Posts by nickwedig@dice.camp
(DIR) Post #9vieplBAIqLyjdNSfA by nickwedig@dice.camp
2020-06-03T20:21:09Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
My game and many others appear in this bundle of games raising money for bail funds for protesters. Because we all need to support the fight for racial equality however we can.There are several levels of donation, you can donate whatever you can afford.https://itch.io/b/516/indie-games-for-bail-funds
(DIR) Post #9wf3gWByhvgp11f5pg by nickwedig@dice.camp
2020-07-01T12:54:36Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Did you ever play SimCity, the version where you could use a cheat code to deliberately trigger various disasters? And then you'd trigger every disaster in the game, all at once, just to see the little Sim people panic?2020 is making me understand how those Sim people felt.
(DIR) Post #9wfK9AnsuJscLQ4tNo by nickwedig@dice.camp
2020-06-29T13:53:58Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
So say that when the US was testing nuclear bombs just outside Las Vegas, something went wrong and a bomb ripped an interdimensional hole in reality. On the other side of the hole was another reality. Weird supernatural creatures poured forth and destroyed the city.The military was eventually able to cordon off the city and (mostly) contain these threats. But the area near the portal is now full of unpredictable magical effects.
(DIR) Post #AIFFAFxPG2UEJuziRE by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-04-08T14:14:23Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Game design is the art of analogy. “This die is your Courage” you say. “These points are your life.” “When you discover a terrible truth, draw one card.”It is about making an imaginary connection between the thing in the real world and a thing in the fictional world.
(DIR) Post #AJIO9Y65dELyoNLicK by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-05-10T02:48:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Clifford The best TMNT series is the Transdimensional TMNT supplement for the TMNT and Other Strangeness RPG.
(DIR) Post #AJJ8v5aLXOL2At6mkS by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-05-10T11:32:07Z
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@Clifford It has all sorts of weird things in there, from time lord magic to rules for being a mutant dinosaur to a complete timeline of the next few thousand years of future history.
(DIR) Post #AJv7pvXGA234qRjHA8 by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-05-28T02:49:20Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Tonight's session of a science fiction ttrpg got so derailed by questions of kangaroo gestation that we had to phone an actual biologist to get some answers.
(DIR) Post #AMM5gXpcVqPSgoNKbI by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-08-09T14:51:45Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
It's definitely a little weird how player pianos (the kind you'd find in the corner of a saloon in a cowboy movie) are the cause of so much of modern copyright law being the way it is.
(DIR) Post #AMV2e5jNT5vnWAEWhc by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-08-09T15:31:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ifixcoinops I assumed everyone was already aware of this fact, and I was just making a casual observation about something obvious.
(DIR) Post #AMV2e6eS2taKNAw6fA by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-08-09T15:57:03Z
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@ifixcoinops The key fact here is that the player piano was basically the first really important and prominent way you could record music. Before that you could distribute sheet music, but that still required a skilled musician to play. With player pianos, you could encode a song on a scroll of paper and then reproduce that anywhere that had a compatible piano, no musician needed.
(DIR) Post #AMV2e75kPPQ3jphuD2 by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-08-09T16:02:12Z
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@ifixcoinops That causes problems for the musicians of the time. Is a player piano roll treated as a copyrightable piece of information like sheet music, or is it treated like the spindle of a music box (not copyrighted, just a piece of the machinery)?In 1908, the Supreme Court decides a case that says piano rolls are not copies of the music but part of the piano's machinery.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-Smith_Music_Publishing_Co._v._Apollo_Co.
(DIR) Post #AMV2e7UutpYIztU0RM by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-08-09T16:05:13Z
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@ifixcoinops This ruling is so unpopular that Congress completely overhauls American copyright law in response, releasing the 1909 Copyright Act.This has a lot of effects on how stuff works, and still underlies current laws.One effect is that it puts in a mandatory licensing clause: anyone can release a recording of your music without your permission, just by following a simple procedure. This is why cover songs exist. That's one big effect of all this.
(DIR) Post #AMV2e7unLcFiI9afmC by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-08-09T16:08:19Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@ifixcoinops The other big effect is computer software being copyrightable. In the 1970s, no one knew if computer code could be copyrighted, but in the 1980s that became an issue. The courts looked back at the player piano situation: a player piano roll isn't that different than punch cards for a computer, a set of instructions for a machine to follow. And if a player piano roll falls under the 1909 copyright law, so does computer code.So all software licensing also comes out of player pianos.
(DIR) Post #APCm6T4d4tO2Y5ITlg by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-11-02T13:24:05Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
People think being a billionaire means you're an expert with money, but it's almost exactly the opposite. Being a billionaire means that you have no idea how money works. It means that you have functionally infinite money, which means you never have to face the everyday choices people have to make about money and value. "Is this purchase worth the price?" is a meaningless question to a billionaire, because spending any amount of money within human comprehension is basically the same to you.
(DIR) Post #APsq6i52EYCrRxcdGa by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-11-22T15:26:53Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
When designing your game, you want some visual icons for important statistics. Hit points are easy (hearts) and attack and defense are sword and shield, respectively. Gold is simply symbolized by coins. But what of Experience Points? You can't just use the letters XP. You need a visual, symbolic representation. And finally we have one:A potato.https://www.improbableisland.com/potato.php
(DIR) Post #AQ9c8Ar2dp7NJJCQnA by nickwedig@dice.camp
2022-11-30T12:55:36Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Oh cool, Fritz Lang's Metropolis enters the public domain in January.Wait, wasn't Metropolis already in the public domain? Isn't that why it shows up in Muppet Babies and that Giorgio Moroder recut with Pat Benatar and Freddie Mercury?Yes, but then it was forcibly taken back *out* of the public domain.https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2016/10/19/copyright-and-metropolis/amp/
(DIR) Post #AT2nvBoBQ3dDj0gPBY by nickwedig@dice.camp
2023-02-25T15:53:59Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The thing no one tells you is that you can just make up your own holidays. Nobody can stop you.And if you keep practicing it every year, it will become part of your family's microculture and become just as emotionally meaningful to you as any holiday practiced by the larger culture.
(DIR) Post #AY8jxVvBFj7t4hbawS by nickwedig@dice.camp
2023-07-28T01:33:10Z
11 likes, 9 repeats
Everyone: Let's use this worldwide communication network to download all the movies and TV show we could ever want. Hollywood Execs: But that would be piracy!Everyone: So what?Hollywood: If you pirate these movies, the people that make them won't get paid for doing so.Everyone: So if we get the movies through you, they will get paid?Hollywood: Hollywood: I never said that.
(DIR) Post #AjrGDym5CxqtDcBfXs by nickwedig@dice.camp
2024-07-12T15:02:40Z
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I'm thinking about a game where you cast a bunch of small objects like runestones, then interpret where they land like an oracle. And you use a bunch of different little items: coins, old keys, shiny rocks, seashells, etc. What are some other small objects that could be used in this way? What is a good size to throw like dice and then interesting to interpret? What feels symbolically meaningful?
(DIR) Post #AypqZjRG5gOXk7M276 by nickwedig@dice.camp
2025-10-01T18:23:08Z
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For some reason, I spent my lunchbreak for a few weeks making this comic, which illustrates the lyrics to a They Might Be Giants song using some recognizable superheroes.https://nickwedig.itch.io/youre-on-fire