On a related note: I don't get to use Electric Boogaloo anymore and it makes me sad.
Book Fucking Talk
- Thread starter bryce0lynch
- Start date
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Yeah, there is a fair amount in Appendix N that I could not get into then, and more that I cannot read now. I suppose in his defence there was a very limited amount of fantasy literature to draw upon at the time. You would settle for something that had a few good ideas, even if it was not particularly well written.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
Be brave! Continue to use it and reclaim it from those fucknuggets!
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
What does this have with Nunnery. Also, my cat doesn't appreciate you talking about 'crushing puss'.
To be fair I read one of his earlier works when he was translating Tolkien into English, and so of course it was a pale imitation of Lord of the Rings. With a lot more sex. Also, post-2010? I thought most of his stuff was written in the 20th century.
On the other hand, I don't think those were the authors he pointed out as having extra merit. And yes, even Gygax isn't perfect (just look at WG4).
TerribleSorcery
Should be playing D&D instead
Waitaminute, you don't like WG4?? I don't want to derail this thread - we gotta take this outside, bro.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
Bwahahahahah. Most of it is boring. The Black Cyst is great. But yeah, I re-read it not long ago and I could easily see why the younger version of me was eager to sell it to a friend.
The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Seriously, the Black Cyst is the most interesting part of the adventure and you have to perform all these rituals to safely enter it. There is no clue anywhere else in the adventure for how your characters are supposed to do this. Are the players just supposed to guess that they have to put on the purple robes and wave the censer etc? This was a weak addendum to S4. I did like the way old Monte tied it into Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil though...
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
I think the point was for parts of the dungeon to be missable. This sort of thing was not limited to WSG4, IIRC a lot of temples and artifacts operate by random guessing, and think of the short list of ways to damage a demilich. Not everything about Gygax is to be emulated.
The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Sacrilege! Burn the unbeliever!
but yeah. I red somewhere that one of the weird ways to kill a demilich got baked into the rules when some player attempted it at a convention and it amused the referee suitably...
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Not disagreeing -- but at the opposite extreme should a demilich leave around clues on how to kill it? One of the points from the recent Ben L article that I liked: open-ended challenges, admitting of no pre-given solution
Huso likes WG4 as a meat grinder for high-level characters. (A Blue Bard blog post IIRC---but I may have the module confused with Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth ).
Huso likes WG4 as a meat grinder for high-level characters. (A Blue Bard blog post IIRC---but I may have the module confused with Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth ).
TerribleSorcery
Should be playing D&D instead
You're right. He has referred to it as "a genius module" and a great template for high-level adventures. His module "The Mortuary Temple of Esma" is heavily inspired by it.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Ah, but the demilich is not an open ended challenge, the listed ways to kill it are called as the only ways it can be killed. The Black Cyst has only one way to open it, so it is not open ended. These are not only closed challenges, but the proper solutions are obscure, not hinted at, and not acertainable by logic. At best they are a tax on spell slots so you have to take a bunch of divination spells, although often I am not sure how the divination spells would help.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Sure. But you, as DM, can entertain other "worthy" solutions in those published instances just as the original designers did.
Again, not disagreeing really --- just more fascinated by the "weird" notion of designing a puzzle (homebrewed dungeon) without an a priori known key. That's a much more interesting and off-beat notion, and liberates you a bit as a designer, IMO.
Again, not disagreeing really --- just more fascinated by the "weird" notion of designing a puzzle (homebrewed dungeon) without an a priori known key. That's a much more interesting and off-beat notion, and liberates you a bit as a designer, IMO.
Is your cat fat? I do not see any merit in cats unless they are hefty chonkers.
That explains the instinctive hope I felt when I read his blurbs. I just bought Under Heaven and I assumed he'd started a decade or so earlier but it turns out he's at the end of his ropes too. Hell and Tarnation!
No but it's in Appendix N so he should answer for that. Lin Carter is dreadful and Fox is a comic book writer. Wolfe, G. Cook, Fletcher Pratt & K.E. Wagner is where it's at.
DangerousPuhson
Should be playing D&D instead
Designing puzzles without solutions is pretty damned easy to do (only half the work!).
