iPad and Canadian iTunes Store Accounts

April 20th, 2010 • Post a Comment!

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An iPad is a business expense, correct?

If the international delays for iPads are getting you down and you’re considering buying one from the USA and having it shipped to you, here’s something to bear in mind: on the iPad itself, you can only buy/update apps if you have and are logged into a USA iTunes store account. If you try to log in with a Canadian account (Can’t verify any other countries, personally) you won’t be successful.

You can, however, buy and upgrade items via iTunes and sync them via USB with a Canadian (Same disclaimer) account. But if you’re trying to live a life-less-tethered, you’ll be frustrated until the international accounts are properly activated.

Life Hack: Remove your Headphones and Say Hello

April 14th, 2010 • 2 comments - post yours!

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I’m travelling today; the typical jaunt of 4 airports and 3 flights to get from my hometown to one of my usual destinations: Chicago, for some business meetings. It’s been a few years since I’ve spent any time in Chicago, and 5 full days in the city is simply too short.

But this post is about a life hack; one of those little things you can do to make everything just a little bit better. Many of us walk around with our nose buried in our cel phone or other portable electronic device, or attached to our MP3 player via headphones, or both. These devices are distracting and inhibit our ability to take in the outside world … which can be a good thing, but it makes dealing with people you need to deal with that much more difficult, and it irritates those that you deal with.

So when I’m plugged into my headphones or dickering around with my iPod touch or Sony Reader, and I make it to the front of the line at the airport or bank or whatever, here is what I do:

  1. At 5-10 feet away, I start to put the device away entirely, or take my headphones out of my eyes. Both headphones end up tucked into the front of my shirt.
  2. As I step up to the person I need to speak with, I look them in the eye, smile, and say “Hello.” If they ask me how I’m doing, I answer, and in turn, ask them how they are. After they tell me that how they’re doing, I offer the appropriate “That’s good to hear.” or “Ouch, that’s a pain. These lines do look brutal—hope that the rest of your shift is easier.”
  3. Profit! Or Good Service! Maybe both? Why? It’s easy: by putting away your electronic crap and taking off your headphones, you’ve acknowledged to the person that you need to be able to hear and pay attention to them, that they provide value to you. By greeting them nicely and having a short conversation, you’ve shown that they’re a human, you’re a human, and whatever business may happen next gets off on a better foot.

A side tip: If you’re in a situation where things have gone poorly (You’ve missed a connecting flight, your luggage has been lost, your waitress was distracted and forgot to bring you your delicious cheesesticks, etc.) I’ve found the following style of phrase works out really well: “Actually, things are kind of lousy right now, and I would really like your help figuring out what I should do next.” (or: “And this is what you can do to help fix it.” Tell the person that you’re in a bit of a bind, or a bad mood, but make it clear to them that it isn’t their fault (unless it is) and that they can help you. Someone who wants to be helped is, shockingly, easier to help, and most people do like helping others, even if it’s their job.

I’d Rather be Working than Spinning

April 9th, 2010 • 21 comments - post yours!

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I wrote this post over on Dumpshock in response to praise on how Posthuman Studios is handling the ceasing of our business dealings with Catalyst Game Labs, and I’m echoing it here:

Y’know what’s work? Spin.

Y’know what I’d rather do than spin something? Other work.

Some crappy stuff happened, so we’ll do what we can do to fix it and continue Eclipse Phase with as little interruption as possible. The important thing isn’t what lousy things happened (and at this point, who knows if anyone’s “scorecard” is accurate…) but that Eclipse Phase will have a bright future.

And now, to repost something from the BattleTech boards, to demonstrate in part why I feel the future is so bright:

One of the things that Posthuman Studios is going to do is be very upfront about sales figures, expenses, etc. So I’ll start with this: we wanted Catalyst to sell EP at $10-15 for the PDF. They argued against it, and basically said “You’ll need to sell twice as many copies in order to make the same amount of money.” We said “Okay. If we don’t sell twice as many copies of the PDF as (ASpecificCatalystCoreBook) did in PDF in 18 months, you can take the difference in dollars out of our royalties.”

