It seems like Lulu always has a discount code. It stops feeling like a deal when I know that as soon as one “limited time offer” expires, there will be another to replace it. Instead, it makes me feel like their “regular” prices are artificially high. The “limited time offer” stops having the effect it was designed to create.
This isn’t something Lulu invented of course. e.g. There’s a local music store I stopped shopping at years ago for the same reason.
I keep reading about how the Gumshoe system provides a fix for investigation in role-playing games. The problem they identify is that a botched die roll can prevent players from gaining a vital clue.
My first thought is that applying mechanics to investigation is the real mistake. Then I think that for a game—like Call of Cthulhu, which is all about investigation—maybe it makes sense.
But then I think, isn’t D&D really about investigation too? You’re trying to locate the McGuffin or explore the unknown or whatever. D&D didn’t have much in the way of mechanics for investigation, and—I think—for good reason. The more such mechanics have been expanded and added to D&D, the more you see people coming up with complaints exactly like the one Gumshoe is designed to address.
Gumshoe’s answer is to provide a resource-based mechanic in place of a dice-based one. (There are still dice rolls, but overall it’s more resource-management focused.) Reading about this, I can’t help but think that I’d rather spend time at the table thinking about the mystery and the clues rather than resource management.
So, I’m back to thinking that applying mechanics to investigation doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
This all feels a little unfair since I haven’t actually read any of the Gumshoe books yet. This, however, is the reason why I haven’t bought or read any of them yet.
A thought inspired by a thread on the LinkedIn RPG group:
In classic D&D, instead of giving the PCs 1 XP per gp of treasure acquired, make it 1 XP per gp paid to a mentor for training.
Ignoring the word “experience” in “experience point” and “experience level”, I think this puts the horse back in front of the cart. You don’t search for treasure to earn “experience” to get better. You search for treasure in order to afford the training to get better.
Of course, you still get some gain for experience as well. This isn’t completely dumping experience for training.
It reminds me of the “wine, women, and song” rule from Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign in which PCs only got XP for treasure by spending it. It also recalls classic Traveller in which PCs spent money and time to improve their skills rather than through XP.
Although, once the PCs reach a certain level—¿ninth?—perhaps things should change so that they can mentor themselves.
Android Is As Open As The Clenched Fist I’d Like To Punch The Carriers With
In theory, I’m right there with you. The thought of a truly open mobile operating system is very appealing. The problem is that in practice, that’s just simply not the reality of the situation. Maybe if Google had their way, the system would be truly open. But they don’t. Sadly, they have to deal with a very big roadblock: the carriers.
Is Google even making an effort to have their way?
An iPhone isn’t a phone. It’s a palmtop computer. The cellular provider for such a device should be much less involved that they have been with cell phones. One of the key pieces of the iPhone is that Apple has pushed AT&T more towards their rightful role for such a device. They haven’t been entirely successful, but they have been very successful.
After some research, I settled on the Olive Tree Bible Reader for iPad.
I really like the Tecarta app, but they didn’t have the NRSV. I really wanted a single app with—at least—the NRSV, the NIV, and the Message.
I used to just use Bible Gateway with my iPhone. It’s a fabulous site, works well with the iPhone, and is completely free. The one downside was that over 3G it was slow enough that I would still be loading when everyone else had already found the passage. Another downside was that the iPhone’s small screen was poorly suited to sharing with your neighbor.
Well, with the Olive Tree app and having the Bibles installed on the iPad, I now find passages while everyone else is still flipping pages. It felt almost like cheating. ^_^ Just four taps to get to any verse.
There is one really weird thing about the Olive Tree app. From the app store, you can buy different versions of it that come bundled with different Bibles. Then there is a sort of “generic” version that allows you to buy multiple translations via in-app purchases.
Once you log-in through one of the bundled versions of the app, Olive Tree will record that you have the bundled Bible (and other bundled books). You can then download those in the generic version of the app.
The weird part is that the versions of the app with the bundles are cheaper than buying the same books directly in the generic app via in-app purchase. So, instead of just buying the generic app and then the translations I wanted via in-app purchase, it was cheaper to buy all the individual bundled apps and then download all the books in the generic app.
It’s hard to even explain. It was confusing for me, and I suspect my background in software and e-books means it was easier for me to understand than for most of their customers.
In any case, I’m pretty happy with the final results. I have the KJV, the NRSV, the NIV, the NIrV, the TNIV, the Message, the ASV, the Vulgate, and the Bible in Esperanto all installed on my iPad in a single app. It’s quick to get to any verse. The search seems decent. And it will do split-screen to compare two versions side-by-side. I also have a couple of commentaries. (In split-screen mode, you can get the commentary for a passage next to the passage.) Plus a few other free e-books. Olive Tree seems to have a good selection of other Bibles, commentaries, and books to buy as well.
Nokia’s problem — and I’ve heard this same story from at least half a dozen former and present Nokia employees who read DF — is that their handset business is fundamentally based around hardware teams. When they decide to make a phone, they put together a hardware team for that model, and that team makes all decisions. That’s why they have no cohesive software strategy. Nokia sees software as one component in a hardware-based view of the industry.
The iPhone is a palmtop computer, which happens to also be a phone. I don’t think that is what everyone wants or needs. Some people are happier with a phone that is just a phone. Or perhaps a phone that does a few palmtop-like things.
It seems to me that Nokia ought to continue to focus on hardware. It needs to produce the absolute best phone rather than trying to compete directly against the iPhone.
The problem, I suppose, is that that isn’t a high-margin business. Still, I think trying to play somebody else’s game is a lousy and losing strategy.
