Fingers crossed...

Got notified on Tuesday that we had floated to the top of the Hyatt waiting list for Arisia. (The Hyatt may be evil, but they're awfully convenient.) Went through the rigamarole to get a reservation: make a fake reservation for Thursday, pass the reservation number to the Arisia Innkeeper, who submits it to the Hyatt staff, who mutate it into an actual Fri-Mon reservation. The Hyatt website still just shows the Thursday one, but I just spoke with the hotel on the phone, and they confirmed that *they* think we're in for the convention. So I've cancelled my reservation at Le Meridien. (Which was cheaper and probably nicer, but the shuttle bus would put a mild crimp in my planning.)

I confess, I'm really looking forward to next year, and the prospect of a hotel that is (hopefully) actually big enough. (And hopefully less evil.) But in the meantime, yay for the Arisia Innkeeper, who is negotiating this PITA process with the hotel for getting people off the waiting list...

Fingers crossed...

Got notified on Tuesday that we had floated to the top of the Hyatt waiting list for Arisia. (The Hyatt may be evil, but they're awfully convenient.) Went through the rigamarole to get a reservation: make a fake reservation for Thursday, pass the reservation number to the Arisia Innkeeper, who submits it to the Hyatt staff, who mutate it into an actual Fri-Mon reservation. The Hyatt website still just shows the Thursday one, but I just spoke with the hotel on the phone, and they confirmed that *they* think we're in for the convention. So I've cancelled my reservation at Le Meridien. (Which was cheaper and probably nicer, but the shuttle bus would put a mild crimp in my planning.)

I confess, I'm really looking forward to next year, and the prospect of a hotel that is (hopefully) actually big enough. (And hopefully less evil.) But in the meantime, yay for the Arisia Innkeeper, who is negotiating this PITA process with the hotel for getting people off the waiting list...

Tips on charitable donations for Haiti

Seeing a request or two for lists of who to donate to, it occurred to me to check my usual go-to source, Charity Navigator. As I expected, they have a page specifically on the subject:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1004

It's not long, and it's a good pause-and-take-a-breath read. It lists a bunch of charities that are known to be high-quality and are working on the Haitian disaster, along with some generally helpful reminders of how to donate effectively and not get ripped off by the scamsters who are trying to take advantage of tragedy...

Tips on charitable donations for Haiti

Seeing a request or two for lists of who to donate to, it occurred to me to check my usual go-to source, Charity Navigator. As I expected, they have a page specifically on the subject:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1004

It's not long, and it's a good pause-and-take-a-breath read. It lists a bunch of charities that are known to be high-quality and are working on the Haitian disaster, along with some generally helpful reminders of how to donate effectively and not get ripped off by the scamsters who are trying to take advantage of tragedy...

How I write games

I was just commenting in another journal, and wound up describing my general approach to game design. I'm actually not sure I've ever described it here, and other writers might find it interesting food for thought, so lifting that comment almost verbatim:

My standard technique is what I think of as "character archetypes". That is, I usually try to overdesign the game, but instead of trying to come up with completely-fleshed-out characters early on, I focus on coming up with conceptual snippets: bits of character, which are often easier to invent and to tie into conceptual plots. I then "mix down" the game to characters by looking for which archetypes might combine well. A given character typically uses 2-6 archetypes.

Periodically, I re-examine the characters as things are growing. When a character is looking thin, I'll look for additional archetypes I can mix in, that I haven't already overused. These archetypes typically come in bunches of several related ones (related by plot or faction or some such), so pulling in one usually leaves me with a bunch more that need to get dealt with, so I assign those to other underserved characters. This usually provides me with great opportunities to place connections that otherwise don't exist in the game, thickening the web nicely.

I actually *write* the game quite late in the process, usually, after I've gotten the mixing to a point where I'm fairly happy with it -- that is, I try to design thoroughly before I start to write. This lets me blast through the writing very fast, with relatively few modifications later. (Although it does make the writing phase very intense.)

The other nice thing about the archetype approach is that they are often reusable -- when I design a Romeo and Juliet plot, for example, that gives me half a dozen character archetypes that I can slot into almost *any* game. This means that, if I come up with a good idea but never manage to fit it into this game, I might be able to do so in another one sometime later. So it's less frustrating to overdesign and wind up with leftovers...

Random Quote du Jour:

"God isn't dead, He's just got a lousy PR department."
-- John Berryhill

How I write games

I was just commenting in another journal, and wound up describing my general approach to game design. I'm actually not sure I've ever described it here, and other writers might find it interesting food for thought, so lifting that comment almost verbatim:

My standard technique is what I think of as "character archetypes". That is, I usually try to overdesign the game, but instead of trying to come up with completely-fleshed-out characters early on, I focus on coming up with conceptual snippets: bits of character, which are often easier to invent and to tie into conceptual plots. I then "mix down" the game to characters by looking for which archetypes might combine well. A given character typically uses 2-6 archetypes.

