In the News...

...Neil Young's new album is out and free to listen to. I'm likely to be humming 'Let's Impeach the President' all day, I admit. Aside from the Bush quotes. The man has no rhythm.

...speaking of, Bush is still treating the budget bill he and the Republicans 'certified' (despite it not being approved by both levels of Congress) as law, not that you'll see much coverage of /that/...

...oh, and he threatens to veto the appropriations bill for funds to the soldiers in Iraq and the sadly delayed and bungled Katrina clean-up and building, unless it's massively cut. The Republicans have enough signed names that they can sustain the veto...

...at the same time, he's willing to give most Americans a hundred dollar bribe if we just ignore the drilling in Alaska, and give him yet more authority in setting fuel standards, and pass a likely toothless new energy bill...

...and there are calls from Republicans (and Loe Liberman) to abolish FEMA as a 'useless' agency, after said agency was crippled by incompetent Bush appointees and by being folded into Homeland Security, where it was largely ignored...

...and, predictably, the Democrats do nothing. Except, of course, attend Fox News parties. (Looking at you, Hillary.)

In other news, I have my iPod back, and the happy gaming convention this weekend. So at least that's happy.

[Gaming] Social/Political Mechanics

Been thinking about this, partially because of threads on RPG.net, and partially because it's the one thing that seems to get people's hackles all atwitter. Go ahead, chop my character to little bitty pieces, but god forbid that he be /persuaded/ to lower his weapon. Like the fact that PCs will often rather die than be captured, there's a weird disconnect there, and it's reflected in the mechanical landscape of many RPGs...social skills and abilities tend to be rather sketchy, limited, and often Do Not Apply to PCs. This makes playing either a socially strong or socially weak character to be more difficult and often useless. And, fair caveat, I really don't like consent based gaming, so yeah, I want robust mechanics to handle these situations, just as for combat.

( What I'd like to see: )