current events

Breaking News: D&D continues support of Open Gaming License (OGL 1.0), releases their core rules SRD under Creative Commons

January 27, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

Huge news breaking in the past hour: In a totally shocking reversal, D&D and its parent companies Wizard of the Coast and Hasbro have abandoned plans for a restrictive update to the Open Gaming License (OGL) that would revoke the existing OGL v1.0. Even more shocking, they have released their “System Reference Document” for free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License!

Image by ScalyDragon from Pixabay

I first wrote about these changes and the depressing effect they have on TTRPG creators and players alike a few weeks ago.

The OGL v1.0 is the license that allows 3rd-Party creators to publish products that use the rules and core concepts of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

Now, D&D has gone beyond re-affirming their support for that license by offering free and irrevocable access to their entire 5th edition core ruleset – called the System Reference Document (SRD) under Creative Commons.

The now freely-available information not only includes rules of play, but standard spells, and classic D&D monster state blocks. You can access the massive 400+ page document here.

This is a massive shift, not only compared to the proposed restrictive OGL v1.2, but compared to what anyone imagined was possible a few months ago.

In the words of D&D executive producer Kyle Brink from his announcement post:

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don’t control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It’s open and irrevocable in a way that doesn’t require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there’s no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There’s no going back.

Our goal here is to deliver on what you wanted.

Of course, many 3rd Party producers have already announced creating their own open gaming platforms, like Paizo and Kobold Press. However, D&D has undercut those plans by making the 5e rules available in Creative Commons in perpetuity. That changes the playing field for smaller creators, who can continue to create content that will sell to 5e fans with total security.

Gizmodo has more context on this breaking news story.

A Surprise Farewell to Prime Minister Ardern

January 19, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

I was head down all day today burning through work work and comic guide work without loading a single website or social network, which allowed for the comparatively occurrence of E sharing breaking news with me (rather than the other way around).

“Have you seen the news?” she asked as we all sat around the table after finishing dinner. Her tone of voice was portentous.

My mind raced. We don’t follows news on sports or royals, nor are we all that mindful of celebrities and influences. E certainly wasn’t bringing me any fresh developments from the world of drag or the Marvel United Kickstarter.

I loaded the Washington Post homepage, fearing the worst – more gun violence in the states, or a bad political development. There was nothing apparent “above the fold.”

“No, what am I looking for?”

I saw it just as she said it. It was the next story that appeared as I started scrolling down the page:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigns ahead of election

(For my American readers: the simplest explanation of a Prime Minister is that they work a lot like the Speaker of the House. The party or parties who control the government nominate one of their own who was elected as a regular representative to be the head of their party, which also makes them the head of government. The people have no control whatsoever – which, come to think of it, isn’t such a bad thing.)

I have mixed feelings on this news. [Read more…] about A Surprise Farewell to Prime Minister Ardern

the early bird gets the eggs

January 9, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

Today I woke up at 6:55am, laced up my running shoes, and walked to the supermarket because it was 6:55am and I was definitely not jogging at that hour.

Why? Because New Zealand has run out of eggs. We are officially in a national egg shortage. It’s an ovo-crisis!

I mean, New Zealand has some eggs. Personally, we’ve got about 23. But there are not enough eggs. Few enough eggs that it has become common over the past month to visit the grocery store to see an entire bank of egg shelves picked entirely clean, which didn’t even occur during the height of our lockdowns.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Yes, people are even buying that one last carton in the corner with the cracked egg in it.

Apparently one measures these things not in terms of eggs but in terms of laying hens. Literally, the chicken came first, in this scenario. I have learned from the prestigiously-titled Stuff that we currently have 3.5 million egg laying hens (a 68% hen-to-people ratio), but we ought to have 3.8m egg laying hens (a 74% hen-to-people ratio). Those hens (and their predecessors, I suppose) laid about 92 million eggs in the year ending in June 2022, down an apparently staggering amount from 101.2m in the prior egg-laying calendar year.

Long story short, today I learned you need three hens for every four people.

The thing is: it’s not like New Zealand just found a whole lot more people. Even if we count tourism, we don’t have as many people in our borders as we did back in 2019, and there hasn’t been any chicken-specific diseases (that I’ve heard about, anyhow – and, we do have a line into the chicken community).

How did New Zealand run out of eggs?

To the best of my understanding, we actually ran out of eggs 10 years ago and just didn’t realize it until last week. [Read more…] about the early bird gets the eggs

35-for-35: 2001 – “Subdivision” by Ani DiFranco

November 19, 2016 by krisis

My second-favorite shot of Ani, shot by Danny Clinch.

