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BarnerCobblewood
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> @RichardAbbott said: > Right let's assume we're going for it, tackling the material @BarnerCobblewood outlined > > (Quote) > So... when would you like to slot this in to the sequence? Let me know what month you'd like to pick a…
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If love to hear @Apocryphal discuss the world building.
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@kcaryths Yeah, the issue around the format needs to be examined. There is no paperback of the book available. And it's not cheap even in ebook considering that you can read it for free on the website. It's an interesting development in publishing.…
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@kcaryths The novel seems to consist of the sections on the webpage called 1. Critical background reading, 2. There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, 3. Interlude, and 4. Five Five Five Five Five by qntm. I say seems to because I haven't done an …
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It's more of that cosmic horror stuff.
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@RichardAbbott As I mentioned there is a novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_No_Antimemtics_Division It's on the usual places: https://guardianbookshop.com/there-is-no-antimemetics-division-9781529953176/?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_…
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So I've started reading this web site https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub, and thought it might be good for the club. Found it because it is being published / is recently published as a novel. We could also read the novel I guess,…
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@NeilNjae Interesting. Doesn't sound like something I'd want to play, but I know some people who run their PCs in just this way.
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@NeilNjae That's interesting. If I'm understanding well both meters (hardened / failed) can only increase, and when they reach some value the PC becomes ineffectual. So it's a one way trip. Is that right? There's no mechanism to reset the meters?
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@Apocryphal I think you're right. Fear is of use, whereas horror has something to do with the realisation that nothing is of use. There's something about inevitability, and the realisation that the inevitable has not happened yet, that is related to…
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(Quote) That's a cool way of helping the table organise the role-playing. I might try that at my table. (Quote) It might be that we collectively are in denial. I'd say these are all methods to "avoid the void" if you like. Playing at horr…
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@NeilNjae Totally agree that it is hard to model mental states of PCs systematically. I don't know how madness meters work in Unknown Armies. Could you explain a little bit? Thanks, BC
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As I said to another question I'm not sure what cosmic horror is, but I think if this is to work, it will depend on the tabletop, not the system.
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No I don't think it needed more characterization. It's a story, like the Arabian Nights.
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I thought this was the work of a competent professional writer. I don't think there's much to it beyond its function of producing an emotional response to drive sales. It's a good candy bar.
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Like @RichardAbbott in not sure what horror, and cosmic horror is. I'm interested to hear what people think horror (as opposed to fear say, or love) is. For me it has something to do with awareness of something that is, and yet somehow beyond, b…
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I thought the change in tone was just the fact that the dream being, the I we experience upon waking, is simultaneously ourself and not ourself, and so beyond our everyday experience and imagining, and because of that reveals that others may be ours…
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@Apocryphal I'm finished.
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Looks good. Also looking forward to hearing about the campaign.
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> @RichardAbbott said: > (Quote) > I increasingly think that the domestication of the dog was one of the crucial facets of human development - the implied need to recognise a similar-but-different social setup without annihilating it (con…
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@clash_bowley Nostalgia is a weird thing. Not much of a fan myself. OTOH as I get older I do appreciate some souvenirs, but making a cult of the past, which I think many if not all the protagonists of these stories do, is a manifestation of a negati…
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I thought it was the best of the stories. Looking at the book from this point part of me sees all of the stories as being about our protagonists' inability to face either of the transcendent and imminent aspects of reality, and how that inability to…
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So I am with everyone that the tone of these stories is quite straightforward, that we always have reliable narrators, that they are little more than coathangers for an idea that struck Simak as sellable in magazines. But as I got to the end of the …
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I think Simak's idea was that that sympathetic understanding and empathy was so mind blowing that everything else was seen as not worthwhile. Which I kind of think is a good thing. Also, if reality is an emergent shaped by mind, then Jupiter can ha…
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The explanation of the different worlds is very similar to South Asian cosmological ideas, right down to the moments of time as beads on a string. So I didn't find it hard to follow, but it has several holes. I think that now it is hard to see why t…
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Good idea, but they were too much like a blank slate that the Websters wrote on. The whole "Insects are different but dogs are similar, mammals of the world unite!," thing was poorly thought out. Like @clash_bowley says, the idea surely is…
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When I was reading it I thought it was just another example of a story about a man universalising his experience to be the only experience there is. Kind of a super rationalisation to enable the challenges of facing the complexities of the world. I …
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Pretty much what @clash_bowley said, but I do think that misanthropy is a more powerful element in US cultural thought than most people want to admit. Often disguised as "the lure of the open road.: So I think scattering could easily happen in …
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The title is really an interesting choice. The novel is named after the first story, but I think that first story is only important because of what grew from it, not because it presented a theme, motif, or enduring character. It's like titling the B…
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So I just posted the previous comment, and a preview button appeared, which wasn't there while I was typing the previous comment. Anyway I'm not complaining, just wanted to let you know.