Mark Damon Hughes: Role-Playing Games

Game Reviews

"You may have realized that I'm not showing much restraint here. Initially I was worried about this, but then I realized that: (1) According to Wick there is no such thing as an objective review. (2) He was going to be "pissed off" about a negative "slam"/review no matter what it said. I'd feel sorry that I was causing him so much mental anguish, but if he'd stop putting together diatribes like this then it wouldn't be necessary for others to tear them to pieces."
-Justin Bacon, Review of The Official John Wick Review Policy, RPGnet

"Good lord, Wick, what's wrong with you?"
-Derek Guder, replying to Yet Another John Wick Moment in Derek Guder's review of Orkworld

Game Designers and Other People

"Hmm, looks like we've caused another Developer to become sarcastic and bitter. What's our score now, three out of six? :)"
-mirober@lascruces.com
"On the contrary. I was like this loooooong before coming to White Wolf. Just ask my friends back home. -- Oh, wait. Didn't have any friends. Never mind..."
-Andrew Bates (abates@white-wolf.com)

Corporations

"Publishing an RPG is simply a matter of having more money than sense. Publishing a novel with any success means convincing someone else to publish it for you, which is far harder."
-Carl Cravens on RPG.net

"Some day, perhaps, we'll be able to go right to the workable version of the game before it gets a price tag and a UPC symbol. Some day."
-Kenneth Hite, Out of the Box 9/29/99

Humor

"So, I want to use aerobics as my combat skill. Can I do that?"
-Lena Sorenson

When I was a young sprout of a gamer, the first thing you read in each new Dragon was the comics pages at the back, because they had What's New (by Phil Foglio) and Wormy (by Dave Trampier), two of the greatest comic strips ever written.

These days, I read Knights of the Dinner Table, "Dilbert" for RPGs.

Absurd Notions

game reviewing, AN style

Campaign for the Rehabilitation of the Ontologically Challenged

The CLUE Foundation casefiles - true stories of really stupid Shadowrun players.

Dork Tower

Joe Genero archive

Hand Axe - Oh mein Gott! Ich habe eine Axt im Kopf!

Hybrid RPG by C++ If you google for author "C++" or "Hybrid" in rec.games.frp.*, you'll find out what this is about.

"The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters" and other weird stories by Roger M. Wilcox

Pokemon-Danger!, Christian hate-hysteria about Pokemon, D+D, and other "role-playing" games (obligatory atheist humor: Because like all theists, they can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.)

Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies, and Munchkins

Five Types of Gamers

GameForge: RPG Jokes

Murphy's Rules Comics

More Murphies

Niilo Paasivirta: [Roleplaying] [Satanic Roleplaying]

The Official World Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide (Vampire LARP players use this site a lot)

Shit happens in RPGs

Synnibarr Home Page (the site appears - thankfully - to be down at present)

Synnibarr, what can be said about it? Not the worst game ever made, but DAMNED close. A fetid, nauseating, wretched train-wreck horror of a game, ruining a great premise. Still, you've got to laugh, especially if you read this alleged game.

"I just bought a copy for $10 last night. I thought it was pretty cool, until I started reading it. Eugh... ITS BAD. ITS WORSE THAN I THOUGHT. An excerpt:
"Never wish to be an Immortal or God, or your character will blow up."
I laughed, then I cryed, then my eyeballs bled profusely.
-Prankster God on RPG.net

Serendipity's Circle "hatchet job" review - removed at request of the author. Wouldn't you like to know what it said, that he was so scared by?

RPGnet review

A new RPGnet review!

A fanboy's RPGnet review, and the ensuing flamewar

"D&D sucks, Synnibarr rocks!" - but it's by Niilo Paasivirta, a known hoaxer. You can tell, anyway, because it's coherently-written. And English isn't even his native language!

Emerald Downs

The Mushroom Spires - yeah, we know what he was doing with those mushrooms.

Synnibarr Central

Tiger's Lair

The World of Synnibarr (adventures and broken image links)

xarr's World of Synnibarr

"Top ten new character classes for AD&D I hope to never see" and other stuff

You Might Be A Gamer If...

Utilities for the Overworked GM

"It's because of this that I do firmly believe that the GM is God, once play starts. I bow to no dice roll, no rule call and almost no player appeal. If the GM says you get hit by a speedboat and die, you do. Even if you rolled a 20. Even if you have the highest skill possible in dodge. Even in the middle ages. Even on dry land. And if the player argues, his next character gets hit by the second speedboat in the convoy. And yes, the GM has infinitely many speedboats at his command."
-Steve Darlington (sdarling@futureweb.com.au) on RPG.net
GM's: Read the article. Seriously.

"The more work you put into a campaign, the more satisfaction your players can derive from trashing it."
-editor of Critical Miss

"When a GM loses face in the eyes of his players he only has two options. 1. Admit defeat and congratulate the player on his cunning and excellent battle-of-wits, or 2. Roll massive amounts of dice for no apparent reason and pretend to be carefully recording the results. And as Gary Jackson points out in his book, "No self respecting GM would pick the first option". Yep, that's the first rule I learned, there's nothing a handful of twenty-siders can't solve."
-B.A. Felton, Knights of the Dinner Table, Shadis #21/Tales From The Vault

Players' Code of Conduct
Drafted by the HackMaster Players' Association, June 5th, 1981
Ratified by the H.M.P.A. Local 254 (Muncie), March 21st 1983

