Over on the pseudonymous Newbie DM blog there’s an article on fudging dice: To Fudge or Not to Fudge, That is the Question. Interesting question. I used to fudge dice. I also played without a screen for a while, rolling everything in the open. Then I realized as a player that I preferred the GM to have a screen: I don’t want to remind myself to avert my eyes. Once I had my screen back, there’s the temptation to roll behind the screen, and once you have that, I feel uncomfortable when important rolls come up. That’s why I keep rolling important stuff in the open.
Large amounts of damage dice? Critical hits or confirmations? Out in the open!
Random encounter? Minion saving throws? They stay where the dice are, which is usually behind the screen.
As a player, I’m not a powergamer (I don’t plan out my character meticulously and don’t expect a reward for my poor choices), I’m not a tactician (and don’t expect a reward for my decisions), I’m not there to kick ass – but I’m there to play smart and survive. That’s why I want no dice fudging.
I often say: “I’d rather die at the hands of the DM than live by his mercy!”
DM James, for example, is very nice to us players. When my paladin rolled ones for hitpoints, I was told to roll again. At one time I rolled a one five times in a row! I didn’t want to make a big fuss about it and just accepted his decisions. But in the dark corners of my heart I wish my paladin had gotten the lousy hit points the dice had in store for her. It would have moved the story in an unexpected direction. It would have challenged me as a player. It would have been more interesting.
That’s why I’m with Judd Karlman when he comments on the Newbie DM’s post: “I’m a no-fudge, no save’em type of GM. I am fine with the epic tale being a tragic cautionary of lives lost during a dungeon delve. Let the dice fall where they may.” [1]
Tags: RPG 
Moritz Mehlem steht auf der Seifenkiste und schreibt in Al'Anfanischer Wein - Mal wieder Glgi vs. DSA über ein Abenteuer, welches anscheinend sehr stark geführt ist (railroading), und wo der Spielleiter gebeten wird auf “Lösungsansätze [der Spieler] einzugehen anstelle sie abzublocken”. Das findet Moritz zwar eine gute Idee, meint dazu aber “in diesem fast schon apologetisch anmutenden Teil fällt mir auf, wie weit entfernt die Anschauung, die die Schreiber eines solchen Abenteuers haben, von meiner abweicht. Da wird etwas nett gemeint und entlarvt sich gnadenlos selbst!”
Ein Rant in Ehren kann keiner verwehren! 
Was mir selber noch etwas fehlt ist eine prägnante und nützliche Ausformulierung von “Ich entwerfe eine Welt, die funktioniert. Was dann die Abenteurer damit anstellen, ist einzig und allein ihre Sache.” Was heisst das denn genau? Die Elemente eines Abenteuers auf Eisenbahnschienen kennen wir: einen allumfassenden Plot, wichtige Schlüsselfiguren, die eine Weile lang eine gewisse Immunität geniessen, Schlüsselereignisse, denen man nicht aus dem Weg gehen kann. Klar kenne ich gute, offene Abenteuer. Aber warum sind sie offen und gut? Worauf muss ich achten, wenn ich ein gutes, offenes Abenteuer schreiben will?
Dem möchte ich gerne nachgehen, und hierüber würde ich gerne mehr lesen. Wer also eine empfehlenswerte Webadresse zum Thema hat, bitte in den Kommentaren einen Hinweis hinterlassen. Danke. 
Erster Wurf für die Bestandteile eines offenen Abenteuers ohne Eisenbahnschienen:
Um dies nun auf Moritz’ eigenes Abenteuer In der Halle des Bergkönigs zu übertragen:
Wie man sieht, handelt es sich bei der Festung des Bergkönigs also um ein sehr einfach gestricktes Abenteuer, welches sehr offen für die Interaktionen mit der Gruppe ist.
Jetzt müsste ich einfach ein paar weitere Abenteuer mit diesen Kriterien unter die Luppe nehmen…
Aus meiner Sicht war bisher Vault of Larin Karr der Hammer.
Comments on 2009-11-06 Eine Welt die funktioniert
“Festung” ist ja nur eine kleine Fingerübung! Sieh dir mal “Larm” an - da tue ich genau das, was ich fordere.
– Moritz 2009-11-06 12:24 UTC
Keine Frage! Wollte nur ausformulieren, was “es” (die Forderung) denn meiner Meinung nach genau ist. Und die Festung ist/war deutsch, gratis, und aktuell. 
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-06 13:48 UTC
Die Tipps klingen sehr praktisch - habe ich direkt mal in unsere SL-Tipp Liste aufgenommen 
PS: Das Emacswiki als Blog-Seite zu nutzen finde ich klasse!
– Drak 2009-11-06 16:11 UTC
Cool. 
Eigentlich fand ich früher Wikis sehr viel besser als Blogs. Aber in dem Masse wie sich Blogs ausgebreitet haben, veränderten sich auch meine eigenen Lesegewohnheiten und Erwartungen. Und so musste ich wohl oder übel nach und nach Dinge einbauen, welche den Wiki immer Blog-ähnlicher machen. 
