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Category: RPG
Fantasy Inspirations of My Youth
This is a good "why are you like this" challenge:
If I'd been called on to run a D&D campaign at age 10 or 12,
these are the images and plots I would have drawn on to
provide the inspiration for my game. […] What were your earliest
childhood fantasy inspirations? What did your fantasy world
look like back then?
—DIY and Dragons
I think these are roughly in order of age of discovery, publication date's often very different. I was… the word schools liked was "precocious", which just means I was years and years ahead of the curriculum designed for morons and they had no idea how to educate me, any more than an ape could educate a mere Human. The Tarzan problem. So I read and watched whatever I liked, and grew up weird. Giving me D&D and then Gamma World was just giving a junkie an endless needle.
Godzilla (1954): This is what dragons are like. Any kind of giant, dinosaur, or kaiju is a catastrophe you run from, not a "monster" you fight from horseback, those are just wyverns. I saw basically every monster movie and some sentai on KSTW-11, which only had budget for old movies and reruns.
Star Wars (1977), Splinter of the Mind's Eye, by Alan Dean Foster (1978), Empire Strikes Back (1980): High-tech but just fantasy activity; as I learned later, Star Wars is The Hidden Fortress with spaceships, many scenes are shot-for-shot remakes.
I'm trying to think what I learned from this, and I think it's that every alignment can be cool. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Leia are Chaos, and they're cool, tho if Leia wins she'll establish a tyrannical monarchy again which is no good. Han Solo is Neutral, and he's cooler than cool, and shoots first. Darth Vader is Order, choking out all dissension, and he's THE COOLEST. Luke and Grand Moff Tarkin suck, but you can't have everyone be cool or nobody is.
Figure out your antagonists' motives, take their affectations and crank them up to 11, and you have an EPIC hero or villain. Pity they never made any more Star Wars movies, I might've liked to see Revenge of the Jedi. I will take no email or comments to the contrary.
Bullfinch's Mythology: While now it's "oh that old thing", Bullfinch did a fantastic job of covering Greek/Roman (more Greek, but with Roman names; Roman syncretism mapped names to their gods but their practices were different), Norse, and Arthurian mythos, including a lot of the poetry and literature that referenced them in the 2000 years since. Academic mythology books are too concerned with period beliefs and not how those ideas are used in later works, so they're less gameable. The art in Bullfinch's is also fantastic.
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars, Tarzan of the Apes, Pellucidar: You know why everyone in fantasy worlds speaks Common? Because the Barsoomians have a common language by way of telepathy; Carter's telepathy's a little stronger than usual, so he can project it, but they all have it. The ruined cities, falling civilization, a hero trying to bring back glories, toppling false religions, it had it all. Tarzan's ruined cities and ancient civilizations hidden in the jungle were awesome, literally set much of my campaign style. Pellucidar was so weird and dream-like, I barely understood it, but a plausible way for dinosaurs, Humans, and evil Mahars to coexist was amazing, too. It's not a coincidence Eric J. Holmes, editor of Dungeons & Dragons Basic set, wrote a Pellucidar novel.
National Geographic: I had access to a big stack of old NatGeo from '40s to '70s. In particular, I devoured anything about Ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece, Mayans, & Aztecs. NatGeo of the time was astoundingly West-oriented and racist; I would've loved to know more about China, Japan, Korea, & India, but they were barely touched on. Africa was only ever presented as wilderness or savages, zero mention of modern cities. I have an eternal love of giant detailed maps from this time.
ElfQuest (1978): Very pretty, cutesy comics about cuddly little Wood Elves and their Wolf pets… Ha ha no, I lie, they're vicious, backstabbing, eternally horny/drunk little bastards, the Trolls (more like Dwarfs) are venal scumbags, Preservers (Fairies) are insane pests, High Elves are supernatural psychopath villains, and Humans are the dumbest, meanest animals on 2 legs. Here's how to throw all your dumb Tolkien racist shit out and have murderous Keebler Elves.
Michael Moorcock: The silver Elric books and bronze Count Brass books, I grabbed as soon as each new one came out, devoured them. Elric's world is full of weird mystical secrets you can grab hold of, bargain with, steal, and use. Horrible monsters and demons are summoned up by fool wizards for lust or revenge, and spread Chaos in the world. Hooray, Chaos! We see in the decayed post-apocalypse of Count Brass that Order is just as poisonous, and can't be recovered from. I didn't encounter Moorcock's weirder stuff like Jerry Cornelius until much later, presumably the local hillbilly bookstores didn't order them.
Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950): Literally my model of the megadungeon. The structure seems to go on forever, up and down, buried into the Earth. Strange structures poke out everywhere, mapping beyond the known halls is impossible. The inhabitants are mad. There's little/no magic or monsters in the books, but they feel like there's magic & monsters everywhere. Don't read past the 2nd book, I didn't as a yout' and much later I didn't like Titus Alone.
Katherine Kurtz, Deryni Rising (1970): Low fantasy proto-England with swordfights, witchcraft & ritual magic, treachery. The ongoing fetishization of monarchy and religion, and an "actual miracle", finally soured me on the series, but the early books made it clear these are Human (or Deryni) fabrications. The consistent, low-powered but useful "magic" (or psionics, or mutant powers) are a good way to model magic in games. The Deryni are High Elves who don't suck.
Gamma World (1978): The game that defined how I see role-playing games. Harsh, brutal, shockingly beautiful at times, erratic, full of impossible, anachronistic references. It's fun, it's not reality. Unspeakably deadly in most places, but two medieval dipshits having at each other with swords will take half an hour to whittle their HP down to nothing, and then the survivor will take months to heal; so you learn to cheat, to use poisons, artifacts, traps, tame monsters as pets, risk getting more mutations, so you can survive.
Robert Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Thieves World (1978): Absolutely should never have been given to an impressionable young Mark. Cruelty, treachery, black magic, and of course thievery in a corrupt hellhole end-of-the-Empire city called Sanctuary. Pretty much all my fantasy cities are a bit of Sanctuary.
A very similar influence I encountered later was Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser. But I didn't read those until late '80s.
Thundarr the Barbarian (1980): The most formative thing possible. Every frame of even the opening title is inspirational. Jack Kirby designed this, and it shows. A mix of Gamma World, magic, Burroughs-type ruins, superhuman heroes.
"In the year 1994, from outer space comes a runaway planet,
hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic
destruction! Man's civilization is cast in ruins! 2000 years
later, Earth is reborn, a strange new world rises from the
old, a world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery! But one
man bursts his bonds to fight for justice! With his companions
Ookla the Mok, and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his
courage, and his fabulous Sun Sword against the forces of evil!"
Clash of the Titans (1981): Ray Harryhausen's masterpiece. The monsters are amazing, the gods are meddling jerks but not the center of attention, more amazing monsters, the dumb-ass hero and chick yada yada another amazing monster! The myths I'd read so much about were filmed. Pity that Perseus & Andromeda are so much more wooden than the monsters. The gods do indeed play games with the lives of mortals.
Heavy Metal (1981): I'd seen maybe one issue of the magazine at this time, it was definitely not sold to minors. But somehow I got into the movie, and when it came out on tape I got it and rewatched endlessly. The Lock-Nar itself is irrelevant, the framing story is silly. But "Den of Neverwhere", "Taarna", and to some extent "Captain Stern" and "So Beautiful So Dangerous" ("wanna do some nyborg?") are all peak young Mark. "Harry Canyon" (ha) is great but I don't really do urban SF. I've never found any real use for "B-17".
Neil Hancock, Greyfax Grimwald (1982): What looks like a cute talking-animals and Dwarf book becomes something much deeper, as it turns into a sort of Buddhist Journey to the West-ish fantasy adventure. Collides fairy-world with real-world and actually made me think about what these worlds are. Not as gonzo as everything else here, probably the only thing with any philosophical merit.
Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982): Surreal, dream-like, horrifying imagery, a true Mythic Underworld dungeon, a crazy Warlock, a nigh-invincible Dragon. And then there's the game system, which was a perfect little marvel of design, Skill, Stamina, Luck, 2d6, that's all you need (for fighter/rogues in a dungeon crawl), one of the biggest influences on how I make my own games.
The Day After (1983): … 14 years later, there's a scene in The Fifth Element where Leeloo types "WAR" into the encyclopedia, and just breaks down screaming & crying on seeing what Humans do to each other. That was me.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?!" I asked, and keep asking, and they had no answers. And this is, like, an unreasonably optimistic scenario of nuclear war, because anyone gets to live long enough to wrap their dead family in plastic bags and worry about cancer, or looters eating fallout-poisoned food. So, growing up I had zero expectation that I'd live to see 2000, let alone another score of years after. Maybe we didn't, and this is a final dream.
If I'd known about Ralph Baksi's Wizards, it would fit right in, but I didn't see that until mid-to-late '80s.
I was already reading H. Beam Piper's books by '82, but I definitely didn't read Space Viking or Empire until late '80s, which are the ones that fit my ethos.
Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith (discovered thru X2 Castle Amber) were late '80s for sure. I know precisely that I read "At the Mountains of Madness" in 1986.
Raaka'tu, Zork, Ultima, Wizardry, and more computer games certainly influenced how I do videogames, but they didn't teach me much world-building.
The D&D and GW games I ran early on were very formulaic retreads of B1 In Search of the Unknown, B4 Lost City, or GW1 Legion of Gold modules. Later I learned to make more creative worlds, but they're still much the same framework & generated world madness.
I've probably never run a game which wasn't: A) Post-apocalypse, often centuries, millennia later; or B) Just pre-apocalypse, and there's nothing you can do about it but your actions are probably futile. Vast military horrors lurking on the edge of your vision.
I've rarely run anything with legitimate authorities above town headman who aren't dead, completely corrupted, or too distant to care. Instead the adventurers, usually venal thieves and bastards, are the only force strong enough to fight the worse guy "villains". I suppose some Call of Cthulhu, but I usually outfit the group for an expedition into weird lands, or they're trapped in some Old One or Fungi from Yuggoth laboratory or whatever. I had a "king" and court in a Dungeons & Zombies game, but the entire power structure was like 20 knights including our new recruit PCs, and the necromancers and alien gods raising millions of ravenous dead, and the chittering spidery goblins in the dark, had other ideas.
Usually my games start out looking like medieval, ancient, stone age, or sorta spacey fantasy, and you rapidly learn the world was once very different from that. You get into other lands, or old bases full of artifacts from the time before. You go into space, sometimes, and find the colony worlds have their own problems. But you still keep looting tombs/bases and building power, because you live in the world you've been left, not the peaceful one you want.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2021-04-06 2021-04-06 Categories dnd, GammaWorld, RPGTags dnd, GammaWorld, RPG
3d6 Six Times in Order
I was looking at my Gamma World 1E and GW1 Legion of Gold reprints from drivethrurpg — the first RPG I ever ran, and my one true love system, tho my old copy was destroyed by flooding decades ago — and discovered that even in 1978, the rot had set in, tho I ignored it then and now.
I speak, of course, of "more generous" systems for generating stats.
Character personae are created at the beginning of the campaign, endowed with certain basic attributes through the roll of dice. First, each player must choose to play either Pure Strain Human, humanoid, or mutated animal-type characters (the advantages and disadvantages of each of these three categories will be explained momentarily). Having selected the type of character he wishes to play, the player then rolls three six-sided dice to determine the relative strengths of each of his character's six basic attributes: mental strength, intelligence, dexterity, charisma, constitution, and physical strength. As a general rule, a roll of 3-8 for a given attribute indicates a weak trait, 9-12 is average, and 13-18 is above average. The relative strengths of certain attributes can (and most likely will) change during the course of the campaign, due to mutation, acquired experience, or some other method devised by the referee.
It is desirable that few, if any, of a player character's basic attributes be below average. Player characters represent an elite with the desire, the initiative, and the ability to venture outside the boundaries of the village, town, or tribal lands. They are the pioneers, explorers, and tamers of the vast wilderness. It is they who will eventually bring order to the chaos of GAMMA WORLD and an end to the Black Years. To increase the player's chances of rolling up an exceptional character, the referee will find it advisable to use the following method: for each basic attribute, the player rolls four dice (4d6) but totals only the highest three. If, for example, the player rolled 4, 3, 5, 1 on the four dice, he would add together 4+3+5=12 and leave out the 1. If he rolled 4, 3, 2, 2 he would add 4+3+2=9 and leave out the second 2. While it is still possible to roll very low numbers (3, 2, 2, 1), the player's chances of rolling an average to above average character are greatly increased.
—Gamma World (1978), James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet
But just 2 years earlier in Metamorphosis Alpha, no such mercies are given:
A human player will roll 3 six-sided dice several times for the abilities he or she has at the start of the game. Each player has the following abilities: radiation resistance, mental resistance, dexterity, constitution, strength, and leadership potential.
—Metamorphosis Alpha (1976), James M. Ward