Less than six weeks after the PDF was available (and this was after we seeded the PDF to bittorrent ourselves — anyone could have it for free, legally), we broke that mark. This meant that we had made the same amount of money, and we had the PDF in the hands of at least twice as many people!

A few months after that, Catalyst lowered their prices on all core books, and announced that Leviathans would be Creative Commons-licensed as well. And the first print run of Eclipse Phase sold out, also.

So, there will be a quick resleeve for Eclipse Phase, and on with the future!

(Edit: I should offer a hat tip to Fred Hicks at Evil Hat Productions, creators of the available-for-pre-order Dresden Files RPG, who are transparent to a very admirable degree and are a big part of the influence towards Posthuman’s transparency!)

Eclipse Phase and Seattle 2072 nominated for Origins Awards

March 26th, 2010 • Post a Comment!

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I wrote about these two titles that I worked on last year in the post My Work in 2009, so check it out if you want to read a little about them—the news today is they’ve both been nominated for Origins Awards; Eclipse Phase (Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, John Snead, and more!) in the Best RPG category and Seattle 2072 (written by Steve Kenson with a bunch of authors contributing short fiction) in the Best Sourcebook category.

I’m really damned proud of these books and the teams that worked on them—thanks to all of the contributors!

By the way, Eclipse Phase is Creative Commons-licensed, so if you want to grab the PDF for free, not only will I not stop you, but I’ll outright encourage you to do so!

Updated Publication List

March 19th, 2010 • Post a Comment!

I updated my Publication List—if you don’t know what I worked on over the last few years, check it out.

No longer with Catalyst Game Labs / IMR

March 16th, 2010 • 29 comments - post yours!

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March 17th edit: Internet scuttlebutt makes me want to clarify this—leaving IMR was my choice. I wasn’t fired, asked to leave, or any way “negotiated out” of the company. I had and have no ownership stake in the company.

I am no longer an employee of Catalyst Game Labs / InMediaRes LLC, nor a contractor/freelancer for them. A few more books will come out in the next few months with my name in them, but please don’t ask me questions about release dates or any other Catalyst matters; the answers are out of my hands. This is sad: I love the games I worked on and they’ve been a large part of my life for a long time, as a fan and a professional. Leaving something you love is rarely easy.

Shadowrun fans: thanks for years and years of fun and feistyness. Last year, when Jason Hardy took over as Shadowrun Line Developer, I told him simply: “If you kill the one thing I’ve loved my entire adult life, I will kill you.” As of today, you’re off the hook no matter what, Jase.

BattleTech fans: thanks for letting me mess around in your playground for awhile. I hope you enjoy the Total Warfare line of core rulebooks and my work on them.

Colleagues: I’m looking for interesting opportunities, in or out of hobby gaming. If you have some or know of some, please drop me a line.

People I’ve Worked With: It’s been a pleasure to work with you crazy-talented and just plain crazy people. I look forward to doing so again.

I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be blogging at adamjury.com, still be posting on Twitter, and life continues on. If you wish to reach me, please send me an email to adam at adamjury dot com — or use my Contact Form.

Not All Gamers are Plugged In

February 20th, 2010 • 26 comments - post yours!

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One of the common misconceptions about gamers is that they’re all plugged in—they’re all on the internet, they all read forums and keep up with publisher’s blogs, they subscribe to podcasts and know what’s being released when.

This is hogwash. There are many gamers that don’t get news from anyplace except their local gaming store, and are largely or entirely insulated from trends in the gaming industry. Their hobby is one or two games that they buy and/or play. They come into the store once every few months, pick up anything new for their game of choice, and go home. They may see other games on the shelf, but they don’t know what’s in them and they don’t have the time or inclination to learn. They don’t participate in public/organized games at the store, they don’t go to conventions — they have friends that they game with, and that’s that.

Last fall I was in my FLGS and another customer saw me picking up a wide variety of new releases. He asked if I was a “game collector” and I said no, I just try to keep up-to-date on what other companies are doing, as I work in the game industry. He then asked me what superhero games were good these days, and I pointed him to Mutants and Masterminds on the shelf (I also mentioned HERO, but said local store doesn’t stock it). He asked how you make characters, and I said “Well, it’s a point-based system” — his reply was “What’s a point-based system?”