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-07 21:55 UTC
Ich glaube ich werde mal versuchen, mit Spieler aus diversen Runden den Winter mit einem Fondueabend einzuweihen. Mal schauen wir das wird. Partner mitbringen erlaubt. 
Die reguläre Sonntagsgruppe, die sich an diesem Tag trifft, hat schon mal zugesagt bis auf den Spielleiter, der im Ausland weilt. Nach einem Star Wars SAGA Edition one-shot wird’s also sehr wahrscheinlich ins Fribourger Stübli gehen. Zusammen mit Claudia wären wir schon mal sieben Leute. Gerade eben habe ich eine zweite Ladung Email verschickt. Ich bin gespannt!
Tags: RSP 
I was writing a little Google Wave Robot, which required me to install a new Python. This went well, and I was able to follow the Google Wave tutorial.
Today I wanted to follow my own instructions for creating a hex map – but I got an error message:
Whoa, I thought this worked before? I’m using Mac OS 10.4 and installed Python 2.6.4 yesterday. Or did the Inkscape Boardgames Extensions only work on my laptop with the even older Mac OS 10.3?
So I try to install lxml 2.2.3 but I fail. Running make gets me lots of errors (“src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:130090: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type”) and running ez_setup.py followed by easy_install lxml produces the same problems. Apparently the pregenerated lxml.etree.c will not work for me!
But wait… I didn’t install libxml 2.7.2 or later, nor did I install libxslt 1.1.15 or later. This is going to take longer… 
While the stuff is building in the background, I fixed my map manually using some old-fashioned copy & paste and some editing of the SVG file using Emacs and some keyboard macros. Yay Emacs! 
Oh, and while libxml and libxslt compiled effortlessly, lxml for Python ended with “/usr/bin/ld: for architecture ppc /usr/bin/ld: warning /usr/local/lib/libxslt.dylib cputype (7, architecture i386) does not match cputype (18) for specified -arch flag: ppc (file not loaded)” – but I’m no longer going to try and get it to work.
Good luck trying the same on 4 or 7 year old linux distriburion releases!
– Harald Wagener 2009-11-07 22:55 UTC
btw, what kind of extension did you write? Is it available?
– Harald Wagener 2009-11-07 23:03 UTC
It was going to be a robot that would save the first blip as a page onto an Oddmuse wiki. But my robot doesn’t seem to react to BLIP_SUBMITTED events. Very annoying.
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-08 10:53 UTC
Gestern hatten wir einen fliegenden Spielleiterwechsel am Tisch. Hat super funktioniert. Marco spielt normalerweise den Nekromanten Necoare in meinem Alder King Spiel. Die Welt basiert auf einem Ecken der Lenap. Eines Tages kam Marco, und sprach von einer DnD Revolution. Das lässt sich in einer Sandbox natürlich viel einfacher einbauen. Wir einigten uns auf ein Hex und ein ungefähres Thema: Minen, Sklaven, sowie Quartz und ein Xorn für magische Gegenstände.
Letzte Woche ging’s dann auf in die Region, und ich fragte ihn per Email, ob er soweit sei. Am Sonntag fing alles ganz normal an, Zusammenfassung vom aktuellen Stand, jeder hat noch eine Aktion, bevor wir die Stadt verlassen (meine Version des Mouse Guard “player turns”), es ging über den Fluss, durch den Sumpf, in die Hügel, und dann die Frage an Marco, ob dies nun der passende Moment sei? Er nickt und übernimmt!
Schnell den Spielleiterschirm rüber geschoben, er fängt an zu erzählen, ich würfel mir nebenbei einen dummen Marduk Priester namens Björn aus, es kommt zum Kampf, mein Priester wird schon beim ersten Schlag zu Boden geschlagen, und am Ende laufe ich (natürlich) über und schliesse mich der Gruppe an.
Lief wie am Schnürchen. Kann ich nur empfehlen. Bietet sich bei einem Sandbox Spiel an. Gemäss meinen Kriterien von einer funktionierenden Welt handelt es sich hier nämlich um einigermassen unabhängige Situationen. Spielleitertausch ist kein Problem.
Comments on 2009-11-09 Fliegender Wechsel des Spielleiters
Ich freue mich, es ging so gut. Obwohl dass es beinah ins Auge gegangen hatte. 
– Marco 2009-11-10 09:29 UTC
I like the old idea of name levels. In my Alder King game, each hex contains at least one kind of building: a ruin, a dungeon, a lair, a village, a town, a castle, a tower. Most of these will be settled by some sort of humanoid civilization: goblins, kobolds, lizard men, fish men, frog men, humans, elves, dwarves, orcs.
Each such settlement will have one key figure. The paladin in the village, the captain of the guard, the wizard in his tower, the head priest. The key figure has level 9-12. I use the higher levels for bigger populations or figures of regional importance (such as ring-forging wizards).
