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Fitness and me

I'm your prototypical nerd, sports never came easy to me. Over my childhood and youth, various teachers and trainers tried to change that, but I was content being unsporty and reading books. Thankfully, my metabolism and various eating and movement habits formed in my youth prevented me from

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Mail Order Apocalypse - Design Diaries

I can't quite believe it, but it's been one and a half years since I started writing my own RPG, Mail Order Apocalypse. On the upside, it is mostly done by now.  What is left is a lot of editing and layout, both things that will

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Des fröhlichen Orcs holistische Rollo-Lehre

Ziel der holistischen Rollo-Lehre nach Orc-Art ist es, den Spaß am Rollenspiel zu erfahren, in all seinen Facetten. Sie bedingt, dass man sich für unbekannte Dinge öffnet und sie nicht verdammt. Gleichzeitig erkennen Lernende der holistischen Rollo-Lehre nach Orc-Art, dass nicht alles allen gefällt. Dinge für

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hacking Into the Odd

Life is full of coincidences: As I am reworking Mail Order Apocalypse into an Into the Odd hack, Norbert is tinkering with the same rules too: He is adding active parry to the game. The rules he adds are pretty straightforward, but while I wouldn't go as far

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Playing Mail Order Apocalypse

Yesterday evening, I spontaneously joined the monthly RPG night at our friendly local game store Otherland. Without any real preparation I offered to run a game of Mail Order Apocalypse and actually got 5 players.

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Fünf zum Fünften: Abenteueraufhänger Autovermietung

Für zehn hat es gerade nicht gereicht, ich hab für Mail Order Apocalypse eh noch einen riesen Haufen Zufallstabellen fertig zu stellen... Autovermietungen können ergiebig sein, und in neuzeitlich-phantastischen Settings sowieso: 1. Das Navi im Mietwagen ist verflucht. 2. Der freundliche Autovermieter nebenan fragt um Hilfe: Der brandneue Transporter

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Nordcon 2019

Seit 1997 bin ich eigentlich fast jedes Jahr auf dem Nordcon. Da ich Mitglied eines der veranstaltenden Vereine bin, meistens auch in irgendwie aktiver Rolle - beim ersten Con hab ich spontan Tische getragen und am Infostand ausgeholfen, danach einige Jahre die Spielrunden verwaltet oder sonst irgendwie mitgeholfen. Später kam dann

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Data is radioactive money?

we should think about data as if it were radioactive money. Whoever controls it can use it to generate wealth with it, but if it spills, there will be long lasting unfathomable damage.

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Visiting the Kodama office

Let's start with some context: I'm a Kickstarter backer for the Kodama Obsidian 3D printer. The thing is long overdue, as so often happens for hardware crowdfunding campaigns. The backer communication was spotty at best, but two weeks ago, CEO Michael Husmann started posting video updates

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Darth Poppins, here we come...

Last year, on a whim, I backed the Rainsaber on Kickstarter: Then, while waiting through the inevitable Kickstarter Project delivery delay, we watched Mary Poppins Returns - a movie that is sort of ok, but Emily Blunt ain't Julie Andrews, sorry. Anyway, while watching the movie, we riffed around

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Small-scale pods as moderation advantage

Yesterday, I had a lengthy discussion with a proponent of big centralised social media platforms. Not because they have a particular love for big companies, but because moderation is actually one of these issues that are hard to do right. The numbers I could find say that about 20% of

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Online Interaction types - what is there, what do I look for?

While going through the Spreadsheet I created as a tool after writing the last blogpost here, I realized that what was completely obvious to me, isn't necessarily to others. Mostly because the whole argument about the details was mostly in my head. So, let's write it

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Social Media, from a persons perspective

I do love participating in social media. It was around 1994 when MiGri introduced me to the world of BBSes, the Fido net and everything online. To be honest, I haven't regretted a single thing from that. At some point, I ran my own BBS, I joined Usenet,

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Indie in Bielefeld

I'm sitting at home, having just returned from the regular gaming meetup in Bielefeld. While I did pack but not play Dusk City Outlaws, I did get to play two other games: The Skeletons by Jason Morningstar and Thorny Games' Dialect. Both games are very much focused

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Playing at an open table

Harald runs his bi-weekly game in a slightly unusual fashion. It is an open table where he runs for whoever shows up. That in itself isn't that unusual and the West Marshes style of running a campaign is based on a similar foundation. The difference is that

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That incel nonsense...

At some point I will write a lengthy explanation why prohibiting private cars in inner cities will become an inevitability. All the green folks will rejoice over all the newfound clean air and all and will conveniently ignore that it was the dreaded fear of terror that finally brought this

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Du willst also auch mal Rollenspiel ausprobieren?

Keine Sorge, es geht jetzt nicht um Cosmopolitan-Tipps um Euer Sexleben aufzubessern, sondern um diese tolle Hobby von dem alle reden: Fantasy Rollenspiele, Erzählspiele, Pen&Paper RPGs.. err.. Moooment! Hey, JollyOrc, Dein Blog ist voll von Rollenspielbeiträgen. Warum erklärst Du das jetzt nochmal? Ganz einfach: Das hier ist

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Spielen mit Szenen

Drüben beim Rollenspiel-Blogs Forum gibt es eine Diskussion über "Szenenbasiertes Rollenspiel". Das mäandert ziemlich, aber es stecken auch interessante Dinge drin. Insgesamt brachte es mich dazu, darüber nachzudenken wie ich Rollenspiel leite und meine Abenteuer, Szenarien und Kampagnen plane. Wer mich kennt, weiß dass ich sehr gerne

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Horror in Bielefeld

I spent the last weekend at a semi-regular gaming meetup. The beauty of this thing is that while it does host more than a few dozen people, but all of them are invited known persons. Friends and family one could say. Blechpirat and me usually use this gathering to

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Crowdfunding and me...

For a bit over 5 years, I'm more or less regularly participating in Crowdfunding campaigns. Most of the stuff is geeky technology or gaming things, but there were also art, music or fashion projects. Kickstarter alone counts 89 successfully backed projects. Of those, these actually failed to deliver

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Terrifying German Culture Hour - Advertising

A while ago, I explained how we have fewer adbreaks here in german TV. Of course, we cought up a bit over the years, but it's still a socialist paradise in comparison. But there is also of course a distinct... german-ness to the ads I was seeing

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Terrifying German Culture Hour - Subversiveness

Today, I'll tell you about the close relationship of the really popular "Schlager" genre and, well, critical anti-establishment voices. But first, I need to take a slight detour. With cat content. Well, cat-and-mouse content. Regardless if you're a german or US-

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Bob and the Internet

This is the story of Bob: Bob is active in her chosen field, which exposes her to some wider audience. As Bob does things that people value, she has a podium on which to speak and she uses it to some effect. Alas, Bob has a problem. For some reason,

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Warum verschwindet der Link von meinem Kommentar?

In der letzten Zeit, und auf verschiedenen Blogs und Foren in denen ich involviert bin, trudeln Kommentare ein, die auf den ersten Blick hilfreich und on-topic ausschauen. Ihnen gemeinsam ist aber: * sie tauchen in recht alten Beiträgen auf * sie enthalten einen Link auf eine Seite, die im Endeffekt ein

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Terrifying German Culture Hour - Country AND Western

To understand the following, you have to keep in mind that basically all germans for several generations have grown up with the stories of the brave and noble apache chief Winnetou, and his friend Old Shatterhand. The german author Karl May penned those, claiming they were the novelized diaries of