Now designing puzzles with a deliberate internal consistency, thematically suited to its environment, and which has a solution that can be found with the information given (but not too quickly and not too easily, while also not being too difficult)... That's something to admire.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Puzzle is a bit of a strong word --- how about "situations". The personal fascination is really with the notion that given a reasonable situation, your players can and will come up with wonderfully creative solutions. The question is then, can one, while wearing The Designer Hat, get good at crafting situations that encourage this?
It's a little bit of a jail-break from the pitfall of writing elaborate "if-then's" which Bryce deplores AND simulataneous breaks the railroad mindset.
Neat huh?
It's a little bit of a jail-break from the pitfall of writing elaborate "if-then's" which Bryce deplores AND simulataneous breaks the railroad mindset.
Neat huh?
DangerousPuhson
Should be playing D&D instead
Sounds like a job for quick and dirty random tables put together madlib style.
The players seek a [GOAL], but standing in their way is [OBSTACLE]. The most apparent solution is not ideal because [TWIST].
Goals 1d6
1 - key
2 - door
3 - treasure
4 - way forward
5 - objective
6 - NPC
Obstacles 1d6
1 - janky room geometry
2 - warped laws of physics
3 - mysterious magic
4 - traps out the wazoo
5 - an unstoppable opponent
6 - obvious bodily harm
Twist 1d6
1 - something changes inconveniently
2 - something loops over and over
3 - something needed is missing
4 - something intrusive is present
5 - you can't get to where you want to go
6 - Something blocks a critical tool
DEMO: Let's say I've rolled a 3-5-6
The players are baited into the situation by the lure of a very obvious treasure... however the treasure is seemingly stuck within the "body" of a being of living molten steel, one apparently immune to being damaged in any permanent way (it regenerates from a pool of itself). The players might notice the metal man recoiling away from a patch of blue crystal growing on the other side of the room, however a pool of molten steel (possibly too wide to jump) blocks access. What's the solution?
WAIT THIS ISN'T BOOK TALK - APOLOGIES... UH, READ SOME, UH... FAUST? YEAH, YEAH... READ SOME FAUST AND CARRY ON!
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New haul.
Wagner - Die Ring Das Niebelungen (Penguin Books). You need a day in the hyperbolic timechamber before this is any good but it's damn fine when you get back out. Like Tolkien, Wagner takes a bunch of Norse and German Mythology and throws it together into its own, bombastic, grandiose, apocalyptic, Herrisch masterpiece. Magic swords are drawn from trees, enchanted Rings are tricked from evil Dwarves, Dragons are slain and their heartsblood is drunk, riddling contests are had with mysterious travellers, searing romances are had with Valkeries and the finale is a vast, blazing, apocalyptic tragedy that makes you simultaneously weep with heartrending agony and laugh with ebullient joy at the majesty that is life. The John Deathridge translation butchers a lot of the terse, direct potency of the original so either learn to speak german (or dutch) or find another one.
We Are All Legends - Darrel Schweitzer. Moorcock once wrote some fairly popular somewhat psychedelic tales about a cursed Sorcerer that were cool and a little pessimistic and depressing and Darrel Schweitzer basically said 'HOLD MINE ALE' and wrote a series of INCREDIBLY psychedelic, surreal and depressing S&S stories. Julian the Apostate is a former Crusader accursed by both God AND the Devil, wandering across the old World, encountering all manner of terrible situations that he either cannot fix or makes worse, or searching for a salvation from eternal damnation that is usually worse then the cure. Moorcock on Meth, but a much better writer. The Kafka of S&S.
The Aenead by Virgil - On a classics binge. Basically roman fan-fiction about the Illiad, the epic poem concerns the exploits of Aeneas, son of the goddess of love, and his flight from fallen Illium to found the city of Rome. The language is clear and beautiful and soon you are caught up in his struggle as he stays in Libiya and falls in love with a princess, journeys into the Underworld to see his father and his destiny and spends a third of the book fighting the armies of the Latin Peoples, led by Turnus, probably the best characterized villain in this trilogy. The focus here is less on gaining glory and more on familial piety and duty, Roman virtues, but there are enough angry coup-de-graces and descriptions of spears piercing breastplates for those who liked the first two parts. I always get inspired in little ways when I read books like these, this time it was a way to make +n shields interesting and flavorful by covering them with the histories of important ancient events in your setting as a form of non-shitty exposition.
