Jeremiah Donaldson's Blog: This and That, page 3

Releases in Focus-Cannon Fodder

The second of the three Spring/Summer 2023 releases to be looked at is Post-apocalyptic Escapades of Heroes & Scrubs: Cannon Fodder.
Full post: https://www.jeremiahdonaldson.com/blo...

Releases In Focus-General Cyanide

Releases In Focus is a new blog series that will take better look at each of my game and writing releases. It is being started with the Spring/Summer 2023 releases and only look at things going forward, ie, nothing about previous releases will be in this blog series. It will also only look at my major releases and not at essays, poems, or anything else not in one of my main product lines.

The first of the three Spring/Summer 2023 releases being looked at is Post-apocalyptic Escapades: General Cyanide Expansion. This is the second of three planned expansions to use the core Post-apocalyptic Escapades game World Cards, with the first being The Lurker.

Full blog post: https://www.jeremiahdonaldson.com/blo...

DTR2ed post 4-Types of Rolls

Welcome to the fourth blog post counting down to the release of the Disturbance Timeline RPG: 2nd Edition rule set.

Welcome to the fourth blog post counting down to the release of the Disturbance Timeline RPG: 2nd Edition rule set. These posts will continue up to the release of the 2nd Edition on June 1st of 2024 to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1st edition.

This post takes a look at the types of dice rolls in DTR2ed. As with 1st edition, two ten-sided dice are needed to play and the primary dice rolls require both. Most original types of rolls from the 1st edition remain in the game, mostly unchanged, such as Attack, Damage, Reaction, and Skill rolls. However, there have been three major changes from the 1st edition.

Full blog post: https://www.jeremiahdonaldson.com/blo...

New essay: 2024: A Bridge Too Far for Trump and Biden

Wrap your head around the fact that Trump and Biden are both finished for the same reasons.

Or should I say Biden and Trump? When you have too screwups like this, it's really hard to figure out who to roast first. Too bad I can't talk out both sides of my mouth like a politician or I could roast them both at once. To use a tried and true line, 'what can be said about them that's not already been said?' But I'm not putting the nail to the spot, I'm just a hammer that wants to make sure it's drove home. Because when you have two fools like these that have killed millions and caused millions others to be destitute, all while lining their pockets, who do you pick first? Picking the biggest idiot between these two is like picking the worst person when you have Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy to pick from. Go! What's wrong, they're both equal? Welcome to 2023. The year that both fools pushed to the forefront by the news media are lucky to have 50% of their respective party's votes.

Read it on Authorsden: https://authorsden.com/visit/viewarti...

Spring/Summer 2023 releases

Spring/Summer 2023 release drop on June 1st.
Post-apocalyptic Escapades: General Cyanide Expansion
Post-apocalyptic Escapades of Heroes & Scrubs: Cannon Fodder
Death Derby: The Boondocks Theme Deck

All stories and books are available on Smashwords, Amazon, and DriveThruFiction.
https://www.drivethrufiction.com/brow...
Games available on DriveThruCards and WarGameVault.
https://www.drivethrucards.com/browse...

Character Profile 3: Ott

This is a third in a series of posts that will look at histories of recurring (or not) characters in my writing. It takes a look at one of my newest characters.

Ott, no last name, was a character I created in 2013 in the Neverwinter MMO online game. The playable version of Ott was where his general look and style were created. The Foundry version of Ott was where his personality and character were created. These two things when combined together created 'Ott' that was used beyond the Foundries.

Ott himself is a massive and massively powerful and, mostly, fearless man. He is very tall but well proportioned at aprox 2.3 m and 150 kg. He is pale skinned, almost albino, with red eyes and a mane of red hair. He's an expert at fighting with weapons and his hands, but isn't very smart overall and somewhat naive at times. He cannot read and write. The MMO version of the character was a 'great weapons fighter' that wore red armor and clothing to match his hair and eyes. The post-apocalyptic version of him followed that trend with a massive iron and steel flail he called 'The Headsplitter' until it was lost in Crevice, but is less color coordinated in a flannel shirt, combat fatigues, and boots. He is one of my two characters with the most artistic renditions. The other being his post-apocalyptic buddy Ren (another character profile).

Full blog post: https://www.jeremiahdonaldson.com/blo...

New essay: Chicken Little Freak Out 2023

Life is pretty simple. People like to complicate it, but that just shows how simple they are themselves. Don't believe me? Well, you probably will by the end of this. Had bad parents that didn't do their jobs? Well, it's easy to do good then, you just have to do the opposite of what they did and you'll automatically have a leg up on them. Had good parents that did their jobs but had some issues they weren't completely honest about? Well, that's easy too. Don't accept the lies and do the opposite of what they screwed up. Boom! In both cases, you just solved a generational problem by only doing what you should have done in the first place. But in today's world, there's a wild card. There's the asses of the masses. The people who didn't learn to tie their shoes until they were a teenager. The people who can't point at the US on a map. The people that think Ukraine is in Africa and isn't full of Nazis descended from WW2 Nazis that our grandfathers fought. I'm talking to you. Or about you, because you graduated college and still can't read and understand a newspaper, much less this.