So I strongly suspect the 4d6 keep 3 paragraph was added by Jaquet to fit with Gary Gygax's AD&D stat inflation. The shift from every other part of GW being "grubby scavengers trying not to die" to this Manifest Destiny "heroes of the Black Years!" bullshit is also stinky. We love chaos! We hate order! Down with civilization! You don't play Gamma World to be a farmer and accountant, you do it to be a weird mutant viking beaver with a laser pistol and a STOP sign shield!
Original Dungeons & Dragons ("little brown books") and Holmes' D&D Basic Set ("blue book") are strict 3d6-in-order, with the possibility of moving points 2:1 to a class's prime stat, which often resulted in lopsided but more specialized characters. Moldvay's B/X ("red book") is 3d6-in-order.
AD&D has the following four increasingly ludicrous methods:
Method I:
All scores are recorded and arranged in the order the player desires. 4d6 are rolled, and the lowest die (or one of the lower) is discarded.
Method II:
All scores are recorded and arranged as in Method I. 3d6 are rolled 12 times and the highest 6 scores are retained.
Method III:
Scores rolled are according to each ability category, in order, STRENGTH, INTELLIGENCE, WISDOM, DEXTERITY, CONSTITUTION, CHARISMA. 3d6 are rolled 6 times for each ability, and the highest score in each category is retained for that category.
Method IV:
3d6 are rolled sufficient times to generate the 6 ability scores, in order, for 12 characters, The player then selects the single set of scores which he or she finds most desirable and these scores are noted on the character record sheet.
I'm tempted to write a little simulation script to see just how insane those stats are; it should basically be impossible to have anything under a 13 out of 18 with Methods II and III. I almost don't hate Method IV, I've allowed that with just 1-3 alternates instead of 12. Method I is what D&D 5E uses.
Tunnels & Trolls also from 1975, was 3d6 six times in order, though later editions added "triples add and roll over" (TARO) for superheroic characters, and non-Humans multiply various stats by anything from 0.25 to 2.0; but since T&T characters increase their stats as they level, that was just a head start, not unbalance.
The appeal of those early games was a normal, maybe a little better than average schlub, working their way up by way of good stats, player intelligence & skill, luck, hard work grinding out experience, cowardice, and ruthless treachery, until they were slightly less likely to explode in a blood geyser at the first papercut. If you made it to 3rd level, you were good, and extremely attached to your character. If you made it to 9th, you quit because you had won, and it was time to start over with one of your henchmen.
If you can just get another guy from the vending machine with high stats, who cares if you die? You'll come right back. Not that you can actually die in 5E, it's basically Toon with swords.
There is an argument that old-school games didn't give high bonuses to stats, which is true… but we did make a lot of stat rolls, long before such things were official. The Perrin Conventions (see Dexterity Roll) and RuneQuest formalized what a lot of us had always done: Roll stat x 5% on percentile, or d20 or 3d6 roll under. The guy who taught me used 3d6 for average, 2d6 easy, 4d6 hard, roll under your stat; I don't recall if all 6's were always a failure, but that's how I used it.
Oh, you know I've posted about this, but not the specific mechanics, a couple years ago on my Mark Rolls Dice blog
Author mdhughesPosted on 2021-01-05 Categories GammaWorld, osr, RPGTags GammaWorld, osr, RPG
What I'm Watching: The Big Bad
The Big Bad
The Wandering DMs
This has been 6 groups trying to do a D&D 5E "tournament adventure", and then scored for mission success.
The Dungeon Master is Paul Siegel of Paul's Game Blog and the adversary is played by Dan Collins of Delta's D&D and OED Games.
Good Stuff:
The Adversary. Having a co-DM play the "Big Bad" is an interesting setup I've seen done a few times in real games, it leaves the Referee free to run the game fairly instead of also running every monster in the world, though of course the adversary's game time is usually limited. And Dan does a great job of chewing scenery (and slimy larvae from his lovin' cup). He doesn't have a lot of troops to control, and I think he's much too passive and defensive with them, but given what he has, he does about as well as you can hope for.
The Players. Many of the players put some real character into their pregens, and made good role-playing and tactical choices. They seem like fun groups to game with.
Scoring. The rankings are about equal to how much I enjoyed each group's attempt. The Luke Gygax group came in second, I think? And they were my favorite, but otherwise, sure. The last group was so dull, unprepared, and incompetent, and their low score was well-deserved. There's an upcoming episode explaining the scoring, which I'm curious to see.
Videoconferencing & Editing. Surprisingly few technical difficulties, mostly switched to the players when they were talking, miniatures when they're being moved. You'd think in 2020 that wouldn't be an issue, but so many of these things are nothing but technical failure.
Bad Stuff:
D&D 5E. Not a fan. Just a bloated, thousands-of-pages, over-complicated mess of a game. Somewhere under all that shit, there must be a pony, so many people keep digging. You can see it clearest in this show, when old-school players are confronted with the giant pile of abilities and modifiers they get from all over the place, the spells have weird conditional effects and you're constantly reminding each other of which ones apply. The two-hour game time here would be 15-30 minutes in an old-school system.
This is especially weird because both these guys are old-school D&D bloggers, Dan's OED rules are pretty good, entirely reasonable interpretations of OD&D. Paul runs a weird hybrid of B/X, D20, and Warhammer FRP for his Ten Dead Rats game; I don't know why he's not just using Zweihänder or some edition of WHFRP, they're much better than his hybrid, but it works. But all of those are much simpler than 5E, and more engaging with the players. They don't have a laundry list of powers to activate, players instead must role-play actions the Referee agrees are reasonable. That's a better test than "oh I picked the Druid so I can turn into an alligator here!"
Miniatures. For a visual show, a giant model set and miniatures being moved around is useful, sure. The cavern and altar tower look great. But it's a single room that must've cost hundreds of dollars, and painting minis takes forever, and it limits you in what you can bring out to what figures you have. In any realistic budget, you'd maybe have a styrofoam riser "and this is the stone tower!" Which is why I prefer "theatre of the mind", where you just describe the scenario, everyone closes their eyes and pretends. Or for tactical situations like this, a "battle mat" of butcher paper with drawn lines and chits or cardboard standees to represent the combatants.
Matt Finch did a series of his Swords & Wizardry rules Swords of Jordoba campaign, and they were fantastic game sessions—how old-school D&D is/should be actually played—frequently interrupted by setting up little mazes of miniatures and a tiny POV webcam. He also did a 5E Heroes of Jordoba campaign which went ludicrously off the rails, about evenly split because Zach's a very unserious player, because 5E's a terrible game, and because the end was running that stupid dinosaur swamp adventure.
Easy Mode Dungeon. The entire scenario, played out six times, is a single room, with about 10 opponents, 8 of whom are just identical cultists that Dan calls "Primus", "Secondus", etc. The final party managed to nearly TPK themselves in the river, but otherwise every group has skipped across the river, run up the stairs or side of the tower, killed the boss, game over. Nobody failed, which means it was balanced far too easy; admittedly it's hard to kill 5E player characters. There's no exploration, it's just a toy set on camera.
The old tournament modules like Gary Gygax's S1 Tomb of Horrors, S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Lawrence Schick's S2 White Plume Mountain, the A series (various authors) collected as A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, Frank Mentzer's R1-4 tournaments collected as I12 Egg of the Phoenix, and Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman's B7 Rahasia, are all tough, long, complex dungeon crawls. There's fights, including hard boss fights at the end, but they're more about mapping, puzzles, traps, role-playing, often interacting with the NPCs, making use of found magic.
White Plume Mountain is maybe the best/fairest tournament of those, and has only two major rooms with the artifacts, each on par complexity wise with the Big Bad's cave, but there's 27 rooms total, and clearing & looting several of them greatly increases your chance of succeeding at the artifact rooms.
Now, at conventions we did tournament modules in 3-6 hours, or sometimes there'd be two blocks of 3-4 hours. That's a lot more than the 2 hours which is stretching Youtube audience tolerance. But there's some balance in between 1 room and 100 rooms where a short tourney's not just a single fight scene.
If they have another season, I may wait until the end and only watch the high-scoring team, or at least put the rest on 2x playback speed.
★★★½☆
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-11-25 Categories dnd, movie, RPGTags dnd, movie, RPG
What I'm Playing: Genshin Impact
Genshin Impact official site
Kind of a mashup of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Sword Art Online, Avatar: The Last Airbender (not the papyrus-font one), Guild Wars, etc. Not especially original, but well-implemented, very very pretty, and there's a lot of writing, all of it competent. I don't generally think 3D games make sense on the iPhone; AnotherEden was perfect because it worked in the limitations of the medium, but the 3D looks good; it does burn battery and heat the phone up considerably.
Account setup has two options, by email or username, but the email verification code never arrived, so I just did username; I'm "Kamimark" as usual, so if you're in and want a friend…
Starts with a gigantic 4GB download. This took a while.
The cutscene is bizarre, but then you choose your character's gender, you get no choice in appearance or abilities (you are a wind swordsman).
OK, once in the world, you get a fat cherub sidekick (who vanishes and rarely bugs you, but does provide some useful information…)
They soon give you a second character, Amber the stripper fire archer/knight. "Wish" is the gachapon system, you get enough tokens and a reduced cost on your first 10-pull. I got 8 weapons, only two of which were useful to me, and 2 characters, Noelle (light) and Razor (dark), who I haven't really used yet.
Movement is open-world, with a virtual joystick and dragging on the main screen; I find I often hit the attack buttons, which do not fold away when you're in a peaceful area just looking around, so I freak out and attack the air or through harmless NPCs sometimes, but they're unharmed by it.
You can climb almost any surface, with a rapidly-shrinking stamina bar, and soon after reaching the city you get glider wings so you can coast down from any tower. I'm just having fun now exploring rooftops. For instance, the Knights of Favonius guildhall? The roof has several goodies and a teleporter!
The wilderness map is huge, and even the town is fairly large. Spend some time there, because once you start the main quest, everyone hides and you can't shop or chat for a while.
There's a fairly extensive cooking, weapon crafting, and alchemy system, based on finding all the little sparkly nodes in the wild, and then playing a minigame to practice the recipe. Food hasn't actually been that useful to me yet, I don't get hurt much, but later I expect to be constantly hitting inventory and stuffing my face, like Skyrim.
Combat as the main character's pretty good, but it doesn't have an actual gap-closer, so you have to dash forward to the enemy, try to line up, then mash attack and spells; there's a cheap elemental attack, and a big AOE ultimate/limit break. I've been smashing up goblin camps and taking their chests. I'll usually open with Amber sniping all their explosive barrels and killing a few, then when they get close I switch back to Kamimark and murder everyone. Since you can only have one character up at a time, the others aren't follower NPCs, it's really pointless to level more than one or two except for specific elemental tasks.
The first dungeon is small but has a few nice tricks, requires switching between your main character and Amber.
I've since just been running around the first part of the world. By reaching the statue of the gods pins, you reveal a new map section.
There's a ton (40+) of lore books in the knights guild hall library, and I've read a couple of them and there's obviously been a lot of work put into these; so lore and backstory matters here.
Of course this is a "first hit is free" gachapon game, because that's what works on the shitty app stores. That said, the daily reward tier looks OK, like a $5/month sub, so I may do that if I'm still playing by next weekend:
This really is more of a desktop MMO, but the UI is very mobile-focused like the Sword Art Online games. I wish they'd bothered to make a Mac client, even as just a raw iOS port. I've never bothered to replace my PS3 with a PS4, and I'm waiting for PS5 price to drop and/or killer game I need, so I can't play on console, which might also be better.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-09-29 Categories Genshin Impact, RPG, videogamesTags GenshinImpact, RPG, videogames
FUDGE of Holding
FUDGE on Bundle of Holding
I like Steffan O'Sullivan's FUDGE a lot. I've run a lot of pickup games in it for almost 30 years now, and some campaigns. Some people see the very loose rules and "pick whatever you want" as a toolkit that needs work, but it's perfectly valid to run as-is, you don't need to specialize the rules for a setting (other than picking some combat & magic options). That page describes FUDGE as "precursor of FATE", but that's kind of insulting, FATE is FUDGE with all the fun and flexibility stripped out.
But the thing is, FUDGE is free, and I much prefer the 1993 version - PDF archive, 73 pages with the 2d6 table instead of 4dF ("FUDGE dice" marked +1, 0, -1). This version has simpler & clearer core rules, and enough options in the back.
The Skill Resolution Table
Rolled:  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  | 6, 7, 8 |  9  | 10  | 11  | 12
---------|-----|-----|-----|-----|---------|-----|-----|-----|---
Levels:  | -4  | -3  | -2  | -1  |   +0    | +1  | +2  | +3  | +4
The 1995 version, 107 pages, is much more exhaustive, and kind of exhausting, with all the options mixed in with the core rules, and it takes away many of the weirder dice/trait ladder options. But if you're picking up "one book", this is a good option, and there's Grey Ghost print copies still floating around.
Both of these are free, and one of the best RPGs made, at least for casual games. I don't think the campaign play in it holds up, you really can't develop attributes and skills much before you become superheroes, perils of a very coarse (few steps) and swingy (vast range of results!) task system.
I haven't seen the 10th Anniversary edition (2003? 2005?), but 320 pages?! Looks from reviews like it has hundreds of pages of setting stuff and special case combat & magic rules that you would normally develop yourself. Still, maybe that's worth the minimum price.