(Non-fiction entry) - TMaP Next voor Resultaatgericht Testen. A fine, if slightly outdated manual for software testing, containing many beautifully drawn process-diagrams, flow-charts and steps to enable you to set up, conduct, report on and oversee the entire software testing process. A must for any lover of the genre.
Wagner - Die Ring Das Niebelungen (Penguin Books). You need a day in the hyperbolic timechamber before this is any good but it's damn fine when you get back out. Like Tolkien, Wagner takes a bunch of Norse and German Mythology and throws it together into its own, bombastic, grandiose, apocalyptic, Herrisch masterpiece. Magic swords are drawn from trees, enchanted Rings are tricked from evil Dwarves, Dragons are slain and their heartsblood is drunk, riddling contests are had with mysterious travellers, searing romances are had with Valkeries and the finale is a vast, blazing, apocalyptic tragedy that makes you simultaneously weep with heartrending agony and laugh with ebullient joy at the majesty that is life. The John Deathridge translation butchers a lot of the terse, direct potency of the original so either learn to speak german (or dutch) or find another one.
We Are All Legends - Darrel Schweitzer. Moorcock once wrote some fairly popular somewhat psychedelic tales about a cursed Sorcerer that were cool and a little pessimistic and depressing and Darrel Schweitzer basically said 'HOLD MINE ALE' and wrote a series of INCREDIBLY psychedelic, surreal and depressing S&S stories. Julian the Apostate is a former Crusader accursed by both God AND the Devil, wandering across the old World, encountering all manner of terrible situations that he either cannot fix or makes worse, or searching for a salvation from eternal damnation that is usually worse then the cure. Moorcock on Meth, but a much better writer. The Kafka of S&S.
The Aenead by Virgil - On a classics binge. Basically roman fan-fiction about the Illiad, the epic poem concerns the exploits of Aeneas, son of the goddess of love, and his flight from fallen Illium to found the city of Rome. The language is clear and beautiful and soon you are caught up in his struggle as he stays in Libiya and falls in love with a princess, journeys into the Underworld to see his father and his destiny and spends a third of the book fighting the armies of the Latin Peoples, led by Turnus, probably the best characterized villain in this trilogy. The focus here is less on gaining glory and more on familial piety and duty, Roman virtues, but there are enough angry coup-de-graces and descriptions of spears piercing breastplates for those who liked the first two parts. I always get inspired in little ways when I read books like these, this time it was a way to make +n shields interesting and flavorful by covering them with the histories of important ancient events in your setting as a form of non-shitty exposition.
(Non-fiction entry) - TMaP Next voor Resultaatgericht Testen. A fine, if slightly outdated manual for software testing, containing many beautifully drawn process-diagrams, flow-charts and steps to enable you to set up, conduct, report on and oversee the entire software testing process. A must for any lover of the genre.
I'm reading Ulysses.
Yes, I'm doing this to avoid writing because of quarantine. No, I am not proud of myself.
So far, it's the most masterful piece of performance art ever produced. As a work of literature it sucks donkey balls. I'm going to give it a chance, finish it, and hope that its actually going to say something instead of being a work to show what a clever boy Joyce is.
Also, I really want to make salt-risen bread now, so I can butter it on both sides, drizzle honey on it, and have it with black tea, lemon, and milk for breakfast. Also, salt-risen bread is a pain in the ass to make.
Yes, I'm doing this to avoid writing because of quarantine. No, I am not proud of myself.
So far, it's the most masterful piece of performance art ever produced. As a work of literature it sucks donkey balls. I'm going to give it a chance, finish it, and hope that its actually going to say something instead of being a work to show what a clever boy Joyce is.
Also, I really want to make salt-risen bread now, so I can butter it on both sides, drizzle honey on it, and have it with black tea, lemon, and milk for breakfast. Also, salt-risen bread is a pain in the ass to make.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
You are a genius.