Full essay on Authorsden: https://authorsden.com/visit/viewarti...

New essay: A Confluence of Confluences

In roughly 10 years we have a megastorm of issues coming due. Most of these issues are connected to borrowing trillions more than we'll ever pay off. The ones that aren't are connected to the notion that Neo-classical economic theory allows us to do anything, ie, debt doesn't matter and money isn't real (fiat) and has therefore zero real backing. This failed economic model is what has created the trillions in debt that will never be paid off and the insane interest payments that are dragging down the standard of living the world over. A person's standard of living is connected to the amount of debt being paid on due to limited resources, and it doesn't matter what college professor wants to argue with that, because those same people argue that releasing students from their debt would improve their lives, aka, improve their standard of living, so they've already said what I just said. Marxist and Neo-classical economic theories are a failure and only Classical has any real merit. Why? Because we live on a limited world with limited resources that must be managed as though they are limited. Which is what the other modern economic models do not take into account. Neo-classical theory has become synonymous with unlimited borrowing and inflation. Marxist theory is synonymous with unlimited forced labor and starvation. And Keynesian theory? All that does really says is that you will have 'boom' and 'bust' cycles if you allow unfettered economic activity. It's also been corrupted and incorporated into the Neo-classical theory in an attempt to explain why the Neo-classical system causes economic recessions and depressions. Hint: it's because the Neo-classical system allows companies to make far more stuff than they could ever use by allowing them to borrow far beyond their means, ie, a fast food franchise expands and then has to close stores due to expanding beyond their means with money they borrowed beyond their means forming a 'boom/bust' cycle for that company that wouldn't have existed without the money they borrowed to over expand. Neo-classical economic theory is like a monster that constantly eats itself and calls it 'progress'.

Debt, inflation, unemployment, and sustainability. The Four Horsemen of the Economy. These are primary issues we face, and indeed, created by going off the gold standard and pretending that money didn't really exist. Until we had to pretend it did indeed exist in the form of debt, if nothing else. And then people want to essentially argue that debt doesn't exist, because that is what you're doing if you argue that the amount of debt doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter, why does it cause negative effects on society? Well, the negative effects on society exist, therefore, the debt exists, whether the fiat money it's based on actually exists or not. That means that the other negative effects also exist and these negative effects are in the process of converging into a storm of epic proportions roughly 10 years from now. That's not a long time to anyone but kids. Everyone else still has a phone book or calendar from 2013 in their house. If you think it is a long time...then I say...develop some longview and recognize we are all but ants moving across the pages of history.

Full essay on Authorden: https://authorsden.com/visit/viewarti...

New essay: United State of Crushing Debt

More debt=higher interest payments=higher payments that must be paid to avoid default.

The current debt ceiling argument is great. The Dems are crying that people will die and Armageddon will befall us if it's not raised. The Reps are just saying they won't pass anything that doesn't cut bills, but they don't actually explain why. Why is that? Because most the country can't balance a check book and therefore can't understand why. So the Reps don't say it and the Dems are trying their best to ignore it. But I'll say it. I'll say it twice. Three times. Four or five. I'll take the facts of the situation, shape it into a weapon of verbal destruction, and aim it right at as many people as possible.

Ready? Probably not, but here we go regardless. Back in 2011 something happened that was unthinkable: the US lost the highest credit rating of AAA in many eyes and dropped to AA+. Most people in the US do not recognize this and claim our credit rating never dropped, but that doesn't matter when you have to borrow internationally by selling bonds or debt itself, like we funded the 2008 bailouts. So our credit rating is AA+, the second highest. However, we've been warned multiple times that this will fall again if we continue racking on debt. Why? Because of interest payments. At minimum, you have to make interest payments and our interest payments on trillions of debt are enough to break most nations itself, and any debt we take on raises the interest payments that we MUST pay or we default. This leads to a degradation of our credit rating as the country's buying power is reduced. This means we have two options for carrying forward with our monstrous amount of debt.

Full essay on Authorsden: https://www.authorsden.com/visit/view...

DTR2ed post 3-Dangers

Welcome to the third blog post counting down to the release of the Disturbance Timeline RPG: 2nd Edition rule set. These posts will continue up to the release of the 2nd Edition on June 1st of 2024 to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1st edition.

This post takes a look at the dangers present in DTR2ed. This section of the book is new, but most of the contents appeared in the 1st edition expansion and the Diseases & Conditions module.

Full post: https://www.jeremiahdonaldson.com/blo...