Thursday, January 19, 2012

Misogyny in James Jacobs' "Burnt Offerings"

My group and I are starting to play through the "Rise of the Runelords" adventure path, and so far it seems "Burnt Offerings" adventure by James Jacobs, the first adventure, is giving me an endless amount of material for exploring misogyny in role-playing games. When I got back into roleplaying after a hiatus, I was excited by the art in Pathfinder Core Rulebook, since not only was it better executed than in D&D 3.5e Player's Handbook, but also featured more women in more roles, and whose clothing and armor sometimes did not reveal the midriff, naked legs, or cleavage. The rules also did a decent job of alternating pronouns. It was a shock, therefore, when I was met with so much sexism in "Burnt Offerings."


NOTE: Beyond lie spoilers; read at your own peril.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Choosing an eBook reader

I spent the past week trying to trying to decide which eBook reader to buy, both for myself as well as for my siblings. C. and I have had a Kindle 3 (now called Kindle Keyboard) for over a year now, and it's been very nice, but the keyboard interface is driving me crazy. So, I have been looking at Sony PRS-T1 and Nook Simple Touch, and -- to some degree -- the Kindle Touch. As always, all three have good and bad points, so the trick is deciding which has the most good points. Since this turned out to be a really long and involved process, I placed it behind the cut below, for those interested.