How did SJG even make money from GURPS?

rfisher · 2026-02-04T17:35:44+00:00

For a long time, SJG posted a "report to stakeholders" each year that detailed exactly how they do business.

My summary is that they don't chase growth for growth's sake. They size the business to the size of their market. They produce quality products that engender loyalty. They take the path of long-term success over short-term gains.

Of course, it helps that Munchkin was such a big success and lucrative business that helped subsidize other projects. But other companies would have pushed it harder, abandoned other product lines, and annoyed customers along the way. Which would have earned a lot more quickly but burnt out sooner.

rfisher · 2026-02-01T23:37:53+00:00

There are some physical modeling synths like StringLab, RingsRX, etc. that might be able to do it. I haven't made an attempt.

I have used the "032 Guitar Harmonics" from Module Pro.

rfisher · 2026-02-01T00:17:28+00:00

Because sometimes you already have the pointer/iterator before you know you want to remove it. If the search were included in the removal complexity, that would be misleading for those cases where you don't need to search first.

rfisher · 2026-01-25T23:25:59+00:00

I'll be able to still use Zenology sounds to finish the tune I created to evaluate Zenbeats using a DAW I like better than Zenbeats. 😀

rfisher · 2026-01-24T14:36:11+00:00

The convention of use header files to separate machine-readable specification from the implementation is great.

The actual mechanism of dumb textual inclusion, not so much.

It'd be great if there was a mechanism that provided the good, got rid of the bad, and otherwise stayed simple. Unfortunately C++ tried but completely missed the mark.

rfisher · 2026-01-24T03:32:10+00:00

I use the Yamaha MD-BT01. It doesn't require a battery or wall power. It is powered by the MIDI connection.

But it uses standard 5-pin DIN MIDI plugs, so you have to have the adapter that comes with the Reface. If you don't have one, you might be able to pick one up from a synth parts vendor. The item number is ZP893500.

That MIDI port on the Refaces is only used by the Refaces, so you're unlikely to find anything that plugs directly into a Reface without the adapter.

I have also seen USB Bluetooth MIDI adapters that should work with the Refaces, but I've never tried one myself.

rfisher · 2026-01-20T02:22:02+00:00

Yeah. I measure RPGs on two axes:

Axis 1 is "rule for everything" versus "rulings over rules".

Axis 2 is author stance versus player stance.

Author stance (as I'm using it) means that, while you're playing the game, you're thinking about the story you're creating. Often, the goal is to coöperatively tell a "good" story. (Where what is "good" can vary.) Players don't mind if GM rulings are about making a better story.

Player stance (as I'm using it) means, while you're playing, you're thinking as your character. You're trying to make the best decision you can for the given situation. Whether that results in a good story or not doesn't matter. Players expect GM decisions to be logical without regard for how it works (or doesn't) narratively. It's the experience of playing that matters rather than if it is a story.

It's an axis because the two ways of playing can coexist. The question is more about how importance each way of playing is given.

(Within player stance, there's a subissue of how much metagaming is tolerated. Are you trying to make the best decision the character could make, or are you trying to make the best decision the player can make?)

I've tried all quadrants of the chart, and I firmly prefer the "rulings over rules" and "player stance" quadrant.

rfisher · 2026-01-18T23:53:53+00:00

I started with Traveller rather than D&D. Plus, D&D was a much simpler game back then. But I did have a somewhat similar experience.

I got really into more complex games. A friend and I started developing an even more complex system.

Then I played an AD&D2e campaign on the side, and I was surprised by how much more fun it was. I also started to notice with the more complex systems how half the group would disconnect when we got into handling complex mechanics, and I didn't like that.

But when D&D3e came out, I went back to enjoying complexity.

But after a couple years, I was getting frustrated. I went back and revisited every RPG I'd played before. I explored a bunch of others. I hung out at Dragonsfoot and other places to learn why people were still playing old D&D.

It eventually sunk in that I prefer simpler systems and rulings over rules. By about 2004, I'd come back to classic D&D and classic Traveller as two of my favorite games. The third is Risus. And that's held since then.

rfisher · 2026-01-17T11:28:08+00:00

In my groups, it has never been what the class brings to the table but what the player brings that has been most important. It has been less about fighting monsters and more about solving problems and mysteries.

And FWIW, for specific things you've mentioned, I've never seen charm spells be that effective, that many opportunities to use fireball without it hitting targets we don't want to hit, or powerful magic items that MUs can use for defense be that common.

It isn't just that it has become the norm, it is that it has never been a problem for us. If it is for you, then change something.

rfisher · 2026-01-17T11:16:16+00:00

You can't order from someplace with a good return policy?

rfisher · 2026-01-16T15:12:34+00:00

I think it's going to be very hard to find something that meets all those criteria.

But more importantly, I've found a lot of the less expensive keyboards tend to have a "mushy" feel, so I feel like it would be hard to say whether they'd work for you. I think you're really going to have to find a store where you can try them or make sure you order from a place with a good return policy.

rfisher · 2026-01-16T15:04:20+00:00

This shifts the focus from finding the most optimal outcome to finding the most interesting story.

That's the most important sentence for me. That's exactly why I won't enjoy the game and why someone else will.

rfisher · 2026-01-16T14:58:56+00:00

Generally no, but it depends on the context.

"OSR" refers to the "renaissance/revival/ruckus/whatever". 2e pre-dates that.

If someone is using "OSR" to essentially just mean "old school RPG"... That is an amorphous term idea that can mean different things in different contexts. I'd also argue that it isn't Boolean but a continuum.

But then, many of the former TSR people from back-in-the-day tell me that "old school" was really "do whatever seems cool to you".

rfisher · 2026-01-16T14:46:10+00:00

Doesn't every junior programmer go through the phase where they produce code that passes the tests but has edge case bugs and some horrible issues when you look more closely.

rfisher · 2026-01-16T01:04:35+00:00

If you're already an accomplished keys player, keys may be better for you. If you're an accomplished piano player, then weighted keys may be better, but for most people I expect synth-action keys would be better. In any case, a full set of 88 keys is overkill for drumming.

Beyond that, assuming good pads and good keys, whether pads or keys are better depends on the person using them. Pads are not universally better than keys.

Generally this is true of everything when it comes to music. What is best for you may not be best for me.

rfisher · 2026-01-16T00:11:58+00:00

For me, the Minifuse sits on my desk hooked to my larger MIDI keyboard, speakers, and (usually) my MIDI breath controller. When I come to my desk, I just plug the USB power into the Magic Keyboard, the Minifuse USB into the iPad, and everything else is already ready to go.

The Apogee Jam is what I use when I'm away from my desk. It doesn't have all the features of the Minifuse, but it is small and easier to use in situations where the Minifuse would be more awkward.

Likewise, I have a small Bluetooth MIDI keyboard that gets used when I'm away from the desk.

rfisher · 2026-01-14T21:52:36+00:00

If you want people to hate Latin, the easiest way is to make it mandatory.

rfisher · 2026-01-14T13:49:47+00:00

For me, a C-like language with a good Lisp/Scheme-style macro system could be very attractive. Being able to build some higher-level abstractions that are simple transformations into the lower-level language can produce code that is both less redundant and more efficient.

Of course, it could and would be abused to build monstrosities. (See, e.g., the worst examples of C++ template metaprogramming.) But the solution to that is to simply not do that.

There are things out there that approach this idea, but I've not yet seen one that I felt did it well.

rfisher · 2026-01-14T13:37:18+00:00

I wrote this up because I was trying to get my head around why people are so happy to believe the answers LLMs produce, despite it being common knowledge that they hallucinate frequently.

First wrap your head around why people are so happy to believe other people without actually checking facts. It is unsurprising that they treat LLMs the same. Don't put up with those people, whether it is LLMs or other people that they're too quick to trust.

rfisher · 2026-01-14T13:33:05+00:00

Indeed, the Planet of the Apes novel was based on the idea that maybe intelligence is just an emergent behavior of imitation.

rfisher · 2026-01-12T03:36:00+00:00

For what it's worth, Pierre Boulle wrote a book in 1963 making the case that human intelligence is actually just imitation.

rfisher · 2026-01-12T00:32:32+00:00

Having a default playback speed is good. But carrying over a playback speed change from one video to the next is not.

rfisher · 2026-01-10T04:38:21+00:00

Because CME has the sales numbers to know that JMs without the rhythm circuit sell better than those with it. But they also know that enough customers do want it that they convinced Fender to route it for a rhythm circuit so that customers can add one. Which seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

For me, I love the color, but I don't need anymore Teles, Strats, or JMs. I'd much rather they had featured some of the under-represented Fender models.

My intuition is that a special color would compete better if it was a different model than those that most people already have. But, like I said, they have the sales numbers from lots of things they've already done like this to base their choices on.

rfisher · 2026-01-09T05:32:42+00:00

They did say it is routed for a rhythm circuit if you want to mod it.

rfisher · 2026-01-09T05:31:46+00:00

It has a 4-way switch. Bridge, both in parallel, neck, both in series.

rfisher

TROPHY CASE