Periodically, I re-examine the characters as things are growing. When a character is looking thin, I'll look for additional archetypes I can mix in, that I haven't already overused. These archetypes typically come in bunches of several related ones (related by plot or faction or some such), so pulling in one usually leaves me with a bunch more that need to get dealt with, so I assign those to other underserved characters. This usually provides me with great opportunities to place connections that otherwise don't exist in the game, thickening the web nicely.

I actually *write* the game quite late in the process, usually, after I've gotten the mixing to a point where I'm fairly happy with it -- that is, I try to design thoroughly before I start to write. This lets me blast through the writing very fast, with relatively few modifications later. (Although it does make the writing phase very intense.)

The other nice thing about the archetype approach is that they are often reusable -- when I design a Romeo and Juliet plot, for example, that gives me half a dozen character archetypes that I can slot into almost *any* game. This means that, if I come up with a good idea but never manage to fit it into this game, I might be able to do so in another one sometime later. So it's less frustrating to overdesign and wind up with leftovers...

Random Quote du Jour:

"God isn't dead, He's just got a lousy PR department."
-- John Berryhill

Bubbles rising again

Since folks occasionally ask "how should I invest?" questions on LJ, it seems worthwhile to point out this sobering article from the Economist last week. It's a longish but useful read.

Summary: there are signs all over the place of asset bubbles forming, in all sorts of different asset classes, because of all the cheap money sloshing around the system, including:

• By some measures, the stock market is looking mildly bubbly, although not nearly as insane as two years ago. When the Dow was in the low-to-mid 9000s, I thought we weren't looking *too* bad; now that it's in the mid-10s, I'm starting to get concerned. The article suggests that even 9000 is probably somewhat overvalued.


• Emerging-market stocks are looking even more dangerous, because of the amount of over-optimism surrounding them.


• Some are still talking up gold, and it's hard to evaluate, but when prices have quadrupled you have to suspect a bubble.


• American house prices actually don't look too bad, but worldwide things still look overvalued.

None of which produces any great guidance: the upshot is that the efforts to stabilize the economy, while moderately effective, are causing overshoots in lots of prices, so *everything* looks a bit risky right now. Which implies that things will probably get pretty unstable again before they genuinely steady, because all of these bubbles need to have some air let out.

My guess is that you should probably assume at least a mini-crash sometime in the next year -- probably not the sort of end-of-the-world disaster we had last year, but don't get overly comfortable with current prices. I don't see any obvious investment choices that I would characterize as "safe" at this point.

(Whether it turns into a true economic debacle depends heavily on whether the Republican noise machine convinces enough people to force the government to close the taps too quickly, I suspect. While the debt issue is a real one, and needs to be addressed forcefully in the medium term, it's worth noting that a sudden reduction of government spending was a proximate cause of both the Great Depression and Japan's Lost Decade. Basically, what the Republicans are arguing for would likely pop all the bubbles simultaneously, which could be pretty devastating. I don't think that extreme is likely, but it would be fairly easy to cause a moderate version of that...)

Bubbles rising again

Since folks occasionally ask "how should I invest?" questions on LJ, it seems worthwhile to point out this sobering article from the Economist last week. It's a longish but useful read.

Summary: there are signs all over the place of asset bubbles forming, in all sorts of different asset classes, because of all the cheap money sloshing around the system, including:

• By some measures, the stock market is looking mildly bubbly, although not nearly as insane as two years ago. When the Dow was in the low-to-mid 9000s, I thought we weren't looking *too* bad; now that it's in the mid-10s, I'm starting to get concerned. The article suggests that even 9000 is probably somewhat overvalued.


• Emerging-market stocks are looking even more dangerous, because of the amount of over-optimism surrounding them.


• Some are still talking up gold, and it's hard to evaluate, but when prices have quadrupled you have to suspect a bubble.


• American house prices actually don't look too bad, but worldwide things still look overvalued.

None of which produces any great guidance: the upshot is that the efforts to stabilize the economy, while moderately effective, are causing overshoots in lots of prices, so *everything* looks a bit risky right now. Which implies that things will probably get pretty unstable again before they genuinely steady, because all of these bubbles need to have some air let out.

My guess is that you should probably assume at least a mini-crash sometime in the next year -- probably not the sort of end-of-the-world disaster we had last year, but don't get overly comfortable with current prices. I don't see any obvious investment choices that I would characterize as "safe" at this point.

(Whether it turns into a true economic debacle depends heavily on whether the Republican noise machine convinces enough people to force the government to close the taps too quickly, I suspect. While the debt issue is a real one, and needs to be addressed forcefully in the medium term, it's worth noting that a sudden reduction of government spending was a proximate cause of both the Great Depression and Japan's Lost Decade. Basically, what the Republicans are arguing for would likely pop all the bubbles simultaneously, which could be pretty devastating. I don't think that extreme is likely, but it would be fairly easy to cause a moderate version of that...)