assault

An interesting thing about it was that Phi McGregor was a co-author. He is one of a relatively few published Australian RPG designers, and one of the first, or possibly even the first, not counting magazine articles.

I've still got my Holmes set, more or less complete. I'm very fond of the dice, even though they are a bit worn. The rules are quite playable, although I would house rule the number of weapon attacks. I'd use the original three books, plus Greyhawk, for levels above 3.

Supposedly, a couple of my great-uncles ran a "man eating fish" variant of the scam back in the Depression. Unrelated to that, before that part of the family came to Australia, great-great...-aunt Auguste was a "fat lady" in a circus. I'm rather proud of coming from a family of grifters and circus freaks.

Its fans are hobbyists. Its owners are corporate vampires. Their interests are not the same. Other games (usually) aren't big enough to attract the vampires, and (usually) remain within the (semi-)hobbyist space. Thought experiment: imagine an RPG designed to be played by billionaires and general Rich Kids.

Australian voters pull a Canada. Trumpism "wins" again. How Labor carved a path to landslide victory

I don't recall ever having been in a session zero.

Donald Trump places tariffs on uninhabited islands off coast of Antarctica

Syria is going to get messy before things get better. Too many conflicting agendas and factions, both internal and external. One thing that we can count on: no faction loves Israel.

I can do better. What if Musk bought Hero Games? With his money behind it, Hero could become a Big Thing. Wouldn't that be "awesome"?

Very high level. Lots of ways to bump up characteristics. My high level thief ended up with 21 Dex.

Pretty much. There's them, there's us, there's the people who haven't already signed up for one side or another. And then there's Conan, who ultimately opposes Chaos despite being a terrible human being in his own right. (Pirate, bandit, thief...)

I like Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic alignment, loosely defined as "which side are you on?" It fits the source material, and if players start waffling, their characters are Neutral.

That would be unethical, and a major heresy.

That's a profound oversimplification of what Chavez was trying to do. It's not so bad when it comes to what Chavez achieved. Aside from health, education and housing, the money from Venezuela's oil was meant to go towards building a more diverse economy. Unfortunately a country we won't name decided to apply economic sanctions to sabotage that. It's a problem when a country's economy is based on a single commodity. They tend to become banana republics, and there are always outside forces that want them to stay that way. Chavez tried to break Venezuela out of that by making alliances with other Latin American countries, but he failed. Maduro is the figurehead of the more conservative wing of his movement that doesn't care so much. Basically, Maduro is happy to rule a banana republic, and doesn't care about housing, education and healthcare for poor people, although he likes it when they vote for him. But they don't as much anymore, so... The main opposition to Maduro at the moment are people that are also happy for Venezuela to be a banana republic, but one that the US is OK with, and in which there is no chance of someone like Chavez ever getting near power again. Source: people that lived in Venezuela, and who wrote books about it. Plus my rejection of radical tourists, oh my!

While I stand by my previous list, here's one to annoy a certain kind of fan... Chameleon Boy Lightning Lass Shrinking Violet Invisible Kid (Jacques) Quislet Tellus Blok