There are some henchmen to the big boss. These can be a planar ally of the wizard, the priest council of the lord, the spy master of the castle, the best archer in the region. There will be 1-3 such henchmen having level 7-8. Bigger populations need more second in commands. Sometimes I will have competitors to the key figure at this level. Maybe the lord of the castle is the key figure, and the crime lord of the castle village belongs to the henchman tier.
The armed forces of a population center come in groups of 5-20 individuals, each one of them having level 1. These can be patrol riders, gangs, bandits, castle guards. Each such group is led by a boss having level 3-6.
By setting these guidelines for myself, I’m trying to prevent myself from auto-levelling the environment. As the player characters gain levels, I want the game to change. There must come a time when ordinary guards no longer pose a challenge to the characters unless they appear in very large numbers.
Tags: RPG 
I made the last backup of my iBook Alpinobombus and installed OpenBSD/macppc on it. Burn the install46.iso image onto a CD, insert into iBook, hold c while booting.
The wireless network needs some sort of firmware which I downloaded from the net and saved on an USB stick. See man bwi for the location. Anyway, now I needed to get the package from the stick onto the laptop.
I don’t understand why i is relevant, but this [1] worked:
mount -t msdos /dev/sd0i /mnt/stick
I kept trying sd0a… 
I added the following line to /etc/fstab:
/dev/sd0i /mnt/stick msdos rw,noauto 0 0
I hope mount /mnt/stick will work from now on.
Back to the network! With pkg_add bwi-firmware-1.4.tgz finally available I installed the firmware for the Airport wireless card in my old iBook. 
Use ifconfig to verify that bwi0 is your wireless interface. Use ifconfig bwi0 scan to list the networks available and find yours.
Now the WPA stuff for my Schroeder network…
ifconfig bwi0 nwid Schroeder wpa wpapsk `wpa-psk Schroeder "*secret*"`
ifconfig bwi0 up
dhclient bwi0And it seems to work. I can ping www.google.com – win! 
Thus, I removed any /etc/hostname.* files that didn’t work and created a single /etc/hostname.bwi0 file containing the following line:
dhcp nwid Schroeder wpa wpapsk `wpa-psk Schroeder "*secret*"`
I’m surprised it works!
Tomorrow:
kbd -l lists de and others, but no Swiss German layout → update
Apparently sg stands for Swiss German! 

Luckily I’ve used US keyboards before, and I’ve used vi before. 
echo sg > /etc/kbdtype – apparently I can use wsconsctl to remap more keys.
Apparently there are no virtual terminals because there’s no VGA card, but there’s an alternative to GNU screen: tmux.
I realized that there are two levels of packages: 1. binary packages 2. the ports system. I started by setting PKG_PATH=ftp://mirror.switch.ch/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/packages/`machine -a`/:ftp://ftp.wu-wien.ac.at/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/packages/`machine -a`/:ftp://ftp.OpenBSD.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.6/packages/`machine -a`/ in my .profile. [2]
In order to test this, I decided to run sudo pkg_add -v mutt.
At the same time I feel like setting up the ports system by downloading ports.tar.gz. [3]
Need Firefox and Emacs!
Tags: OpenBSD
macppc
iBook
Gadgets
Software 
Comments on 2009-11-13 OpenBSD (macppc)
What about using the wired network to get the wireless firmware onto the macbook?
– Harald Wagener 2009-11-13 17:20 UTC
Recht hast du. Habe ich aber auf die Schnelle auch nicht hingebracht. Mit etwas Suchen auf dem Internet und blödem Abtippen der Beispiele bin ich dann auf eine Lösung gekommen. 
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-14 01:12 UTC
I installed OpenBSD on my laptop and now I want to get a working mutt setup using my Gmail account. I found an excellent summary online called Using Gmail with mutt, the minimal way.
Networking seems to be veeeery slow. Checking out Emacs from CVS stalling for minutes, pkg_add taking forever, mutt bein glacial. I’m not happy. On the same wireless network the desktop is flying.
From #openbsd:
Han asked me some questions regarding ifconfig and netstat -nr – I pasted the results on a pastebot. [1]
Other people with the same problem. [2] When I ping 10.0.1.1 – my router – I get more than 20% packet loss (sometimes over 70% packet loss) if I run a large CVS checkout in the background.
It turns out that disabling WPA encryption solves my problem! [3] 
I’m back to OpenWLAN for the moment.
Hm… I’m not so sure. It worked fine for a bit, but suddenly I’m no longer sure. Gaaaah, this sucks balls. Big, hairy balls! 
Update: Downloading ubuntu-9.10-desktop-powerpc.iso – I just want to see whether it will work correctly or not. I saw various messages online saying that it worked! [4] [5] [6] [7]
The median salary in Switzerland is CHF 5823 per month. For men it is CHF 6248 per month, for women it is CHF 5040 per month. Apparently the gap has widened again for the first time since 1996. [1]
(Median salary for top banking management now reached CHF 58333 – per month!)
