System error

Can't call method "prepare" on an undefined value at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/SJG/Configuration/DB.pm line 117.


Trace begun at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125
HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "prepare" on an undefined value at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/SJG/Configuration/DB.pm line 117.^J') called at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/SJG/Configuration/DB.pm line 117
SJG::Configuration::DB::prepare('SJG::Configuration::DB=HASH(0x7fa88adbf8e8)', 'RESERVED', 'select name from qdata where qname=? and upload_date=?') called at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/SJG/Configuration/DB.pm line 89
SJG::Configuration::DB::sql('SJG::Configuration::DB=HASH(0x7fa88adbf8e8)', 'select name from qdata where qname=? and upload_date=?', 'illq', '2025-04-01') called at /home/www/secure/ill/comps/illcal.mas line 131
HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__('sqldate', '2025-04-02') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135
HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fa88aae3080)', 'sqldate', '2025-04-02') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302
eval {...} at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292
HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, 'sqldate', '2025-04-02') called at /home/www/secure/ill/ill.html line 150
HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__('sqldate', '2025-04-02', 'illuminator', '^J^I^I^I<h1>April 2, 2025: <I>Diplomacy</I> And "Rules Elide"</h1>^J^I^I^I<p>^M^J^II&#39;ve been playing <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>, finally, although I&#39;ve wanted to play it for a while. I&#39;m France, and to secure my Northern border I&#39;ve worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I&#39;ve left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak <i>la perfide Albion</i> has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IIt&#39;s a fantastic game, and also a stressful one, as I&#39;m sure players of <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> can attest.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IIt has gotten me thinking a lot about &quot;Rules Elide,&quot; a claim made by some members of the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement about the nature of how TTRPGs work. Their argument is that rules serve to abstract the parts of the game we&#39;re not interested in so we can focus on the parts we care about. An example given is that we don&#39;t care about precisely modeling the trajectory of an arrow, so we use a dice roll to see where the arrow lands. But we care very deeply about social interaction, so in their games they don&#39;t enjoy rules that abstract social interaction. Sam Sorenson&#39;s <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/samsorensen.bsky.social/post/3lkwfh6krpk2o">New Simulationist Manifesto</a> is a call to action regarding this exact topic, and it&#39;s something I come back to a lot.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IUltimately my conclusion is that elision is one of the functions of rules, but not the only one. <i>That said</i>, is there a better example of how rules can be used to elide than <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>? It&#39;s a game with (simple, but consistent) rules governing the movements of troops and positioning of resources. But let&#39;s be honest, that&#39;s not what <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> is about. In <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>, the actual compelling part of the game comes from conversing with your fellow players, making alliances, backstabbing them, and sending press out to various parts of the world. It&#39;s a conversation first, and a board game second. In that way, despite being very different from a TTRPG, <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> has a lot of philosophical overlap with TTRPGs.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^II don&#39;t know if my poor heart can take that many more games of <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>. But it&#39;s been a fantastic game to learn a lot more about elements of game design and game philosophy that can be overlooked in more complex games. By boiling it down to the fundamentals, it exposes the core of what it means to play a game.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^I-- <a href="mailto:jay@possumcreekgames.com">Jay Dragon</a></p>^M^J^J^I^I^I<br clear="all">^J^I^I^I^J^I^I^I<p id="discussForum" style="float: right;"><a href="http://forums.sjgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=92"><img src="http://www.sjgames.com/img/discuss-on-forums.png" alt="Discuss this post on the forums!" /></a></p>^J^I        ^J<!-- addthis -->^J^J<b><span style="float:left; padding:0 1%;">Share this post!</span></b>^J<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" style="float:left;">^J    <a class="addthis_button_facebook" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_twitter" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_reddit" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_tumblr" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_email" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <span class="addthis_separator">|</span>^J    <a class="addthis_button_expanded" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;">More</a>^J</div>^J^J<div style="margin: 5px 0; clear: left;">^J    <a href="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" class="small">Permalink</a> &bull;^J    <a href="/ill/archive/" class="small">Archive</a> &bull;^J    <a href="/ill/illsotw/" class="small">Illuminated&nbsp;Site&nbsp;of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Week</a>^J</div>^J', 'pagetitle', 'Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;', 'mobile', 0, 'description', 'I&#39;ve been playing Diplomacy, finally, although I&#39;ve wanted to play it for a while. I&#39;m France, and to secure my Northern border I&#39;ve worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I&#39;ve left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak la perfide Albion has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany . . .') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135
HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fa88aab1b00)', 'sqldate', '2025-04-02', 'illuminator', '^J^I^I^I<h1>April 2, 2025: <I>Diplomacy</I> And "Rules Elide"</h1>^J^I^I^I<p>^M^J^II&#39;ve been playing <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>, finally, although I&#39;ve wanted to play it for a while. I&#39;m France, and to secure my Northern border I&#39;ve worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I&#39;ve left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak <i>la perfide Albion</i> has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IIt&#39;s a fantastic game, and also a stressful one, as I&#39;m sure players of <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> can attest.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IIt has gotten me thinking a lot about &quot;Rules Elide,&quot; a claim made by some members of the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement about the nature of how TTRPGs work. Their argument is that rules serve to abstract the parts of the game we&#39;re not interested in so we can focus on the parts we care about. An example given is that we don&#39;t care about precisely modeling the trajectory of an arrow, so we use a dice roll to see where the arrow lands. But we care very deeply about social interaction, so in their games they don&#39;t enjoy rules that abstract social interaction. Sam Sorenson&#39;s <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/samsorensen.bsky.social/post/3lkwfh6krpk2o">New Simulationist Manifesto</a> is a call to action regarding this exact topic, and it&#39;s something I come back to a lot.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IUltimately my conclusion is that elision is one of the functions of rules, but not the only one. <i>That said</i>, is there a better example of how rules can be used to elide than <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>? It&#39;s a game with (simple, but consistent) rules governing the movements of troops and positioning of resources. But let&#39;s be honest, that&#39;s not what <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> is about. In <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>, the actual compelling part of the game comes from conversing with your fellow players, making alliances, backstabbing them, and sending press out to various parts of the world. It&#39;s a conversation first, and a board game second. In that way, despite being very different from a TTRPG, <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> has a lot of philosophical overlap with TTRPGs.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^II don&#39;t know if my poor heart can take that many more games of <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>. But it&#39;s been a fantastic game to learn a lot more about elements of game design and game philosophy that can be overlooked in more complex games. By boiling it down to the fundamentals, it exposes the core of what it means to play a game.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^I-- <a href="mailto:jay@possumcreekgames.com">Jay Dragon</a></p>^M^J^J^I^I^I<br clear="all">^J^I^I^I^J^I^I^I<p id="discussForum" style="float: right;"><a href="http://forums.sjgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=92"><img src="http://www.sjgames.com/img/discuss-on-forums.png" alt="Discuss this post on the forums!" /></a></p>^J^I        ^J<!-- addthis -->^J^J<b><span style="float:left; padding:0 1%;">Share this post!</span></b>^J<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" style="float:left;">^J    <a class="addthis_button_facebook" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_twitter" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_reddit" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_tumblr" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_email" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <span class="addthis_separator">|</span>^J    <a class="addthis_button_expanded" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;">More</a>^J</div>^J^J<div style="margin: 5px 0; clear: left;">^J    <a href="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" class="small">Permalink</a> &bull;^J    <a href="/ill/archive/" class="small">Archive</a> &bull;^J    <a href="/ill/illsotw/" class="small">Illuminated&nbsp;Site&nbsp;of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Week</a>^J</div>^J', 'pagetitle', 'Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;', 'mobile', 0, 'description', 'I&#39;ve been playing Diplomacy, finally, although I&#39;ve wanted to play it for a while. I&#39;m France, and to secure my Northern border I&#39;ve worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I&#39;ve left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak la perfide Albion has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany . . .') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302
eval {...} at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292
HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, 'sqldate', '2025-04-02', 'illuminator', '^J^I^I^I<h1>April 2, 2025: <I>Diplomacy</I> And "Rules Elide"</h1>^J^I^I^I<p>^M^J^II&#39;ve been playing <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>, finally, although I&#39;ve wanted to play it for a while. I&#39;m France, and to secure my Northern border I&#39;ve worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I&#39;ve left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak <i>la perfide Albion</i> has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IIt&#39;s a fantastic game, and also a stressful one, as I&#39;m sure players of <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> can attest.