PSI-PUNK
HACK-N-SLASH
THE ORB
SURVIVAL OF THE ABLE
These all look terrible. I'm very sorry, they must be someone's hard work, but whew, no. I especially do not want to run zombies eating disabled people post-medieval-apocalypse. What is even wrong with you?
The Level Up titles are 50% better:
THE DERYNI ADVENTURE GAME: Excellent sourcebook for one of my favorite fantasy book series, though the FUDGE adaptation of the powers is… workmanlike. Not ideal for play or simulation of the books, but it's functional. You may just be better off with rereading a few of the novels and Deryni Magic, which is Kurtz's own summary/theory book of their magic. Using the standard 1993 FUDGE Magic rules works fine for Deryni with a few adjustments.
TERRA INCOGNITA: Sounds from the blurb and the little bit on their site, like "Victorian adventures", and I'm not exactly a fan of colonialist, bigoted English wankers. They aren't "discovering" anything, they're conquering & robbing people who are already there.
NOW PLAYING: TV shows as a setting? I've done that as a short joke game long ago, but it's not a useful setting.
THE UNEXPLAINED: Cryptid/supernatural investigation sourcebook. This might be useful, there's really not a lot of good ones; GUMSHOE is all railroaded plots, Conspiracy X is out of print, Delta Green is all guns-guns-guns-cthulhu-guns, Palladium will never finish their Beyond the Supernatural reboot.
The best supplement for FUDGE isn't included: A Magical Medley, which has some more complex magic systems; the African Spirit Magic and Ars Magica Grammarye systems are especially useful. Maybe that's in the 10th Anniversary, but it's probably easier to get that book by itself, a print copy of 1995, and have a fully functional game.
The free rules are better than the cheap bundle. The Level Up bundle might be worth getting for two of the sourcebooks, and you get a 10th Anniversary e-doorstop as a bonus. But you can get a print book for not much more, maybe that's the better plan.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-09-07 Categories fudge, RPGTags fudge, RPG
Portal Bandits RPG
Portal Bandits RPG on itch.io
I saw there was a one-page RPG jam, but hadn't thought of any theme or tricks to do with it. Then in the shower, I realized I could adapt the source of my PortalWorlds 7DRL videogame to one page really easily. I went with more of a Norse mythology theme, rather than the inspiration movie's "God" and "Satan" (whatever those are supposed to be, some crank carpenter cult thing).
In one page there isn't much room to expand on setting and discuss design, but two main principles: You are small and weak, and not even very clever; a Human adult is a scary monster. Magic items are the great leveller, in fact there's no advancement except getting Loot. Gold is really only a score, and it can bribe Humans and other monsters.
For a sample Realm, I just rolled Ancient Egypt, Zombies, Evil King. So now you might have to fight a bunch of undead, but more likely you'd sneak around vast temples and pyramids, let the zombies in, rob the Pharaoh without getting mummified, and run for the portal out. Next Realm is Modern America, with Assassins, and a Good King. So here you find a sympathetic President (mid-'90s?), being hunted by assassins. You still need to loot the White House for Kennedy's Gold Dildo or whatever, but you can't do that unless you stop the killers. Nobody thinks a bunch of little Dwarfs are any good at anything or a threat.
Written & layout in Pages, which works great for little things like this.
Only solo-tested a quick combat, but it works. Let me know if you get a chance to play, I will when I can.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-08-28 2020-08-28 Categories 7drl, fantasy, RPGTags 7drl, fantasy, RPG
Wizards Address the Orc Problem
Wizards of the Coast: Diversity and Dungeons & Dragons
See also my recent post: The Thing About Orcs
Nice to see this directly addressed. Obviously I still prefer my solution which was just to replace Orcs with a more sympathetic species, but WotC is a business with tight margins so they'll just do the minimum necessary to not be running a minstrel show.
I've never really used "Drow" except in the GDQ modules (Giants went great, never got a party to finish Drow, let alone Queen of the Demonweb Pits), I preferred the Sidhe from Celtic myth making all "Elves" pretty, alien, and sociopathic (interesting point, there's a subworld of Queen, "Caer Sidi", which inspired me to get into Elves-as-Sidhe!), and later the Gazetteer Shadow Elves created underground Elves with a grudge, but they're not Drow. Having the black-skinned, white-haired Elves be "evil" and relentlessly, cartoonishly cruel torturers, poisoners, perverts, and backstabbers wasn't one of TSR's better takes. And then R.A. Salvatore, the third-worst writer in the world (I've read two of his books, part-way, and they're so bad it's impossible to finish them), made his Mary Sue character Drizzle-doo-wah-Diddy who's the One Good Drow, which became TSR canon. I'd flush the entire archetype, I don't think it's fixable.
The Vistani thing is also pretty hard to fix. They're stereotype "Gypsies". You can pull elements out to make carny folk, maybe, but if you have a tribe of thieves and soothsayers in a caravan it's obvious what you're doing. There's also Romani-based caricatures in Greyhawk, and who knows where else, it was a very popular trope with the '80s-'90s TSR writers, because "a Gypsy tells you your fortune" is a super easy plot hook, if you're unaware/unconcerned about your racism.
Changing ability score modifiers is weird. Now, there's no modifiers in Original D&D, everyone has the same 3d6 scores down the line, and fairly simple species special abilities and some harsh class limits. AD&D 1st Ed added the racist & sexist race vs stat & class tables, and each following edition dug in further. Hm, looking at my AD&D PDF (bought back when Paizo had the rights), I could swear in the original print back in '79 there was a Human column up front there, that's been redacted, where Human females got 3/17 Strength and probably Constitution & Charisma (being used more for leadership in AD&D, and women leaders were Not A Thing to those guys). Was this changed in a later printing? And the Half-Orcs got seriously shafted here.
Note this is the AD&D 1st ed text on Half-Orcs. "Orcs are fecund", "player characters which are of the half-orc race are within the superior 10%". What the fuck, Gary?
I don't really have any use for D&D 5th Ed, it's a cartoony game with 10-100x as many rules as it needs, and they've dug themselves into this hole by pushing out old content which was noted as being problematic 20 years ago, but at least WotC's a little self-aware of the things they're publishing now.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-06-29 Categories dnd, RPGTags dnd, RPG
The Thing About Orcs
So, there's this piece on Orcs and racism:
The Most Important Point About Orcs, by James Mendez Hodes
And they have a long blog post about Tolkien's racist origins of Orcs & "Eastern Men":
"The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
—J.R.R.Tolkien, Letter #210
Which I agree is pretty horrible, I greatly dislike Tolkien the man, and his post-Hobbit work. The post is kind of a waste of time to read beyond that, I eyerolled 180° at the quoting-white-men-about-racism tone, and denial of other people of colors' different experiences (Jason Momoa in particular). Maybe that's just how James talks, all the goddamned time. Someone should set up a medical research fund. Anyway, I'm only in this to read about the Orcs, shit that happens on Earth is not my problem.
My old solution to the Orc problem was to make Orcs tolerated and playable if they lived in civilization, but so culturally different in their nomadic tribes, that you still had something like the classic Human/Orc war trope. That can be problematic when compared to how the US, etc. treated Native Americans and other indigenous populations, but it cut down on the genocides/"we kill all the Orc babies"; players treated Orcs like a hostile tribe of Humans, warred against them until they stopped being annoying, and made peace.
But then why not just use Humans? That's James Raggi's solution, which technically works, but it's not interesting unless you throw an enormous book of "What do the Saxons believe and why are they so awful?" at the players which you don't want to write, and which they won't read. In history it was pretty easy to tell what culture someone was by their artifacts, dress, and speech; but none of those are easily visible in Theatre of the Mind role-playing.
So in everything I've run or written in the last few years, I solved the problem by replacing Orcs with Beastfolk, humanoids with bestial features chosen off a table of local mammals. They behave almost exactly like my previous use of Orcs, and yet because they're not all green-skinned pig-men, and might even be cute & fuzzy, especially the young ones, suddenly reaction is completely different. It either arouses or annoys furries, neither of which is my intention, but that's a small price to pay for how radically it changes the conversation.
I don't usually want "half-breeds", because that directly leads to racial theory bullshit, but in a magical world full of Owlbears it's certainly possible for species to be crossed, and Edgy McEdgertons always want to be a half-breed Goblin/Dark Elf with a tragic backstory or some such, so unless you want to waste half an hour arguing before the game, just say yes and move on.
Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying "System Reference Document"
Announcing the Basic Roleplaying System Reference Document and Open Game License
4 months or more since announcement; for old Chaosium that would have been super fast, for "Moon Design sans Greg Stafford now doing business as the walking corpse of Chaosium" we don't know, they haven't shipped anything on a schedule before.
So, it's 23 pages, with 2 pages of license and an artless cover page. And no interior art except two colors of the conformance logo, which must be plastered on your book. The license isn't too different from the D20 SRD, except the massive list of "prohibited content".
The book is moderately useful mechanically, it's a quickstart version of BRP. They've eliminated characteristic/skill bonuses, and very few skills use characteristic bases. One of the nicer features of most D100 variants is either a skill category bonus from characteristics (say +1% to all Manipulation skills per CHA over 12), or direct characteristic base (Influence starts at CHAx2); in BRP SRD, Persuade starts at 15% whether you're a hideous slime beast or George Clooney.
There's a bunch of professions ranging from Cowboy to Warrior, with no theme or note about culture and era, none of which have magic. Equipment is mentioned, but there's no shopping lists for any period; very generic lists of weapons and armor ("Sword, Broad", "Pistol", "Pistol, Laser", etc; I thought I was terse!) are later given with no costs, and the armor uses the same craptastic fixed-defense mechanic as later-era Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, rather than the die rolls that made Stormbringer, etc. combat dangerous.
BRP-SRD still has 4 almost totally disconnected task systems: Characteristic rolls, which are score x 5%, pass/fail; Skill Rolls with Critical, Special, Success, Fail, Fumble levels of success (Critical/Special used to be Impale/Critical? Or the other way around?); Skill vs Skill where levels of success are compared; and Resistance Rolls on a big table where characteristics are compared to get a % roll, which boils down to (Attack-Defense+10)x5%, pass/fail. Modern D100 games have simplified that down to just skill rolls and four levels of success, with specific resistance/characteristic test skills.
The classic skill-roll experience system is here, but it barely addresses over-100 skills, and has the classic "golf bag of weapons" flaw: No limit on how many skills can be improved, so everyone is encouraged to try every skill until they succeed once, then never do it again that session. Legend's Improvement Points mechanic somewhat fixes that, and certainly has much more serious over-100 skill rules, as well as paid training, time training, and improving characteristics. This is barely, minimally adequate to play a few sessions in, a campaign will be severely hamstrung.
Combat is minimalistic, with 2 pages of spot rules, heavily whitespace-padded. You don't technically need many rules to run D100 combat, you can make your own spot rules for most things. But there's no off-hand or dual-wield weapon use, for instance, and I like to fight Florentine or with a cloak in any medieval game. Everyone will have their own set of needs and the much longer section from most D100 games standardizes them.
There is no magic system at all, and they've forbidden use of any of the standard BRP systems of the last 45 years. OK, making a new magic system isn't that hard, but if you want it to be like Stormbringer, or Mythic Earth, or Magic World/Big Green Book BRP, you can't. You can't just pick this SRD up and have a usable game for any genre except mundane reality.
There's one animal stat block, and they've forbidden use of essentially any monster ever written because they forbid use of:
All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, place names, etc.), plots, story elements, locations, characters, artwork, or trade dress from any of the following: any releases from the product lines of Call of Cthulhu, Dragon Lords of Melniboné, ElfQuest, Elric!, Hawkmoon, HeroQuest, Hero Wars, King Arthur Pendragon, Magic World, Nephilim, Prince Valiant, Ringworld, RuneQuest, 7th Sea, Stormbringer, Superworld, Thieves' World, Worlds of Wonder, and any related sublines; the world and mythology of Glorantha; all works related to the Cthulhu Mythos, including those that are otherwise public domain; and all works related to Le Morte d'Arthur.
Well, that leaves… subtract nothin' from nothin', uh, nothin'. You could publish a game of normal people, possibly medieval peasants to 19th C, who never encounter any monsters except a Bear. They can't go insane, because that's owned by Call of Cthulhu. They can't fight demons or elementals, because those are owned by Stormbringer. They can't be knights errant because that steps on Pendragon and Prince Valiant. I'm not actually sure "Humans" are allowed by this license. Possibly change them to Care Bears Koala Friends to be safe from "DBA Chaosium"'s vampiric lawyers.
★☆☆☆☆ Too little, a decade too late. Not worth the cover price of "free".
OpenCthulhu (see my comments ), Legend, OpenQuest, Mythras, Delta Green, and other D100-systems are much more open, and provide much more material to start working from.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-03-27 2020-04-03 Categories Cthulhu, horror, RPGTags Cthulhu, horror, RPG1 Comment on Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying "System Reference Document"
Bundle of Hoody-Hoo
Bundle of Holding: Knights of the Dinner Table vol 1-10
KoDT vol 11-20
And a bunch of the side comics. Some of the best/only comics about actual tabletop gaming, as opposed to vaguely in genre superhero comics or a few webcomics.
Author mdhughesPosted on 2020-03-08 2020-03-08 Format LinkCategories books, cartoon, dnd, RPGTags books, cartoon, dnd, RPG


