Realistic?

I don’t think it’s terribly realistic, but my suspicion is that this president will not start out being constrained by what people tell him is realistic. If he did, it wouldn’t be president now.

—David Wessel

A separate RPG blog?

For various reasons, I’ve choosen to keep a single blog for all my thinkings aloud. I’ve been considering starting a separate blog for my role-playing game related musings.

Any thoughts about that from my score or so readers?

When the best candidates don’t run

Four years ago, the best Democratic candidates didn’t run. Who can blame them? Why go up against an incumbent when you can just wait four years and not? Especially when there seems to be no heir apparent emerging.

I don’t like a system that discourages the opposition from putting it’s best candidate forward. I’m not sure how you could really fix that, though.

Of course, part of the problem may simply be the political climate in which a failed bid for the job effectively disqualifies you from getting your party’s nomination again.

Character

No matter what happens today, I’ll be happy.

I never cared for Bush. Not when he ran for governor. Not when he was governor. Though, he did show an ability to work with the other side that I could admire. Once he got to Washington, though...

To be honest, I agreed with Natalie Maines. I’ve been embarrassed that Bush has been our president. I’m ashamed of some of the things our country has become under his leadership.

I used to just tune out when the Republicans brought up “character”. But then they let this guy lead their party for eight years. (Bush certainly is a character, but...) I much preferred a president with Clinton’s flaws to one with Bush’s flaws. I was no big fan of his father’s, but I liked Bush senior better. I could have a modicum of respect for the guy. I’ll much prefer McCain if he should win.

Though it bothers me that Palin seems cut from the same superficial cloth as Bush.

It actually boggles my mind that McCain got the nomination. It’s almost as if Lieberman were the Democratic candidate.

Anyway...no doubt some of you reading this will not appreciate my feelings on this, but this is honestly how I feel.

Four years ago, I voted against Bush. This year, I voted for Obama. He’s the candidate whom I more agree with on the issues. He’s the candidate whom I feel is best suited for the job. Yeah, he’s a master orator, and while that can let someone without substance go farther than they would otherwise, it doesn’t mean there isn’t substance there. It feels good to vote for a presidential candidate again rather than against.

But I also agree with McCain on a lot of issues. (Senator McCain if not candidate McCain.) And I think both candidate’s score better than the current office holder by at least an order of magnitude on the Republican “character” criterion.

Semi-generic RPGs

Only the oldest games—Traveller, D&D—get away with the sloppy design of having rules that are kinda generic but really are spiked with loads of setting assumptions that you’d have to go clean out to really use them as a generic ruleset.

—mxyzplk@RPGnet

I think one of the real stregths of classic Traveller (following the lead of D&D) is that it has an implied setting. Yet, it doesn’t detail the setting. The setting is only implied.

There’s a lot to be said for the implied setting approach. It is quick to get into. The implied setting has already filled in enough blanks to get things rolling. Not too many, however, that would slow down getting started. It still leaves a fair amount of room for the group to really make the setting their own.

Classic Traveller (perhaps even more than D&D) also provided tools to aid in fleshing out the group’s unique version of the implicit setting. Those tools being presented as random generators gave us the flexibility to either randomly generate things or just make choices.

I’m glad there are games that strive to be more generic. I’m glad that there are games that are strongly tied to a specific setting. I enjoy games from both of those approaches. I’m very glad, however, that there are still games—like Mongoose’s incarnation of Traveller—that take a more moderate approach.

Look, no fault of Traveller's initial design, it's fine for the 1970s when people didn't know any better.

This is not sloppy. This is not ignorance. This is a very strong, middle-of-the-road approach. Moreover, I think such a middle-of-the-road approach is especially suited to newcomers to the hobby.

On mxyzplk’s criticism that Traveller never presents a main Imperium setting book: I don’t really know any of the editions except classic well enough to confirm or deny that charge. I can think of some arguments against it. Yet, I think it has merit. Even with such a book, however, I think having the implied setting in the main rules fits what Traveller was meant to be.

Equal time

Why I Support Barack Obama by Tim O'Reilly

This is from the primary: 20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack by Lawrence Lessig

(Not really equal)

Should you consider the campaign?

But the failures of the campaign are reasons to punish the campaign managers, not the country.

—David Frum

Shouldn’t the candidate also be held responsible for the failures of the campaign?

While I have liked Senator McCain, I haven’t been too fond of candidate McCain or his campaign. Likewise with Mrs. Clinton, if not moreso.