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This is the last of the books I'm selling on ebay. Thanks for looking! Ptolus:
Monte Cook book lot:
Phil and Dixie comics:
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk:
Arcana Evolved:
HARP and Cyradon from ICE:
Dragon Magazine #60:
Dragon Magazine lot:
I have a few items related to Lord of the Rings as well (more to come):
WETA Attack Troll bust:
WETA Siege Tower Troll bust:
WETA Grond Troll bust:
I'm selling off all of my old role playing books and such to try to make an upcoming move a bit easier. It looks like I'm starting with the oldest stuff, and will be adding more recent stuff soon. Thanks for looking! Gamma World/Villains and Vigilantes
Middle Earth Role Playing
Basic D&D
First Edition AD&D
Kobold Quarterly Magazine
I also have some Weta Sideshow Lord of the Rings statues for sale - check my seller page. I'm willing to negotiate on prices for those, so let me know if you are interested!
Hi, I got an email that I could download a new version of the file for this product. But, I don't remember ever buying it or downloading it, and I don't see it anywhere on my assets page in my account. Can you clarify? thanks!
This may be coming too late in the competition to do the remaining contestants much good, but I though it may still be useful for future contestants. My goal here is to clarify advice on the use of passives, and thought maybe the thread could grow beyond that into something useful about good writing. Spoiler:
The advice in question has often been given by Neil Spicer. I don't mean this at all as an attack on Mr. Spicer - I have tremendous respect for him as a game designer and a writer, and am gobsmacked at his massive efforts as an RPG Superstar judge. But his use of grammatical terms is liable to leave many confused. I hope this will be taken in the spirit of constructive disagreement that it is offered in. There has been a lot of advice bandied about in the form of "avoid passive" and "you used too much passive voice; don't do that". Which is not necessarily to say that the sentences that elicited the advice were perfect, but that advice on its own does not provide much specific guidance as to how to proceed. So first, what is a passive? Simply, it is an auxiliary + a past participle. My car was destroyed by an elephant. ('was' is an auxiliary; 'destroyed' is a past participle) The auxiliary is frequently a form of 'to be,' but it does not have to be - My car got destroyed by an elephant. This is a perfectly good passive sentence, but does not use any form of the verb to be, anywhere. A rule to avoid 'to be' would not catch this sentence. To be honest though, I wouldn't use it in formal writing either. Passives differ from actives in the focus of the action of the verb. In the passive sentences above, the sentences are about my car. My inert, rather lifeless car that is just sitting there being destroyed. It's not terribly engaging for a reader to be focused on things that are having things done to them. And this is a very good reason to avoid the passive - it feels passive and dull. Compare the active - An elephant destroyed my car. Much better! So why would you ever want to use a passive, when the active is so much more active? To put it differently, why do good writers use passives well, and how can I learn to use them better? It comes down to focus and what your sentences are about vs what they should be about. Which of these two sentences sounds better? 1. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. 2. The collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble creates a black hole. Maybe you prefer the second - it is active, and avoids the passive used in the first. Now consider them in the context of a short paragraph - 1. Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists exploring the nature of black holes in space. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. So much matter compressed into so little volume changes the fabric of space around it in profoundly puzzling ways. 2. Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists exploring the nature of black holes in space. The collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble creates a black hole. So much matter compressed into so little volume changes the fabric of space around it in profoundly puzzling ways. Personally I find the second (with the active sentence) to be far more awkward. The ideas don't flow together well at all. In the first, the first sentence ends with mention of a black hole, which is immediately picked up in the second sentence. They work together. This is what good writing should strive for - not to abandon the passive, but to use it when it should be used. (example borrowed from this book, link goes to Amazon: Williams: Style) So, to return now to a related point - when is the verb 'to be' not passive? And why might it not be a good idea to lump it together with passive, and avoid them both? The verb 'to be' is incredibly useful. It is used with adjectives, with nouns, and with verbs, with nary a hint of a passive in sight. Which is better?
I don't know. Maybe it depends on context, but the second sounds far more pretentious to me. If it's a problem, there may be a different way to fix it than with this verb, but that still avoids the verb 'to be'. What about this pair?
I can't imagine any way to make the first sentence better - would it have been so powerful or become so iconic without the verb 'to be'? I have just one last nit to pick, to distinguish the passive from the progressive. Both rely on 'to be' with verbs. Progressives have their use too, but often do create writing that is weak. Passive:
Note that the forms of the verb are different, and to keep me ("I") as the subject, I had to change who was doing what to whom. Progressives don't focus on things, they focus on ongoing, not-yet-completed actions. Passives are done; the actions detailed by the verb are over, unless they are combined with the progressive, of course. But don't go there lightly ;) I hope that by knowing what these grammatical forms are, an aspiring writer will more easily learn to master them, and become at least a better writer, if not a great writer. Spoiler: For what it's worth, I have a PhD in Linguistics, have studied the passive, and have published more than 20 or so papers professionally. I prefer for arguments to succeed or fail on their own merits, rather than from any appeal to authority, so usually don't mention details like this, but I wanted to clarify that I am not merely being a disagreeable curmudgeon. I've earned my curmudgity (and we should all have the right to invent words).
I've tried to quote posts in the 'What books are you currently reading?' thread, and over the past two days have had to fix the quote tags manually. (some other recent posts in that thread also look to be misquoted) It's happened to me now both with Firefox on a PC and Safari on a mac. I just noticed another post that was mis-quoted in the Off-Topic: Samnell: Question about the historicity of Jesus thread. It appears to me that an extra {/QUOTE} (oops, this is invisible with correct brackets....) is being inserted into the quoted part of the post. Has anyone else noticed this?
I recently ordered three old issues of pathfinder - the order included a pre-order for the Bestiary and one other pre-order book. I selected UPS shipping, and sure enough the pathfinder volumes were shipped UPS. Now the Bestiary and the other volume are listed as shipping via USPS. Did the shipping charges cover UPS for all three separate shipments? If so, can they all be shipped UPS? If not, and the Bestiary ships USPS before the change can be made, can I get a refund for the difference in cost (if any)? I got the notice that it was ready to leave the warehouse (7 days ago), but not a notice that it had shipped yet. Is this the same potential bug that I've read about affecting other orders? Thanks very much for anything you can tell me and/or fix!
I just discovered that I have two payment options on file - one linked to an out of date address. The button to remove the payment method didn't work (using Safari 4.03 with mac OS 10.5.8). The 'select this method' button worked just fine, so I could choose the payment method with the correct address. Is this a bug or did I miss something?
I just noticed that the book numbers for the series seem to skip PZO8002... Anubis Murders PZO8001
Does anyone know why? Is there a secret publisher's reason? (Just curious - unless it was the penultimate volume, then I don't want to
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