text:
Greece takes over EU presidency
Greece assumed the presidency for the fifth time, succeeding Lithuania.
Greece took over the European Union (EU) presidency for the next six months on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso and other high-level EU commissioners amid hopes of recovery from the harsh 2009 debt crisis.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his government was determined to fight unemployment, revive the economy and improve social cohesion while safeguarding the Euro as "Greece can stand on its own feet."
"Greece is leaving the crisis with Europe behind following huge sacrifices," he added.
Describing Greece as a experienced pilot, Barroso cited his belief that Greece will overcome the recession in 2014.
"Many believed that Greece would exit the Eurozone, but the fact that we are here today is clear evidence that those predictions were wrong," Barroso said after expressing the EU's support of Greece.
Ukraine's Zelensky to travel to Turkey for holiday
Fire in Notre-Dame 'deeply upset us': Turkish president
Missing footballer Emiliano Sala's plane wreckage found
Italy and France: War of words between two colonialists
Hopes fade away for missing footballer Emiliano Sala

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is US government debt. Personal US debt is currently at $17 trillion. Total US debt is $64 trillion or $793,000 per family. The problem is the debt is accelerating. Inevitably what goes up must come down. But how? It will either be cataclysmic or it will be gentle. How much faith do you have in human nature?
The national debt hit $19 trillion for the first time ever on Friday, and came in at $19.012 trillion.
It took a little more than 13 months for the debt to climb by $1 trillion. The national debt hit $18 trillion on Dec. 15, 2014.
That's a slightly stepped-up pace compared to the last few $1 trillion mileposts. It took about 14 months for the debt to climb from $17 trillion to $18 trillion, and about the same amount of time to go from $16 trillion to $17 trillion.
The federal government has been free to borrow as much as needed for the last several years. Years ago, Congress passed legislation to increase the debt ceiling to a certain level of debt, and borrowing had to stop once that limit was hit.
But increasingly, Congress has instead allowed more borrowing by suspending the debt ceiling for long periods of time. That allows the government to borrow any amount it needs until the suspension period ends.
Back in November, the debt ceiling was suspended again, after having been frozen at $18.1 billion for several months. As soon as it was suspended, months of pent-up borrowing demand by the government led to a $339 billion jump in the national debt in a single day.
Under current law, the debt ceiling is suspended until March, 2017, meaning the government can borrow without limit until then. Obama is expected to leave office with a total national debt of nearly $20 trillion by the time he leaves office.


