Steven Ehrbar

katster @ 11:55pm: zero day

First of all, and I know this is becoming annoying, please donate to help send me to The Night of Writing Dangerously. I just need 15 more people to donate $10 each, and the clock is starting to tick down. (I have to make it to the goal by Nov. 18!) This is what I’d like for my birthday, so if you can spare a bit, I’d appreciate it.

That said, I’m taking a zero day today. There’s a strange concept at work these days called work, and so I’ve been doing that. And then there was school. At least it’s the class I like, so there’s a good thing.

I’m feeling a bit better tonight, although I suspect the chronic low-level depression won’t go away until I address some of the structural problems underlying some of it. This is harder than it looks.

And with that said, I’ve got an interesting question for you to chew on. It’s two AM, and you’re driving a lonely highway. As you approach a red light, you can clearly see that there’s nobody around at all.

So why do you stop?

Just a thought.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

matociquala @ 11:32pm: I decided to hurl myself off overhangs today, on the theory that if I not getting lighter, I had bloody better well start getting stronger. So, two attempts at a 5.8 on the 45-foot wall (second time I made about 30 feet of it, but you know, the damned thing is so overhung that when you come off you don't get back on) and then I sent an overhung 5.7 I've done before. As a reward, I decided I was going to do something I had never tried, which I thought was probably too hard for me. A 5.8 in the front corner, with a little roof over it.

Reader, I sent it.

I expected it to be brutal and crimpy and awful at the bottom, but really it was lovely--all balance and technique, and moving your feet around, and your hands are mostly just there to give you things to balance on. Apparently, I climb better than I realized, because I just floated up it.

I fell off scads trying to get over the roof, though. Don't worry. *g*

Going back tomorrow. We'll see if I have any juice.

matociquala @ 10:45pm: While I was melting butter for the muffins (Chaz's blueberry muffin recipe, modified for orange-cranberry-walnut whole wheat muffins (1) (2)) the microwave attempted to immolate itself.

This is not a tragedy, as said microwave was left behind by the last inhabitants of this residence, and it's old enough that it has rotary dials and wood-grain.

But I am glad I didn't bother cleaning it today.

---

(1)If it's good with orange extract, it will be REALLY good with orange extract, Cointreau, orange juice, and bitter orange peel. Right?

(2) Yuppie wand blender is good for pulverising the cranberries into the yogurt. I thought they would be a bit much, whole.

pyrephox @ 10:15pm: Saiunkoku Monogatari
The Shinshi arc is fan-freaking-tastic.

I'm very, very impressed, on all levels. Good, solid character work, serious intriguing (I mean, there were what, six different angles various officials were working at the same time? I mean, yeah, a couple were minor, just to get reluctant characters to take promotion...but at the same time, when you're trying to build a loyal, competent Court, getting the right people into the right places without being all obvious about it is important. Even better if you can make it seem like their own idea.), and it mostly avoided rendering the protagonist inert in all of this, despite her position as a relative innocent.

(Also, /really/ liked the scene with Ryuuki and Shuurei after the ceremony (deliberately vague to avoid spoilers). That's the kind of conflict that more romance series need more of: not based on tragic misunderstanding, or on someone holding on to the Idiot Ball, but the requirements of duty and divergent desires. And they actually TALKED ABOUT THEM. Like adults. Ye gods.)

I also give the series serious kudos for the route they're taking with Shuurei's femininity. She's one of the most 'real-feeling' female characters I've seen, particularly in a romantic series of this nature, where the female lead tends to fall into one of a couple of different stereotypes. (For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, any more than there's something wrong with being able to count on the male lead of a harem series to be a lovable, well-meaning dork. But it's nice to see things change up on occasion.)

Some of Ryuuki's decisions still make me twitch, from a politicking angle, but he is pretty motivated by emotion. It's not out of character for him, so I can't complain.

grognardia @ 4:54pm: A Silly Thing

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/silly-thing.html

For some unknown reason, Tunnels & Trolls, a game I do not now nor have I ever played with any regularity, has always impressed me by its inclusion of small dice.

I can't quite say why, but I simply love the fact that, going back to its fifth edition at least, one of its integral components is a set of tinier-than-normal six-siders. It's utterly silly to be impressed by this, I know, and yet I am.

archangelbeth @ 3:26pm: Kid sick, second day...
Which at least let us out of a couple of logistical issues (primarily, coordinating picking up frozen-stuff from the school fundraiser order, which Had To Be Today At No Earlier Than 2pm (school letting out at 2:20)). Spouse is also sick again and working at home. He's having dizzy spells, apparently. Meh.

Kid's teacher was only in for a couple hours today herself -- coughing and horrible headaches. We picked up homework from her.

INwatch: Core Rules: 436, Lilith: 375, Eli: 353, Liber Umbrarum: 222, Litheroy: 214 (pi?), Asmodeus: 185, Infernal Player's Guide: 117, GURPS In Nomine: 79.
Adventures: City On Fire: 115, Feast of Blades: 92, Strange Bedfellows: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4125, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2685.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 76, GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 60, GURPS IOU: 59. Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 218.


( Dragons under fold )

fadethecat @ 2:13pm: ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

matociquala @ 3:10pm: when goths discover brown
So the thing about the steampunk aesthetic that everybody's talking about: it's weird to me, like watching a band you've loved for years get popular.

Maybe I've just been writing steampunky stuff for too long now (I think I started AtWS in 1993 or 1994, and the idea for the city of Eiledon dates back way before that), but it seems to me that the aesthetic roots here have been around for a long time. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, of course, but we've been mining that field for a long, long time. Castle Falkenstein and Brisco County, not to mention the venerable The Wild Wild West. (Non-Will-Smith edition, although I am a Giant Spider In The Third Act apologist.)

There's a whole world of Beyond Thunderdome postapocalyptica in the grunginess of it, but the color scheme is different, resulting in brown leather and brass fittings instead of black leather and tattered chainmail. (Seriously, run Master Blaster through a couple of filters and see what you get...)

Which is not to say the steampunk thing isn't cool. I've been playing with technofantasy since I was in high school. I'm pleased to see it finally becoming an overnight success, after twenty or thirty years of obscurity. And besides, it's nifty looking.

...Maybe it's just what happens when kids who grew up on Krull and Labyrinth get jobs and money and a little bit of time on their hands.

Or maybe we just finally figured out how to run the 80s through Photoshop to achieve a sepia tone

I do think it's interesting how trends and fashions work. They're a way of skinning reality, of creating an aesthetic that reflects a worldview and vice versa. Time periods look like themselves, and there are all sorts of visual cues there as to what's important and what's the focus in any given era. I find it all intensely cool...

matociquala @ 2:45pm: Breaking news--

Mass market paperback Trade hardcover* edition of METAtropolis. Or however you capitalize that.

*Yeah, I don't even know what paperwork I'm signing. I'm writing a book.

matociquala @ 2:03pm: with one fist raised in anger. with one foot in the fire.
2184 words on Grail since 7 am, and I'm calling it a good day's work. If I can keep up an average rate of at least six pages a day, I will be done by early January. Which gives me time to revise the horrid steaming mess that is The White City, and then, once truepenny wraps up her current extravaganza, get pushing on A Reckoning of Men in time to have it done for the summer deadline--which leaves me some time to write The Steles of the Sky.

Oh, yeah, and there's all that Shadow Unit due between now and then.

If I seem like I'm not around much on the internets or for social obligations, that would be why.

Grail is persisting in being sort of interesting to write. Today, it pitched a fit at me and drew a line in the sand structurally, telling me (in essence) that I can't make it skip ahead in the narrative to kill some time for sub-lightspeed-travel, thank you very much, and I can just suck it up and write that part of the book. Which part of the book doesn't currently seem to have much bearing on what I thought was the main plot arc, but I am pretty sure than when my right-brain plants its feet like this, it's usually on to something, and all the left-brain can do is go along with the program and quit whining about why?

So today was nine pages of backstory I hadn't been expecting to write. But it's wordcount, and go me.

I think I've sort of learned to go with the flow and stop trying to microsteer so much. Maybe I'm actually learning to write! Stranger things have happened.

Mean things: loneliness of command, nobody wants to believe that Tristen isn't a war criminal any more, Daddy issues, privation, Balkanization, civil war, religious baggage.

8206 / 100000 words. 8% done!

---

Oh, yeah, incidentally, I know elizabethbear.com and shadowunit.org are hosed. It seems to be an ISP problem. Hopefully it will be fixed before too long.

woodwardiocom @ 1:53pm: Random Fantasy Casting Thought
Humphrey Bogart as Rorschach.

