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Want to come over for a nice brisk hand of INWO?

Jade Empire - Mythic Chinese themed RPG w/ real time martial arts combat - but not hack and slash, more like the combat-as-puzzles presented in this game you should also try:

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Fantastic platforming, puzzling, and combat-as-puzzles. Great storyline featuring ACUTAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Woah.

Mind Rover build and program robots for fun! Anyone remember robotwar on the Apple ][? This is fun like that was fun.

And how about some games with people? Try Munchkin or Illuminati.

And I've been playing RPGs on tabletops for 25 years (and I got a girlfriend, married her, game with her, and our son games too, so forget the 'RPGs are for anti-social ubergeeks' sterotype). It's not my fave, but D&D is the industry standard - like Windows, everyone's got it, everyone knows it, and many of us hate it but use it anyhow. For more flexibility, I suggest GURPS, the new 4th edition is very smooth. And for the Linux of RPGs, just google on "free RPG". Here's one by a designer I admire: The Shadow of Yesterday but I haven't gotten to play that particular game yet. Enjoy!

Jade Empire - Mythic Chinese themed RPG w/ real time martial arts combat - but not hack and slash, more like the combat-as-puzzles presented in this game you should also try:

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Fantastic platforming, puzzling, and combat-as-puzzles. Great storyline featuring ACUTAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Woah.

Mind Rover build and program robots for fun! Anyone remember robotwar on the Apple ][? This is fun like that was fun.

And how about some games with people? Try Munchkin or Illuminati.

And I've been playing RPGs on tabletops for 25 years (and I got a girlfriend, married her, game with her, and our son games too, so forget the 'RPGs are for anti-social ubergeeks' sterotype). It's not my fave, but D&D is the industry standard - like Windows, everyone's got it, everyone knows it, and many of us hate it but use it anyhow. For more flexibility, I suggest GURPS, the new 4th edition is very smooth. And for the Linux of RPGs, just google on "free RPG". Here's one by a designer I admire: The Shadow of Yesterday but I haven't gotten to play that particular game yet. Enjoy!

It's been back in print for a while now.

My favorite MMORPG, a LARP, has had a card game for many years. Hail Eris!

Man, forget Magic, forget Hearts and forget anything you've heart about before about card games, the funniest game I've found untill now is Munchkin! It's more fun than classic card games but one deck is fully playable, unlike Magic.

Yes, that is a problem, but I don't see that it's one that is easily mitigated, especially in a work environment that generally requires that you keep tabs on everything, even work several years old. Given that, I think that adding Spotlight into the mix is a definite plus.

I do agree with you that it is a plus -- and better to have both than one alone. The thing that makes me seem oppositional (if I did) is the threat of eradicating the filesystem in favor of using only Spotlight. Another post in this discussion linked to Steve Jackson's assessment of Tiger (including Spotlight) and it sounds pretty dreadful -- especially if it were your only choice, I mean.

Otherwise -- several other posts had mentioned "hundreds of thousands" of files on a user's computer. I'm sorry I mixed that in to this reply; I should have been more careful. I can picture hundreds of thousands of files for an entire organization. And with your example, of hundreds (even thousands) of files I can imagine sorting through those once in a while to prune and maintain them. Even though most users (myself included) don't do that as often as they should.

But if the others who mention hundreds of thousands of files are accurate and an indication of what people are doing with their computers -- their personal, desktop systems -- I can't for the life of me imagine what is in all of those files. I am one of those packrat users, and I do keep old work files around (I can even find them when I need them ;) But even I don't have "hundreds of thousands" of files. That's just mind-boggling.

TWW

A SureFire 6P. Add on 120 lumen bulb. The waterproof holder for a spare and six batteries. A tactical speed holster. Two boxes of twelve batteries. Shock proof bezel if weapon mounting is wanted.
http://www.surefire.com/

If you have the bux an aftermarket mount and squeeze switch for it so it can be put on an M16.
I need to find my supplier for this.

A good knife from http://www.sharppointythings.com/ the Battle Bitch is sweet but a simple Cold Steel smachet or tanto is nice. It's not an online store but an email will get a quote.

Any small card game, you'd be surprised how well Steve Jackson's games go over. They are small and portable and fun.
http://www.sjgames.com/

There is another site for really cheap cool card games but I've lost it.