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]As occasionally problematic and non-intersectional as Ani DiFranco can be, sometimes her willingness to just say stuff makes for compelling, provocative songs.

Case and point: her song “Subdivision” from 2001’s double-album Revelling/Reckoning, which starts with the line “White people are so scared of black people.”

Despite the bombshell opening line, “Subdivision” is not a song exclusively about racial divides, but about Ani’s beloved home town of Buffalo and her beloved country. Her city has seemingly been left behind by a march of modernity. Here, she wonders if that march is just about having the money and privilege to put more space between ourselves and our fears. Maybe if we’re far enough away we no longer have to confront them.

Except: when we’ve forgotten, buried, or sublimated all that we’ve been running away from, how will we know when it is stil driving our biases?

I had a sense of foreboding when I picked “Subdivision” as my song from 2001 as I prepared for this campaign last month. I’d be posting it just 10 days after the election. I wondered how its message would play in a post-election America, the same country we lived in the day before the election but potentially seen through a new lens. What would it say about a world where Hillary Clinton won the election? What about a world where Donald Trump won? Would it be equally true in both?

Now we know the outcome, and I ask that you simply listen and take from it whatever message you hear. That first line will always stand out for me, but in this redefined world it is teaching me something different than it was a few weeks ago.

Subdivision
by Ani DiFranco

White people are so scared of black people
They bulldoze out to the country
And put up houses on little loop-dee-loop streets
And while america gets its heart cut right out of its chest
The Berlin wall still runs down main street
Separating east side from west

And nothing is stirring, not even a mouse
In the boarded-up stores and the broken-down houses
So they hang colorful banners off all the street lamps
Just to prove they got no manners
No mercy and no sense

Live-Blogging The 1st Presidential Debate

September 26, 2016 by krisis

campaign-2016_758_426_81_s_c1 I’m live-blogging the debate tonight in the same format I have in the past – assigning values as we go.

On main questions, candidates will split 7 points.

On specific rebuttals, candidates compete for their own total of 3 points in individual rebuttals.

On crosstalk, I will award up to 5 points to either candidate I see fit.

“Achieve Prosperity”

“Two economic realities” – record job growth and income growth, but income inequality is significant.

Clinton: Pivots into an opening speech, invokes her granddaughter’s birthday. “Invest in you – invest in your future. Jobs in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing,” technology. Also wants to raise minimum wage, guarantee equal pay for women, introduce profit sharing, supporting people struggling to balance family and work. “Difficult choices you face and stresses you’re under,” hits family leave, sick days, asks the wealthy to pay their share. Says, “Donald, it’s good to be with you.” “Who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibilities of the presidency?”

Points: 4 of 7. The typical big plan you hear from a president, but it’s credible.

Trump: “Our jobs are fleeing the country. They are going to Mexico and to many other countries. Look at what China is doing to our country – [?] our product and devaluing their currency … they’re using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China and many other countries.” Mexico building some of the best plants, some of the “the most sophisticated plants.” “As far as childcare and so many other things, I think Hillary and I agree on that … but we have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us, our companies leaving the United States and” firing everyone. I’ll be “reducing taxes tremendously … for small and big businesses.”

Points: 3 of 7. Trump gave a terrific recap, but he seems focused on an old style of economy that’s focused on industry that we might not even have anymore.

Clinton rebuttal: “I think trade is an important issue, we’re 5% of the world’s population and we have to trade with the other 95%.” Immediately chases his tax plan, “trickle down economics all over again.” Calls it “Trumped up trickle down,” almost gets a reaction from Trump. Hits hard, “the more you help wealthy people … the better off people will be.”

Points: 3 of 3. Could not have been better or more effective to rebut Trump.

Trump, on creating 25 million jobs and “brining back the industries that have left this country.”

Trump rebuttal: “My father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that is worth billions and billions of dollars” and some of the biggest? best? assets all over the world. “We have to renegotiate our trade deals.”

Points: 1 of 3. He already seems a little rattled and imbalanced. He tries to say that Clinton should have been “doing this for years” in terms of fixing bad trade deals, but it’s not connected to any kind of answer. Also, he’s got to blow his nose (or bump some cocaine, not sure.) Holt needs to interrupt him to try to get him on track. He’s rambling crazily now. [Read more…] about Live-Blogging The 1st Presidential Debate