His accent and sense of irony would be a problem, but otherwise . . .

grognardia @ 9:11am: More Musings on Ability Scores

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-musings-on-ability-scores.html

Firstly, thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts in yesterday's post on this question. It's both good to see I'm not alone in my apprehension and that there are a variety of different solutions to the "problem" I see in the rules as written.

As I've said before, I have no issue with changing OD&D's rules. I've done it before and I'm likely to do it again. Through play, I've found that some rules don't work as well as I'd like and so I've altered them so that they do work more to my satisfaction. That's par for the course with OD&D and one of the reasons why I find the game so enjoyable these days.

Nevertheless, I try very hard not to change rules too much. That is, I prefer it when my house rules are recognizably derived from OD&D, as opposed to being completely out of left field. Furthermore, I'm of the opinion that, while OD&D is far from perfect, it's generally a good idea to avoid changing rules with abandon, because it's often not immediately obvious what repercussions might result. That's why I'm philosophically opposed to rationalizing OD&D's rules, even if I'm sorely tempted to do so quite often.

My gut tells me that, like a rug with a bit of fraying at the edges, pulling a loose strand in order to improve the tidiness of the whole could just as easily result in the whole thing's coming apart. I've seen too many attempts to "fix" Dungeons & Dragons over the years -- sometimes from official sources -- that, in the end, had adverse effects on other parts of the game. I don't want to participate in that sort of game mechanical vandalism, which is why I'm so reluctant to make big changes, even to mechanics, like ability scores, that, on first blush, seem in need of fixing.

This is why I am deeply leery of turning ability scores into the locus of a skill system or universal mechanic of any kind. Such mechanics "break the frame" for me when playing D&D. In my opinion, old school games are (generally) characterized by the use of several systems that exist side by side but nevertheless work in tandem rather than by a single system. So, perhaps it might be possible to construct a collection of related systems that use ability scores in a more substantive way, but I instinctively recoil from any attempt to introduce a single, overarching system that uses ability scores to cover a variety of in-game situations. Call it irrational, if you will -- and I recognize that, on some level, it is -- but a universal mechanic is deal breaker for me when playing OD&D. It just doesn't feel right.

So where does that leave me? Well, I've pretty well decided to eliminate the XP bonuses from high scores. I think it's a problematic rule on many levels and its loss won't make a huge difference in the final analysis. I've also decided that, much as I think a Strength 18 Fighter ought to get more of a mechanical benefit from his great strength than a Strength 10 Fighter, too much of a benefit turns the game into an ability score "arm's race." That's one of my big beefs with AD&D. This is made clear early on in the Players Handbook where Gygax notes that having 15 or more in no fewer than two ability scores is "usually essential to the character's survival." This approach places too much emphasis on ability scores in my opinion, so I'd like a more "toned down" approach, where +2 is the top modifier and it's not limited to characters with 18 in their ability score.

Related to this is another concern. My feeling is that, in any game calling itself D&D, class and level should mean more than ability scores. Whatever mechanical benefit ability scores give, they should be more along the lines of "icing on the cake" rather than the cake itself, if that makes sense. Ideally, these benefits would be broad and small enough to be universally applicable, not just to one class or a group of classes. I find myself reminded (once again) of Empire of the Petal Throne, where several abilities, not just Strength, gives bonuses to hit and damage, so that a clever but weak magic-user, for example, might nevertheless be an effective combatant. If the bonuses are kept limited, I think this would go a long way toward making ability scores relevant without making the game revolve around them.

More thinking is needed, though.

chadu @ 10:14am: Camellia sinensis
So, over the past fortnight or so, I have been drinking tea. A lot more tea. A lot more tea than my usual daytime beverage of choice, coffee.

I've particularly started liking some herbal blends. . . Yogi Tea ones in particular: Berry DeTox, DeTox, and Bedtime (though this last has had spotty effects -- I had two double-strength mugs of it Sunday night, and I still pulled an inadvertent all-nighter; I had the same amount last night, and it knocked me on my ass).

Also, I like Tazo teas . . . especially Awake, Chai, and Zen.

Lastly, I think a visit to Teaism will happen Real Soon Now, for some good loose-leaf blends/varieties, as well as Salty Oat Cookies, Ginger Scones, and the Salmon Handroll Sushi Bento Box. YUM!

dmmaus @ 8:57pm: England and Wales trip diary - Day 9: Monday 8 June, 2009

Rhymney House Hotel, Rhymney, South Wales. 20:40

We've just had a delicious dinner at the Rhymney House Hotel, which is a pub on the outskirts of the small and anonymous Welsh town of Rhymney. We don't think many tourists come this way, and even fewer foreign ones. The pub is in an old house converted into the bar and dining areas on the ground floor, with a few rooms on the two floors above. Our top floor room overlooks the quiet country road and the babbling stream just beyond it.

