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NeilNjae
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I second the recommendation of Tim Powers, and the Falco books. I mentioned the Flashman books in a different thread, but they're not to everyone's taste. Sharpe and Hornblower also feature historical figures and historical events.
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I'm not a great fan of steampunk: the colonialist entitlement is too strong for me. A great reaction to it is Renegade Jennys and Boilerplate Jacks a sadly-unfinished steampunk game about the people at the bottom and edges of society, trying to surv…
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What bits of setting exposition I read at the beginning seemed sensible extrapolations from the real world. When you start looking at history in detail, all these fascinating little bits come to the surface. The Flashman books are great for this. Th…
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Paraphrasing Ryan Dancey, it was 20 pages of story packed into 350 pages. (The writing.) (Oh dear.)
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Oh dear. The writing. The writing. I've read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Moby Dick. I've read a couple of other Verne books, a bunch of HG Wells, a few Dickens, some Bronte and Austin, and various other miscellaneous 19 Century novels. Tolsto…
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Regardless of the quality of the book (more in another thread, I'm sure), I was looking forward to the mash-up of the fictional and historical characters. I agree with @dr_mitch 's points about shared worlds in RPGs, but those generally stay away fr…
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(Quote) Am I that predictable?
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I gave up on it about half-way through. It'll be interesting to see the comments.
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(Quote) I started on the "change" element because I thought the discussion of the setting had petered out. But 1920s Mexico is an interesting time. The country has come out of 40 years of dictatorship followed by 5–10 years of revolution …
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(Quote) Interesting point. Some dualities are harmonised (the death gods), some are broken (Casiopea and Martin). In both those cases, things are better once the opposition stops.
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(Quote) I'm not saying that requiring belief change is always a good thing. But it's a key feature of some kinds of stories, so I thought it was interesting to think about how to structure that kind of story in a game.
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Yes, that's similar to the approach of Pendragon's Passions system. You have ratings for beliefs, emotional drives, and the like. Every once in a while, you take stock of what's happened in play and adjust the ratings accordingly. But I was thinkin…
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The mention of passion scores helped crystallise what I was meaning. Passions reflect how the character is portrayed. As you mention with ToC, there are systems that allow you to rewrite beliefs, perhaps in reaction to stress. But if we'e intereste…
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Another question about roleplaying: how to handle the character change during the story? Casiopeia changes from a downtrodden dreamer to a confident young person; Hun-Kamé changes from a callous god of death to one that shows compassion; Martin's br…
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I could see this in play. Is there a CoC sourcebook for Mexico? That would fit the era. There's plenty of background in the area that could be used as the basis for a game, including the different cultures in Yucatan and how they do (and don't) live…
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I think there were elements of "universal truths" in the book. For instance, Hun-Kamé was able to talk about the creation and fading of gods as a general, universal phenomenon. The magicians and spirits encountered all seemed to fit a gene…
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I get the impression that the book was intended for non-Mexicans. The portrayals of Mexico and Mexicans (of whatever ethnicity, and ethnicity and nationalism seem as complex in Mexico as everywhere) were simple, and the little fragments of history s…
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The "unchanging gods" part of that reminded me of Glorantha (and other fantasy worlds) where the gods are archetypal and unchanging, with humans being the agents of change and adaptation. There was also a clear element of structure in the…
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How you've mentioned it, binary opposites is a clear theme in the book. At least, there's a lot of characters being presented with binary choices, and then taking a third option which is a middle ground. Does this fit with a more general theme that…
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A general point about the book. I think it was structurally well-crafted, with decent characters that changed throughout the book. Those changes were well-telegraphed in the text, were believable, and followed from the events in the story. Where I t…
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(Quote) Nah, parsing, semantic exraction, and sentiment/honesty analysis are easy tasks now. What makes it more complex is having a whole additional channel of input, and hence needing to create more complex "models" of the others players.…
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I'm very keen on the Stituation Generators from Levi Kornelsen : https://levikornelsen.itch.io/ . It sounds like Long Knives (intrigue) or Broken Places (villainous takeover) could be used for the town, with factions scheming or the town under the c…
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Interestingly, they're playing a game with no inter-player communication. It's about inferring what would be in the other players' best interests and planning based on that. I wonder what sort of model its building up about the other players, and ho…
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I'm ready to discuss whenever everyone else is.
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> @dr_mitch said: > I'm wondering whether you personally feel they are better books read rapidly? > I think so. I loved them when I first read them, and they were real page turners. I think the general opinion is that Jemisin is good a…
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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?