I briefly explained what a point-based system was, and he found it incredibly difficult to understand that you could make a character in this game without picking some sort of archetype/class/template first: “So how do I make a speedster?” “Well, you build up the right stats and buy powers to make him faster.” “But how do you know he’s a speedster?!”

So, three things that a five minute conversation with this guy revealed:

  1. Even though he likes supers, he’s never read or even flipped through Mutants & Masterminds, one of the two most popular superhero RPGs of the last decade, despite the title being in regular stock at the local store we both shop at.
  2. He didn’t know what a point-based system was and had never (knowingly) played a game that used them.
  3. He had never (knowingly) played a game that didn’t involve archetypes/classes/templates of some sort.

None of those things are bad — if he’s having fun gaming, that’s great. But it does show that until someone actually stepped in and directly gave him that information, he had never learned or experienced three things that I suspect the average “tabletop gamer on the internet” would consider common knowledge.

My Work in 2009

December 31st, 2009 • 4 comments - post yours!

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I’m not going to fib: 2009 was a rough year, work-wise. Catalyst experienced turnovers and hardships and growing pains, and we also did a lot of awesome things, but we also didn’t get all of the awesome things finished that we wanted to. That leaves us with plenty of things to do in 2010, of course!

One particular thing I found troubling about 2009 was developing the design and layout for Eclipse Phase and the 20th Anniversary Edition of Shadowrun at the same time: it was a lot of work, and I would have liked to have seen how one book [either one!] fared in the eyes of gamers before I turned my attention to another book. I used my gut a lot when designing both books; in the end, I think my gut was right more often than not.

My highlights of 2009 are easy:

Eclipse Phase

Not only am I very pleased with how Eclipse Phase ended up looking and working as a book and game artifact, but our gang at Posthuman Studios pushed Catalyst hard for things we wanted: Creative Commons licensing & inexpensive PDF pricing being the prime two. Those decisions have so far turned out to be wise, and Catalyst will be be publishing at least one more game—Leviathans—using a Creative Commons license. The development team’s work on Eclipse Phase—game, setting, book—fills me with pride.

Shadowrun, 4th Ed. 20th Anniversary Core Rulebook

What can I say? It was a thrill to work on this book, and aside from minor nitpicks it’s been enthusiastically received by new and returning Shadowrun fans alike. Highlights: the huge color-coded master index, the streamlining of character generation, and the revised skills chapter. Each time I pick up this book to use is better than any time picking up the previous Fourth Edition book.

Seattle 2072

Through weird twists of fate, I actually ended up being the developer on this project. My goal was simple: meld the best of Seattle Sourcebook’s “bite-sized” design with the best of New Seattle’s, throw in a major shakeup, and set up some future plots so people can keep ‘running in the Sixth World’s signature city. Steve Kenson rocked the main writing tasks and we pulled in a bunch of others to write short fiction pieces.

Being a Better Friend on Social Networks

December 27th, 2009 • 6 comments - post yours!

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On social networks such as Facebook, your friends and colleagues typically provide you with a vast amount of information about what they’re doing and how they’re feeling. You should use this information to be a better friend.

When a friend makes some sort of comment or status update that makes you wonder “What’s wrong?”, “What happened?” or similar questions—don’t ask them that generic question. Take a quick look at their profile and check what they’ve been doing lately: have they been to a wedding? Did a relative fall ill or die? Did they just break up with someone? Did they just get laid off, or get a new job? Spend just a few minutes—literally!—checking in on your friend, use the resources that they have made available to you, and then use what you’ve learned to help your friend. If they’ve just broken up with someone, what’s better for them to hear: “What happened?” or “Hey, I heard you got laid off. Let me know if you want to talk or hang out anytime, my schedule is clear for you and dinner is on me.”? React to the event that happened; don’t just react because an event happened.

Look at this sort of research as the same way you would handle an in-person situation with a friend or co-worker: if one of your co-workers comes into the office and they seem excessively frustrated or angry, do you immediately confront them or ask them what’s wrong? Likely not; you’re more likely to talk to another co-worker first to see if you can find out what’s up. Sometimes, it’s better to learn things indirectly so you can approach a situation more delicately or give someone additional time and space. This works the same online as it does off.