We're here because we left Cardiff quite late, at about 16:00, and wanted to drive north a bit before ducking into some accommodation. We targeted Rhymney at the top of one of the valleys leading down from the Brecon Beacons highlands and turned into the town looking for a pub or similar. The town looks grey and drab and we found nothing promising at all until we passed beyond its borders intending to cut across the ridge to the larger town of Merthyr Tydfil. But as we drove out of Rhymney, we came across this place and pulled in. The friendly barman showed us to a room and we took it, thankful to have found somewhere welcoming to stay.

This morning we were still at the Holiday Inn in Cardiff. Breakfast was a large buffet as you'd expect from a well-patronised hotel with many rooms. I avoided any hot food at all and ate muesli mixed with all-bran, followed by a banana. I also gave in slightly to temptation and had a small pastry - some sort of nutty danish. The juice selection included the ruby red cranberry juice which finally identified the red juice back at Tintagel for us. M. had muesli and bran flakes, and then an egg on toast. We also grabbed a couple of apples for later in the day, and I took a couple of small individual cheeses for later, to have on bread rolls - a camembert wedge and a sausage of smoked cheese.

( shopping arcades, castles, and rural Welsh graveyards )

katster @ 11:21pm: An Alexander day

I swear, Mondays account for 53 and three-quarters percent of all my extensional crises. This was another bad Monday.

Anyway, to explain my topic, it comes from the children’s book Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, in which the main character contemplates several times about moving to Australia. I’ve thought about it too, and so really shaky days are Alexander days. And today was just one of those days.

Part of it was triggered by getting money out of my bank account to pay for gas, and realizing I have ten dollars to get me through a week and a half after the gas was accounted for. That wasn’t happymaking at all. Of course, this is a common lament these days not just for me but for everybody. It means, at least for me, that once NaNoWriMo is over, I need to just start throwing resumes at anything that comes up that might even remotely have anything to do with what I do, even if it means relocating to a far away city. I’ve given up hope that the company I currently work for will offer me a full time job at all, and I’m just barely making it on what they pay me.

Of course, the long term cure for some of my big issues is to move out from my parents’ house, so I don’t have to justify half the stuff I do them. But that’s neither here nor there, and frankly, I’m just barely scraping by with the bills I have, and if I save anything, Social Security will crack down — they already have, which makes a tenuous situation that much worse. (It also makes it impossible for me to take on other part-time work to try and get a bit of spare change — health care. But I’ve been over that rant before.)

And then to top it off, Monday night is the night of my SQL class. Now, generally, computer classes don’t bug me, but this one for some reason does. And I think I figured it out. Not only do I shut down when faced with instructors I can’t stand, this guy’s teaching style and I don’t match well. He provides notes, but the notes aren’t helpful if you have trouble paying attention in lectures. And that’s how I learn — by seeing, and by doing. And well, really, we haven’t done much. So it puts me in a jam about studying for quizzes and tests. I think I’ve studied well enough and I get blown out of the water.

On today’s quiz, I guessed like heck and then spent the rest of the time doodling xkcd-esque stick figures all over my exam. When I handed it in, I offered a strange smile to the prof. Dunno what he’ll make of it.

Anyway, tomorrow’s gonna be a working day, so I’m trying to get some rest.

NaNo count holding steady at a bit over 18.5, but Monday and Tuesday != good writing days.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

sharrukin @ 9:04pm: Bioware wins again
( Very mild spoiler for Dragon Age )

grognardia @ 4:05pm: My Problem with Ability Scores

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-problem-with-ability-scores.html

In OD&D, all characters possess six ability scores: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. Of these six, only the last three have any game mechanical benefit. The first three are all prime requisites, each one tied to one of the game's three classes: Strength for Fighters, Intelligence for Magic-Users, and Wisdom for Clerics. The only benefit these abilities provide is in the form of XP bonuses to members of the class that have that ability as a prime requisite. Thus, a Fighter with an Intelligence of 5 suffers no specific game mechanical penalties, although individual referees might choose to reflect the character's limited mental capacity in various ways. According to the rules, though, having an Intelligence of 5 means nothing unless the character is a Magic-User, in which case he suffers a penalty to earned XP.