CHF 1 is about USD 1 is about EUR 0.66 is about GBP 0.59 right now.
Tags: Switzerland
Money 
Comments on 2009-11-18 Swiss Salaries
Hi Alex, I prefer choose weight-units statistical or also inequality index, if I want to know how live the majority of citizens in any country …
– JuanmaMP 2009-11-18 17:18 UTC
Tonight we’ll play in my Campaign:Kaylash Traveller campaign again. I’ve played Spirit of the Century twice in our regular experimental Monday one-shots and liked it. The game uses the Fate rules, which are based on Fudge. I’ve been a long time Fudge fan even though I never got to play it before. (I did prefer the “subjective” rules, however.)
I had heard about the new Traveller-like Fate-using Science-Fiction game Diaspora.
So when Haarald started comparing Traveller and Diaspora (in German), I was intrigued. Instead of getting eight pseudo-realistic stats and a multitude of trades codes from Traveller tables, you get three meta-stats, and some aspects. The question I’m asking myself is how much do the Traveller subsector generation rules afford the typical gameplay? Can you make good use of Diaspora without having played Traveller before?
I think you can. You’ll use Diaspora and it’ll end up being colored by whatever background you have: Mars, Earth, and Venus; or Corruscant, Tatooine, and Dagobah; or whatever they’re called in Mass Effect. I haven’t played in Traveller’s Imperium – is it an essential element of the game? I don’t think so. But perhaps the subsector generation rules and it’s implied setting generate a suitable campaign map.
I’d love to read more comparisons between the two.
| Traveller Stats | Traveller Trade Codes | Diaspora Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Starport | Agricultural | Technology |
| Size | Asteroid | Environment |
| Atmosphere | Barren | Resources |
| Hydro | Desert | |
| Population | Fluid Oceans | |
| Government | Garden | |
| Law Level | High Population | |
| Tech Level | High Technology | |
| Ice-Capped | ||
| Industrial | ||
| Low Population | ||
| Low Technology | ||
| Non-Agricultural | ||
| Non-Industrial | ||
| Poor | ||
| Rich | ||
| Water World | ||
| Vacuum |
Tags: Traveller
Diaspora
Fate
RPG 
Comments on 2009-11-18 Traveller or Diaspora
You might want to check out Brad Murray’s blog blue collar space. In his article Diaspora and giant bugs he writes
“One design principle going into the Diaspora project was to leverage Fate (via SotC)âs intrinsic power to maintain balances by using as much paint as possible where paint will suffice.”
From my point of view, paint suffices when people have a good understanding of what is being painted. To stick with the art analogy: Diaspora’s painting IMHO is the “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” to Traveller’s pipe.
So, assuming that people surely can play a (hardish) sf game with Diaspora without ever having as much as walked by a Traveller rule book, my expectation is that people who played (and enjoyed) Traveller will paint their game with Diaspora in a very distinct way that will remind you of all the building blocks Traveller explicitly puts on a table.
– Harald Wagener 2009-11-18 13:25 UTC
Yes, I subscribed to the blog this very morning! 
All this talk makes me want to start a parallel Diaspora game and see whether it turns out much different. And if it does, whether I like it better!
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-18 14:12 UTC
Für die Campaign:Kaylash Runde habe ich mal alle Notizen für einen Abend auf eine Doppelseite in meinem Kampagnenbüchlein geschrieben. Mir schien, diese Selbstlimitierung auf eine A6 Fläche würde mir helfen, mich auf das Wesentliche zu konzentrieren und keine Energie auf unnötige Details zu verschwenden.
Der Kontext: Die Gruppe ist auf einem Eisplaneten gelandet, hat sich Bohrmaterial organisiert und sucht nun nach einer unterirdischen Basis.
Was ich erreichen wollte:
Im Spiel stellte sich dann heraus, dass die Spieler ganz versessen darauf waren, in den Tiefen der Basis nach Dingen zu Suchen, ich selber aber gar nicht so viel Vorbereitet hatte. Ich improvisierte eine Weile lang dazu, erkannte dann aber, dass mir nichts spannendes einfallen würde, und kürzte dann ab. Das Ruder würde ich das nächste Mal schneller rumreissen, oder schon von Anfang an die Erwartungen stärker beeinflussen. Beispielsweise zeigen irgendwelche Sensoren oder Karten, dass nur noch die fünf oder sechs vorbereiteten Räume intakt sind.
Wir haben etwa zwei und halb Stunden gespielt, und dann noch eine halbe Stunde lang über den weiteren Verlauf der Kampagne gesprochen.
Aus der Sicht der Spieler sah das dann so aus:
Comments on 2009-11-19 Vorbereitung aufs Spiel
Ich werde trotzdem neidisch und muss sagen, tolle Arbeit!
– Greifenklaue 2009-11-20 22:30 UTC
Well, I decided to install Ubuntu 9.10 instead of trying to figure out what the problem with the wireless firmware (→ 2009-11-14 Mutt). When I installed it while connected to the network via ethernet cable, it offered to download and install the necessary driver for the wireless card. I set up the network, but the device still seemed to be unavailable. I rebooted the system and wireless just worked.