SJGames published Hacker after the Secret Service incident, as a response to it.

More info available at: http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

Here in backwater Oklahoma you'll see plenty of people lining the windows of their homes, apartments, and trailers with aluminum foil. Of course it may have more to do with hiding their meth lab than protecting them from the orbital mind control lasers.

Establishing colonies on planetary surfces is expensive, for the same reason getting off Earth in the first place is. Building a colony that remains in nice flat space saves a lot of money, and affords portability in the bargain.

Why not build orbitals?

They're just nice, big and round rings with spin gravity, normal day-night cycles and an easy elevator ride down to the external docking ports. Envelope it in a strong enough magnetic field to shield from solar wind and you've got a genuine Gurps approved magnetic sail. They beat out a lot of alternatives for simplicity and utility.

Heck (this is going to piss off a lot of luddlites and geological puritans) when the Sun goes nova and you could slice off chunks of the Earth's surface. Put the chunks on orbitals (seperate orbitals in the case of Palastine and Isreal just to be safe) and fly off to a safe distance or other star system using your magnetic sail. (Of course, by the time you have the ability to slice off chunks of a planets surface you probably stopped worrying about space travel a long time ago.)

It really is a shame when the prevailing "geek" attitude towards agencies like the FBI is mistrust and fear, not confidence and respect.

If you want reasons why, you can start here: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service. I know the SS is different than the FBI, but it still gives you an insight to their mindset.

It startled me to see a Gamespot story linking to my own bibliography. This was part of the reporter's detective work in trying to deduce the nature of Warren's current project. I worked for Warren at the Austin, TX office of Looking Glass Studios (then Looking Glass Technologies) in the mid-'90s on a game with the working title "Junction Point." I don't know what Warren's current plans are, but I'm willing to bet he isn't trying to resurrect that game. I expect he chose the name purely for sentimental reasons.

By the way, in case anyone cares, the Gamespot story gets one detail wrong: I didn't work with Warren at TSR. Rather, we worked together at Steve Jackson Games in the mid-'80s, where he was Editor-in-Chief and I was the lowly assistant editor. Warren worked for TSR after leaving SJG, and was involved in AD&D 2nd edition there. I never worked at TSR myself, though I did a lot of freelance work for them.

If you want lightweight rules, try GURPS lite, available as a free download from your buddies at Steve Jackson games.

Well there is Knightmare Chess which adds a random element to the game by having a deck of cards (either constructed by each player using a point value system or a common deck) to shake things up. It can do small things (make any piece but a king move like a knight for one turn no capture) or totally change the game (The board turns 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise your choice ... ranks move accordingly!) Note this isn't for everyone ... without the cards I have never beaten my brother at chess, with the cards he can't win, he's decided we can't play with the cards anymore :)

Kleedrac

FRAG by Steve Jackson games, basically a FPS converted to a board game, tons of fun and has expansion packs and fan created maps and mods as well, check out the site.

Also check out the rest of the games from Steve Jackson, lots of good stuff..

See here. To save you the time, here's a list of stuff I found from that story, games that sounded interesting or worth checking out.

First, I decided I should really get into Go. Some links from that Slashdot story: here, The Second Book of Go here, here, here, here, and here.

Other games:
Apples to Apples - got this for my cousin, they liked it.
Settlers of Catan - got this for myself, very nice game, try a local hobby shop or here or try Amazon.com

Others: Puerto Rico (Similar to Settlers of Catan), Lord of the Rings board game was mentioned, Kill Dr. Lucky, Deadwood, Give me the Brain, Lightspeed Games, Fluxx is fun, very random and quirky.

There's more! Mind Trap
Munchkin , Heroscape, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Queen's Necklace at Days of Wonder, Bang!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Articulate
Killer Bunnies (and Quest for the Magic Carrot), Illuminati , Acquire .

Some other reviews/top game lists here:
here
here
here

Happy gaming!

See here. To save you the time, here's a list of stuff I found from that story, games that sounded interesting or worth checking out.

First, I decided I should really get into Go. Some links from that Slashdot story: here, The Second Book of Go here, here, here, here, and here.