Leaving all other issues aside, this system works well enough until Supplement I comes along. Supplement I gives us the Thief class, which uses Dexterity as its prime requisite. Unfortunately, the LBBs had already given Dexterity a game mechanical benefit -- missile accuracy -- meaning that Thieves with high Dexterity gained not only an XP bonus but also a bonus to hit with bows and slings (assuming they could use such weapons; OD&D is non-commital on this point). Furthermore, Supplement I itself gives most of the other abilities additional game mechanical benefits above and beyond being XP boosters for certain classes (Wisdom, oddly, is the exception). Consequently, Supplement I not only increases the importance of ability scores generally but also allows classes to "double dip" when it comes to prime requisites.

Let me say here that I actually like ability scores having some value beyond being XP boosters. I think in the case of the Fighter particularly, it's important that a character gain game mechanical benefits from having above average scores. At the same time, the double dipping aspect bugs me, which makes me think I ought to just ditch the idea of prime requisites and XP bonuses entirely. I haven't yet done that in my Dwimmermount campaign, partially because XP gains are glacial enough as it is that the small bonuses that high prime requisites give serve a useful purpose.

I won't deny that I find the way post-Supplement I OD&D handles ability scores and prime requisites to be infelicitous. Moreso than most mechanics, it feels very "half-baked," as if there were several different goals and intentions present, none of which quite dominates enough to bring some degree of rationality to the whole. Granted, I think over-arching rationality in mechanics is overrated, but I can't shake the feeling that the situation created by Supplement I is untenable and indeed unstable.

I find myself of two minds about the whole thing. Part of me just wants to leave well enough alone and not worry too much about the worrying tendencies I see in OD&D + Supplement I, which make high ability scores ever more important. Any problems that arise can be dealt with on an ad hoc basis and, truthfully, the issues haven't played any real role in my Dwimmermount campaign, so why worry? Another part of me, though, wants to try and tinker with it all so that it finally "makes sense." Yes, I realize that's a Quixotic endeavor for a lot of reasons and probably one that will yield worse results than just letting things be. Still, like many gamers, I'm a tinkerer by nature and seeing something like the mess that is OD&D ability scores, I can hardly resist the temptation to "fix" them.

Anyone else have similar feelings on the matter or am I the lone weirdo here?

echoweaver @ 1:34pm: Parties, food, and clean living
Considering that we had three pitch-in food events in three days, this weekend was remarkably low-key.

Anime Friday featured the tear-jerking conclusion of Princess Tutu. We all pitched in ingredients and made pesto pasta with chicken at callicrates' place. It's a lot of fun to all gang up on a kitchen and cook.

Saturday featured chucklemagne's birthday party. We tried to make blood-colored swiss fondue to go with the Lovecraftian horror theme, but it turned out that even our studly food coloring was not enough to actually turn white cheese red. So we added blue, made it a creepy shade of purple, and claimed that it was a potion from beyond space and time. It was received very well. chucklemagne and thechick came up with some absolutely kickass Lovecraft-themed cocktails. I must get the recipes from them. I managed to get my longest-running, happiest drunk I have in a long time. The one I remember in enough detail to reproduce was draft cider with ginger liquor. Of course, now I have to actually find ginger liquor.

Sunday featured neko_geek's housewarming party at ljedi's place. (As in, she is renting a room from Ljedi. Combined with our other mutual friend who is renting a room there, that place is now the House of Anime Chicks.) We made acorn squash with cider glaze, a recipe we picked up from Enoch and Nav while we were visiting them. The party featured fabulous food, four-player Mariokart on the Wii, and a spontaneous jam session with Ljedi's wide assortment of musical instruments.

And while we weren't partying in the evening, we talked to an old friend on the phone while we cleaned the house. Woot. The living room has a clear floor. The kitchen table is decluttered. Most of the rest of the boxes are unpacked. The laundry is washed and folded. We reorganized the TV stand so that the whole corner of the living room is not filled with tangled cables. I scrubbed the tenant stains out of the sofas! Woot!

SB got a garden blowtorch from his mother and is attacking the scary weeds growing out of our patio. I'd really like to throw a grill party, but it's getting chill enough that we might have to wait until next year.