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text:
The Thin Red Line (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Hans Zimmer
The Coral Atoll
Gavin Greenaway
The Lagoon
Journey to the Line
Francesco Lupica
Stone In My Heart
God Yu Tekem Laef Blong Mi
℗ 1999, BMG Entertainment
More By Hans Zimmer
The Dark Knight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Inception (Music from the Motion Picture)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
Interstellar (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [Deluxe Version]
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
The Dark Knight Rises (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [Deluxe Edition]
12 Years a Slave (Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture)
The Pacific (Music from the HBO Miniseries)
Blake Neely, Geoff Zanelli & Hans Zimmer
We Were Soldiers (Original Motion Picture Score)
Nick Glennie-Smith
Letters from Iwo Jima (Music from the Motion Picture)
Kyle Eastwood & Michael Stevens
Syriana (Music from the Motion Picture)
The Natural (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)


text:
Family hopes marijuana compound will stop child's seizures
Lauren Zakalik
WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth
FORT WORTH — One FDA-sanctioned study of cannabis oil is offering children with severe seizures something that has been in short supply in their young lives: hope.
Kadience Mulanax and her parents don't know whether she'll receive the cannabidiol, a compound derived from marijuana, or a placebo. But they know that the disease that affects the 7-year-old, tuberous sclerosis, has been debilitating.
"I don't know that she's ever had a time where she's been completely seizure free," said her mother, Laci Mulanax.
Tuberous sclerosis is rare — estimates put the number of patients at 1 million to 2 million in a world population of 7.5 billion, roughly 1 in 4,000 people — and genetic, causing noncancerous tumors to grow in many parts of the body. When those tumors grow in the brain, the body often responds with seizures.
► Across the USA:States forge path through uncharted territory to legal pot
► Pennsylvania:Medicinal marijuana converts minister into 'pastor for pot'
"We did 28 days of counting and she had 90 — 89, 90" in that time, said Kadience's father, Brooks Mulanax.
The study is open to 210 patients and being conducted at 40 medical centers worldwide, said Dr. M. Scott Perry, who is the lead researcher at Cook Children's Medical Center here.
Early studies have shown that cannabidiol, which doesn't create the same high as marijuana, has promise in controlling seizures in people with epilepsy. Its efficacy in that area also is undergoing clinical trials.
"We're trying to figure out how does it work for the treatment of seizures," Perry said.
The Mulanax family now regularly drives more than 300 miles one way from its home in Lubbock, Texas, to Cook Children's Medical Center to take part in the clinical trial.
"This is part of an FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) study," Perry said. "This is a little different from the hemp oils you'd get from the Internet. This is a true pharmaceutical drug, meaning it's under a lot of scrutiny."
That scrutiny made the decision easy for Kadience's parents.
"I wasn't ever of the mindset that 'Hey, you're giving your kid marijuana' because that is not the case whatsoever," Brooks Mulanax said.
► Animals:Debate continues over use of cannabis to treat canine health issues
► Autism:Marijuana may be a miracle treatment for children with autism
Kadience is one of five children in the drug study at Cook Children's. The hospital has the ability to include up to five more patients in the clinical trial.
"What we're seen so far in the studies we've done is that it does work," Perry said. "In the three trials they've released results on so far, the average (seizure) reduction was 40%."
► Concussions:Can cousin of marijuana plant ease NFL's CTE problem?
► Pot for kids? Some parents of severely ill children say it's good medicine
This trial gives Perry hope. It gives the Mulanax family hope, too.
"We don't hold her back," Brooks Mulanax said of Kadience. "So if this is just another way we can normalize her life and growing up, we're all about it."
Follow Lauren Zakalik on Twitter: @wfaalauren


I did it! I actually prepared 2 favorite receipes, took pictures and posted for all to see. Look under Earthly Delights for the receipes, Tomato Caprese and Prosciutto Asparagus Spirals. You can also view the pictures in the gallery. Just touch any of the pictures to view all. These receipes are so good for appetizers. The Tomato Caprese can also serve as a salad for one or 2 people. Delicious especially when using fresh homegrown tomatoes and basil. The cheese is homemade from a store here locally. The wine is Robert Mondavi, Sauvignon Blanc and I served it with white mini crostini toasts. The basil is from my garden and the tomato came from the local farmer's market. For the Spirals I used Pepperidge Farm Puff Pasrtry, I've also used the deli ham, because the prosciutto can be expensive. Serve right from the oven. So delicious warm. Try them both. ENJOY!!


