News

Sunday, 24 August 2008

I hadn't heard of this until now, but apparently a blogger/aide for Presidential Candidate John McCain. The links below goes to a blog that casts a disparaging light upon players of Dungeons & Dragons using the common stereotypes of D&D players. While in some ways it is funny, there is the issue of an attack on D&D players similar to, but different than the attacks in the 80s.

http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=36b017e7-3c29-48ba-a009-3012a195c784 http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainreport/Read.aspx?guid=181471d0-5456-4434-9f78-2f30ffc39459&rating=1

I wish to point out these remarks ARE NOT by Senator McCain himself, but one of his bloggers who did apologize in a suitable gaming fashion:

"If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American. " --Michael Goldfarb

Although I have to say . . . "If"? It's just a way of deflecting responsibility for the offence.

Oh, look . . . it's time for some Wandering Damage!

Wednesday, 20 August 2008

I've starting DJing for an internet radio station. Radio Free Xangaka (http://www.planetrfx.com) is the "Officialy Unofficial" Internet Radio Station of Secret Society Wars (http://wwww.secretsocietywars.com). I'll be on the air from 10am-1pm Thursdays and 7-10am Saturdays and whenever I need to fill in some time.

• Note: All times are Phoenix (server) time.

Tuesday, 04 March 2008

Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, passed away Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva at the age of 69. He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

Monday, 27 February 2008

WE'RE BACK! And with a new look! All in time for Dice Tales 10th Birthday!! Thanks go out to kuglerworld.com for graciously hosting us!

Monday, 11 December 2000

This is a date that will live in infamy, but for a different reason.

On 11 Nov 2000, following complaints from Mr. Ronald Rockney, attorney for Chick Publications, Tripod cancelled Dice Tales’ account on their server. Citing violations of Copyright Law and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in relation to the “Dark Dungeons” tract by Mr. Jack Chick.

They were right. In reviewing copyright law, I found that I was indeed of violation of Copyright Law. The Fair Use provisions do offer use of copyrighted materials in a LIMITED use only. Even when parodying something, you still cannot violate the rights of the owner of the copyright.

In short, I was reproducing Mr. Chick’s tract in entirety on the Dice Tales web site. Even though I was spoofing it in the flavor of Mystery Science Theatre, it was using the original images, unaltered. I was wrong.

So, until I can fix it, the “Dark Dungeons” spoof is temporarily off-line. It will be back up, but in a legal, and probably more spoofing manner.

As for Tripod, Mr. Rockney, and Mr. Chick, I would like to offer my apologies for my ignorance of Copyright Law.....

...and offer a heart-felt “UP YOURS, BUTTMUNCH!” for their underhanded methods! Imagine my surprise when I find a note in my e-mail box from Tripod informing me that my account had been cancelled due to infringement of someone’s copyright rights. And where I had to write back and wait three days for a response to find out that it was Chick Publications.

I received no friendly little “cease and desist or we’ll sue you for all you’re worth [which is all debt]” love-note from Mr. Rockney. It is understandable why Tripod would cancel my account, but not tell me exactly what was in violation was, well, in bad form.

So, we’re back, somewhere else, with our own domain. Thank you, Tim Breen for so graciously volunteering your services as host. And thank you all for being so patient and concerned over Dice Tales.

We are back!

Good Gaming!

Michael S. Webster, Editor Dice Tales

Friday, 10 November 2000

This is a date that will live in infamy.

24 October 2000

I know, I know. It’s been a long time since the last update of this site, and I know that you are constantly looking here for new Dice Tales, and we have some!

Let me tell you what I’ve been doing instead of updating the site, I figure I owe that to all you loyal fans! I’ve been gaming. Yes, as odd as it may sound, I’ve actually been gaming. I’ve been running a PBeM that has been running for the past year and a half, a live campaign that’s been running for the past year, working with the RPGA’s new Living Greyhawk campaign, and starting a new RPGA Club, the Crusaders of the Net.

So, I have been busy, and I can’t gaurantee that it won’t happen again. But, as long as it’s gaming, I suppose it’s okay.

21 August 2000

I’m still recovering from GenCon 2000, so please bear with me.

GenCon 2000 was my first GenCon, and despite many problems, I had a great time. It was great to meet many of the people who I only knew online as a collection of bits. I was even better when someone answered to the affirmative when I asked, “Have you heard of Dice Tales?” My agenda to becoming known in the gaming community is being fulfilled. For nearly two years I’ve been trying to give something back to the gaming community that has given me so much, and has so much to offer.

GenCon2K was great also because it saw the premier of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons as well as the Living Greyhawk Campaign with the RPGA. These weren’t the only great things to happen (getting to meet Tracy Hickman, Gary Gygax, and more was great, too!). But the Living Greyhawk Campaign is a wonderful opportunity that all of us have in building the campaign setting that many of us grew up with.

For those of you who don’t know, Wizard of the Coast have given to the Role-Playing Gamers Association (RPGA) the World of Greyhawk to develop. This means that the World of Greyhawk history, character, etc. will be developed not just by people writing modules, but also those who play those modules. For more information check out the Living Greyhawk web site.

While I was spending most of my time at GenCon in the RPGA areas, there was a lot more going on. The trailer for the new D&D movie, game demos, atrists, and more was going on. It was a great time. Who knows, maybe I’ll be back next year.

Meanwhile, we’ve got over 215 Dice Tales with 10,000 hits here! Here’s looking for number 500!

Good Gaming!

Michael S. Webster, Editor Dice Tales

22 July 2000

It’s been a while since the last update, and a lot has happened. D&D Third Edition is less than a month away as is GenCon 2000. ORIGINS 2000 has been over for about a week and I’m still not fully recovered from the fun! Hopefully we’ll be getting some ORIGINS Dice Tales in soon! And after that, some from GenCon. If you’re going to GenCon, look me up in the RPGA areas.

We’re still working on improving the site. We’re apparently having problems with the Submission form (which is a Tripod problem - and hopefully is fixed) as well as a Netscape viewing problem. When I modified this site to use Style Sheets to make things easier for me, I thought I was using standard HTML. Unfortunately I didn’t test it in Netscape, only MSIE. My bad. Fortunately some of you Netscapers have informed me of the issue and I am working to resolve it. Hopefully I will fix the problem soon without having to make a separate site for Internet Explorer and another for Netscape. If anyone sees anything that I could fix to work in both Netscape and IE, please let me know.

We’ve also had a complaint about the navigation. Originally we had a page that showed all the logos of the different RPGs and a “New/Updated” image to indicate new tales. This was set aside for the new drop-down navigation. Well, I’m bringing it back. You can wither use the drop down navigation tool, or go to the System area and access the different tales that way. Hopefully we can have the best of all worlds.

We hope you continue to enjoy the site, and keep those submissions coming!

Good Gaming!

Michael S. Webster, Editor Dice Tales

12 May 2000

We here at Dice Tales are constantly updating the site, not just with new Tales and new features, but we’re going back and looking at everything that’s been here and seeing how we can improve. Some of these are minor improvements to fixing grammar and spelling, and some are major such as reformatting the “Dark Dungeons” Pages. We hope that as you come back again and again, you’ll not only see new Tales, but you’ll also see everything looking better.

For the week of 7 May 2000, Dice Tales is the Cram Info Site of the Week. Here’s the e-mail newsletter that announces it. You can also visit them at http://www.cram.com.

Michael S. Webster, Editor Dice Tales