Oh, and I'm experimenting with green chili cheese bread in the bread machine. The last version was definitely both cheese and chili-flavored, though not structurally sound. I don't mind eating the experiments :).

grognardia @ 12:16pm: Help Me Spend Some Money

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/help-me-spend-some-money.html

I was recently given several very kind donations through my PayPal link. Thanks to everyone who contributed; I very much appreciate this. Usually, I spend my donations on new old school products that I can then review, but this time I think I'm going to buy some Otherworld miniatures, particularly since they have a sale running between now and early December. The problem is I'm not sure what I should buy, so I'd like some suggestions.

My donations, while generous, aren't quite enough to reach the free shipping mark for £75 worth of purchases, so I can't go crazy. However, I'm still willing to be somewhat indulgent, since the minis are put to good use in my Dwimmermount campaign and I'll certainly be sharing images of the paint jobs done by one of my players. I currently own a goodly supply of pig-faced orcs, as well as skeletons, gnolls, harpies, and various vermin, such as oozes, giant rats, beetles, etc. So, what next?

There are so many options that it's hard to decide. I'm sorely tempted by the Type I and (especially) Type II demons. The goblins and kobolds are also to my liking, since goblins play a big role in Dwimmermount and I've always had a soft spot for kobolds. And of course a gelatinous cube would very cool. It's hard to decide!

Suggestions are thus greatly appreciated.

matociquala @ 1:56pm: take it up with the great deceiver
2222 words on Grail today, finished chapter one and started chapter two, and in a minute here I have to eat something and then go swim and then go over to a friend's house and have tea and borrow the fax machine. The days are just packed, I tell you.

Last night, I got about 1600 words on Shadow Unit related material, which I logged for today because I had already posted.

Yep. I am mighty. I have no idea what's happening in this book, except people are sitting around eating and worrying about each other, but I have faith, It'll all come right in the end.

Mean things today: kids grow up, and Tristen never gets to be anybody's daddy for long.

Also, giant freshwater space salmon.

6022 / 100000 words. 6% done!

grognardia @ 10:40am: PPP Announces Dungeon Sets

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/ppp-announces-dungeon-sets.html

Rob Kuntz's Pied Piper Publishing is getting ready to publish a new product line called Dungeon Sets, the first two examples of which will be available on November 15. The products are, according to their description, "un-keyed, color maps with integration notes and a comprehensive legend that are presented as a contiguous, and exacting, dungeon setting." Basically, they're a series of maps to aid referees in creating their own megadungeons and designed with that purpose in mind. I'll admit that sounds intriguing to me, since I hate making my own maps -- and lack the skill to do so anyway -- and I regularly swipe maps from a variety of sources to use as inspiration for my own efforts.

Much more intriguing, though, is Kuntz's mention that future product in the line will be "a treatise—an in depth essay—on dungeon-crafting in its many facets should be of interest, so we are gathering notes to add to my already 10,000+ word MS which describes the creation of Greyhawk™ Castle, Castle El Raja Key and Maure Castle™. This historical and instructive treatise will cover the beginnings of this honored endeavor and track some of the changes that have taken effect with the modernization of the game." That sounds almost like the kind of product that could answer some of the problems I noted in my Schrödinger's Dungeon post. A lot will depend, of course, on just how the treatise is structured and what it contains, but, in principle, I like the idea of such a product. It's that one I'll be keeping my eye on.

grognardia @ 9:11am: Pulp Fantasy Library: The People of the Mist

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/pulp-fantasy-library-people-of-mist.html

What I've called "pulp fantasy" grew out of the confluence of a number of literary antecedents, one of the most important of which was the Victorian adventure novel. These novels typically presented tales of derring-do against the backdrop of romanticized European colonialism, the degree of romanticization varying with the author -- some such novels were in fact subtle critiques or satires of contemporary geopolitics. Thus, they typically involve a "civilized" European (or American), often from a military or scientific background (or both), who ventures into "the wild" and encounters strange and wondrous things, including threats to his own civilization that he must overcome. Sound familiar?

Among the most influential of the adventure novel writers was Henry Rider Haggard, an Englishman who is generally credited, along Robert Louis Stevenson, of taking adventure novels to new heights of popularity and sophistication. His novels were among the favorites of later authors, such as Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Talbot Mundy, and Abraham Merritt, all of whom went on to be highly influential in their own rights. Consequently, Haggard is an important link in the chain of D&D's literary origins, one who's often overlooked or forgotten, because his novels are comparatively little read nowadays. His most famous novel is probably King Solomon's Mines, written in 1885, and whose protagonist, Allan Quatermain, is probably best known not through Haggard's own writings but through Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics. Quatermain was likely a model for Indiana Jones and indeed is the archetypal Victorian adventurer.

