Sherman A1
Sherman A1's JournalNew Dungeons & Dragons is a worthy hit
If you’ve stepped into your friendly local game store within the past few weeks, you can’t have failed to notice there’s a new edition of role-playing classic Dungeons & Dragons on the shelves. Even if you haven’t, you might have seen it flying high on the Amazon sales charts: the core “Player’s Handbook” surprised just about everyone by topping the bestseller list for several days.
Even if you don’t know your dragonborn from your tieflings, it’s not hard to see that’s a big deal for D&D fans. The days when role-playing games were only played by basement-dwelling, Cheeto-fingered nerds are long gone: now those nerds are grown-up, have families, and are looking for a dose of nostalgia. They’ll get it with this new edition, which is nominally the franchise’s fifth major release in its forty-year history, though in reality the game has undergone dozens of significant revisions and sub-editions over the decades.
The newest, though, is different from the others -- and to know why, you need to understand where it fits into the franchise’s history. D&D’s fourth edition, released in 2008, was divisive: its complex combat and magic systems meant players all but needed a scale map and a pile of models to make it work. That was great for fans of tactical miniature games, but not so good for the folks who just wanted to tell a cool story. Such players have been deserting the brand, gravitating to other role-playing games that better fit their priorities.
https://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/new-dungeons---dragons-is-a-worthy-hit-215420322.html
Unemployment, casino bills among new Missouri laws
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Dozens of new Missouri laws are taking effect, including ones that could make it harder for some fired employees to collect unemployment benefits and easier for high rollers to bet big bucks at casinos.
Thursday marked the standard effective date for laws that were passed during annual legislative session.
But some of this year's most high-profile measures contained clauses delaying their effect until future years, including an income tax cut and a rewrite of the state's criminal laws.
The unemployment measure that takes effect Thursday will make it harder for people to collect unemployment benefits after being fired for alleged misconduct such as repeated absences.
http://www.kmov.com/news/politics/Unemployment-casino-bills-among-new-Missouri-laws-273083051.html
Quinn to live on minimum wage for one week
CHICAGO (AP) -- Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is hoping to show first-hand what it's like to live on the state's minimum wage of $8.25 an hour.
Quinn has made raising Illinois' minimum wage a cornerstone of his re-election campaign against Republican challenger Bruce Rauner. On Sunday the governor announced at a campaign event that he would limit his spending on food and other expenses for the next week to $79.
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Quinn-to-live-on-minimum-wage-for-week-273382511.html
Kicking a** for the working class: Labor Day from Pullman to Market Basket
By the time President Grover Cleveland signed the act declaring the first Monday in September an official federal Labor Day holiday, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company had been on strike over six weeks.
The workers at the railroad car manufacturer had seen their wages cut by almost 25 percent following the panic of 1893, but did not get a commensurate rent reduction from their landlord, who just also happened to be the Pullman company. With families starving and the company president refusing to hear their grievances, workers voted to leave their 16-hour-a-day jobs on May 11, 1894.
The American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, was not officially an organizer of the walkout, but with some Pullman workers as members, the ARU worked to support the strike. On June 22, ARU delegates voted to initiate a widespread railway boycott if Pullman did not submit to arbitration by June 26.
http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/8/31/kicking-a-for-theworkingclasslabordayfrompullmantomarketbasket.html?utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=ajam&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow
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