“Ultimate Game”, the latest xkcd comic is a wonderful tribute to Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, who passed away recently. Today companies are hiring consultants to help manage the "over-praised" Me Generation. The result? Kudos for showing up to work on time! Awards for getting a report in! Forget Employee of the Month — how about Employee of the Day! And everywhere, managers and HR professionals are puzzling about how to handle them. With massive skills shortages on the horizon as the huge baby boomer generation heads towards retirement, attracting and retaining this new cohort will become a critical issue in the years ahead. "To woo a hireling into service, characters are expected to post notices at inns and taverns, send messengers to distant lands, or frequent public places."
A prepared Dungeon Master is a happy Dungeon Master:
- Get organized before the game to keep the players' attention and the action moving.
- Familiarize yourself with the rules of resolving actions and encounters. It disrupts the game when you have to constantly look things up.
- Determine how many people are playing and what kinds of characters they will have in their adventuring party.
- Make up a map of the land or dungeon so you know where the party is and where it's going.
- Create a goal for the party. Do they need to kill a dragon and save a village? Are they seeking a certain magical item for someone? Have they been hired to assassinate a king?
- Keep the characters on track.
- Reward the party for a job well done. Magical equipment and gems are very popular spoils from a tough battle.
In some far off world these are called organizational skills and the Dungeon Master a manager. In this far off world there are no costly consultants! Trading guilds organize campaigns and identify gifted individuals at an early age. It is relatively simple to set up a fantasy campaign, and better still, it costs almost nothing. The most extensive requirement is time.
For more on Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons see: "Nothing sounds quite so nice, as the clacking noise of tumbling dice.".
The creature, called Swamp Thing, was originally conceived as Alec Holland mutating into a vegetable-like creature, a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man". However, under writer Alan Moore, Swamp Thing was reinvented as an elemental entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, with Holland's memory and personality intact. He is described as "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland."
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing had a profound effect on mainstream comic books, being the first horror comic to approach the genre from a literary point of view since the EC horror comics of the 1950's, and broadened the scope of the series to include ecological and spiritual concerns while retaining its horror-fantasy roots.
Waldo County, situated in mid-coast Maine along scenic Penobscot Bay, has genuine New England character evidenced by working port towns and quaint rural villages. Visitors are awed by the area's unspoiled beauty. From striking coastal views to sweeping mountain vistas, dramatic natural settings abound. In addition great care has been taken to preserve and refurbish numerous historic landmarks, homes and buildings. Consequently, the Maine of yesteryear is still found here.
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