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BarnerCobblewood
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This is very long. Sorry. There are really two points, which I labelled 1 and 2. If one bores you, skip to the other. If both bore you, well I guess it's just R(eally)TLDR. If you already know this, just ignore my self-importance in trying to speak…
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I have some things to do, so I will return to this later. However I want to say that I found this interview is really helpful for understanding the intentions of the text.
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Lots. This is very much the kind of setting I want to next play with, including the South Asian cosmology. It's encouraging to see how the problem of presenting what is going on to a reader / player who doesn't really understand the situation was qu…
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Don't have a lot to add. The characters seemed okay, I understood their motivations, and they conducted themselves accordingly. I appreciated the fact that society was beyond them. I consider that an accurate assessment of how the world is. One thi…
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I thought the devils were pretty standard. I think the idea that functional things emerge from a world that is not actual is common to South Asian tantric thought, which of course spread throughout Asia and is present as a functioning cosmology from…
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I don't think this is magic realism, because the cosmology taken as reality is not what this society considers realism. Also, I am under the impression that magic realism deals with an intersection of the shared actuality of the reader with an uncom…
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I quite enjoyed this book - thanks for suggesting it. I would definitely read another book by Vajra Chandrasekera, but I'm not sure I will seek it out. More if I run into it I will pick it up to read. Like @Apocryphal I found the second quarter drag…
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@NeilNjae Is interesting you mention this. I was thinking it might be a good book for us to read here.
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Sounds fine to me. BTW, that website doesn't let you control cookies when you visit, you're supposed to go into your browser settings and do it by hand. Shit designers looking to grift your info. Won't visit again.
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This inability to communicate (aphasia) becoming a social problem would make a great theme for a highly relevant SF novel. Personally I believe this is perhaps the second biggest challenge facing us, the first being of course climate change. It's in…
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I agree with @clash_bowley there were plenty of clues. But there was so little explanation or description of the puppet makers that I don't think anyone could have seen it coming.
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Ok I will definitely look at this. Not being able to reply on our own social values is pretty much what I want to do, and seeing how the problem of getting the PCs to get that will definitely help. EPT is another thing that seems like it might b…
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@clash_bowley so what game is it? Outremer?
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I think I'll add military service as well. Again, thanks. This resource number was exactly the thing I was missing.
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This is going to work for the effect of debt also. This fixed a lot of troubles I was having thinking through social interactions. It's this part of the game you mentioned above?
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@clash_bowley This is great. Thank you. Really helpful. BC
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Thanks everyone.This discussion is proving quite helpful. @Apocryphal: I will take a look at that later today. @RichardAbbott Thanks for the explanations about ept. I'm looking through some things right now. The ways that multiple clans, meaning so…
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Yeah, that's not really what I'm looking for. I want a system to let me establish groups within a society and keep track of how they see the players individually, and the party as a group. The first part is not so hard with charisma / presence, but …
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Thanks @Apocryphal. I have already looked at most of these rulesets. I guess I wasn't clear in my question. I'm looking for a rules-system that will include rules to shape NPC and minions / anonymous groups that recognises that the society is far mo…
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@clash_bowley no please suggest your game also. Has anyone here played ept?
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I thought the characters (all of them) were let down by the plot, especially the ending. They deserved better. Again that might have been on purpose to make a point, but if so it was so subtle that the point was not made.
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I thought it was quite good, but sometimes the author was overly intrusive. @Apocryphal I think I understand what you mean by Dickian, but I think that Dick's voice is both more overt and less intrusive than the tone was here. What I found odd abou…
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I thought its setting could easily be used in most any game, but I'm not sure that I know players who would remain committed enough to their characters to make it worthwhile. I think it would quickly devolve into what the novel devolved into - this …
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I thought the setting was one of the best aspects of the book. Its discussion of law provided a persuasive context within which we could understand how character's motivations produced the actions which did not produce the outcomes they desired. Th…
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Well they were fighting puppets using marionettes as troops. Not necessarily the highest level monster. Apologies for being mostly absent. Have a couple of things to say, but quite busy this weekend. Should post this evening or Monday. BC
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Pretty much the same as @RichardAbbott.
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> @RichardAbbott said: > (Quote) > ... my impression from his fiction is that while he would accept that scientific advance can result in problems, the answer is better science and social change to accommodate this. So for example in Thre…
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@RichardAbbott Like @Apocryphal I wondered if he had read much English language science fiction. Do you think he could consider 'science' to be the villain in hard sf, e.g. causing climate disaster, and so to be rejected by the reader?
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Will be ready tomorrow.
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> @RichardAbbott said: > > This is a fascinating thought, and of course you're right - any game tends to get stale, even if there are random elements within it (eg position of starting tiles or whatever). For me it also linked into curre…