The Game Must Go On!
The GameMaster is ALWAYS RIGHT!
The Game Table is neutral territory. (As are Game Conventions and Game Shops.) [Amended Aug 12, 1997]
A player shall not look behind the GameMaster's screen or look at his or her notes.
All information on a player's character sheet shall be accurate and truthful.
A player shall not lay down dice and character sheet with more than one GameMaster without their prime GM's prior approval and knowledge. [Amended July 3, 1982, December 8, 1989, May 15, 1992]
A player shall not cheat and will report those who do to their GameMaster immediately.
A player shall take responsibility for their own actions and/or behavior when deemed inappropriate by others and shall not attribute them to HackMaster, roleplaying in general, or to Hard Eight Enterprises.
A player shall not covet or touch fellow players' dice and/or any other random number generating devices. (including electronic dice, chits, designated coins, and personal spinners.) [Amended XXX 3, 1993]
A player shall not distribute photocopied or electronically scanned HackMaster products to other players.

Last modified: 2002Dec01
Nicotene Girls

+-My Software Gallery
+-Twitter/mdhughes
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iPhone Games:
+-Castles: Turn-based wargame for the iPhone!
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Computer Games:
+-Perilar: Adventures in the Dragon Kingdoms.
+-Hephaestus: Computer RPG construction kit.
+-GameScroll: Simple interactive fiction authoring.
+-Aiee!: "An Interactive Environment Engine" text adventure system.
+-Umbra: Post-apocalpytic computer RPG.
+-
Utilities:
+-JICB: Portable ICB client written in Java.
+-ThoughtPad: A tiny note-taking utility.
+-

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Don Knuth is Wrong, Alas in Software on Sat, 2008Apr26 12:41:53 PDT
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Non-Blocking User Interface in Mac on Sun, 2008Apr13 19:57:36 PDT
Fitna in Religion on Sat, 2008Mar29 05:37:17 PDT
Twatting about on Twitter in Web on Sun, 2008Mar23 17:20:30 PDT
Cocoa APIs Which Inexplicably Do Not Exist in Cocoa on Thu, 2008Mar13 08:10:12 PDT
On Being a Snob in Mac on Sun, 2008Mar09 19:51:39 PDT
Mr IEBlogger, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! in Web on Mon, 2008Mar03 23:18:37 PST
Cocoa APIs That Suck Goat Ass in Cocoa on Mon, 2008Feb25 19:08:45 PST
New Cocoa APIs That Saved My Life (at least a few hours of it) in Cocoa on Sat, 2008Feb23 05:56:30 PST
Night 2 of the MacBook Air Era in Mac on Mon, 2008Feb18 23:56:30 PST
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Cloverfield Should be Lost in Media on Mon, 2008Jan21 10:10:43 PST
MacBook Air in Mac on Wed, 2008Jan16 11:47:50 PST
Twitter Collapses in the Face of Apple and Other Natural Disasters in Software on Tue, 2008Jan15 16:11:14 PST
Ruby Riding the Rails as a Filthy Hobo in Software on Mon, 2008Jan07 08:00:00 PST
Rob Enderle Drinks Too Much Eggnog in Media on Sun, 2007Dec30 00:02:21 PST
Java 6 for Mac OS X Leopard! in Mac on Wed, 2007Dec19 18:08:48 PST
Human Engineering in Software on Fri, 2007Dec07 09:10:11 PST
Throw More Kindling on the Fire in Toys on Thu, 2007Nov22 04:11:10 PST
Amazon's Kindling, or, "Burn Before Reading" in Toys on Wed, 2007Nov21 14:35:39 PST
User Interface Design in Software on Mon, 2007Nov12 20:07:15 PST
"Avast ye! Do ye want to be my friend?", or, "The Lonely Pirate" in Roleplaying on Sun, 2007Nov11 19:20:19 PST
Skype Sucks on Leopard in Mac on Mon, 2007Nov05 08:25:30 PST
iChat Screen Sharing in Mac on Thu, 2007Nov01 15:08:10 PDT
John Siracusa has a few things to say about Leopard... in Mac on Tue, 2007Oct30 13:27:30 PDT
Mark Has a Leopard in Mac on Tue, 2007Oct30 13:12:06 PDT
A Short Conversation While Waiting for the Mothership in Mac on Thu, 2007Oct25 13:39:53 PDT
Cocoa logging in Cocoa on Sat, 2007Sep01 16:06:11 PDT
The GNUtards Must Be Crazy in Software on Mon, 2007Aug06 02:06:29 PDT
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Stuck in the IDEA Quagmire in Software on Fri, 2007Jul13 10:24:21 PDT
Trying IDEA out of desperation in Software on Wed, 2007Jul11 19:38:40 PDT
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Software Gallery in Software on Mon, 2007Jul02 09:50:04 PDT
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WWDC 2007, Part 2 in Mac on Sun, 2007Jun17 13:45:48 PDT
WWDC 2007, Part 1 in Mac on Sat, 2007Jun16 22:15:34 PDT
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Java Code Style in Software on Wed, 2007Jun06 10:38:49 PDT
Checked Exceptions in Java in Software on Fri, 2007Jun01 13:37:15 PDT
Very Special Episode of Studio 60 in Media on Fri, 2007Jun01 01:15:01 PDT
RSS feed in Web on Mon, 2007May28 19:27:24 PDT
The Vicious Cycle of Game Development in Software on Mon, 2007May28 00:49:21 PDT
NULL, nil, None in Cocoa on Sun, 2007May27 09:37:34 PDT
Chaucerian fraud Jerry Falwell is dead and rotting in the ground. in Religion on Thu, 2007May17 17:11:13 PDT
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