Bug description: Bosses and mobs spawn mouch faster orbs ( fel explosives ) , we cant see the place where are spawned , they are spawned instant (on blizz we have 2 sec to see where orbs are spawned , after that 2 sec , orbs are start casting and we have 6 sec to kill them ) . The place where orbs are spawned should be under the mobs/ bosses . ( In EOA at Azshara , this boss should spawn orbs near the pool -like in the video) . Bosses which spawn adds (passive) , that adds shouldnt spawn orbs , only the boss . Cd orbs spawn at bosses are 10 sec .


text:
Syrian Rebels Get Arms from Kosovo and Bosnia
The DEBKA website, close to Israeli military intelligence, knows well all the behind the curtain details of regional politics. A few days ago it reported about basically new turns of the way the events unfold in Syria [...]
Global Politics 2021-04-03 14 min read
Montenegrin Muslim Islamist Mirza Haklaj who appeared with other jihadists in an ISIS video. He is believed to have died during bombing in 2015
The DEBKA website, close to Israeli military intelligence, knows well all the behind the curtain details of regional politics. A few days ago it reported about basically new turns of the way the events unfold in Syria. According to it, the Syrian extremists received a load of heavy weapons for the first time since the war started. The senders are the groups from Kosovo and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina linked to Al Qaeda. The package includes Kornet and Fagot anti-tank systems delivered by the Soviet Union to former Yugoslavia in the past. The weapons ended up in the hands of extremists as a result of well-known bloody events. As to Israeli intelligence sources, the heavy weapons have been delivered from the Balkans to Syria by sea with the help of Albanian mafia, which is dry behind ears in such operations…
This is the first time the Syrian anti-government forces got a s ubstantial load of heavy arms getting around the control of Western and Arab special agencies (the foreign intelligence agencies have simply overlooked the delivery). The major part of weapons is sent to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda linked Islamist group.
Having received arms, the Jabhat al-Nusra armed groups risked an intervention to Lebanon and engaged Hezbollah in the Shiite stronghold of Bekaa valley trying to do away with an ally of Bashar Assad. They have become strong enough to launch offensives in some areas inside Syria. The combat actions go along with intensive terrorist activities, for instance, another bloody act took place in the heart of Damascus near the Baath headquarters, not far from the Russian embassy. It resulted in the death of dozens civilians, including many children from a neighboring school. According to the United Nations, at least 70 thousand people have lost their lives in Syria as a result of the confrontation between the government forces and the rebels. Two mortar shells exploded at the Tishreen stadium in Damascus when the athletes were training. As to SANA, a player form the Watbah football team was killed; his two fellow players were wounded.
The Middle East events could not have passed the Muslim part of the Balkans. The arms supplies to Syria are not an exception. After the guns silenced there, the radical movements and Islamist organizations started to conduct their activities under cover, but today it is coming to light. The reason is the extremists had felt comfortable in Europe till they started to be refused entry and citizenship by many countries of the continent making them go to other places. In the past Al Qaeda supported the Kosovo and Bosnian brothers in faith with experienced personnel and arms. Now it wants the debts to be paid back. Al Qaeda emissaries have no intent to curb their activities in the Balkans.
While war raged in Bosnia and Herzegovina, around two thousand militants from Arab countries went there to join the fray. Some of them had direct links to Osama bin Laden. After the war ended as a result of Dayton accords, many of them remained in the country and became the citizens. The Saudi Arabia funded King Fahd mosque in Sarajevo that is believed to be the headquarters of the Wahhabi militants. Off and on terrorist acts committed by Islamists take place in the Republic. For instance, 23-year-old Mevlid Jasarevic, came from Serbia, the southern region of Sandzak, to shoot his rifle at the US embassy building in Sarajevo. He heavily wounded a policeman. A bomb went off at the police precinct station in Bugojno, one constable died, six wounded. It was done by a local Wahhabi militant.
At the beginning of February 2013 local Albanian radicals declared the establishment of the "Islamic Movement to Unite" or LISBA, which is considered in the West as the first really fundamentalist party in the Balkans. The party is registered and is preparing for Kosovo parliamentary elections. LISBA has a public leader, Arsim Krasniqi, though Fuad Ramiqi is widely reported to be its controlling figure. He is known to be is associated through the fundamentalist European Muslim Network, led by the Islamist media celebrity Tariq Ramadan, with the Qatar-based hate preacher Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. He has ties with the more moderate Party for Democratic Action or SDA in Bosnia-Herzegovina and similar organizations in Macedonia. Ramiqi protested against a legal ban on girls wearing headscarves (hijab) in Kosovo public schools.
This is just the top of the iceberg. The radicalization of population in Kosovo is boosted by total unemployment and spreading criminality. The self-proclaimed Kosovo independence supported by the West gave little to common people, it's no surprise they are vulnerable to Islamist propaganda. Some Kosovars are linked to arms smuggling, they act as instructors on its use in Syria enriching their own combat experience. Drug flows are already flooding Europe. In future it may be added by the re-export of war skills to defend the European Muslims rights.
The policy of the West in Syria is myopic. It goes on losing control over the events in this country. In fact it gives refuge to terrorists and faces the prospect of raging terror spilling over to Europe. Hotbeds of Islamic extremism that appeared with the connivance of the West in the former Yugoslavia are sparked again under the influence of Middle East events. Europe appears to be threatened by a big fire…
Originally published on 2013-02-23
Source: Oriental Review
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When people like Elizabeth Warren are demonized and deficits are a point of obsession, it's not the rich who have to worry about class warfare, says Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Class warfare is not, as John McCain would have you believe, overturning Bush's tax cuts for the rich. "Class warfare is when you have corporations sitting on $1.8 trillion," says Katrina vanden Heuvel. While the economy stagnates and our infrastructure crumbles, Bush's breaks for the wealthiest Americans are doing far more harm than good. But what is Obama doing about it? "The spine of this White House," says vanden Heuvel, "is wobbly."
Meanwhile, the real class war is happening in the same direction it always has—from the top down. When people like Elizabeth Warren are demonized and deficits are a point of obsession, it's not the rich who have to worry. Vanden Heuvel joins The Nation on GRITtv to explain why the Obama administration continues to defend the rich to the detriment of the rest of the country.


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Q: Bind service after ConfigureServices has completed I'm running into an issue within my ConfigureServices method of Startup.cs where I need to GET (serviceProvider.GetService<>) a service I have bound, run a method (CreateEndpoint) from the bound service, return an object, and then bind that object as a singleton.
It seems if I run services.BuildServiceProvider() twice from within ConfigureServices, the app only seems to use the service provider from the first call, so the second call does not have my bounded singleton object included.
Alternatively, is there a way for me bind a service AFTER ConfigureServices has completed? The way I have it set up currently, the method CreateEndpoint fires off in the Configure method of Startup. The only problem with this is that I cannot actually bind the singleton object outside the ConfigureServices method.

A: you want something like this:
services.AddTransient<EndpointFactory>();
services.AddTransient(container => container.GetService<EndpointFactory>().CreateEndpoint());

you have to pass a function to your registration call if you need to resolve another service first.

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5 amazing hotels for you to stay in and around Murti!
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Home Government GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger calls for invoking of 25th Amendment
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger calls for invoking of 25th Amendment
Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor
[ Editors Note: Rep. Adam Kinzinger is a cool customer who should have a long career ahead of him, one which began with his becoming a county commissioner while he was in college.
His next challenge will be salvaging what is left of the Republican party that is worth saving after the necessary culling that needs to happen with the rabid Trumpers who are not going to disappear after the election unless Trump does.
What we need now is a silver political bullet to send Trump on his way via the 25th amendment, which in a perfect world would include those like the Congressman who was with the Trumpsters as they broke into Congress. You just can't make this stuff up.
That this idiot (name lost in all the fast moving action) was not arrested today is a travesty in itself, but I fear that Congress will not want to dent its immunity protections.
The good news is that the 25th amendment issue was front page news today. But I worry about the move of Elaine Chow to resign, as that now takes her off the hook from having to choose to support the 25th amendment.
I have no feel whether a top down effort from Pence would make it easier to do, or would it be better for the Congressmen to push him toward that effort, where a majority would give him more credibility for making that move.
We must try to undo some of the Banana Republican damage to the US reputation, evidenced by most of the world leader statements today, even including countries like Iran. But beneath the surface I sense a sigh of relief that Trump will not be president for four more years.
The best way to get through this Trump inflicted wound is to cauterize it. The 25th amendment being used now would set a modern precedent to use against anyone in the future trying to pull another Trump 'wide spread fraud' attack on our democracy in the future to steal a lost election.
I would even take off the table his having Secret Service protection after he leaves. What for? It would be honoring him for his attempted treason. But maybe I am just an old meanie. Let me know what you think in the comments… Jim W. Dean ]
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First published … January 07, 2021
After becoming the first Republican to call for Trump's removal, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) joins Hallie Jackson and Stephanie Ruhle on why he thinks the 25th amendment should be invoked.
Jim W. Dean is Managing Editor of Veterans Today involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.
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Jim W. Dean Archives 2009-2014
SOURCEMSNBC
Elaine Chow
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Rep. Adam Kinzinger
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haroldsmith January 7, 2021 at 7:54 pm
Why wasn't anyone calling for Trump's removal when he attacked Syria with cruise missiles, or when he murdered General Soleimani or when he withdrew from the INF treaty? Trump's dangerousness has been on display for the last four years. The Russian government saw it, the Chinese government saw it, the Iranian government saw it, the Iraqi government saw it, the Venezuelan government saw it, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists saw it, and the psychiatrists comprising the World Mental Health Coalition saw it (they even tried to warn congress about it, many times). Trump's been flirting with WW3 for most of the last four years and nobody in Washington gave the slightest damn.
David Odell January 7, 2021 at 5:12 pm
He's the greatest business man, he's so rich, surely he can afford his own security….
We know what he thinks of ours. If he does get security, I will never again until he is gone, advocate any taxation from the federal government. How many billions and billions have been spent to see our capitol trashed by idiots who could have easily blown it up.
Not a promising investment.