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IIt has gotten me thinking a lot about &quot;Rules Elide,&quot; a claim made by some members of the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement about the nature of how TTRPGs work. Their argument is that rules serve to abstract the parts of the game we&#39;re not interested in so we can focus on the parts we care about. An example given is that we don&#39;t care about precisely modeling the trajectory of an arrow, so we use a dice roll to see where the arrow lands. But we care very deeply about social interaction, so in their games they don&#39;t enjoy rules that abstract social interaction. Sam Sorenson&#39;s <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/samsorensen.bsky.social/post/3lkwfh6krpk2o">New Simulationist Manifesto</a> is a call to action regarding this exact topic, and it&#39;s something I come back to a lot.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^IUltimately my conclusion is that elision is one of the functions of rules, but not the only one. <i>That said</i>, is there a better example of how rules can be used to elide than <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>? It&#39;s a game with (simple, but consistent) rules governing the movements of troops and positioning of resources. But let&#39;s be honest, that&#39;s not what <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> is about. In <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>, the actual compelling part of the game comes from conversing with your fellow players, making alliances, backstabbing them, and sending press out to various parts of the world. It&#39;s a conversation first, and a board game second. In that way, despite being very different from a TTRPG, <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i> has a lot of philosophical overlap with TTRPGs.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^II don&#39;t know if my poor heart can take that many more games of <i><b>Diplomacy</b></i>. But it&#39;s been a fantastic game to learn a lot more about elements of game design and game philosophy that can be overlooked in more complex games. By boiling it down to the fundamentals, it exposes the core of what it means to play a game.</p>^M^J<p>^M^J^I-- <a href="mailto:jay@possumcreekgames.com">Jay Dragon</a></p>^M^J^J^I^I^I<br clear="all">^J^I^I^I^J^I^I^I<p id="discussForum" style="float: right;"><a href="http://forums.sjgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=92"><img src="http://www.sjgames.com/img/discuss-on-forums.png" alt="Discuss this post on the forums!" /></a></p>^J^I        ^J<!-- addthis -->^J^J<b><span style="float:left; padding:0 1%;">Share this post!</span></b>^J<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style" style="float:left;">^J    <a class="addthis_button_facebook" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_twitter" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_reddit" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_tumblr" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <a class="addthis_button_email" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;"></a>^J    <span class="addthis_separator">|</span>^J    <a class="addthis_button_expanded" addthis:url="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" addthis:title="Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;">More</a>^J</div>^J^J<div style="margin: 5px 0; clear: left;">^J    <a href="http://secure.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_02_2025/Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide" class="small">Permalink</a> &bull;^J    <a href="/ill/archive/" class="small">Archive</a> &bull;^J    <a href="/ill/illsotw/" class="small">Illuminated&nbsp;Site&nbsp;of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Week</a>^J</div>^J', 'pagetitle', 'Daily Illuminator: Diplomacy And &quot;Rules Elide&quot;', 'mobile', 0, 'description', 'I&#39;ve been playing Diplomacy, finally, although I&#39;ve wanted to play it for a while. I&#39;m France, and to secure my Northern border I&#39;ve worked with Germany and Austria to betray Italy, but in doing so I&#39;ve left myself open to a British counterattack, and as we speak la perfide Albion has landed on the shores of Brest and has mounted a desperate assault on Brittany . . .') called at /home/www/secure/ill/index.html line 4
HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__('month', 'April', 'day', 02, 'year', 2025, 'u', 'Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide.html') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135
HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fa88aa9c3c0)', 'month', 'April', 'day', 02, 'year', 2025, 'u', 'Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide.html') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302
eval {...} at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292
HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, 'month', 'April', 'day', 02, 'year', 2025, 'u', 'Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide.html') called at /home/www/secure/ill/archive/dhandler line 3
HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__('u', 'Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide.html') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135
HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fa8892fc7f8)', 'u', 'Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide.html') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1297
eval {...} at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292
HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef, 'u', 'Diplomacy_And_Rules_Elide.html') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481
eval {...} at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481
eval {...} at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433
HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fa88ae3e278)') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 168
HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fa88ae3e278)') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 825
HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fa888bf1cf8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fa88adbf390)') called at (eval 29) line 8
HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fa88adbf390)') called at -e line 0
eval {...} at -e line 0