Nuketown

Features

The Geek Tree

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 06/25/2006 - 8:28pm

What is the Geek Tree? It's a Christmas tree with a speculative fiction theme. And what's speculative fiction? Speaking broadly, it's a uber-genre comprised of science fiction, fantasy and horror, though in the case of the Geek Tree, it's primarily sci-fi. The tree is re-built annually by Ken Newquist, Nuketown's editor. Questions, comments and suggestions about the Geek Tree can be sent to Ken via this form.

Libertarian Gamers Project

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Mon, 06/12/2006 - 2:11am

Libertarian Gamers ProjectThere are a great number of libertarian projects out there -- the Libertarian Party is an ongoing experiment in freedom politics via the voting booth, while the Free State Project attempts to influence shape the government and society by convincing free folk to move to New Hampshire. Bureaucrash is home to grass-roots activism that one usually finds among the Left, but is oriented towards the defense of capitalism, free trade and other libertarian ideals.

These are all worthwhile undertakings, but even the most strident defender of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness needs to relax every once in a while ... and that's where the Libertarian Gamers Project (Join the Yahoo Group) comes in.

Nuketown's Windows RPG Tools Page

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 06/11/2006 - 9:45am

Geeks love role-playing games. They also love computers, so it's not too surprising that the two interests have converged to spawn numerous tools for aiding in the creation of pen-and-paper RPGs.

This page is dedicated to chronicling those tools for the Windows operating system. My focus for this page is on tools for all game systems, but when it comes to d20-based role-playing games, I'm only listing those that comply to rules set out in the Open Gaming License. Mac users need not lament this page's Windows-bias; I've created a parellel for that platform as well: Nuketown's Mac RPG Page

Nuketown's Mac RPG Tools Page

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sat, 06/10/2006 - 6:30pm

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons since I was in grade school, and I've been using Apple computers at least as long. Twenty-five years later, both D&D and Apple computers are part of my life, only now I'm use Macs in every aspect of my game, from writing the adventure to tracking combat to maintaining my Web site.

This feature chronicles the use of Macs in RPGs, including write-ups about Mac-specific and generic RPG software, Web sites about Mac gaming, an overview of my Macs, and some thoughts on producing games using a Mac.

Libertarian Science Fiction

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Mon, 05/01/2006 - 1:57am

The impetus behind this page was a speech I gave at a meeting of the Pocono Libertarians a few years back on "Libertarian Themes in Science Fiction." As a life-long science fiction fan, and later a libertarian, the unity of the two subjects always seemed obvious to me. But at that meeting I discovered that many of my fellow libertarian-minded citizens either hadn't heard of the books and movies I was mentioning, or hadn't thought of them in a libertarian light.

Over the years, Nuketown has evolved into an increasingly libertarian webzine, but it never had a full-blown section dedicated specifically to the intersection of libertarianism and sci-fi. Now, with this page, it does.