Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the fifty ninth edition of the alcarin.com newsletter. This newsletter marks the fifth anniversary of the Mailinglist, having missed an edition only one time. Congratulations and thanks to the readers and contributors over the past few years.
There is an archive of the previous newsletters at the Notice Board and the columns are added to the Philosophers Guild, so you can always read them again.
Alcarin has seen several major changes. Early this month the new site structure and setup has been launched, which proved to be a major facelift (and improvement). The site has become more ordered, uniform, and transparent. Another big update was the release of A Lord's Men 2.0, a plugin for the computer RPG Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The Morrowind mods section has become one of Alcarin.com's main attractions and A Lord's Men is the most popular one among them. The main changes in version 2 are the availability of "companion share" for practically all units, the possibility of bartering and trading weapons/armor for unit costs, and a new "status" dialogue option to ask units for their skills, stats, health/magicka/fatigue and adverse conditions such as diseases. Furthermore, there's a new item for D&D, basically a Rod of Wonder as a mad god would make it.
Enjoy reading.

This letter's content:
1. What's New
2. Coming Up Soon
3. Column: Men with a Mission

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WHAT'S NEW:

25/10/2005 - added new plugin for Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to the Gnome Tinkerer: "A Lord's Men (v.2.0)"

24/10/2005 - added new item to the Castle: "Gnome God's Gnarly Stick (major artifact)"

17/10/2005 - changed urls in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind plugin readme's to refer to the new page for those mods on Alcarin.com, new link in the Gate

06/10/2005 - launched the new site structure/setup

Visit http://www.alcarin.com/notice_board/updates.php for the latest updates.

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COMING UP:

As noted last month, two issues have a priority position at the moment. First of all, we're probably going to change mailinglist software. As I haven't had any time to work on that yet, there is no further news on the issue at the moment. The second thing thats being worked on is the artwork sections. I've re-released the section and most of the artwork only a few days ago. During the coming month, I plan to work on a few navigational issues and I hope to expand the amount of artwork in it as well.
Another area of activity is the custom rpg material in the Castle. I've got a new monster for Dungeons & Dragons ready to be uploaded. The creature is a gargantuan subterranean worm (crossbreed of a Purple Worm and a Toqqua). I'm also working on two new custom Gnomish Tinker items, for in the Jibble's series: Jibble's Rod-o-Matic (automated rod activating device) and Jibble's Metal Monstrosity (steam powered suit of armor with several weapon configurations and a free steam powered whistle!). Furthermore, I'm working on a number of new spells intended for the highest of casting levels. They should become quite epic and grand, not simply massive damage and instant death type of spells, but aimed more at show of power and roleplaying.

For up to date news on these major projects and other major developments on alcarin.com, see the Announcements forum at http://www.alcarin.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

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COLUMN: MEN WITH A MISSION
A column by Wouter vd Zandschulp; wouter@alcarin.com

"Worse role-playing"

Some people do not respond to the principle of role-playing too well. Some people seem hopeless at is as a whole, even.
Of course a young and frisk DM, still in his youth, might refuse to believe this and keep trying. After all, when you are role-playing many nights of your life, you are used to taking your time and build on things. Having many pain-inflicting weapons at hand might help this process along too. Players who never seem to have a finished character with them

Take into account this possible scenario:

DM: "You can play an elf."
Player: "One of those flying little creatures?"
DM: "No, a Dungeons and Dragons kind of elf."
Player: "Err..."
DM: "Why don't you first try to grasp the way we do it by playing yourself... but not here, but somewhere else..."
Player: "But I AM here!"
DM: "No, you are in the forest."
Player: "Where are the trees?"
DM: "They are around you."
Player: "I don't see them."
DM: "Can you try to IMAGINE you seem them? Use your imagination?"
Player: "I can do that! I am in a forest! Yay!"
DM: "Very good. Now you hear a bird singing: 'chirp chirp!'"
Player: "I say: "Very nice, DM".

If you ever get around this point, things might be hopeless. It seems the player can start to grasp how it's done, but sort of does not WANT to understand it. This behaviour is most commonly found in females. This story is actually based on a true account of me trying to explain the principle of role-playing to a female and it is used with permission.

I, for instance, might not grasp statistics, might not have my head with the game, might always lose my character sheet and dices and so, but never in all those years could I have been so particular purposely not grasping the meaning of role-playing.
We might enter a sort of male-female-thing here. It seems females can rebel again rules much more freely then man ever can. It might have to do with the ordered structure of role-playing, consisting rules and all. Males seem to use more logic than females do.
Another theory is that a man's testosterone level lowers when he's in love, so he can understand the female more then he could before. This would explain a decrease in obeying role-play rules whenever one is in love.

So I conclude that role-playing mostly will be a boys game. Nicely playing around with rules and stuff. Like when we were children and girls could play along, but sometimes problems emerged with that and they would go away to rather play with dolls and stuff. Man and woman have a whole field of differences to overcome if they want to learn and understand each other. Whenever a man wants to pause from doing that, he could go and role-play with his friends.

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Well, that's it for this month's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it.
Lord Gildor
"May the stars guide you on your journeys"
http://www.alcarin.com

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