Steal, if you must. But steal smart. And bear in mind that the benchmark for smarts is very high. This is a long post - Read the rest.

Wahoo!

Star and Myrna and I had a lovely night out together yesterday. We went to see Born Into Brothels, which was fascinating, then supper & BP's.

At BP's I had Brian talk to me about a game he and Levi had been talking about, and (after cringing at some of the things he was talking about doing therein) got to give him the lowdown on why conflict resolution is good, and developed with him (actually, mostly at him) a variant on Dogs in the Vineyard's core mechanic adapted for LARP play involving assorted spirits and figures from myth. And it not only sounds workable, but has some neat elegances to it which come from the adaptation. For instance, in place of dice the instruction to players is likely to be "Bring a deck of playing cards for yourself. Build it however you like, so long as it includes one complete suit and is at least X cards. You could fill the rest with assorted copies of the eight of clubs if you really want." Neat stuff. I'll be trying to write that up for Brian at some point soon.

Then, I get not one but two scrumptious new RPGs within the last nine hours or so. Huzzah! First, last night when we got home from a lovely night out (), I got to unwrap my shiny new copy of Primetime Adventures. Yum. Not a game I'd have bought on my own, from the cover blurb... but one which people I highly respect have done absolutely amazing things with, containing some nuggets of serious genius.

Then this morning Ben Lehmann sent me a sparkly copy of the new edition of Polaris, which is marked, Rough Draft Just Especially for Eric. Apr 16/05. If you aren’t Eric Finley, why are you reading this? I mean, maybe you’re in his group. Thanks, Ben! I'll treasure this. Any of the Friday crew who may read this in the course of their blog-reading today, I'm running this tonight come hell or high water. If you want in, call it. Spots are limited. This is a long post - Read the rest.

Wow.

I have a huge - huge - list of links to post here. All sorts of fascinating things, in all sorts of areas. Honestly it's into the point where the sheer size of the fascinating stuff is itself slowing down my attempts to post it here... but for now I choose to be stubborn about trying to actually get the whole shebang up as a kind of smorgasbord of brain food.

However, today I found something so clearly, intelligently, and beautifully written that I'm choosing to post it by itself, immediately. The title of the piece is For a Moratorium on the Application of Sharia in the Muslim World, by Tariq Ramadan.

It's a very complex question, one which becomes moreso even as our neighbours to the south slide it toward oversimplification. It's a question of significant interest in Canada as well, as we experiment with the idea of consensual legal subsystems - an experiment which IMO has ramifications which run far, far beyond its applications to one or two religious groups. And it's one which might open the doors to the enlightened, reinterpreted Islam near the end of The Years of Rice and Salt... which could be a powerful force for world harmony, in a world where we badly need one.

I wholly support Tariq's proposal. Ignore all questions of application, for now. I, at least, do not actually know where the common people of the affected countries would truly stand if given the choice - especially if they could do so in a way which was still seen as consistent with practising their faith. Focus only on the promise, the intelligent optimism, the potential for beauty which is itself beautiful. It's got me smiling still. This is a long post - Read the rest.