Less well known is Haggard's 1894 novel, The People of the Mist, which the author calls in his dedication an "effort of primeval and troglodyte imagination" and a "record of barefaced and flagrant adventure." The novel focuses on a destitute English aristocrat named Leonard Outram. Outram begins the novel after having lost nearly everything important in his life, including his fiancée, whose social climbing father ends their engagement because of Outram's current circumstances. Embittered, Outram sets off to Africa to escape his ruined life and, perhaps, to find a new fortune. Once in Africa, he acquires a dwarf Zulu companion, called Otter, and rescues a young woman named Juanna, who was being sold into slavery. Outram and Juanna soon develop an affection for one another, but one fraught with quarrels and disagreements -- precisely the sort of tempestuous romance that later became commonplace in tales of this kind.

The People of the Mist are a legendarily wealthy lost race, whom Outram vows to discover so as to gain both fame and fortune. This he does -- how could he not? -- but soon gets more than he bargained for. The People are embroiled in a power struggle between those loyal to the monarch and those loyal to the priesthood of the crocodile god. As an outsider, his situation is both enviable and precarious, as each faction attempts to use him to their advantage. Outram and his companions soon find themselves caught up in danger after danger, escaping through sheer luck as often as their own ingenuity. Haggard does an excellent job of portraying the People's society, with much attention given to their religion. I have little doubt that this portrayal was widely influential; there are certainly echoes of it in Merritt and Burroughs in my opinion.

The People of the Mist is a surprisingly brisk read. Unlike a lot of 19th century novels, it's not slow or ponderous and even Haggard's many anthropological asides make for good fun rather than pedantry. His characters are also well drawn, although, as with reading anything much imitated later, there's often a feeling of déjà vu accompanying them. We have to remember, though, that Haggard's novels are the originators of so many of the tropes associated with pulp fiction, Saturday morning serials, and related entertainments. They're the fountainhead from which so much sprang. As I implied earlier, Haggard's novels do offer a romanticized view of European colonialism but they're not wholly uncritical and his portrayal of non-Europeans is more sympathetic and nuanced than one would probably expect. Otter, the four foot tall Zulu warrior, while clearly The Sidekick, isn't played for laughs, even though his character has a good sense of humor. The People themselves are also portrayed as more than mere cut-outs placed in the narrative to make Outram look heroic.

In short, The People of the Mist is fun and well worth a read. It's in the public domain, so it should be fairly easy to obtain online if you can't find a copy of it in printed form.

archangelbeth @ 6:13am: Headaches from Hades...
Got a horrible one last evening, for some reason, and retired early to read a bit and then cuddle with spouse. Happily, incandescens was okay. This morning, though, the kid woke up complaining of headache and some stomach hurting, so we've decided this may be a flu symptom (ze spouse, when he was sick a couple weeks ago, had some headachey bits) and have kept her home today.

My headache is mostly gone (took two doses of 2 pills of ibuprofen, about 3.5 hours apart). We'll see if the "feeling kind of queasy" issue was pain related or what.

Explanation for my last post's title is here.

INwatch: Core Rules: 436 (yay!), Lilith: 375, Eli: 353, Liber Umbrarum: 222, Litheroy: 214 (pi?), Asmodeus: 185 (yay!), Infernal Player's Guide: 117, GURPS In Nomine: 79 (yay!).
Adventures: City On Fire: 115, Feast of Blades: 92, Strange Bedfellows: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4125, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2685.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 76, GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 60, GURPS IOU: 59 (yay!). Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 217.


( Dragons under fold )

katster @ 11:27pm: Meet Joey Breen

I need to go back and add yesterday’s server-maintenance delayed post, but it will be up. Meanwhile, today, I’m giving you an excerpt from my novel-in-progress.

Help me get to the Night of Writing Dangerously! I only need about 16 more people to throw $10 at the pot!

Anyway, this is told from the point of view of a reporter character who is doing a series on a Congressman and would-be presidential candidate, and in this bit, goes to interview the Congressman’s son.

( Meet Joey Breen )

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

notthebuddha @ 12:51am: The Henching Community Welcomes Notthebuddha
I am now officially in the pay of an Eastern European professor as a research assistant, hard at work creating new and more capable artificial brains!