(German) Java Code Camp: Spring

Come to Cologne – it’s going to be fun! . Eberhard and I will be talking about various Spring related topics and and give the full course from the very basics (what is Spring and why is it good?) to the most advanced topics (how do the distributed administration of a large SpringSource tc server cluster work with some simple magic?). I’m looking forward to the code camp since it will be a great opportunity to do some great coding together. And the evening events also are goinf to be alot of fun!

RPG Design: Experience for skill checks

For my latest RPG design I already have decided to use a level based system as explained in another post. I also love skill-based systems because of the variety they IMHO add to characters. One issue I find myself toying with again and again is how (and if) to reward skill checks with experience points.

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Using presentation channels with brains…

Now this here is a very cool way to present a web comic. The most enticing I have seen so far.

RPG Design: Of dice…

I love dice… have been loving them since I started roleplaying. I love different sizes and shapes and I love the thrill of excitement that random die rolls bring with them. While I’m also enchanted by diceless systems, none have ever worked for me because the lack of randomness makes me feel like once more reading a story… it’s no longer a game. And I want to game. So dice it must be. But dice mechanics and choices shape a game more than any other aspect I can think of – for many reasons. Here is the dice system I will be using for my latest RPG design outlined in my recent blog post.

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RPG Design: The goals for my latest project

Tommi Brander asked in a response to my last RPG design post what the goals of my latest RPG design project where. A very reasonable and important question. And it occurred to me that I never really had thought about my goals above and beyond an instinctive and very intuitive level. So I would like to take the opportunity to elaborate a bit more about this – it seems somewhat important…

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RPG Design: To level or not to level?

I am playing roleplaying games since about 1983 or 1984 (I started with the german red box version of D&D). Thus I was very early on introduced to the notion of level-based character advancement systems. Later on I also tried quite a few different paradigms, from point-based systems like GURPS, HERO and Mutants & Masterminds in more recent times to more storytelling like approaches like FUDGE, Storyteller or Castle Falkenstein. When designing my own rule systems I also tried all these approaches and at different points in my life preferred different styles. Nonetheless I keep coming back to a certain style and finally seem to have settled on my “perfect” style.

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SpringOne 2009: Time-to-live

Disclaimer: This entry has been written while listening to the talk. Please forgive me any typographical or grammatical errors resulting from this approach.

Adrian Colyer will concern himself in todays keynote with the question about how to shorten the time between feature request and feature rollout to production. Basically he will relate to the concepts of learn software development.

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SpringOne 2009: Rod Johnson Keynote

Disclaimer: This text has been written during the presentation please forgive me any grammatical and typographical mistakes.

Due to the even more limited Wifi available at SpringOne (compared to the hideous Wifi support at JAX last week) I’ll limit myself to repeating Rods key messages:

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JAX 2009: Agil & Modell-basiert!? (“Agile Modeling!?”)

(Disclaimer: this text was written while listening to the presentation – please be forgiving with errors that might result from both listening and writing)

My second presentation on the JAX 2009: Jochen Seemann, CEO of MID, a former employee of Rational and Microsoft (where he worked on the DSL tools), talks about combining agility and model based approaches. I know that MID Innovator is a powerful tool for IT process modeling with UML but have never used it personally. Since my Ph.D. thesis is also concerned with model-based agile approaches I was very curious about hearing what MID is offering and believes to be the future of model-based and agile approaches.

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Pure Presentation Power

I really love good presentations and currently am trying to learn to become a much better presenter. Therefor I usually recommend to anyone interested (and some not interested… but anyways) the brilliant PresentationZen blog by Garr Reynolds and his likewise brilliant book based on the blog (which is a bliss to read for anyone interested in doing interesting presentations).

This presentation again recommended by Garr Reynolds really caught my eye – just focus on the text and listen: