theacemu's page

Seems to me as though your group needs to sort out what type of game you are all playing. Different folks enjoy different aspects of RPGs, and sometimes styles clash, but if you all begin a campaign, consider a brief discussion about how that game is going to look and feel for all parties involved.

The wise gamer sorts out roles/responsibilities of GM and players. It's a social contract.

Also, the dreaded "it's really about having fun" applies, but how to get there is often elusive.

As ever,
ACE

Tried to do my annual check-in and no chatroom. Hope all is well with old timers!

What a positively positive thread. Approved!

As ever,
ACE

Yup

As ever,
ACE

Didn't see it yet on this thread but Dogs in the Vinyard has a really interesting rules set. It's one of the best RPGs i've seen at forcing players to own the game instead of deferring to GM to drive an adventure. Not for the rookie gamer, though!

As ever,
ACE

First things first, understand who owns the campaign...everything else will fall into place.

As ever,
ACE

Returning to things you once loved (like gaming) and recognizing how things have changed; considering how those changes affect your perception of that love; and concluding that you do not like those changes.

That sucks.

As ever,
ACE

Are you an editor? Do you love roleplaying and Paizo products? Do you live in the Seattle area? Then click the link!

Doh...two out of three ain't bad!

As ever,
ACE

Balderdash. A terribly written adventure is a terribly written adventure. No DM should ever be forced to spend the energy required to turn a stinker into gold. At least give me lead to start with.

Wellllllll....never mind....

As ever,
ACE

theacemu wrote:

Allow it. Allow it all if *all* can be justified through a rulebook.

As ever,
ACE

The blatant snark ain't contributing, chief.

My bad...it's easy to run the one line snark out there and i haven't frequented these boards in a quite a while. Just a sign of the times - i'm too old to back up my snark with perspective. I was zealous about the core of said snarky comment a few years ago but have been reduced to typing this response instead of really getting involved.

As ever,
ACE

I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.

What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?

No such thing as a poor, purchased adventure. There is only a poorly run adventure!

As ever,
ACE

Allow it. Allow it all if *all* can be justified through a rulebook.

As ever,
ACE

Hum...i'm a twin. I bit my brother several times as a kid. I will share with you that one's clone isn't nearly as tasty as one may think!

As ever,
ACE

So many great books and pieces of Literature/literature that, over time, have all helped shape my world view. A few come to mind that immediately made impressions on me at various points in my life to dramatically change that view (and ultimately lead me to the ACE you see here!) and here they are in chronological order:

1) Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
2) The Prelude (William Wordsworth)
3) Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie)

Each corresponds with a good block of my life: High School, Undergrad, then Grad School and beyond. What is interesting, looking back at the three, is that they are all fairly overtly *about* idealistic perspectives. Also, I still read a fair amount but i don't think that there has been anything that i've read in the past five or six years that has had the same internal effects that the three pieces listed here have had at those other points in my life.

Maybe i'm due for #4?

Any suggestions for a 30-something year old married dad that may fit that bill?

As ever,
ACE

Zombies are cool in my book.

As ever,
ACE

Hey, thanks y'all...now, point me in the direction of a nice juicy thread that needs some further pontificating upon...

As ever,
ACE

Not posting on the boards in a really, really long time sucks...

As ever,
ACE

Worked on the Human Genome Project.

As ever,
ACE

I dunno if anyone else brought this up elsewhere on these boards, but IMO GenCon was smaller this year than in years past.

I say "smaller" because it seemed so for a number of reasons:
1) Gamers. There were not the teeming crowds and masses of gamers that i'm used to having to navigate. Saturday was crowded (somewhat as expected) but Thursday and Friday were noticibly thinner than in years past.

2) Venders. Wow, the exhibit hall was not nearly as crowded with venders this year. Wizards showed up with a pitiful booth compared to last year and even two years ago and were only demoing Magic, D&D minis, and maybe another game or two (unless i missed them elsewhere). Paizo seemed to have a slightly larger area for demoing and display than in years past (if i am remembering correctly). The most disturbing trend, however, was the ratio of video game display booths to ALL OTHERS. I'd hazard a guess that software companies like blizzard, EA, and Sony took about 1/4 of the entire exhibit hall. They were mostly lumped together in one quadrant of the hall and maybe that skewed my perception in comparison but the video game presence was more noticible than ever.