Wow!
I’m surprised! And awed!
Now I just need to get the correct Swiss German keyboard mapping with the specific keys not visible on the keyboard – bracers, pipe, at sign, square brackets, that kind of thing. 
The answer to that was available from System → Preferences → Keyboard. In the Layouts section, I picked Keyboard model Apple Laptop, no Separate layout for each window, Layout Switzerland German (Macintosh), and for Layout Options... I picked Key to choose 3rd level → Any Alt key.
Let’s see how well that works. I still have to install my beloved Emacs and see how the Option key turns out. 
The answer to that turns out to be Alt/Win key behavior → Meta is mapped to Win keys. 
Just for kicks I also activated Ctrl key position → Make CapsLock an additional Ctrl.
I’m also interested in clicking via Touchpad. Don’t let yourself be confused. If xinput list shows that you have an “ADB mouse”, you can still have tapping and dragging!
sudo trackpad tap
sudo trackpad dragYay! 
In order to make this permanent, I added it to /etc/rc.local – without the sudo, of course:
# By default this script does nothing.
trackpad tap
trackpad drag
exit 0(Zurück zu den RoleplayingReviews.)
People of Pembrooktonshire von James Edward Raggi IV alias Lamentations of the Flame Princess gibt’s im deutschsprachigen Raum bei Spährenmeisters Spiele zu kaufen. Vor kurzem hatte James nach Leuten gefragt, die eine deutsche Rezension seiner Produkte schreiben würden. Ich habe mich gemeldet und habe unter anderem auch dieses kleine, englische A5 Heft zugeschickt bekommen.
Das ganze Teil hat zwei Seiten Einführung, zwei Seiten allgemeine Informationen über das Dorf Pembrooktonshire und 32 Seiten Personenbeschreibungen. Jede Personbeschreibung fängt mit dem fetten Namen und Beruf an und besteht aus zwischen zwei und fünf Paragraphen Text. Es gibt keine Portraits, keine Stadtkarte, keine Übersicht, kein Inhaltsverzeichnis, keine Attribute oder sonstige Charaktereigenschaften, gar nichts. Nur 137 schräge, unheimliche, seltsame und grausige Personen. Nur Text.
Daraus ergibt sich meiner Meinung nach eine ganz spezifische Nutzung des Heftes: Wenn sich meine Gruppe in einem Dorf befindet, könnte ich mir zur Vorbereitung zwei oder drei Personen heraussuchen und die Beschreibung als Abenteuersaat gebrauchen. Die ersten paar Seiten sind schon ziemlich ergiebig:
Auf der ersten Seite hat es ein Spannerkind, das glaubt unsichtbar zu sein. Da hat es einen Bauer, der auf seinem Feld einen Galgen baut – ganz nach dem Motto “wird er gebaut, wird auch gehängt.” Auf der zweiten Seite hat es eine Dirne, die auf Grund einer Wette von angeheuerten Bauchrednern in den Wahnsinn getrieben werden soll. Da hat es einen Metzger, der hat 28 Kinder und Mordgelüste. Auf der dritten Seite hat es ein Paar, welches unter einem Fluch leidet: Die Frau gebiert Tiere statt Menschen. Und die Tiere sind auch noch unglaublich lecker…
Ich würde sagen, knapp die Hälfte aller Beschreibungen könnte ich sofort in die eigene Kampagne übernehmen. Bei mir wären die Personen Anlass für soziale Konflikte. Hier könnten die Spieler zeigen, was für Persönlichkeiten ihre Spielercharaktere haben.
Als Spieler stecke ich selber nämlich meistens in einem Konflikt: Eigentlich will ich mich für das Dorf des Spielleiters interessieren. Aber faktisch sind die meisten Leute schlicht uninteressant. Das Heft People of Pembrooktonshire hilft dem Spielleiter in dieser Situation weiter. Ich könnte mir gut vorstellen, meinen Spielern beim nächsten Dorfbesuch die heulende Dirne über den Weg laufen zu lassen. So wüsste ich wenigstens eine coole Geschichte für zwei oder drei Personen im Dorf.
Anscheinend wurde James auch ein paar Mal nach den Charaktereigenschaften der Personen gefragt. Da reagierte er ganz verdutzt und meinte, das sei doch klar: Das sind hundsgemeine Normalsterbliche. Im D&D Umfeld wären das also Leute mit 1-4 Lebenspunkten und einem +0 Angriffsbonus. Das sind ganz klar keine Gegner für den Kampf sondern Mittel, um die Spieler in unbequeme, spannende, ekelerregende, lustige, und skurrile Situationen zu bringen. Da werden die Würfel sehr wahrscheinlich ein paar Minuten schweigen. Mir gefällt das so, aber in meinen Spielgruppen würde ich solche Situation nur sparsam nutzen. Meine Spieler lieben halt auch Intrige, Aufstieg, Kloppen, Orte Erforschen und was sonst noch alles zum Rollenspiel gehört. Dieses Heft bietet Material für die sozialen Konflikte in einem Dorf oder einer Stadt. Nicht mehr, und auch nicht weniger.
