Apr

10

The Secret Lair Episode 0009: No Fools Allowed

Filed Under Books, Games, Introspection, Monologuing, Software, Villainy | 4 Comments

Overlord KrisDue to an unfortunate accident, The Secret Lair’s official stenographer was eaten by a crocodile last week.1 While our search for a replacement continues, it has fallen to me to provide show notes for The Secret Lair Episode 0009.2 Unfortunately, I’m a very busy overlord lately and rather than delay release of the episode and further,3 I’m going to post the scraps4 I’ve got now and fill in the rest once I get an hour or so to myself.

April Fool’s Day

WordPress 2.5

  • …has a new administrator interface. Chris isn’t a fan.
  • …has a new image/media management system…which doesn’t seem to work on The Secret Lair.
  • …has a redesigned Write Post screen. We don’t much care for it.
  • Kris has more to say about WordPress 2.5 on his blog.

Unquiet Desperation

Minion Recruiting Board

  • Thanks to P.G. Holyfield and Scott Sigler, we have a number of job openings at the Lair.
  • Fill out our super-secret minion application form, if you can find it.

The Secret Library

  • Our current novel is The Sky People by S.M. Stirling.
  • Our current graphic novel is Shooting War by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman .
  • NEW! At the request of our minions, we have decided to add a podiobook section to The Secret Library. Our first selection is The Pocket and the Pendant by Mark Jeffrey. Subscribe at Podiobooks.com.

RPGs

  • The Dresden Files RPG bleeding edge beta continues.
  • Gunnar scored some WarHammer RPG 2nd Edition sourcebooks and Half-Price Books recently.

Movies and Television

  • Kris saw Spider-Man 3 and wishes he hadn’t.
  • Chris says it was worse than Batman and Robin.
  • Check out How It Should Have Ended. (YouTube)
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man is on the Kids’ WB and is far more entertaining.

Housekeeping

  • We have a feedback address, where you may send us feedback. At The Secret Lair. Dot Com.
  • There’s also a contact form, which no one has used yet. Will you be the first?
  • It is entirely possible to join our official community, should you be so inclined.
  • Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Intertroubadour extraordinaire, Jonathan Coulton.
 
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  1. Let’s not be concerned with who may or may not have forgotten to engage the magnetic couplers in the holding environment. Pointing fingers isn’t going to get us a new stenographer and playing The Blame Game isn’t helping morale. [↩]
  2. Writing the show notes is not punishment. As co-overlord, I’m above punishment, even if you could prove conclusively that it was me. Which you can’t. [↩]
  3. What’s that? Maybe I should have delayed release of the crocodile? Oh, great. That’s very mature. How about this: maybe you should think twice before you go hiring your relatives, okay? People get eaten, gassed, disintegrated, mutated and shunted to other dimensions around here all the time, but when it’s your cousin it’s suddenly a big deal. [↩]
  4. Shut up. Just shut up! [↩]

Feb

25

The Secret Lair Episode 0006: Interrogation of Ken Newquist

Filed Under Games, Interrogations, Software | 9 Comments

Overlord KrisIf you question the effectiveness of our Retrieval Squads, you may wish to ask Mr. Ken Newquist about his opinion on the subject. They came in the dead of night and before Ken was even aware that his home had been infiltrated he was subdued, transported to one of our Interrogation rooms and submitted to “methods of inquiry” that would make anyone even marginally acquainted with the Geneva Conventions weep.

Once satisfied that we had wrung every useful iota of information from Mr. Newquist, we wiped every memory of the interrogation from his mind—leaving only a powerful sub- and semi-conscious fear of all things related to The Secret Lair—and turned him over to our Detrieval Squad (which probably needs a better name) who returned him to his home.1

In retrospect, Ken may not be able to provide the best testimonial to the effectiveness of our Retrieval Squads, but he can certainly attest to the thoroughness of our upgraded memory alteration hardware. More accurately, the recording we present in this episode of The Secret Lair and Mr. Newquist’s complete lack of memory regarding the same should demonstrate that the hardware works quite well indeed.

Our interrogation of Mr. Newquist (or, at least, the bits of it we’re sharing) was primarily devoted to roleplaying games, wikis and open source content management systems. While a roleplaying game about a content management system might be incredibly dull, there are certainly ways in which RPGs can benefit from web-based tools, and such is the core of our discussion.

Roleplaying Games

Online Tools for Gamers

  • The wiki, a tool that allows multiple users to easily create and link web documents.
  • The virtual table top, usually a client-server application, allows remote gamers to play pen and paper RPGs together.
  • Play-by-Email
  • Other Tools
    • RPTools, a collection of tools to help with mapping, tracking initiative, dice rolling and more. [Kudos to Trevor for the link.]

Open Source Software

  • Moodle is an open source Course Management System, an alternative to Blackboard.
  • Drupal is an open source Content Management System with lots of module support.
  • WordPress is the open source blogging software upon which The Secret Lair website is built.

Promos

Ken Newquist is the editor of Nuketown and host of Nuketown Radio Active. His gaming column, Summon Web Scryer, appears in Knights of the Dinner Table magazine.

 
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  1. Mr. Newquist’s family was totally unaware that he had been abducted, such is the power of our new temporal arrestor. [↩]