Other games:
Apples to Apples - got this for my cousin, they liked it.
Settlers of Catan - got this for myself, very nice game, try a local hobby shop or here or try Amazon.com

Others: Puerto Rico (Similar to Settlers of Catan), Lord of the Rings board game was mentioned, Kill Dr. Lucky, Deadwood, Give me the Brain, Lightspeed Games, Fluxx is fun, very random and quirky.

There's more! Mind Trap
Munchkin , Heroscape, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Queen's Necklace at Days of Wonder, Bang!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Articulate
Killer Bunnies (and Quest for the Magic Carrot), Illuminati , Acquire .

Some other reviews/top game lists here:
here
here
here

Happy gaming!

I recommend any game by Avalon Hill or Steve Jackson Games.

Illuminati is a favorite.

Diplomacy is a blast! It's like Risk, but without the ramdomness of dice. This game is ALL about making/breaking alliances.

I used to really like a game Avalon Hill used to make called Titan. They don't make it anymore though and it's hard to find now.

Star Fleet Battlesis always a fun game if your up for reading binders upon binders of rules. I never bothered learning any other rules than for the Starfleet vessels though.

I recommend any game by Avalon Hill or Steve Jackson Games.

Illuminati is a favorite.

Diplomacy is a blast! It's like Risk, but without the ramdomness of dice. This game is ALL about making/breaking alliances.

I used to really like a game Avalon Hill used to make called Titan. They don't make it anymore though and it's hard to find now.

Star Fleet Battlesis always a fun game if your up for reading binders upon binders of rules. I never bothered learning any other rules than for the Starfleet vessels though.

Munchkin Fu homepage

I can see a lot of innocent people getting anally probed by the feds because their machines got hacked by a phisher. Do you really want a bunch of armed thugs breaking into your house and holding your family at gunpoint while they cart away every electronic device you own?

Having a search warrant executed on your property is not something you want to happen to you, especially if you didn't do anything wrong. It will take you YEARS and major lawyer bills to get your stuff back. If you think I'm making this up, re-read what happened to Steve Jackson Games during Operation Sun Devil:

On March 1 1990, the offices of Steve Jackson Games, in Austin, Texas, were raided by the U.S. Secret Service as part of a nationwide investigation of data piracy. The initial news stories simply reported that the Secret Service had raided a suspected ring of hackers. Gradually, the true story emerged.

More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages and attorneys' fees to the game company, ruling that the raid had been careless, illegal, and completely unjustified.

The basic McGuffin is you've got one huge mother of a cybernetic tank with armor plating that shoots micronukes and it goes up against an entire army - and the battle's a fair fight!

Then again, with the current administration, perhaps I should be playing "Rivets" instead. "Rivets" were the third-world's answer to the superpower Ogres. The robots were rather dain-bramaged and could only shoot at what they were programmed to shoot at. It's a funny game, in a sick sort of way.

Maybe I'll play the "Ogre vs. Rivets" variant.

You're right; I'm wrong.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html very clearly states that game mechanics are not copyrightable (although exact wording of rules may be).

And... it seems foobar that you can't copyright games. I mean, why would Microsoft even bother negotiating for rights? Why not make a brand new game, which just happens to have the *exact* same game mechanics, but is known as "Pioneers"?

Does that mean that I'm free to make a "compatible" expansion to Munchkin?

Ah, but to get a 20ft tall battle robot to show up on the front could, at least in certain countries, help inspire fear and awe in the opposition.

A lot like the fictional cybernetic tank, the Ogre (from Steve Jackson games). While not Mecha styled, it too could be easily overwhelmed by the opposition. But often used as intimidation and sometimes as a lure to draw opposition to it and away from the rest of the attacking force.

True, most likely a useless coffin...if the operator is truly inside. What they would probably need to do here is put all the new high-speed wireless network the military wants on the battlefield to use here. Have the operator actually exist in the backfield wielding controls to move the legs and arms. The networked vehicles and soldiers allow the movement signals to propagate to the front line where the Mecha will move. Voile, 20ft tall disposable soldier robot.

Anything that could cause some hesitation or fear in the enemy might be enough for the attacking units to take advantage of.

- Anemophilous Coward
- "A non-productive mind is with absolutely zero balance".

It's a myth that people will pay artists through online contributions; it just doesn't happen.

Another listing of board games to try is the
Games Magazine Buyer's Guide. Funagain has that listed on it too. I'd provide the actual link, but we appear to be making their server cry... You ought to be able to pick up a paper copy of the buyer's guide at any decent bookstore though. They list 200 games, I think... board/card games and electronic games, divided by genre.