GEFÄLLT: Reine Personenbeschreibungen, welche als Saat für soziale Konflikte und spannende Szenen in einer beliebigen Siedlung zur verwenden sind.
MISFÄLLT: Charakterportraits wären schön gewesen. Das hätte sicher massive Auswirkungen auf den Preis. Ich weiss da auch keine Lösung. Eine Liste der Namen und Berufe wäre schön gewesen, damit ich die Schäferin mit dem verzauberten Mann schnell wieder finde.
QUALITÄT: Sehr gut.
PREIS: 10€ ist vielleicht ein wenig teuer wenn man das mit den Produkten grosser Firmen vergleicht.
RATING:
(4 von 5 Sternen)
I really liked Trollsmyth’s blog post Give Them What They Want...
In addition to that, I feel that the referee is also just another player at the table. Don’t forget the things the referee enjoys. 
Tags: RPG 
And I like the Gimp.
Tags: Pictures 
Was unable to enjoy Friday evening with my SweetHeart. Missed Rolemaster game on Saturday [1]. Missed D&D game on Sunday [2]. Not going to work on Monday. Cancelling the Monday night game [3].
Why don’t the idiots stay at home instead of coming sick to work and giving me an infection?
If you’re sick, stay at home! Knuckleheads! 
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-30 00:49 UTC
I’ve been made aware of a discussion on emacs-devel regarding the Emacs Wiki license. It hurts. The Emacs Wiki license was designed to stop all this lawyer-talking bullshit. 
The Emacs Wiki license:
“Similar licenses” links to a small document saying
Essentially, I want to grant recipients of the work four licenses: use, copy, modify, and distribute, and I want to force recipients to grant the same license when they distribute the work or derivatives. Copyleft, plain and simple!
I thought that the GPL v3 tries to achieve the same goal. But RMS informs me that section 7 “Additional Terms” allows recipients to add exceptions. 
I must confess that section 7 is giving me a headache.
I try to stick to some advice I got from a friend with legal background: In court, the intent of a contract is what counts. You don’t have to spell it all out. Using this as a guiding principle, here’s how I’m thinking it through:
I get something under the Emacs Wiki license, but I want to publish it using the GPL v3. Is the GPL v3 a license “that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the restriction that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the same restriction?” Looking at the GPL v3 Preamble, I feel reassured. It “is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program […]. To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights.” Also, section 10 says “You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.” Sounds good!
But on to the dreadful section 7: “for material you add to a covered work, you may […] supplement the terms of this License” with a list of items. Ugh! The only good thing about it is that these additional terms apply to material I add myself.


A first reading seems to indicate no conflict with the intent of the Emacs Wiki license, even if all the terms of section 7 are added to derivative works.
But does the license impose “the restriction that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the same restriction?”
One could argue that derivative works end up with a bit more restrictions. But then again the Emacs Wiki license specifically names the GNU Free Documentation License as one possiblity. And that license has similar options, eg. the option to add invariant sections.
I feel that I don’t have to reword the Emacs Wiki license. Certainly, I could add a GPL v3 endorsement, but if the GNU Free Documentation License is a possible license, then really that is no different from the GPL v3 with section 7 terms.
What do you think?
PS: Also, let me add that by now these licensing discussions bore me to tears.
PPS: And it reminds me of the time wasted studying the GNU Free Documentation License, thinking about a separate wiki license, and arguing with RMS about licenses back in 2003 when I started Emacs Wiki. They are too damn complicated. And I think the reason is copyright affecting our daily lives where it used to only affect the closed circle of publishers and printers. Copyright has become too unwieldy for daily use.
Tags: Copyright
GPL
Emacs
Wiki 
Comments on 2009-11-28 GPL v3 vs. Emacs Wiki
“The Emacs Wiki license was designed to stop all this lawyer-talking bullshit.” Spot on. Don’t let them grind you down!
– Mathias, occasional reader 2009-11-29 00:04 UTC
Seems like in the process of trying to make GNU license work in as many countries and legal systems as possible, it became a little too complicated for an average user… as if someone tried to make a text editor also work as browser, irc and e-mail client 
– RadomirDopieralski 2009-11-29 18:16 UTC
Grrrrr! 
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-29 18:45 UTC
So the problem was just a careless oversight? The Emacs Wiki license should have said GPLv2 or later.
– AaronHawley 2009-11-29 22:51 UTC
Not really. The wiki says GPLv2 and then goes on to say that you can pick any other copyleft license instead, if you want. At least that’s how I see it, and that’s how I intended it to be.
I’m not even sure I understand what RMS’ problem is. He seems to believe that section 7 contradicts my description of a copyleft license.
