Changeling: The Dreaming, Second Edition

Customer Reviews:

Great game, but not for all.......2006-03-27

This is a wonderful, comprehensive book. Even if you only have this to work with, you can run a successful Changeling game. Changeling is, by the way, my favorite of not only the WhiteWolf games but of all games I've played - so I admit I am quite biased. Changeling is well put together and a joy to play; however, since it is quite different from the rest of the WhiteWolf pantheon it is not for everyone. Hope is a strong aspect of this game, whereas the other games - Vampire, Wraith, etc. - lack that particular element. Changeling has it's dark sides, too, but the system is much more malleable and can easily range the entire spectrum of emotional settings at the GM's discression.

the last hope.......2004-06-03

so youve played a vampire where you suck the life out of humans

youve played a werewolf where you go crazy and kill humans

youve played a mage where most humans who know about you want to kill you.

enter, changeling the dreaming, a world of darkness game that allows for a bit more. most people at first look pass off changeling as a bunch of shiny happy people, they couldnt be furthur from the truth. changeling has its dark side and its as black as night. so your this fairy soul trapped inside a human sack of meat, you spend too much time as a human? your fairy side dies. you spend too much time as fae? you go insane. its a good balance, some say that the seelie/unseelie courts have been messed up from the get go and have many other problems. i have problems with most games but luckily whitewolf has the golden rule, if you dont like it, change it, if you dont have enough imagination to adapt something you dont like what are you doing playing rpgs anyway? go back to killing monsters on your console and leave those who roleplay for the joy of the story be.

5 stars from a french roleplayer.......2002-04-01

Yes, we also play changeling in France. And although the first edition has been translated a few years ago, we prefer this one.

Changeling is a great game. I love the seelie/unseelie division which is not a manichean good/bad division. I love the way faeries are somewhat alien to this world and nevertheless part of it.

I love the fight against banality : it's the fight of my life!!

Changeling is Great for People Who Like Low Powered Games.......2002-03-31

Changeling is a great game that is based on fairy tales from around the world. You play one type of Fae or another (anything from a globe-trotting Eshu to a blood-thirsty Redcap). It's hard to make these characters bland and the flightly nature of the Changeling world allows for endless possibilities as long as your GM is flexible. This is not a game for GMs who like to have all their ducks in a row, nor is it a game for people who only like high powered campaigns. It is ideal however, for the low powered player who likes lots of character development. Also, the nature of Changelings makes it very easy for the campaign to stay upbeat if that is your choice. However, Changelings can have all sorts of interactions with other supernaturals, giving the campaign a chance to get dark if that is your desire. The book itself is in full color, and has the most beautiful art work of any Whitewolf book I've seen (the whole Changeling series of books is well done). I can see how Changeling's reputation for being a girls' game is true but guys, if you like character development, you should give this one a try!

A good idea gone bad.......2002-03-01

I'm not particullary fond of fairies, but I seem to enjoy detailed stories of this kind. Not nursery rhymes, but true folklore belief of spirits that seem to be inhabbiting our world many ages before us. Fairies do have their certain charm, and when stories about them can turn nasty enough (which is most of the cases if we study what folklore tells us) this seems like a perfect concet to introduce to White Wolf's excellent World of Darkness.

Meet Changeling. A game where fairies of folklore shield on human hosts to protect themselves from the ravages of unbelief. The concept itself is a great one; one probably even greater than any other World of Darkness concepts.

Unfortunatelly, the main book seems to do it completely wrong. It's written in a way that it seems a nursery tale, and while it mentions a clear seelie/unseelie division among changelings, this division seems more of a plain good/bad one than what the fairy courts originally seemed to mean on Irish folklore.

Rules are completely upside down, too. The magic system (a combination of what you can do (Arts) that is frankly narrow, and to whom you can do it (Realms) that is completely annoying) is the worst White Wolf has ever created. The Kiths (the game splats) are based on wonderous creatures, but the descriptions used are completely uninspired. The Dreaming is a great concept, but how mechanics work around it are too rigid.

