Tags | RocketBomber

About the Blog.

Posted 21 October 2017, 14:05
Tagged: admin, common sense copyright, creative commons, ground rules, housekeeping

Welcome to the online home of Matt Blind; thanks for reading.

RocketBomber is a generic, general-issue, all-purpose kind of blog, of the type that used to proliferate in the late 1990s and early 2000s. You know, back when we called them ‘web logs’ instead of blogs, and you and your friends were all on LiveJournal. (or your parents were.)

While definitely a blog, using both the ‘bones’ of a blog and a blog’s idiolect, this site is neither autobiographical or journalistic. It’s not a ‘topic’ blog, either — this isn’t so much about anything, it is the writing — the messy, disorganized pile-of-notes, snippets-of-story, links, thoughts, and spitballing that goes into other projects, large and small.

It’s meant to be fun — for me at least.

It should also be an awesome way to organize my notes: tagging articles, throwing them into broad categories, and making everything searchable.

Two quick notes before I get into the copyright stuff:

Commenting is disabled across the site. If you still feel you must comment on an item, reach out to me on Twitter @mdotblind or Mastodon/Federated socials @mdotblind@mastodon.social.

Also, this is the second incarnation of the RocketBomber blog — if you surfed in on a link and got a 404 error, try the URL again but replace www.rocketbomber.com with archive.rocketbomber.com. All of the old articles are still there, just moved [entirely] to that subdomain. I no longer update (or fix anything) over there, but a little extra effort should get you to where you thought you were going.

If you read something here and want to steal it, for the most part: go right ahead. Some rights reserved:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Alinth Fantasy World Descriptions and Plinth RPG Systems by Matt Blind and other commentary and content on this site are all licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The CC License applies to all descriptions, characters, story elements, maps, place names, and most but not all items posted to the blog. Images used are typically also CC Licensed, but also are typically not originally mine — please make a note of any citations on photos. Additionally, I might preemptively revoke Creative Commons in advance (for whatever reason) so if a post explicitly cites copyright or otherwise exempts itself, well, that.

Additional rights might be available, specifically rights to commercially reproduce any content found here, but you’ll have to ask (and obtain) permission first.

I’m a pencil-paper-and-dice table-top games veteran (primarily D&D and D&D-derivatives) and sometimes I find it easier to think about things in terms of how it would work “in game”. I think many people who currently write fantasy have a similar background and inclination. I might post some material here that is either intended for role-playing gaming, or that is formatted that way just for kicks-and-giggles.

Please Carefully Read the Following Regarding Game Mechanics:

In the event that I post material suitable for gaming or for easy translation to any and all 3rd-party RPG systems, I will be using a modified version of Steffan O’Sullivan’s 1995 FUDGE system [Freeform Universal Do-it-Yourself Gaming Engine]; any specific references to FUDGE mechanics fall under Steffan O’Sullivan’s very generous terms and subsequent licenses.

As of March 2004, FUDGE System™ is owned by Grey Ghost Press, who holds all copyrights. Grey Ghost Press makes the FUDGE system available to developers under the FUDGE System Trademark License and the Open Game License.

included below is the original Disclaimer mandated by O’Sullivan in his 1995 version:

DISCLAIMER

The following materials based on FUDGE, entitled “Plinth RPG System Mechanics”, are created by Matt Blind and made available by Matt Blind via rocketbomber.com, and are not authorized or endorsed in any way by Steffan O’Sullivan or any publisher of other FUDGE materials. Neither Steffan O’Sullivan or any publisher of other FUDGE material is in any way responsible for the content of these materials.

If you wish to distribute copies of all or portions of FUDGE or derivative works based on FUDGE for a fee or charge, other than in a magazine or other periodical, you must first obtain written permission from:

Steffan O’Sullivan
P.O. Box 465
Plymouth, NH 03264

Please Note: I do not intend, in any way, to present a complete gaming system — not on the blog, there will be a separate site for that — however, gaming (especially referencing RPG fantasy games) presents a unique vocabulary for describing concepts. I like leaning on that legacy, and you’ll find me using gaming vocabulary often.

O’Sullivan used a seven-level sequence to describe traits: I love the mechanic but use the following eleven-level (zero to 10) sequence

0. fatal
1. terrible
2. awful
3. poor
4. meh.
5. fair
6. good
7. great
8. rare
9. epic
10. legend

The scale defaults to 4, “meh.” as a baseline; “fair” traits are actually ever-so-slightly above average.
If “meh.” doesn’t sound RPG enough, you could use mediocre or meager, but meh.—despite being a more recent coinage—is an excellent monosyllable with clear meaning.
At 8, “rare”, was “superb” in FUDGE and you are welcome to use that term instead. Superb, particularly when you can let it breathe on its own without trying to cram it into several sentences in the same paragraph, is a fantastic word but I keep mentally tripping on it. Once I chose Epic & Legendary as my 9 and 10, defaulting to Rare for 8 was just natural. “Rare” is little clunky too, but is a strong, clear monosyllable and I like it.

Anyone interested should definitely check out the 1995 Fudge PDF, currently available for download from Grey Ghost Press.

this page last edited 23 Aug 2023.