful way.  In concert with efforts to control content on the internet it will soon be that dissent will be funneled through the tightest of information capillaries where the mere effort to squeak it out will be so much that the individual will be seen as stupid and undeserving of being listened to simply for wasting their valuable time. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
8:55 pm	Animalympics (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
2:00 am	dry on the internet The following is a bit of dry humor that I posted on slashdot about the internet and wealth.  Looking back it was well rated and I liked the writing so I am posting it here to sorta collect it for myself.   ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
9:40 pm	I'm working on a TFOS game to be run this Saturday if there are enough people around. Here's the teaser: You, fair teenager, have been recruited for a new class as a student of Neo-Raleigh Central High Schol. While the televisions and all the great media outlets proudly proclaim the threat from our "banger friends" (robots built to rebuild, or at least remodel after the Great Catastrophe) to be a minimum, there are those who feel that something more needs to be done. Something to be done that involves slick looking, tight fitting battle suits and young athletic bodies!--And that's where our heroes, er classmates, come in, to fight banger robots that have gone berserk and look good doing it! More under cut including some specific rules and crunchy bits... ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
1:02 am	Out of the woodwork, from the Obama Inaugural Well as to be expected the racists and just plain trolls are out in force since Obama won and especially hard out since he was inaugurated as President. I feel like considering why this is. Well I'm not an expert but as I have heard it racism is often a way to look down upon someone else to take a better stock of one's own place in life. The idea that "I may not be one of the wealthy/powerful/educated/elite but at least I'm not one of *them*." With *them* being what ever class of people is being discriminated against, usually a minority or other under class of people. In the US of course that common *them* for many is black people, people of dark skin and non-European or mixed decent(believe me making distinctions such as parents from Kenya and parent descended from former slaves is a lost game in this context, at least most of the time). What Obama has done is take the top position and there-by shatter many of those who take comfort by looking down at black peoples' world view. It wasn't so bad before the Inauguration because I don't think many actually believe that it would go through. They thought the silent majority would rise up, he'd get shot or otherwise some deus-ex-machina should come down and stop it. It didn't. I think that before they used the idea that they were of the same race or color as the top ruling man in charge in the world as proof that they were part of the elect and elite in life. Using it as a cheerful little pick-me-up line of logic that can be used to plaster over a picture of themselves that they might otherwise find lacking. Obama being elected breaks down a lot of plaster. I saw these trolls a little leading up to the Inauguration, in forums and random places but now afterwards every day they are out in force. For many their world view called for a race-war and riots over this. That didn't come. It is like giving inconvertible proof that god does not exist to a hard-core evangelist. It is shattering and the pieces don't look too pretty when they are on the ground. Perhaps we all have plates of glass that each of our world views are built on waiting for a rock to fly through and break them. Perhaps I and others really have gone through and stretched and strained our minds to be limber enough not to take things for granted and to think critically. I think in the end these outbursts of trollness, like all trolling just need to be ignored. Eventually, they might see that what they are screaming about is a non-issue and that other people really have better things to do. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
12:47 pm	Am I the only one? Am I the only one who is just a little disturbed that the morning news is crowing about how a local man was stopped from entering a high-school and subsequently arrested because he was a sex-offender, but his offense was never mentioned once nor was it mentioned if the offense was known or not? Nor was it mentioned as to why he said he was there in the first place, but the show went on basically praising the system for working. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 8th, 2009
7:24 pm	Do you support the Porn Bailout? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28545081/ First of all it isn't a bailout it is a bridge loan. Without this vital industry our economy will sag and fall flaccid! We must be perky and firm keep our workers hard and vital and thrust into the future! To that end we need to support the pornographic industry to stimulate our economy. (Comment on this)