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Apocryphal
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(Quote) I don't see why we can't have escapism, but one must concede we don't all want to escape from the same things. I, for one, would like to escape from bland dialogue! LOL
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With Qin, as you increase weapon style level, you get access to more techniques, which have fanciful names (as well and more common English names). The include The Bear Strike (knock out blow), The Sharp Thorn (direct hit), False Carelessness (feint…
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Qin is the game that springs to mind for me.I haven’t read the others. I was trying to think how I’d make this gamable and wondering if you could do it by having opponents flip cards with each card having their manoeuvre on it. The outcome would dep…
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I was expecting this based on my movie viewing, but I don’t really have a strong feeling about it. I know it’s a genre trope. It probably has cultural significance. But I don’t feel it enhances the fight scenes, and it’s not as interesting as explor…
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While I loved the evocative style and move names, I found the fight scenes were relying on these rather too heavily and didn’t offer enough description to make them interesting. Also, the pacing seemed the same whether in a fight scene or not. So I …
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I definitely had the feeling the monastic artists were more respectable in society than the freaks, but within the fighting community, it seemed like skill (measured by how often you win?) or, lacking evidence of skill, who your shifu is, we’re what…
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I think flaws are pretty necessary to keep the fiction interesting. Even Big Damn Superheroes have flaws. In the case of Guo Jing, he’s pretty relatable. But maybe some of this is necessary from a story perspective. Guo Jing is the reader’s cipher, …
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This is a really interesting question and point. The shifu-student bond was really important, and it seemed that having a prestigious shifu was really important, socially. As to how it compares to the west, that’s the interesting part. Western…
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I thought there were plenty of active dynamic women. In fact, among the martial artists, it seemed like the women were as respected as the men, and I don’t recall anyone saying someone couldn’t be a martial artist because they were a women. In weste…
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I was often bored by the book, and it wasn't because of the setting, which I found really interesting. It was because of the writing (or possibly the translation, but I think it was the writing). I found very little to distinguish between the chara…
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Reading-wise I’m on schedule, but will not likely be in a position to sit and type something before Monday. Not that that should hold you up.
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(Quote) Haha - pretty optimistic on the training front, Wildcard! Last three staff we hired have actually given me more work as I have to spend half my time training and correcting. Anyway, we did read The Golem back in the G+ era - it was a Keith …
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Really interesting observations, Richard. Thanks.
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Like Bowness on Windermere needs more crowd!
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To be fair, some trad games like RQ and Pendragon and even CoC have always been more about character than winning. In RQ there’s a heavy emphasis on beliefs (‘what the priest said’), Pendragon has passions, and CoC trying to stay sane. But none of t…
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Or a symbol that the medium is becoming more important than the message. A bit like a big charity. Originally, most of the funds a charity gets go to the cause. But eventually a charity gets bigger and more top heavy, and more and more of the funds …
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@clash_bowley Oooh, which ideas? Care to share?
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That’s a great way of looking at it. Even the structure of the book is assembled.
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One thing that I observed about the characters - apart from being really well-drawn - was that they were all somehow alone. They co-existed in this city, but they were all alone. There weren't really any couples in the book that I can recall. The na…
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I never thought this Frankenstein would connect much with the original. It's more the concept that applies. I also thought it didn't have enough of a a voice, but I was totally drawn in when it did. The "Whatsitsname" chapter is the one th…
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I suppose that's the theme of a lot of violence based stories, that violence begets violence. Eventually, you can no longer tell who started it all, and all the tit-for-tat perpetuates it. Even the story of Putin's war (if you were to try to tell it…
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You know, I didn't remark on the mystical elements that much when reading it, but afterward when I was looking for quotes, and even now as I seek passages in responding to the questions, I keep seeing it. It's everywhere in the book, but so engraine…
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I really liked the diversity, and it never felt like it was tokenism. All too often these days I feel we're getting the token black woman, the token south asian, or whatever, and they're just there because the creator needed to plug some minorities …
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I feel like there's something in here about safety in fiction. Elishva has convinced herself (tells herself a fiction) that he son is going to return. That's how she gets by in life. Hadi also gets by by telling stories, and he's safe as long as the…
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Oh, and I'd definitely like to play in Baghdad, the setting - but I'd need way more info. That said, I think you could take some of what's in this book and import it into a 'Thief of Baghdad' campaign.
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Yeah, I really like the justice theme and I think it's well worth trying to build something around. A supers game would likely work. Characters play superheroes, but their actions keep pushing them further into murky moral territory. How far will th…
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So, one of the things that I got from the book was that justice was fleeting, and also individual. There was quite a lot of 'what goes around, comes around.' The state, which is the body nominally responsible for law and justice, certainly wasn't ha…
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I've been told the word 'allegory' refers specifically to biblical references, so I acknowledge its probably not the right word, but I figured it could stand colloquially. Often we read things and @RichardAbbott or @NeilNjae or @BarnerCobblewood po…
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I think there’s maybe a reason for how and where it ended, but let’s try to unpack that over discussion. It was not quite what I expected, but I wouldn’t say I was disappointed in it. I think I was expecting something more immediate and events fo…
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I’m reading Klara right now. Klara is an ‘artificial friend’ who is purchased for an affluent teen or pre teen. It reminds me of the Somni sections of Cloud Atlas.