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Those who suffer from anxiety and depression will find this ground-breaking resource a powerful tool that will provide help and hope today.


Unfortunately the rain we received on Tuesday and Wednesday this week was isolated and sporadic and although some rivers like the Orari or Bowyers jumped up a touch, overall the rain did little to increase the flows in most of our lowland streams.
With delight I can say that there is rain event forecast for Sunday and into early next week so this combined with what we have had already could deliver some short term respite for our lowland waterways.
I have been let down by weather forecasts before though so best not to hang your hat on them.
Saturday should see the fairest weather of the weekend with fishable conditions across the region.
Above Right: The Central South Island region's new aquatic ranger at Boat Harbour, Lake Aviemore.
Small rises in river flows can provide excellent fishing opportunities as invertebrates become active and trout in tow.
Don't be afraid to retrieve your rain coat from the back of the storage cupboard and spend some time on the river.
In this part of the world, if it's not blistering sunshine or a sprinkle of rain, its wind and Hamish Stevens and I got a face full of it on Tuesday on Lake Aviemore.
We were down there ticking the final boxes necessary to sign off all the required safety, certification and training standards for operating our brand new Fish & Game boat 'Kokanee'.
The conditions were testing but the Frewza F16, with 80hp Honda handled the wind-chopped conditions with ease. It also handles well in confined spaces and in close proximity to objects so will be great for boat to boat encounters.
After several years of mid-lake absence, our ranging team looks forward to undertaking licence and regulations checks at the most remote corners and deepest parts of our ever-popular lakes this coming year.
Please remember to carry your licences with you on the boat and we look forward to meeting you on the water and finding out how the fishing is going.
I was up at the canals on Tuesday and it was one of those days where the water was clear, the fish frustratingly active, jumping clean out of the water, and the anglers I checked on hadn't caught anything.
Lately the canals have been quiet for anglers during the week but that's all about to change with kids on school holidays and their parents in tow.
Here are a few notes for us to remember when fishing the hydro canals.
Meridian own and operate the Pukaki and Ohau canals and power stations and Genesis the Tekapo Canal and power stations.
They manage the area as private land, no different than a farmers' property except you don't need to visit the farm house to ask for access.
Public toilets are available for anglers at the three Ohau power stations for all hours use, and port-a-loos are located on the Tekapo canal.
Be aware though, that there are no facilities for campervan black waste.
Anglers are reminded too, that no camping is allowed at the canals.
It is really important from a health and safety perspective that anglers obey all health and safety signage around the power stations and structures, as it is there to keep you from harm.
I'd like to reiterate this message with a rhetorical question: wouldn't it be an unfortunate day when barbed wire fences had to be installed just because a few discourteous anglers ignored signage and barriers and fished from a hazardous area…?
Large rubbish bins located near the intakes (aka. Head gates, penstocks, walls) of each of the Ohau power stations are available for your general use and that includes fish offal.
Left: Please use these general waste rubbish bins located near the Ohau power station intakes.
While fishing at the intakes take care not to snag your line in the gates as this is causing weed to build up on the gates and increasing their maintenance.
And the most important thing to remember is to be courteous to other anglers encountered and enjoy the experience of being able to fish in such an easily accessible and beautiful part of the country for three species of sports fish of all sizes and shapes.
On the subject of canal, you will recall Genesis let us know that the Tekapo Canal road would be closed on the 19th and 20th of December, this is no longer the case.
There will be closures in the new-year, and we will endeavour to share these with you when possible.


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Q: Is there no way I can develop for iOS without paying money? I code for fun mostly and perhaps would later want to freelance. I currently program for Android and have released a few apps for free. The point is just to build the applications, not to earn money from them, so I don't have ads on them either.
I thought I'd expand my skills to iOS, but found that I have to buy a mac and also pay a yearly fee to Apple for publishing my apps on the iOS app store.
Maybe I'm not understanding something here or I'm missing some vital piece of info. Is there no way I can code and distribute my app on the store for free and without purchasing an expensive macbook? I just bought a new Sony VAIO and I can't afford another computer (and I don't need one either).
Have I got all the facts right or am I missing something?

A: There appear to be at least a couple online services which will allow you to rent time on a Mac in the cloud (to use remotely via RDP or VNC from your PC).  Make sure the Mac on which you rent time has the latest version of Xcode and iOS SDK installed and available for use, and you can use that for all iOS development except direct device debugging.
Access to Apple's App store requires paying to enroll in their Developer program.
The absolutely free option is to develop iOS web apps.  These can be made clippable with a custom icon, run off-line with a suitable manifest and MIME type, and can be downloaded from your own web site or server, no App store approval required.

A: To develop app for iOS, you need:

*

*Xcode, which means you need MacOS. Usually, you would need a Mac computer (iMac/MacBook/etc.), but you can also install MacOS on VM. I'm not sure if it is possible to set up an environment as replacement for Xcode.

*Run and test the app. iOS simulator is OK, but there might be subtle difference between the simulator and the real device. If you want to test on real device, you need to join the Developer Program, or you can also jailbreak the real device and go through a clunky process (involving packaging the app, and copy the app to the device via command line) to run the app.

*Somewhere to distribute your app (as a product). You need the Developer Program (again), if you want to distribute the app on Apple AppStore. If you want to distribute app for jailbroken device, you are free to do so, without any restriction.

A: You are more or less right.

*

*You need to pay the yearly fee to Apple in order to distribute apps.

*You need a Mac to run Xcode and develop for iOS.

However, the Mac Mini, even some of the older models, will run Xcode alright, so there might be money to save there.
Also, once you have a mac, you can build apps and run them on a simulator without paying the Apple Developer license - but you do need to pay the $99 to publish them and even run them on your own iPhone.
I don't agree with Apple on all of these restrictions, but it is their decision and there is not much to do about it.
I should also mention that you can buy Mac OSX and run it virtually on non-Mac hardware, but doing that is against Apple's license terms, and therefore illegal. Though it might be interesting for you to do this I would not recommend it due to the legal issues.
One final option for you would be to rent a Mac in the cloud and connect to it (via VNC, Remote Desktop), to try it out - but for real development on a device, you still need actual Mac hardware.


