Games
Sometimes games threaten to take over my life. If I don't keep
tight control over my urge to play, I sometimes lose track of the fact
that I'm not good enough at any of them to make money doing them.
Sure, money isn't everything, but it's the best means I know of to buy
food. Sure, food isn't everything, but it's in the top 5 and that's
good enough for me. Anyway, here are some of the games I'm interested
in:
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
I've devoted my Friday nights to this one. In case you don't know what
goes on in a game of AD&D, let me give you a brief overview.
Several people develop alternate identities which would be plausible in
a fictitious, medieval world setting. They augment these identities
with attribute "scores" or ratings, which are a rough quantification of
their abilities in a specific category (e.g., Strength). When this
arduous task has been mostly completed, one specially designated person
(called the "Dungeon Master") narrates a first-person description of
the fictitious medieval world which he has created, allowing for
responses from the other players pertaining to their actions, and
adjusting his descriptions according to their actions. It's actually
an amazingly difficult task, and most people do it rather badly.
That's me. I'm getting better, but my problem is that I realize the
massive range of variables I'm responsible for creating, and it makes
me nervous. Mostly I just wing it and go with stereotypes and rules of
thumb, and it works OK.
Magic: The Gathering
This is an ingenious combination of collector cards and stragegy gaming
in which players buy packs of cards in order to get complimentary card
combinations so that by using their specially constructed collection
they might wipe the table with their opposition. I'm actually not that
good at this, but I have lots of cards. I lack most of the really
obscure and powerful cards, so it's tough for me to compete with the
serious collectors and players, but I have fun.
This is like AD&D with a computer Dungeon Master, except that
several people have created the world and many more people can explore
it at once. As of November 4, 1999 I'm MIzerAI: Dead, Naked, and
Locked in a Dark Room with No Exits. That just means I've reached
734th level and have fallen prey to a vicious bug and half a dozen
creators who have not been able to fix me. If you ever log on, look
for me. If I ever get un-DeadNakedAndLockedInADarkRoomWithNoExits I'll
show you a thing or two that will get you started. You can connect to
New Moon by opening a telnet connection to eclipse.cs.pdx.edu:7680
I'm currently constructing a guide to the world of New Moon, which can be accessed
by clicking the link below.
NEW MOON INFORMATION