Thus, either I made a mistake in describing a copyleft license, or the GPL v3 is not a copyleft license as I understand it, or my language is confusing RMS, or I’m being dragged into a boring legalese hair-splitting party.
I’ll meet some friends from openlaw.ch (unrelated to Lessig’s Openlaw in the states) on Thursday and Friday and we’ll talk about it, hopefully.
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-29 23:53 UTC
Yeah, I don’t understand the implications of section 7 with this situation, either. There seem to be several issues in this thread.
Richard has been upgrading the GPL for the last ten years, and he sees every opportunity to upgrade a package or project as a moral necessity. This is understandable, but RMS could be more understanding that Emacs Wiki is a different animal and provide friendlier assistance with the upgrade – himself or the GPL compliance lab. For example, pulling out the issues above and addressing them separately would be helpful.
The Emacs Wiki license seems like an example of a multi-license, but perhaps this is a mistaken assumption. Like other community projects, the Emacs Wiki holds code and documentation that we want to be able share with GNU Emacs, XEmacs and other free software packages, but also potentially with other Wiki. There are practical reasons for the license on Emacs Wiki, whether the GPLv3 can facilitate such interactions will be interesting to see.
– AaronHawley 2009-11-30 02:56 UTC
The stupid church bell rings at seven at night, at nine in the morning – I can’t sleep with the window open, I can’t talk with friends in the courtyard, I can’t walk past the church with my headphones on listening to music because of the noise.
This Sunday the Swiss accepted an initiative that runs counter to anything reasonable people would expect: Did they forbid the ringing of church bells? No. Did they stop the state church from getting their tithes via the state as part of ordinary tax payment? It’s true, if you belong to one of the state churches you have to opt out if you don’t want to pay church tax as part of your ordinary tax payment. The answer is “No” to both of these.
Instead, they voted to outlaw the construction of Minarets for fear of Islamification of the country. [1]
Yay for boneheads!
PS: Also, the initiative to ban the export of weapons didn’t win, so we’re still allowed to sell weapons and continue the disgraceful charade of “not dealing with warring nations" – but only by behaving like dogs and being faster than Bush in declaring hostilities in Iraq over so as not to endanger a major sale of armoured personnel carriers. Blech!
Tags: Switzerland 
Comments on 2009-11-29 Swiss Xenophobia
Very creative article, Alex. Swiss nationalism is disgusting.
– AaronHawley 2009-11-29 22:33 UTC
manchmal ist es nicht schön, schweizer zu sein 
– zeno 2009-12-02 21:50 UTC
und gutes vorbild sind wir auch nicht wirklich: http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?v=info&ref=nf&gid=206488696376
– zeno 2009-12-02 21:54 UTC
Bleurgh.

– AlexSchroeder 2009-12-02 22:28 UTC
The problem with Twitter is that when a nugget fits in 140 characters, I have the tendency to post it on Twitter instead of blogging about it. It’s doesn’t seem worth the blog post. The danger is that I use my blog to remember stuff. It’s my externalized memory, my swapped out brain. Some things need to be on the blog.
sudo apt-get build-dep emacs23 installs all the build dependencies when I want to build Emacs from source.I noticed some nice maximization tricks on Ubuntu and now I have mapped Alt-Cmd-Enter to maximize the Emacs frame. And I found that other programs offer a way to toggle the menu bar itself. Here’s how I did in Emacs:
(global-set-key (kbd "<f10>") (lambda () (interactive) (if (window-system) (menu-bar-mode (if menu-bar-mode -1 1)) (menu-bar-open))))
I had the feeling that the gnome terminal kept crashing when waking up from suspend state and other such stuff. So I switched back to xterm (→ System → Preferences → Preferred Applications → System → Terminal Emulator: Standard XTerminal). But it looks ugly! Create ~/.Xresources file (a skill I had nearly forgotten – also note to self: ~/.Xdefaults did not work) and add:
XTerm*faceName: dejavu XTerm*faceSize: 10
Comments on 2009-11-29 Ubuntu Notes To My Future Self
What is your Ubuntu maximization trick?
– Kevin 2009-11-29 18:11 UTC
Try xfce4-terminal with Terminus as the font – it’s the best combo for me 
– RadomirDopieralski 2009-11-29 18:14 UTC
Kevin, I assigned a binding to → System → Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts → Window Management → Toggle fullscreen mode. That maximizes the window, removes the titlebar, and the system menu.
Radomir, I installed Terminus many years ago because so many people on #emacs claimed it was so awesome. But I was not conviced… Have you switched your entire system to xfce? Otherwise, why use just the xfce terminal?
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-29 18:29 UTC
I had a similar problem as the one you describe having with Twitter. Previously I used my own wiki at home (OddMuse as you probably remember) for small notes I wanted to tell the world about. Until I discovered Twitter and Facebook and their nice tools to quickly jot down small “updates”. So those who read the wiki almost thought I had died
The solution? A small Clojure-based web app that let me write something and double/tripple post it to different places (Twitter, Facebook, my wiki). Maybe you need something similar?
