randomwizard

Old wizard of randomness

Last Notes

2025-11-17 20:11:22 UTC

Something that bugs me about the "system" we live in, is how creators often get shafted. There is something that almost feels random about if a creator will get a reward or not.
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson got royalties on every product that was deemed D&D (the exact nature of that went to court but was then settled out of court). Eventually, their royalty agreement was bought out by WotC. But, still, they got rewarded for their work as it grew and more units were sold.
No such luck for Jim Ward. He created Metamorphosis Alpha and then Gamma World.
No such luck for Steve Winter or David Zeb Cook. They created Star Frontiers and many other games.
Once TSR was a company, and you were hired, you did not get royalties.
I am not sure what the solution is. And there will be many that say the system is just fine. They made a deal and got a salary.
But, still, it was rough to do a interview with Jim Ward, before he passed away, and to learn he was not doing great financially and had lots of medical bills.
And that story is not that uncommon in the RPG creator community. Many of the luminaries did not end up well, financially.
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2025-09-28 16:37:45 UTC

Next gripe about javascript.
The idiomatic way to create an array is
let something = [];
The idiomatic way to create an object is
let otherthing = {};
The idiomatic way to create a set
let myset = new Set();
The idiomatic way to create a map
let mymap = new Map();
AND
if you want to actually loop through the data in an object {}, you have to beware of prototype data that you never put in there, so you write
Object.entries(obj).forEach(([k,v]) => …)
or old school
for (const key in obj) {
if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(obj, key)) {
console.log(key, obj[key]);
}
}
#programming #javascript

2024-12-28 02:32:28 UTC

Seemed like, in the 80s, there was a profusion of games that consisted of having a detailed schematic of whatever you were fighting with (spaceship, car, robot) that had boxes for hit locations and damage and other effects.
A friend of mine back then was really into these games and I would play Car Wars, Battletech, Starfleet Battles with him infrequently. I would play D&D way way more than these war games.
For one, it took a long time to play out these battles, and if we did not finish it seems like we forgot what was going on and never got back to it.
I suspect all these games faded in popularity as computer games became more popular because the computer can handle all the meticulous calculations.
#rpg #startrek #carwars #wargames
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2024-11-30 21:22:38 UTC

I have been thinking back to old old early computer rpgs. They still have a lot to offer in ideas. I played and completed The Legend of Blacksilver way back in the 80s. I found a pdf of the manual that was included in the box. There were all these quirky illustrations inside that you might encounter in the adventure. Seems like good imagination inspiring fantasy rpg monster encounters.
#dnd #rpg #osr #crpg #RetroGaming #retrocomputing
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2024-11-27 01:30:43 UTC

I have been reading through the source code of Angband, NetHack, Dwarf Fortress, ZZT. Something they all have in common is they use the old character set; Code Page 437, and then rely on ANSI escape color codes. This is basically what ANSI artists were doing to make art in the 80s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437
#games #maps #RetroGaming
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2024-11-24 21:28:23 UTC

If you want to learn about ANSI and what was the art scene like in the 80s and 90s, part 5 of John Scott's excellent BBS The Documentary goes into the scene. (or pehaps you just want to take a trip down nostalgia lane).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t74FlFL_M0
#retrocomputing #art #ascii #ansi
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2024-11-24 18:24:09 UTC

I am pretty sure most people have heard of ascii art? Maybe not? But have you heard of ANSI art. It sort of faded away when the internet caught on. But in the late 80s, early 90s, there was a burgeoning scene of ANSI artists that you could find as logon screens to dial up BBS, or in the file sections of the BBS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art
The word ANSI gets re-used in a lot of different technology because it was the American National Institute Standards body that worked like the Unicode Consortium and/or World Wide Web Consortium but for early computer technology (60s, 70s, 80s).
ANSI art had its own file editors. I remember TheDraw! was the one used the most back in the day. Today, you can get some text editors to act a little bit like TheDraw by using "block editing mode" or sometimes called "column editing" but they do not (usually) have any concept of ANSI color codes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw
#art #computing #RetroGaming #retrocomputing #ansi #ascii
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2024-09-14 03:30:57 UTC

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I must admit that I am not well versed in crypto domains. But I thought .crypto and .zil were two that you bought one time and keep it for life?

2024-09-13 23:58:22 UTC

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Yeah. I looked at it a few years back. I think brave is the only browser that will make any of the crypto domains work without installing a plugin? Not sure now.

2024-09-13 23:21:52 UTC

Sometimes I ponder buying a crypto domain, just so I never have to pay a renewal fee again.
#dns #registrar #WebDev
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2024-09-03 16:41:54 UTC

In the group I play with, something I have noticed and pointed out a few times is that the player's are always saying things like "What if I put my sword on the altar?" Then everyone sits in silence. As a referee, I always have to say, "Are you waiting for me to respond? I can not tell you what will happen unless you put the sword on the altar."
So I point out. If you are asking questions of the group, you might need to prod them for answers. If you are asking questions of the referee, the question should be more actionable. I can not just give away information your character could not possibly know.
#dnd #osr #rpg