Along with getting back into playing D&D over the past year, I've started catching up on the world of 3rd party publishers. One really interesting publisher is Kobold Quarterly, which seems to have developed over the course of a year from a one-man gaming zine to a respected publication with big-name contributors like Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, and Skip Williams.

The biggest thing KQ is doing, though, is their patronage-based Open Design adventures. KQ puts out the bare sketch of an idea, with a couple of big options left open. (The current project, Halls of the Mountain King, has 3E and 4E versions competing.) Patrons sign up via paypal; when one of the competing options hits a dollar target, it goes into development, and other options' patrons get the option to join the winner or else get a refund. The project then commissions writers, a cartographer, and artists, and the patrons are given access to private forums to discuss the project, guide its development via polls, or propose ideas to the writers and other patrons for inclusion into the project. At the end, the patrons each get copies of the project - and nobody else does. It's a limited run, private work, and it appears that the total commission is in the few thousand dollar range, though I haven't been able to find totals anywhere.

As any self-respecting nerd knows, the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons was released this summer. It's probably the most significant overhaul the game has had, at least in my almost 20 years of playing, and reactions predictably range from fawning adulation to burning in effigy. I've only played two sessions of the new edition - once this running the beginning parts of Keep on the Shadowfell, and once, just over Christmas, as a player in a play-testy mid-level dungeon crawl.

So far, I'd say there's a lot to like with the new edition, but enough bad that I don't think I'll exert any effort to migrate from 3.5. I find myself wishing there were a v3.75 as an intermediate step - though I expect such a thing will evolve eventually, thanks to teh interwebs. Some thoughts:

By the way, I'm guest blogging over at Concentrate again this week.

They must be desperate for content, but I won't complain - if they want to read it, I'll write it.

One of my most google-popular posts (ever) seems to be my comments opposing Michigan's Proposal 4 in 2006 - 5,600 visits so far, and about 200 search hits last month. (I'm google's second hit on some searches, right after the State of Michigan.) Are people really that hungry for a two-year old post on meaningless feel-good eminent domain "reform"? Or are there other Prop 4s they're looking for?

It looks like Michigan has only had 2 statewide Proposal 4s:

• 2006 - Proposal 4 - A proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit government from taking private property by eminent domain for certain private purposes - approved 2,914,214 / 724,573

• 2002 - Proposal 4 - A proposal to amend the state constitution to reallocate the "tobacco settlement revenue"
  received by the state from cigarette manufacturers. - failed 1,018,644 / 2,011,105

Earlier than about 2000, Michigan Proposals had letters, not numbers. So - why all the attention? I have a hard time believing that 200 people a month care that much about eminent domain reform that had almost no effect. Maybe the 2002 item is the popular one, dedicating tobacco settlement money to health care? (With the Big 3 doing what they're doing right now, I could understand an interest in ideas for health care.)

Alternately, maybe people are looking for local proposals, and just not specifying where? Seems like inefficient searching behavior.

I'm the subject of Concentrate's "Mastermind" feature this week. I'll note that I did not end up buying the rainbow Nikes at Puffer Reds, but did go back after the shoot for some black timberlands, having supinated the snot out of my old boots.

According to the article I'm sharing the issue with, Ann Arbor's finance community is disappointingly out of the loop. They're still stuck in a rut at that old dive, Cafe Zola, when the Masterminds clearly prefer Bombadill's, the Ugly Mug, Cafe Luwak, and Beezy's.

Last night, we saw Nine Inch Nails at Grand Rapids' Van Andel Arena. It was pretty fantastic, but two brief observations:

1. Even with an almost 2-hour-long setlist, The Downward Spiral is still the foundation of NIN's live show. And that was from high school. And there have been 5 more full albums? I haven't even heard of half of them...

2. Trent Reznor's 43-year-old stage presence reminds me strongly of Richard Florida's. Which is really pretty funny.

It is my distinct pleasure, as Best Customer Ever As Of 11/13/2008, to tell you about Beezy's Cafe, which opened this week at 20 N. Washington Street in downtown Ypsi.

Check out the "It's not time lapse photography, they really did open that fast," photojournal of the night before Day 1.

Marvel at the hottest new floorboards in town. (Not to mention the hottest new floorboard-laying-machine in town!)

Yesterday, after seeing the News' article about one of our area poly-political families, I decided that the Arborwiki page on Al Wheeler needed a little attention. In the course of googling up additional sources, I stumbled on a paper on affordable housing and homelessness advocacy in Ann Arbor in the 1970s and '80s.

It's been four days since The Election, and we haven't woken up, had martial law declared, gotten mired in recall battles and court cases, or otherwise had the results taken away from us. So it's good and safe to say that Barack Obama will be our next President. Some scattered thoughts:

It's so nice to have a President we can be proud of, and not have to flinch whenever he speaks. (I was truly dreading hearing four years of McCain's "My friends" on NPR.) President Obama clearly has the Presidential persona down, yet also has a human side. (And for that link, I don't even have to use the moments that made me tear up, like his grandmother's dying two days shy of seeing him elected, his acceptance speech promise of a puppy, or his comment on "shelter dogs being mutts, like me.")

Yesterday, I went to the shiny new Obama campaign office on Michigan Avenue and got a yard sign.

This morning, we found our sign ripped in half, and, for good measure, a broken window. Not all the way through - just the outer pane - and on the second story, so clearly vandalism rather than attempted entry. Somebody just lobbed a rock at it - presumably, college students stumbling home from the parties at the end of the block.

The police officer taking our report over the phone said, "So, a Republican, then?" Cara said, "Oh, I'm definitely volunteering at the campaign office now!" Me, I'm just cleaning up broken glass and taping the sign back together in quiet defiance.