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Detect Magic works like a quick identify spell in my game, with no cost, and with the understanding that some items are mysterious and will not respond to such a simple spell. On a somewhat unrelated note, Read Magic grants a +5 on UMD checks w/regard to scrolls and written magic items in my...

Audiobooks: Finished up Nutmeg of Consolation, am now listening to The Prestige, will go on to The Truelove after that. The Prestige is quite good. Book books: I'm going to pick up The Infernal City (novel by Gregory Keyes set in the world of The Elder Scrolls video games, my understanding is...

Back in the day, just before my older brother headed off to college, I spent days with a manual typewriter typing up the entire monster chart from the appendix of the 1E AD&D DMG, because I knew he was taking his stuff with him and I couldn't do without the monsters! I must have been about 11 or...

I saw the movie, thought it was so-so, got the first disc of the series on Netflix, it didn't grab me. But who knows, maybe someday I'll be ready to give it another try.

After the worse-than-disappointing Dracula the Un-Dead, I am returning to Jack McDevitt's Deepsix and will probably follow that up with The Engines of God (I believe I'm reading the series out of order but apparently it's a pretty loose series). Kara got me some books from my wish list for my...

Oh, wow, thank you! I've been having a relaxing day with Mrs. Noah, and birthday wishes from friends like you are the topper! :)

Ohh kay ... my verdict on Dracula the Un-Dead is ... don't bother. Spoilers: None of the characters is likable and it is a relief as they are killed off one by one. We also get to meet a talentless hack named Bram Stoker who did not write Dracula, he was told it by Van Helsing - and Van...

No. It's told in a rather pedestrian, straightforward way - author(s) engage in a lot of "telling" rather than "showing."

Still working on Deepsix, but also now reading Dracula the Un-Dead, a sequel to Dracula apparently based on some notes from Bram Stoker and written by his great-nephew or somesuch. I'm about 3 chapters in and, no, it is not great literature nor particularly reminiscent of what I remember of the...

I do it in spurts. I do a lot of the plotty thinking off and on for weeks. I sometimes will sit down and do nothing but stat blocks for a couple of hours at a stretch just to give myself a little toolbox to play with as I am fiddling with the plotty stuff later on. And then a couple of days...

Other: teacher/librarian

Piles. Lots and lots of piles. I only write errata in them (exception - adventures - I write lots in adventure products); I do use sticky notes in/on them from time to time.

I did something this weekend I hadn't done in a long time - I read a book (Kethani) basically in one sitting. It was sort of a "how would normal humans react to a sci fi situation that fundamentally changes what life is about" book. A lot of relationshipy things and characters pondering the...

Back from the bookstore with Jack McDevitt's Deepsix and Eric Brown's Kethani. We'll see how they go.

Donated some cash ... and a bump!

Seth MacFarlane was a pleasant surprise.

It was ok. I saw some familiar faces, which was fun. I thought the mystery unfolded a little too quickly - I would have liked to have seen more confusion about the blackout event and about the visions. I do like the central conflict - is foreknowledge going to allow people to change their...

Reading nothing - really need to remedy this. Listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora - it's ok, not great - the narrator moves at a slower pace than I am used to.

On further consideration, I would also ask the player to respect some guidelines about appropriate "item slots" based on the effect. A gun that grants a shield bonus to you?? No. A gun should shoot something and do something to a target. If you want darkvision, it should be something like...

It does seem a little odd. I might start by coming up with some guidelines about devices not being able to produce the same essential effect twice (i.e. - it can only hold one spell that inflicts damage, one that inflicts a particular condition, one that enhances Armor Class, etc.). So their...