I've heard there are some great sourcebooks for Changeling, so I can't speak for the entire line. But this core book was a huge disappointment for me.

Amazon.com

Ever feel like you just can't get ahead with the bills? You're not alone. More than half of Americans believe the American dream has become impossible for most people to achieve. And two-thirds think this goal will be even harder for the next generation. (One reason for the gloominess--average full-time income has fallen 15 percent since 1975.) All this has Benjamin Friedman worried. In his hefty, 549-page tome, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, the acclaimed Harvard economist and advisor to the Federal Reserve Board says economic stagnation is bad for the moral health of a nation. Friedman, a former chair of Harvard's economics department, argues that economic growth is vital to social and political progress. Witness Hitler's Germany. Without growth, people look for answers in intolerance and fear. And that, Friedman warns, is where the U.S. is headed if the economic stagnation of the past three decades doesn't soon reverse. It's not enough for gross domestic product to rise, he says. Growth also has to be more evenly distributed. The rich shouldn't be the only ones getting richer.

Friedman's arguments are provocative but at times lack rigor. In his comparisons of various countries, he offers no objective data to measure their levels of social progress, relying instead on his own--sometimes selective--interpretation of historical events. He glosses over the fact that China, where the economy has grown sevenfold since 1978, has seen little political change in that time. He also acknowledges that the Great Depression--which brought Americans together to achieve great social and political progress--tends to disprove his theory. Friedman makes a good case that the economy sometimes influences social movements, but the jury is still out on exactly when and how that happens. --Alex Roslin

Book Description

From the author of Day of Reckoning, the acclaimed critique of Ronald Reagan’s economic policy (“Every citizen should read it,” said The New York Times): a persuasive, wide-ranging argument that broadly distributed economic growth provides benefits far beyond the material, creating and strengthening democratic institutions, establishing political stability, fostering tolerance, and enhancing opportunity.

“Are we right,” Benjamin M. Friedman asks, “to care so much about economic growth as we clearly do?” To answer, Friedman reaches beyond economics. He examines the political and social histories of the large Western democracies—particularly of the United States since the Civil War—distinguishing times of generally rising living standards from those of pervasive stagnation to illustrate how rising incomes render a society more open and democratic. He shows, too, how our attitudes toward economic growth and its consequences have roots in the thinking of prior centuries, especially the Enlightenment, and also include significant strands of religious influence.

Friedman also delineates the role of economic growth in determining which developing nations extend the broadest freedoms to their citizenry. He makes clear that growth, rather than just the level of living standards, is key to effecting political and social liberalization in the third world. But he also warns that the democratic values of countries even as wealthy as our own are at risk whenever incomes stagnate for extended periods. Merely being rich is no protection against a society’s retreat into rigidity and intolerance once enough of its citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead.

Finally, Friedman shows us why, if America is to strengthen democratic institutions around the world as a bulwark against terrorism and social unrest, we must aggressively pursue growth at home and promote worldwide economic expansion beyond what purely market-driven forces would create. And for the United States, he offers concrete suggestions for policy steps to achieve those objectives.

A major contribution to the ongoing debate on the effects of economic growth and globalization.

Customer Reviews:

The Chicken or the Egg?.......2007-02-06

Since the rise fascism and Bolshevism in the 1920s there has been the question of how political rights and civil liberties correspond to economic rights and growth. Amartya Sen has argued that the political rights and civil liberties should not be divorced from economic process (Development As Freedom). Sen's normative approach of equating economic rights to the freedoms one achieves with guaranteed civil liberties is one that many can respect.
Benjamin Freidman has taken a more positivist to the same issue. In doing so he asks, "Which came first the chicken or the egg?" Does economic growth in a capitalist setting require democracy and civil liberties or visa versa? Friedman's study looks back not only over all to this question in modern economic history. But, he also takes specific case studies from the United States, Germany, France and others to see the over all trends of the problem.
From this he develops a matrix on the issue. In times of growth political rights tend to expand. In times of stagnation they tend to contract. What is interesting his not how Friedman arrives at this basic framework, but his look into the exceptions of this common sense rule. Why in the 1930s was the political openness of the New Deal accepted, but the recent economic stagnation in France caused the rise of the right-wing Le Pen party?
Friedman is one of the foremost experts on the political economy. He has held a seat at Harvard since 1972. Yet, in this work for public consumption his writing is more along the lines of an historian. He does not delve too far into the economics or the political science of the issue, which many academics tend to - even for the lay reader. Instead, he sees to it that the main ideas are gotten across.
His prescriptions are simple. Maintain economic growth and we can maintain political and civil liberties. While Amartya Sen may find a problem with placing the chicken before the egg, after this work one must understand that economic stagnation helps noone.

Better than church: Economics, the joyful science.......2006-12-01

Economics is often considered a values-free discipline (and economists - well, a sperm cell has a better chance of becoming human). Economists have promoted this view with their emphasis on "positive" (scientific) economics. Economic theory must generate testable hypotheses which stand on their ability to predict the future and withstand the test of data. This is actually very important if economic theory is going to serve as the basis for policy. Without a rigorous and dispassionate analysis of the problems we face and their potential solutions, policy is more likely to be destructive than useful. But taken to an academic extreme, this approach makes economics rather arid, an extremely formal social science that looks more like a branch of mathematics. Indeed, some economics journals publish articles so arcane they might as well be about string theory for all the relevance they have to actual human beings.

Friedman understands that economics is much more than mathematics, that it deals directly with human happiness. It's the most optimistic and joyful of sciences, not simply a ruler by which we can measure policy. Its uses and conclusions are fundamentally moral (or immoral). Economic growth isn't just about GDP and reams of statistics, but about the expansion of opportunity, the lifting up of the poor and the powerless to prosperity and self-determination. Markets aren't just about money, but about liberty. It may be the responsibility of economic advisors to be cold, impartial and rational in their analysis and advice, but policy makers and citizens must apply moral reasoning and moral sense to the products of that analysis.

Friedman's book is a solid introduction to the moral relevance of economics. Friedman shows us that economics matters, though it doesn't matter in quite the way that physics matters. Physical knowledge may be used for moral or immoral purposes, but physics is fundamentally without morality. It also need not deal with anything that really matters to you and me. Economic theory can explain human behavior in ways similar to thermodynamic explanations of molecular motion, but humans aren't molecules. You can't simply describe the impact of globalization or tax policy on humans without a moral framework; an attempt to objectify humans as you'd objectify hydrogen molecules contains its own grim morality. It's the strength of Friedman's book that it makes clear that economic decisions and economic analysis are firmly embedded in a moral framework, no matter how hard we might try to ignore it in our pursuit of scientific and mathematical rigor.

Friedman's book isn't just a moral tract; he attempts to make a case for his moral stand. Friedman is a skilled economist, and he marshals historical data and comparisons of different nations and different periods in our own history to make his case. He provides some information useful for evaluating his thesis that economic growth is moral, he doesn't simply assert it. But herein is a weakness in his book. He doesn't provide nearly as much hard information as he should, and he scatters his supporting numbers throughout the text. It would be very helpful to the reader if data were gathered into charts and tables. There's but a single Figure in the book, no tables of data. It should also be noted that his national comparisons leave out some states (China, Singapore, Vietnam) that might contradict his thesis regarding the linkage between economic growth and political liberty. He's chosen his examples far too carefully.