– MathiasDahl 2009-12-01 22:57 UTC
I’ve always wanted to write a backup tool for my Flickr account as well. A backup tool for my Twitter conversations would make sense. I wonder what the backup, though. Just the stuff I write? The stuff I write plus the messages in threaded conversations?
– AlexSchroeder 2009-12-02 08:27 UTC
Well, I use xfce4-terminal because it’s much lighter than the gnome one (starts up faster), behaves the way I expect (including highlighting links and differentiating between no background and black background) and lets me set the default terminal size to something different than 80x25. Antialiased and hinted true-type fonts with full unicode support are a nice bonus.
– RadomirDopieralski 2009-12-04 18:18 UTC
I wrote a .Xmodmap file and use xmodmap .Xmodmap to read it. It contains the following:
keycode 61 = minus underscore endash emdash
But testing it with xev shows that using the Alt/Option key together with the minus key generates no symbol. When I press the Alt/Option key, I get a key press and release events for ISO__Level3_Shift. I was expecting it to work as a Mode_switch! Strangely enough, my “Apple Laptop” keyboard model with the “Switzerland German (Macintosh)” layout seem to work fine, otherwise. I can use Alt/Option to generate @ # [ ] | { } … « » and other characters.
It seems to me that Gnome is having an extra layer somewhere… But where? In the keyboard settings I specified “Any Alt key” as the “Key to choose 3rd level” – but that doesn’t seem to be Mode_switch.
Hm… xmodmap -pm prints the following:
xmodmap: up to 5 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses): shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lock Caps_Lock (0x42) control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69) mod1 Alt_L (0xcc) mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 mod4 Meta_L (0x85), Meta_R (0x86), Meta_L (0xcd), Super_L (0xce), Hyper_L (0xcf) mod5 ISO_Level3_Shift (0x40), ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c), Mode_switch (0xcb)
The Alt/Option key generates the keycode 64. xmodmap -pke | grep " 64 " shows:
keycode 64 = ISO_Level3_Shift NoSymbol ISO_Level3_Shift NoSymbol ISO_Level3_Shift
So pressing Alt/Option is ISO_Level3_Shift, which acts as a mod5. That’s cool, because then I can use it bind window manager events.
Hm, perhaps that’s the answer to my problem? Is there an existing binding for Alt minus that has no visible effect?
xmodmap -e "keycode 64 = Mode_switch" does what I want to the minus key, but undoes the “third level” for all other keys – eg. Alt 3 should result in #. So that didn’t work.
I finally found references to xkeyboard-config, the Synaptic package manager led me to xkb-data, and the file list of that package to /usr/share/X11/xkb – and some grepping finally led me to believe that the following change should do the trick:
alex@orientalibombus:/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols$ diff ch~ ch
39c39
< key <AB10> { [ minus, underscore ] };
---
> key <AB10> { [ minus, underscore, endash, emdash ] };But alas, no luck! Confused, I decided to remove the ~/.Xmodmap file I had created above, logout, login – and I was rewarded with a strange result: Alt minus results in the soft hyphen and Shift Alt minus results in the em dash! How did the endash get converted into a soft hyphen?
I spotted a different and decided to make a different change:
alex@orientalibombus:/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols$ diff ch~ ch
188c188
< key <AB10> { [ minus, underscore, hyphen, emdash ]};
---
> key <AB10> { [ minus, underscore, endash, emdash ]};And now it works as expected! 
I have no idea how to make this change user-specific. Apparently the hyphen just didn’t work at all? I wonder why changing the “basic” layout activated the soft hyphen? Questions, questions. I feel like reporting a bug.
Tags: Ubuntu 
I have an USB webcam by Logitech called Logicool. lsusb reports Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:08ae Logitech, Inc. QuickCam for Notebooks. Googling around gave me the impression that I had try either export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so or export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so before starting an application like cheese, ekiga, etc.
Too bad nothing worked. 
What: True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
When: November 25, 19:30 @ Cafe Schober, Napfgasse 4, 8001 Zürich.
Wikipedia: True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey.
Supporters: Nanda, Chrissie, Robert, Valpuri, Silke, Alex.
Tags: BookClub 
I am very much a believer in “let the dice fall where they may.” Its way more interesting when things go wrong in a game then when they always go right. The dice are the “chance”, and without chance there is no game.
– John L. Williams 2009-11-01 23:30 UTC
I applaud your commitment to true randomness, but man it can be so hard to lose a much loved PC. It’s all part of the game though!
– MisterEcho 2009-11-02 17:59 UTC
Yeah, this goes hand in hand with my reluctance to invest much in characters – they have backgrounds created on the fly. Anything I loose with a characters, I have already enjoyed at the table. No big loss. I’m not saving the cool stuff for later. (But loosing a character still hurts… It has to, if this is going to be a tragic loss, hehe!)
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-02 23:03 UTC
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