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You are here: Home / Sports / Major New York State Arenas Urge State Assembly to Finally Join State Senate and Pass Bill Legalizing and Regulating MMA in New York; UFC® and arenas renew promise to bring professional MMA to cities across New York from Buffalo to the New York City area
Major New York State Arenas Urge State Assembly to Finally Join State Senate and Pass Bill Legalizing and Regulating MMA in New York; UFC® and arenas renew promise to bring professional MMA to cities across New York from Buffalo to the New York City area
February 1, 2016 Comment Off 17 Views
Major New York State Arenas Urge State Assembly
to Finally Join State Senate and Pass Bill
Legalizing and Regulating MMA in New York
UFC® and arenas renew promise to bring professional MMA to
cities across New York from Buffalo to the New York City area
Albany – The UFC® organization, in partnership with arenas across New York State, renewed its pledge to hold UFC events throughout Upstate and Downstate New York in the coming years if professional mixed martial arts (MMA) is legalized and regulated in New York. New York is the last place in North America where professional MMA is illegal. Amateur MMA is legal, although unregulated, in New York.
Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "New York is fortunate to have so many storied arenas and we want to bring the most exciting sport on the planet to as many of those venues as possible. I've said it before and I'll say it again, UFC is committed to bringing some of the best and biggest events we've ever held to New York State if they legalize and regulate professional MMA.
Just this week, UFC executives and former middleweight champion Chris Weidman held events with state legislators, supporters and fans to urge passage of legislation legalizing and regulating MMA in New York early in 2016. As part of the tour, events were held at the Oncenter in Syracuse and the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester.
"Over the next three years – assuming the bill passes this year – UFC will hold at least four events per year in New York, with at least two Upstate events every year," Fertitta said. "Of course we look forward to holding events at the world's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, and at Brooklyn's state-of-the-art Barclays Center. However, we are equally as excited to host events in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany."
Joel Fisher, executive vice president, sports properties for The Madison Square Garden Company, said: "Over the last century, virtually every great fighter has had the opportunity to compete at Madison Square Garden. Our hope for 2016 is that we can provide that same opportunity to some of the best athletes of this generation – Weidman, Rockhold, Holm, Jones, Rousey, McGregor, Aldo, Lawler, and so many others – and give New York MMA fans the chance to enjoy the UFC experience inside The World's Most Famous Arena."
Brett Yormark, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment CEO, said, "More than anything else, fans are telling us they want MMA and it's time to deliver. We would be thrilled to host UFC at Barclays Center, and soon, the new Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Not only does UFC further our goal of being in the big event business, it helps drive economic activity in the area."
Bob Belber, SMG Regional General Manager, Times Union Center, said, "Albany's Times Union Center could not be more excited about hosting professional MMA events. It's not often we get the chance to pack the arena with 17,000 fans; UFC provides that chance. We urge the Assembly to finally pass the bill and allow the Capital District to benefit from filled hotel rooms, busy restaurants, bars and shops and the influx of Canadian and other tourists to the region."
Robert Esche, President of Mohawk Valley Garden Corporation (Utica Memorial Auditorium), said, "Tourism is one of the key economic drivers for our region, and being able to hold professional MMA events at the Utica Memorial Auditorium will bring tourists to the Mohawk Valley while simultaneously growing our local economy through maximizing the potential of our sporting and entertainment industries."
Kelly Carr, General Manager for the Oncenter in Syracuse, said, "Fans are excited, as are we, at the prospect of bringing UFC to Upstate New York here at the Oncenter. The popularity of MMA events can create economic activity and opportunity for our Convention District and community. We sincerely hope that the Legislature will vote in favor of the bill to legalize this sport."
Jeff Calkins, General Manager of the Blue Cross Arena, said, "We can't wait to show off all that Rochester and Monroe County have to offer when the UFC finally comes to the Blue Cross Arena. Between our local fans and those that will travel here, it will be a boon for local restaurants, hotels and businesses. We urge New York legislators to finally bring our state in line with the other 49 states."
Jennifer Van Rysdam, VP Arena Events, First Niagara Center, said, "Buffalo is excited at the opportunity to host the UFC, as well as other professional MMA events. We have excited MMA fans across Western New York and we know that Canadian fans will pour into Buffalo to see UFC and MMA events at the First Niagara Center. We hope that 2016 is the year it becomes reality."
"Just as New York has some of the best arenas, New York also has some of the best, most knowledgeable and most intense MMA fans in the world. They want us in New York. The arenas want us in New York. Our athletes want to perform in New York. We are ready for New York. All we need is for the legislators to finally say yes," Fertitta said.
About UFC®
UFC® is a premium global sports brand and the largest pay-per-view event provider in the world. Headquartered in Las Vegas with offices in London, Toronto, Sao Paulo and Singapore, UFC produces more than 40 live events annually that consistently sell out some of the most prestigious arenas around the globe. UFC programming is broadcast in over 150 countries and territories to more than one billion TV households worldwide in 21 different languages. UFC FIGHT PASS®, a digital subscription service, delivers exclusive live events, thousands of fights on-demand and original content to fans around the world. For more information, visit UFC.com and follow at Facebook.com/UFC, Twitter and Instagram: @UFC.
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One of the premier authors that writes about South East Asia is former American attorney, Jake Needham. Jake came to writing novels quite by accident. I have heard recently he is going to go to electronic only sales on his newer books. If true, that is a shame as I have always enjoyed reading and looking at the Jake Needham paperbacks on my bookshelf.
Rather than reinvent the wheel let me tell you of the books I have read by Jake and then steer you to his fine web site and blog towards the end of this post. No one tells Jake's story better than Jake. I have never read a book by Jake Needham that I didn't like. He is a fine writer. I haven't always agreed with him about politics but that has as much to do with writing fiction as the fact that some people don't like fish sauce on their fried rice.
One of the first books I ever read after coming to Thailand in 2001 was THE BIG MANGO. It remains one of my Top Ten Bangkok based favorites to this day. The Northern California references were a nice bonus. The Big Mango has big money, big villains and big government involved. Although it's been awhile since I read it I believe it would hold up well today as good Viet Nam War stories never grow old.
THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE was my introduction to the Inspector Tay series set in Singapore. It is another favorite of mine. I like the fact that the body of a murdered woman is found in a room at The Marriott Hotel and that the hotel is named as such. I liked Inspector Tay right away. As a protagonist, Jack Reacher he is not and that is kind of refreshing. Flawed is being kind. But like Lieutenant Columbo he is no dummy and he is good at solving the crime.
Jake took quite awhile before he wrote his second Inspector Tay novel and I believe it was due to fan requests and the continued success of The Ambassador's Wife as the reason that he finally did so. This was, The Umbrella Man, which was the first Jake Needham novel I ever read on ebook format. While I missed the paper format it was still an excellent read. I like the economy of words Jake always manages. It is an under utilized skill by authors in my opinion. The Umbrella Man literally starts off with a bang as terrorists coordinate the bombing attacks on three Singapore hotels and Inspector Tay is caught in the middle in more ways than one.
Mr. Needham has written four in the Jack Shepherd crime novel series. I have read the first one and need to find time to read more of them. The four in order are: Laundry Man, which I enjoyed and recommend; Killing Plato, which is set on the island of Phuket; A World of Trouble, which I understand has a not so veiled Thaksin Shinawatra theme and the most recent; The King of Macau. In Laundry Man, Jack Shepherd is a former corporate lawyer reinventing himself, as so many expats do in Asia, as a University law professor. Corruption, blackmail and murder quickly become part of Jack Shepherd's new world. Never boring is the best compliment I can give Jake Needham's writing.
Jake Needham, like other well known authors writing about South East Asia, Timothy Hallinan, John Burdett, and Christopher G. Moore, is among a select group that have currently had one or more of their novels optioned to be made into Hollywood movies. As John Burdett once said at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Thailand, for a book to be made into a movie about 9 things have to align perfectly. Jake Needham has as good a chance of going 9 for 9 as anyone writing about Asia today.
Thanks for leaving a comment, AC.
Just bought "The Big Mango". Love the cover and the title.
Thanks, Carl. Glad to hear that. That's the original cover. They went for a modern, cleaner version later but I always liked the original one, by far. You're going to like the book, too.
Yes, I did. Just finished it. The protagonist is very much a writerly type I think: dreamy and going by his nose, but he has the moves when the moment arrives.
You might try one of Jake's Samuel Tay novels next. I prefer Tay over Shepherd, his two protagonist choices after MANGO but Shepherd has plenty of fans too. Thanks for your comment.


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As a litigator, appellate lawyer, lobbyist and legal teacher, I bring a broad and deep knowledge base to my practice, allowing me to advise clients with both a wide-angle lens to show the big picture and a microscope to examine the nuanced details. My multi-faceted experience in many aspects of the litigation realm enables me to provide a full range of services to clients.
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Tyson Shofstahl's practice centers on general, pharmaceutical, and mass and complex toxic tort litigation. He advocates for a variety of product manufacturers, distributors and retailers, contractors, premises owners and employers. Tyson represents a variety of product manufacturers (boilers, steam generators, furnaces, cat crackers, container vessels, refractory, gaskets, packing), distributors/retailers, contractors, premises owners and employers in mass/complex toxic tort litigation. He also defends suits involving a variety of claimed pathogens including: asbestos, silica, pesticides/insecticides, chemicals, toxic soups, grain dust and mold.
Tyson practices in the areas of pharmaceutical drug liability (PPA, prescription pain medication, anti-depressants and anti-psychotics), products liability (HVAC systems, bathroom and kitchen products, water heaters, scaffolding, welding hoses, grinding wheels, winches), general casualty, construction litigation, insurance law, professional liability and maritime law.
Tyson has been admitted to practice in all Louisiana state courts, all US District Courts in Louisiana, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the US Supreme Court. He has been a registered lobbyist, serving a number of corporations and trade associations, including the nationwide American Chemistry Council. He has also testified before the Louisiana legislature and drafts and lobbies for litigation-related statutes there.
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In 2007 and 2010-2014 he was listed in Louisiana Super Lawyers® (by Thomson Reuters) Products Liability, and in 2009 was named a Top Lawyer by New Orleans Magazine®. He is also AV® Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell.
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Your outfit can never go wrong if you wear white sneakers! Whether they're Adidas Stan Smith, Nike Air or any other brand, white sneakers can literally go with every outfit you have in your wardrobe - you just need the right way to style it.
When you scroll down, you'll see how street style stars, and some celebrities, were able to pull off the white sneakers while wearing jeans, and some others nailed it wearing very dressy outfits, like pantsuits and skirts.
No matter what outfit you have in mind, if you don't feel like wearing high heels today, check out these street style outfits to know how to wear white sneakers, and look stylish.
Looking for more outfit inspirations? Check out our Style Ideas section here.
30 Stylish Outfit Ideas to Wear Pink Like Grown Ups!