Another weakness of this book is a natural danger of the type of text Friedman has written. Because he is dealing with economics as a moral issue, he takes a moral stance, one that's clearly to the political left in many ways. I have no problem with this, even though I'm somewhat to the right of him, but we should be very clear on one point. While a trained economist like Friedman is in a much better position than the average person to analyze the effects of different policies, he's no more qualified than a pastry chef to comment on the relative desirability of those different policies once their effects have been laid out in terms the pastry chef understands. Friedman makes a number of policy suggestions in his book with which I disagree. He doesn't make it sufficiently clear that their potential effects aren't unambiguously better than those of alternative policies designed to create or enhance economic growth.

My final objection to this book is its length. Friedman is clearly a well-read man of wide interests, and he brings a great deal of his erudition to this book. It strengthens his case, but I'm not sure that the marginal benefits of the 400th page exceed the marginal costs. More than once I found myself wanting an executive summary of the chapter I was reading and wishing that he would just cut to the chase. But that's really a minor complaint. I benefited from reading this book. It's an interesting and thoughtful contribution to the issue of economic growth (and by extension to international trade and economic aid to developing countries), and I strongly recommend it.

Society and Economic Growth.......2006-11-05

Friedman explains how growth is good for promoting a freer, more tolerant and open society. The author gives good reasons for defending growth as the major objective of any government.

Interesting Thesis, but overlooking some important points.......2006-06-13

Mr. Friedman's book begins with an interesting thesis, defining morality and its definition within a context of economic growth. The idea that economic growth or stagnation effects the mindsets of the people living in that time period is a logical argument that Friedman often well supports with historical facts. However, the exceptions to his argument make me wonder if he really believes in his own thesis, or if he just felt the need to write a book. Furthermore, for every chapter in the book, there seem to be at least one or more flawed arguments or points that, with a little thorough thought or research, don't make sense or can easily be disproven. With these things being the case, I find Friedman's argument a little hard to buy. The entire book seems to build up to the final chapter, which Friedman uses to make policy recommendations that would aid in economic growth; this final chapter could have stood alone from the book entirely, however, because the evidence in the book an his arguments elsewhere in the book (ie. the importance of education) do not add or support his final policy recommendations. His policy recommendations could have easily been listed by students in an economics class as responses to the question "What should the government do to promote economic growth?" They don't push the argument forward or indicate anything that hasn't already been suggested in the past, nor do they give suggestions as to how to go about implementing his policies.

Puzzling.......2006-06-02

Friedman begins with a few troubling statistics, particularly the fact that except for a brief period in the late 1900s, most of the fruits of the last three decades of economic growth in the U.S. have accrued to only a small slice of the population. Further, after allowing for higher prices, the average 2004 worker in an American business made 16% less each week than 30+ years earlier. With more and more two-earner households and more individuals holding two jobs, most families' income have more than held their own. But nearly all the gain in the last three decades came only in the late 1990s. Young men entering the American job force in the 1970s started off earning two-thirds more, on average, than the generation starting out in the 1950s; by the early 1990s it was one quarter less than their parents.

Economic growth positively affects the character of the society as a whole, and because neither tolerance nor democracy is a good that private markets value, there is a role for government measures to seek growth beyond what the market would provide on its own. Improved transportation, crime reduction, safety from external attack, savings, education, and patent protection are examples of valuable government contributions.

Friedman asserts that declining investment is a problem in the U.S., and blames it on increased current consumption and government borrowing. (But what about the fact that much cheaper labor is available in Asia?) He goes on to posit that chronically large deficits' depressing effect on America's investment probably received a greater spur from change in the tax structure than the positive aspect of the tax reductions.

Friedman suggests improvement that begins with undoing the Bush administration high-end tax changes that provided 60% of the benefits to the top 10% (earning over $120,000) to reduce the deficit and improve society.

Fireman, like many others, very much wants to improve American education. He begins by focusing on improving the high school graduation rate - stable at about 90% over the last several decades - through more spending. (Friedman, however, forgets that enormous increases in inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending also occurred during this period, and that dropout rates closely correlate with race - ergo, positive home influence is probably a much more potent lever.) More government support for college education is also highly recommended because their incomes average some 70% more than those without a college degree. As for class sizes, Friedman is aware that most quality research has found reductions do NOT improve pupil achievement; nonetheless he suggests reductions would improve graduation rates, though the sources he cites seem to confound race and socio-economic status with class size as influences. He also supports competition within education, citing several inner-city positive examples such as Harlem Community Schools.

