writing

Way With Worlds: The Game – Positives

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chessboard chess

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds).

A lot of people who wolrdbuild get into roleplaying games. I feel I can make this statement clearly; its true in my experience, and of course I’m not quoting any numbers so I have deniability. I’m covered here!

But seriously, it seems like people get ideas from, put ideas into, or think of ideas in forms of RPGs. I’m not just talking the freeform collective storytelling style of RPGs – I’m talking about the rules-and-dice type RPGs that we’re all familiar with.

We wonder what class a character would be in a given game.

We try and build a character we made in a given game.

We think of game rules as writing guidelines.

We get ideas looking over game rules.

And more . . .

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Civic Geek Catalog Update 11/30/2014

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The latest update for the Civic Geek Catalog is here.  We’ve got things for STEM, Video Games, and Writing enthusiasts!

The catalog is also sorted by Geekery and by Category!  154 entries and climbing!  I hope to do some resorting and mass additions over the holidays.

STEM

  • Education
    • The Hidden Genius Problem – An Oakland-based nonprofit that encourages technological skills and entrepreneurship for young men of color.
  • Equality
    • Platform – A nonprofit working to increase the participation of under-represented people in the “innovation economy.” Has an annual conference and works with YesWeCode.
  • Female Geeks
    • Tech Girls Canada – Provides national leadership for the various industry groups in Canada encouraging women in tech careers.

Video Games

  • Academics
  • General
    • GameConfs – A privately-run website that tracks and provides guides to games-related conference. Open to contributions and assistance.

Writing

  • Books
    • Books Abroad – Promotes literacy and a focus on sustainable escapes from poverty. Recycle used books, and focuses on getting people involved.
    • Borderline Books – UK-based organization collecting overstocks and damaged books and distributed them around the world.
    • GBA Ships – Runs a floating book fair – literally, a ship. A great way to help reach people around the world – and also works with community groups for supply aid and community care.
  • Equality
    • We Need Diverse Books – Focus on promoting diverse narratives in children’s literature. Reaches out to individuals and groups in children’s publishing, and is always looking for people to help out.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Make It So: Let’s Be A Bunch Of Dicks

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Book Shelf And More

One of my most recent acquisitions is the fascinating book “Dick’s Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870’s.” Its a reprint of a book that was a guide to, well, everything. Making dyes, controlling insects, creating food, various measurements and so on. It’s basically a catalog of practical knowledge from the 19th century that people would need – and in a time where you lacked easy access to specialists and stores we take for granted.

It’s out of print sadly, but you can find used copies around the internet (I got mine at Amazon), or even find it online at Archive.org.

The value isn’t just in historical curiosity, though there’s plenty here. There’s real, practical advice here for all sorts of things that you can use if you’re a DIY type, a Maker, a cook, or a Cosplayer. Admittedly there’s also stuff that can kill you if you’re not careful, but I’m going to assume you’ll be cautious if you decide to start playing with acid or something.

So yeah, go buy this book.  Try and get it reprinted.  I’m already planning to use copies as a gift.

But more than that all this, it got me thinking.  We all know that’s dangerous.

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