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NeilNjae
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- NeilNjae
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(Quote) That's a good point, but some toolboxes are easier to read than others. I don't know if you've read New Fire yet, but I bounced off it. There's a lot of detail in there, but it's hard to tease out what's what. In contrast, the GoO Tékumel bo…
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(Quote) Nothing to be a good sport about: it's not my book, and the discussions were all civil and fruitful. I think one thing is clear: the books work better when read at speed and you're caught up in the excitement of them. Be warned that the art…
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That sounded like a truly epic campaign! I can see how a well-constructed sourcebook would make that kind of setting fairly easy to run, with lots of setting elements to draw on. A good read, thanks.
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I think that's a conclusion. Let's draw this Slow Read to a conclusion. People aren't interested in reading the third book, and life's too short to read dull books. Perhaps we'll finish the trilogy sometime, but not in this format. Thanks all! It'…
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(Quote) Do we have a pick for the September book? How about doing The Stone Sky (book 3) as a normal monthly read?
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(Quote) Yes, she did use them. Yes, it's appropriation: there are lots of non-Western concepts in ACH. The question is whether it's harmful to the originating cultures. And I don't think it is. I think she's holding up these stories as a challenge f…
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I think she's le Guin's mouthpiece in a sort-of Socratic dialogue. I think she's there to embody the questions that we (20th or 21st century Westerners) would have of the Kesh, contrasting her thoughts and questions (that is, our thoughts and questi…
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(Quote) Salmoning aside (i.e. this is all post-hoc rationalisation of the needs of the pulpy plot)... It was mentioned that many of the force attacking Castrima was made up of people "recruited" from comms annexed before Castrima. Danel s…
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(Quote) The events in chapters 19 and 20 happen at the same time, and we know Nassun travelled for a year to get to New Moon. There have been several statements of "months passed" for Nassun. That means there's time for a group to move fro…
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Yes, to echo that this was a very good find.
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(Quote) Most of these games work as one-shot sessions, but they generally work better over several sessions. Smallville seems to take 2-4 sessions to really get going — but once it does, it's fantastic. I used it to play something very close to the …
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(Quote) What would you like to know? As for adding Drama System to other games, that's what Malandros did: it mixed Drama System with Powered by the Apocalypse for the "procedural" (non dramatic, i.e. action) activity. In play, you need t…
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(Quote) As prompted by @Apocryphal , here are some focussed games that cover more than the standard "do anything so long as it's combat" style of D&D and similar. But please bear in mind that I'm not up to date with what the cool kids …
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@BarnerCobblewood , you said that this book strongly influenced your gaming. Apologies if I missed it, but I don't think you've described how it did. I'd really like to hear your take on the book and it's influence on gaming.
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> @RichardAbbott said: > (Quote) > That sounds really interesting. Are the changes in description voluntary ("I want to trade strength for charisma" or whatever) or the consequences of action and so not directly willed for E…
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(Quote) There's a huge difference between game-characters being in conflict, and the players being in conflict (or competition). In just about all my RPG experience, the players around the table have been working together to tell a story. But at the…
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(Quote) I've not read it. Perhaps I should.
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(Quote) I think the key to this answer is in the ACH text itself, in the section "Some Generative Metaphors." Most RPGs, and much Western fiction, relies on metaphors of The War and The Lord. Struggle and power. The idea that "all sto…
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World-building and motivations... what a subject. Tolkien wrote Middle-Earth to create a whole new mythology for the English. It was based in his linguistics and mythology, but LotR was written as a story in a world created to have stories. Marvel…
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And near the end, I wanted to say, "No, Ursula, tell me what you really think about 'intellectual property rights'."
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First thoughts: this was an intensely political book. It may have a surface veneer of genteel meandering, but you can sense, just below the surface, le Guin's searing hatred of male posturing, war, violence, and power through domination. But rather …
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Looking up "ashblow hair", I came across this post from Jemisin on the races of Broken Earth (only contains information on The Fifth Season. And it seems "lynching" as a term originated in the US, and seems to be strongly linked…
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Another model for stills hiding orogenes could be people hiding Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. People were kept safe, at great risk to the custodians, even though there wasn't any easy way to get the hidden person to safety.
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(Quote) That's an interesting thought, but we've not seen anywhere in the Stillness for an Underground Railroad to transport people to. The US one moved slaves from where they were slaves to where they could live freely. Where would orogenes go in t…
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(Quote) Broadly true, but I think that reading both sections in parallel is informative, and perhaps even the intended way. There are snippets of worldbuilding information that appear in the "front" stories (e.g. the train, diseases) that …
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I picked up the phrase from Robin Laws's book on story structure. I guess he was aware of the euphemism, being Canadian, even if it's not used over here.
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(Quote) And for that reason alone, I shall use the phrase as much as possible.
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_Gods of Jade and Shadow_ sounds more interesting to me than _Red Mars_. Let's do that!
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(Quote) Without giving too much away, and with the proviso that I can't remember all that many details from when I read these books the first time, things do improve. There's been a lot of exposition and "laying pipe" to set things up. Tho…
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(Quote) Is that because you're not enjoying the book, and want to get it over and done with? Is it because you're caught up in the action and keep turning the pages? Something else? (Quote) Relating this back to gaming, are you saying the violence …