My suggestions are pretty much ones already listed...

Settlers of Catan,
Puerto Rico,
Apples to Apples,
just about anything by Cheapass Games,
Munchkin (for RPG geeks)

Domaine (by the guy who created Settlers),

and my personal favorite, if you've got a twisted sense of humor:
Nuclear War by Flying Buffalo.

First rule of finding a good non-traditional board game... don't set a foot in Wal-Mart, Target, or Toys-R-Us...

Second rule, don't be surprised if the price runs up into the $50 dollar range or higher. Hey, that's what most new electronic games cost anyways. And a board game is much more playable, assuming you've got 2-3 friends who are interested.

Dog Eat Dog is a game where you control one company or a conglomerate trying to embezzle enough money to win the game. The big problem? Embezzling is against the rules. If you're caught the company has to pay a fine. You pollute to set up defensive strategies and in the end return to the 1980's. Ain't it great? Who can leave out Steve Jackson's game that caused so many problems with the government? Illuminati is a tried and true Geek Game. Formula De was introduced to me last spring. I hear it's popular, but I don't know anyone else who plays. I don't like watching racing, but this game really makes it interesting. I highly recommend getting it out if you have any NASCAR fans in the family.

Munchkin is a great tongue-in-cheek board game for the RPGer in your social circle or family. It's a card game (not CCG) with quite a lot of expansion packs. Basically, you try to clear a dungeon & if a friend gets in the way or is going to win first, you screw them over.

Very fun, quick game.

No Nuke War?
No Illuminati?
No Hackers?

I pronounce you all BLASPHEMERS and revoke your geek status, ALL OF YOU!

And after all, who can forget doing combinations?

"OK, I'll see your Bavarian Gnomes, and I'll sic Skippy on your servers at No Such Agency!"

No Nuke War?
No Illuminati?
No Hackers?

I pronounce you all BLASPHEMERS and revoke your geek status, ALL OF YOU!

And after all, who can forget doing combinations?

"OK, I'll see your Bavarian Gnomes, and I'll sic Skippy on your servers at No Such Agency!"

fnord

RPGs shouldn't be about rolling dice and counting coup, but that's what the preteen munchkin wants...If the world doesn't have wall-to-wall dungeons with new-never-before-fought monsters on each floor, they're not interested.

Then maybe you should give them the role-playingless dungeon hacking game, Munchkin instead?

Anyone remember the raid on Steve Jackson Games? ... the sealed search warrents, computer equipment that was never returned, the reasoning for the raid kept secret.

At least the al qaeda terrorist cells report back to someone that the US claims should be held responsible. The "US Secret Service" terrorist cell on the other hand seem to operate freely in the US without having to report to any higher authority or be held accountable for their illegal activities. Or has Bill Cook and the rest of his cell ever been held in judgement for their actions?

Unfortunately for them, their own plans are about to lead them to cultural ruin. Bush's plan to provide High Speed internet to the nation should be read as what to him would seem akin to the Rural Electrification Project. Where the idea was, lets get power to the people out in the farms so they will be more competive and produce more. That sort of backfired. They got used to the power and started wanting more. More TVs, DVD, Fancy cars and the lowly Banana.

The upshot was that the young started to abandon the farms in droves. As they did the cheap labor of the farm children was replaced by cheap labor from immigrants. The old cycle was that the Farm would be inherited by the children of the farmer and next generation would take over. As the found new jobs as computer programmers and got MBAs they let their parents sell of the old family farm to large agro businesses. Large Farms got larger and Cities got bigger.

Wiring the rest of the county will give reason for companies to relocate to cheaper parts of the US and bring good jobs to town who's main income was the local speed trap. If your a Conservative Rural Republican in a Red State, visions of selling farmland to city slickers for housing and commercial parks must seem like heaven. Voting for Bush was voting your pocketbook.

Now here comes the other side of the coin. Unlike mining towns of the 19th and early 20th Century you really can't lock people in. Your neigbors will undercut your housing deals because they all got buckets of land and nobody to grow whatever.