If they didn’t say anything recently that makes it obvious why they’re in such a mood, then go ahead and ask them. But bear in mind that if they haven’t broadcasted the reason before, they might not want to broadcast the reason now, so a private message or email (not an instant message) is probably the best way to ask.

If you care about your friends, it’s worth spending a few more minutes to make sure that they are actually cared for, and not just bombarded with already-answered questions.

How to Ask Smart Questions about Games

December 21st, 2009 • 1 comment - post yours!

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Eric S. Raymond of The Cathedral and the Bazaar fame also maintains a FAQ/guide on How To Ask Questions The Smart Way. I find it a useful document and have read it several times over the years, but it’s steeped in Open Source and code-hacking culture. Even though it’s aimed at non-technical users seeking answers for technical questions, it isn’t a document I would point people to regularly, if for nothing but the length.

Questions about roleplaying, board, or card games are often very technical and deep, whether they are about mechanics or an elaborate setting. Good questions get good answers—but recently I’ve been seeing more and more questions that are either ill-formed or lacking necessary information. Dare I say it, I’ve been seeing questions that are “twitter length” when they don’t need to be.

Before I move forward, I am going to issue two standard disclaimers:

  1. Don’t interrupt a game to look up a rule online, phone a friend, etc. Make a ruling that is satisfactory to all players and agree to play by that ruling until the end of the game, then work on a solution for future games or play sessions. Take some quick notes or a photograph of the game state so you can remember the exact problem. I almost always have my laptop nearby, so I just record an audio explanation of the issue so I can fully remember it later—any easy recording device will do!
  2. In a non-competitive game like most roleplaying games, what “the company” or “other gaming groups” think or do is not relevant to your gaming group. Any solution that pleases everyone in your gaming group is the correct solution [if not the most correct solution] to a rules or setting problem. This is true in competitive games within your group, as well.

Now, onto asking questions!

Before You Ask

  • Do your research: first, re-read the relevant sections of the rules. Memory or oral renditions of the rules may not be accurate. The first person I played Magic: The Gathering with told me that if you had zero cards in your hand when it was your draw, you drew seven cards instead of the normal single card!
  • If the rules don’t answer your questions, do a web search, check for an official FAQ or errata, discuss the question with your gaming group, and ask a local expert in the game.

Ask the Question

  • Start by listing the edition/version of the game you are playing, and then ask your question in the simplest and most compact terms. You want readers to quickly figure out if they can help you and move on if they can’t.

Explain What You Know

  • List out the rules/books you have so far used to research the problem, and the other books/expansions to which you have access.
  • List out any other things that may be relevant, such as house rules you are using that may interact with the canon rules.
  • List the page references for what is confusing you: if you have looked for specific rules on p. 191 and there are additional rules on p. 256 that you have not found, a reference to p. 191 only will give someone a good clue where to lead you next. If you’re talking about a board or card game, explain the relevant things that are on the playing field. Remember that in some board or card games, the rules change slightly depending on the number of players, so list that, also.

Provide an Example

  • If it’s a rules question, a specific implementation example from your game will help the readers understand your question and will give an answer more context when it comes to back to you. If it’s a board or card game giving you trouble, take a digital picture of the playfield if you think that will help.

Provide Options

  • If you have researched the question to the point where you have multiple possible answers, present the options and your logic behind them as if they were answers to a multiple-choice test.

Proofread

  • Go back and proofread your question; make sure that any numbers are correct and that you start with the basics and work to the more complicated parts of the problem. If your question is broken, getting an accurate answer will be even more difficult!
  • Use the standard terms that the game uses—even if your local gaming group has its own slang, the more your question hews to the game-as-published, the easier it will be for people to answer.

Thank Yous

  • Thank people in advance for reading and thinking about your post, and after you receive answers, thank them.
  • Point out the answer that you plan on using.
  • Include any additional notes you may have from other research or reading you’ve done.

Similarly, many of these hints can help you when answering questions, too: include book and page references, quick examples as necessary, and don’t devolve into too much slang, shorthand, or netspeak.

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