Another significant recommendation is raising the Social Security retirement age.

What is puzzling about "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth" is that Friedman does not address a major issue of today's economic growth - the impact of free trade and illegal immigration on American incomes. Also, his treatment of economic development and population growth on environmental impacts is overly optimistic. These issues seriously limit the book's contributions.

The Environmental Consequences of Growth: Steady-State Economics as an Alternative to Ecological Decline (New Directions in Social Economics)

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A good book for undergraduates.

The Environmental Consequences of Growth: Steady-State Economics as an Alternative to Ecological Decline (New Directions in Social Economics)
Douglas Booth
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0415169909

Book Description

This book presents a new perspective on the link between economic growth and environmental change. All the key issues in environmental economics are covered, including: industry, creation and environmental change; air, water and toxic pollution; economic growth and the limits of environmental regulation; and the ethics and the limits of environmental economics. The central thesis is that while new industries are necessary for economic growth, their development creates new environmental problems which become difficult to reverse. An alternative approach, "steady-state economics", based on the concept of ethical commitment, is put forward as a possible alternative to a high-growth, environmentally destructive economy. Providing a welcome alternative to conventional, neoclassical microeconomic thought on environmental issues, this will be vital reading for students of environmental economics and related subjects.

Customer Reviews:

A good book for undergraduates........2001-03-18

I recently read this book for an Economics class in technology and growth. This book can be challenging at time, yet is still a very rewarding book to read. It expands on many ideas that i'm sure we all have creeping in the back of our minds, but never really put into words. The only problem i had with this book is all of the historical data is about the USA and UK, which is a little upsetting to a Canadian. This book isn't revolutionary, but it is very informative.

The Moral Consequences Of Economic Growth

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The Moral Consequences Of Economic Growth
Benjamin M. Friedman
Manufacturer: Alfred a Knopf Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OB0EAG

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.(Book review) : An article from: The Cato Journal

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The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.(Book review) : An article from: The Cato Journal
Will Wilkinson
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from The Cato Journal, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1407 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.(Book review)
Author: Will Wilkinson
Publication: The Cato Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 26 Issue: 1 Page: 201(4)

Article Type: Book review

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The moral consequences of economic growth.(Book review): An article from: Comparative Economic Studies

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The moral consequences of economic growth.(Book review): An article from: Comparative Economic Studies
Fred Pryor
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
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Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000S6JD4U
Release Date: 2007-06-18

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This digital document is an article from Comparative Economic Studies, published by Thomson Gale on June 1, 2007. The length of the article is 1249 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: The moral consequences of economic growth.(Book review)
Author: Fred Pryor
Publication: Comparative Economic Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 49 Issue: 2 Page: 330(3)

Article Type: Book review

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Moral consequences of economic growth: the John R. Commons lecture, 2006 *.: An article from: American Economist

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Moral consequences of economic growth: the John R. Commons lecture, 2006 *.: An article from: American Economist
Benjamin M. Friedman
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from American Economist, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 4487 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Moral consequences of economic growth: the John R. Commons lecture, 2006 *.
Author: Benjamin M. Friedman
Publication: American Economist (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Page: 3(6)

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Progressives for growth.(The Moral Consequences of Growth)(The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity)(Book review) : An article from: Policy Review

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Progressives for growth.(The Moral Consequences of Growth)(The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity)(Book review) : An article from: Policy Review
Peter Berkowitz
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Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Policy Review, published by Thomson Gale on April 1, 2006. The length of the article is 3973 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Progressives for growth.(The Moral Consequences of Growth)(The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity)(Book review)
Author: Peter Berkowitz
Publication: Policy Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 136 Page: 69(9)

Article Type: Book review

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