City Slicker Programmers and the upper skilled workforce are not Conservative Rural Republicans, There those damn Blue State Liberals. They eat fish RAW!!!!, A lot of them aren't even from the USA, most dress like they were extras in that confusing movie The Matrix. As Techs and Tech businesses move to the boondocks they will turn the red states blue.

Right now the current FUD is that Liberals don't respect people with Faith. The fact is that the rural people can't afford to break the back of the liberal technology complex. Ever wondered why Strict harsh and very communist China hasn't stompped all over Hong Kong? China needs Hong Kong more then Hong Kong needs China.

Bzzzt! And thank you for playing. Here's your lovely parting gift.

The concept of the "graphics" card has been around since at least 1981.
The original IBM PC had no on-board graphics, and you could choose between an MDA (text only, monochrome), or a CGA (640x200x2 or 320x240x4, or text: 8 color). It may predate the PC, but IIRC, it was considered revolutionary at the time.

Your last sentence is also wrong. You had to change both your monitor and graphics card to go from EGA to VGA.

EGA used a 9-pin connector with digital level outputs. VGA used a 15-pin connector with analog level outputs. Thus the need to swap monitors -- unless you were using something like a NEC MultiSync, in which case, you kept the monitor and opened your system unit and swapped the graphics card.

The best-documented federal seizure of HDDs that I know of (it's referred to in many court cases) is the Secret Service's raid on Steve Jackson Games.

Look up Steve Jackson games.

this, this, this, this, this, this, or many others.

The real info is here.

Let's see... they went in to someone's home and took their stuff.

And made no arrests.

I don't recall the gov't being able to do that before 9/11... so... I'm sure it is related somehow.

It's called a search warrant. It may give them the right to sieze all sorts of crap. Sometimes, they even write really bad ones and the government gets in trouble (see Steve Jackson Games vs. the US Secret Service, which is still an important case concerning the seizure of electronic materials, even if some of the courts holdings in it have been weakened in more recent decisions).

I assume you mean GURPS?

GURPS 4th Edition is also coming out at GenCon, by the way! I picked up 3rd edition way back in 1989...

right here

You can find frags website here:
http://www.sjgames.com/frag/

And the rules and some pictures are here:
http://www.sjgames.com/frag/fragrules.pdf

You can find frags website here:
http://www.sjgames.com/frag/

And the rules and some pictures are here:
http://www.sjgames.com/frag/fragrules.pdf

In Nomine is a modern roleplaying game in which the players take the part of celestial beings -- angels and demons -- as they struggle for control of humanity and themselves. The celestials, powerful though they may be, are merely pawns in a much larger game being played by their Superiors, the Archangels and Demon Princes.

Based on the best-selling French RPG by the wonderfully diabolical Croc!

OK, Math is a sport. So is Munchkin, then. And movie marathons should be sanctioned, too.

At least in the US a company has to protect its trademark, or they loose it. But an alternative that most companies never use is to license their trademark. Then another company can use their trademark and be officially licensed. We see officially licensed merchandise all the time.

Most likely what happened is Odeon got a new lawyer, or they had an audit. It was pointed out that they cannot have someone else using their trademark so they sent a letter. Even if the president of Odeon uses the site and thinks it is cool the fact is that ignoring infringement of a trademark can cause the trademark to be invalidated. It is unfortunate that their lawyers didn't think to offer him an official license.

Steve Jackson Games is really progressive in this regard. Realizing that their fans would like to create software to add value to their product line they created the GM Aid License Program. They have a page that explains their program and provides a license application form. (It is worth noting that their system way predates the d20 Official Gaming License system by WotC.)

Borland Software takes it a step further providing benefits like free copies of their products you support.

Systems like these are a win for everyone.

• The enthusiast gets to make their officially licensed product.
• The other consumers get the benefit of the added value.
• And the company gets the benefit of a strong user community making their products move valuable.

I don't know why more companies don't have similar systems in place.

There are many varients of the game Assassin, and there was also a set of rules put out by Steve Jackson called Killer

In Assassin, everyone had to fill out their class schedule, and include a picture, and give it to the person running the game. Everyone was given a card at random (redraw if you got your own card).

The goal was to get your card -- but you weren't allowed to draw on anyone unless they were your target, or if they drew on you first (ie, they were trying to kill you).

I'm guessing that these games wouldn't go down so well in today's high schools, though.

There are some varients that aren't quite as obvious, but use your own judgement