Friday, January 11, 2008

Quickies and Quotes.

Today's A.Word.A.Day (cat's paw) had this quote, which seems very fitting for post-birthday contemplation:

It is not how old you are, but how you are old. —Jules Renard, writer
(1864-1910)

Bruce Schneier argues that you should leave your wireless unencrypted:
To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it's both wrong and dangerous.

Yehuda laments random combat in board games, and ponders how to fix it. Interestingly, he provided a few solutions to rejuvenate games a little over a year ago:
Alternately, you may be able to buy enhancing strength points. When conflict occurs, each player decides how many points to add to the conflict, and the higher value wins. You can have the attacking player decide first, and then the defending player, or you can have both sides choose secretly. You can also opt to allow uninvolved players to toss strength onto either side of the battle.
(NB, this conflict system is akin to Shazamm [BGG, BUY ME!] [itself similar to an older game called Footprints or Quo Vadis {BGG, OOP}], but I think that his game as mentioned might do better with a card system borrowed from Dungeon Twister [BGG, BUY ME!].)

2 comments:

Drey said...

This also described the conflict system in House of Whack, BTW. ;)

Unknown said...

The (very simple) combat system in Antler Island also lets you buy temporary combat strength (with the same resource, food, that you use to upgrade long-term strength.)

Interesting game for all of its overboard cuteness and banter/pun-producing theme.