Linnaeus

Archive for the ‘miscellany’ Category

Race for the Galaxy Strategy – A Couple Prefatory Notes

In boardgames, miscellany, race for the galaxy, strategy advice on January 20th, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Just a couple of bits of  info about how I’m approaching this series. Read the rest of this entry »

Race for the Galaxy Strategy Update – the Current Shape of My Head

In boardgames, miscellany, strategy advice, race for the galaxy on January 13th, 2009 at 2:38 pm

Click on the picture to see my current mind map full size.

The current shape of my brain concerning RftG strategy

The current shape of my brain concerning RftG strategy

[grin]

In boardgames, miscellany on January 17th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

I just happened to take a look at the all-time views data for my review of the card game Ninety-Nine.

As of this writing, it has been viewed 99 times.

That is all.

[/grin]

My Perfect Geeky Christmas List

In boardgames, miscellany, role-playing games on December 24th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

A nice idea that I’ve stolen from The Chatty DM

  • 4th Edition D&D is as good as it looks like from the previews I’ve seen so far (and they fix the geeky names for spells, monsters and feats)
  • A chance to play my copy of Die Mächer (which I bought over a year ago) with four other eager newbies in a location devoid of disturbances and distractions.
  • A copy of Agricola
  • A chance to play some story games with some regularity
  • Gamers—especially those prone to posting frequently to forums—start understanding that people who dislike their favourite games, and vice versa, are not evil or stupid
  • The gumption to finally finish my series on Interrogating Your NPCs and Elegance, to say nothing of posting more regularly overall
  • All of my gaming friends, face-to-face and online, have a great year of gaming

Merry Christmas everyone!

A Couple Small BHAC Updates

In miscellany, role-playing games on March 14th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

Just a couple of follow on bits about BHACs.

First, Martin Ralya of Treasure Tables fame was nice enough to mention BHACs over there. That has led to a couple hundred people checking out My Play, probably for the first time. There is a bit of discussion of the idea over there, so it may be worth checking out for the interested.

There was also a page about BHACs on the Treasure Tables GMing wiki, but Martin pulled it down due to plagiarism concerns. I may go create a new one at some point, but if anyone else feels like giving it a shot, be my guest. Feel free to quote from the original post, but try to avoid just reposting the whole thing over there.

Finally, I forgot to credit another, secondary inspiration for BHACs when I wrote about them the first time. John H. Kim‘s public musings about an idea he had for a D&D campaign called Dawn of Fire are very BHAC-y, and certainly helped get me thinking about the concept.

An Honour For My Play

In boardgames, miscellany on January 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 pm

Gone Gaming Award Runner-Up: Best Industry ArticleThe Cliche is that it’s an honour just to be nominated, and it really it. Nevertheless winning something is really nice too.

Gone Gaming named An Introduction to Elegance the second runner-up in the category Best Industry Article, behind the always great Chris Farrell‘s Here I Stand and Big Decks and the underappreciated (and sadly inactive) Mario Lanza‘s Fill in the Blank, about the geeky, but perrenial, topic of box inserts.

I am very proud, and honoured. Considering my failure so far to follow up as promised, I have to say that Introduction to Elegance must have been better than I thought to be considered worthy of consideration, let alone in actual contention. It was, to my thinking, the ugly step sister of the series, necessary to clear up a few points before moving on.

More motivation to get my nose back to the grindstone 🙂

Thank you to the Gone Gaming crew for honouring me so. I encourage my readers to check out all of the winners and runners-up.

Elegance — An Update

In elegance, miscellany on November 4th, 2006 at 2:15 pm

This post is to reassure those of you who are interested in my (alleged) series on elegance that, no, I have not abandoned it, and yes, I am actually working on part 2.

Unfortunately, part 2 is being a bit difficult. My first draft was unusually rough, even by my humble standards. Over the last couple of weeks I have been editing it, but it has been a bit of an uphill struggle. Right now I am wavering on the edge. On the one hand, it has already been well over two months since I posted part one, and people may justifiably be losing patience. I could just put up what I have now, which is complete but rather stilted reading, on Monday or Tuesday. On the other, the perfectionist in me doesn’t want to subject you to rather mediocre writing, especially in a post of this length. Getting a polished essay would mean a couple more weeks of editing, though, and possibly more if I decide to chuck what I have and start again from scratch.

So I ask you, my readers (all three of you :), which would you rather? See it now, but suffer through a rather rough essay, or continue waiting as long as it takes to get a good read, making due with other topics — I have stuff in the hopper that I think is interesting, but isn’t a major production number like this — in the meantime?

P.S. If you’re looking for some good writing about elegance to tide you over, may I suggest Jonathan Degann‘s The Well Constructed Game? I’ve been holding off reading it myself until after I finish up part 2 so that it doesn’t just ape Jonathan, but his stuff always comes highly recommended by me.

Linkrolls Courtesy of BlinkList

In miscellany on September 30th, 2006 at 2:10 pm

My Play now has a new feature.

BlinkList logoThrough the magic of WordPress widgets and the BlinkList social bookmarking service, There are now a pair of linkrolls in My Play’s sidebar, one for boardgaming links and one for RPG links.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technical Difficulties

In miscellany on September 3rd, 2006 at 11:02 pm

So my (wireless) keyboard crapped out a couple days ago. I haven’t quite given it up for dead yet, but it doesn’t look good.

My backup keyboard has a spacebar that you could break your thumb on without producing whitespace. I all but have to lean on it, which makes typing more than a couple of paragraphs a chore.

So My Play will be on temporary hiatus until I get a usable keyboard. At most, if this lasts too long, I may indulge in a little linkblogging to let you all know that I am still alive.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Parenthetically

In elegance, miscellany on August 15th, 2006 at 1:58 pm

A few thoughts parenthetically related to my just started series of articles on elegance, plus one item that’s not related to anything in particular. Read the rest of this entry »

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