3) Me. This was my third year in a row and maybe the novelty has worn off, maybe i'm just getting old, or maybe it's just that i know what to expect from that convention. For whatever reason, it just wasn't as exciting as in years past. I slept for more hours at the convention this year than in the two previous years combined (about 8 hours sleep for three nights). I'm sure that was a contributing factor.

4) Big Bad End Product (BBEP). Finally, I can't think of one NEW or upcoming tabletop blockbuster product that was being promoted heavily this year. If so, what was it? I missed it as a casual fan and if I missed it, i guarentee that many others like me missed it also.

Anyway, for those of you who went, hope you had a great time...for those who didn't, drop by next year!

As ever,
ACE

theacemu wrote:

I dunno about gamers and tatoos, but this ex-gamer has one!

As ever,
ACE

"Ex-gamer"? What's up with that?

I'm out brother...been out for about a year now!

ACE

Um...I haven't been on the boards in quite some time, so this may have been discussed elsewhere but if it hasn't i'll throw it out here again.

If Paizo needs any help running demos or manning a booth, let me know!

As ever,
ACE

I dunno about gamers and tatoos, but this ex-gamer has one!

As ever,
ACE

Plan to work out 5 days a week as part of a lifestyle. I lift M-W-Sat with a 20 min bike ride and run 20-40 min on T-R. It's been good to me for a long time!

As ever,
ACE

Hi all -

For Paizo staff: GenCon Indy is about four months away. I was wondering if it is too early to call for help running demos. I'll be attending again this year and am willing to run demos for Paizo if you will be needing help.

For anyone who has volunteered in the past: what was your experience like? How many hours did you demo? Event tickets open up this Sunday (April 20)...did you plan your personal events around demo help? What can a volunteer expect? Thanks for any advice in advance!

As ever,
ACE

Doh...room was all junked up...I'll catch y'all later!

As ever,
ACE

I agree with the OP. Additionally, it bites most for those folks at Paizo who have to waste time jacking around with this. For every 2 minutes it takes for a bunch of people indvidually to be inconsiderate i'm willing to bet that it takes someone at Paizo 2 minutes to fiddle with considering a post on their boards. 2 minutes to 30 posters is 2 minutes of time for each of them...it's an hour for someone at Paizo. Do the math - it would bite.

My guess is that that time could better be used putting together another RPG Superstar, or how about fixing the dead post bug ;), or what about editing manuscript for another product line. I hope none of this mess will affect willingness to playtest whatever Paizo games are at GenCon this year. Or for volunteers to want to be a part of the Paizo booth at that event. I hope that Eric and James will be giving talks about writing for an RPG publisher (as I will be attending again for the 3rd year in a row). I hope that this nonsense doesn't sour relationships built over the years and turn off newcomers for whatever the reasons.

I will say that for a number of reasons beyond what i consider to be not that big of a deal with the 4e release, I don't like the thought of collatoral damage to any of the things that I mention here and many others that I haven't experienced in this community that are awsome, but i know others have.

As ever,
ACE

Firstly, I applaud the attempt to encompass as many issues as the OP does in one post...there are a lot of moving parts that have gone toward even creating this thread. This kind of lengthy post, to me and even in it's incompleteness, is highly desirable over many kinds of shorter posts that don't seem fully developed. At least we can all see how the OP comes up with the mental steps involved in reaching his/her viewpoint.

That said, throughout this thread the OP has a problem with the arguement build. Weather knowingly or not, OP begins by utilizing a school of philosophy called deconstructivism. One of the schools of literary criticism that one can apply to pieces of text to derive meaning (see also sign/signifier guy...Saussure i think).

The trick is to take a little slice of a large context and explode it. European style where explode = to drill down or explore more completely. It is both the jumping off point for such an argument and it's final conclusion. Typically, this involves exploring ALL possible angles of a the said material to end up saying: "And, after all of that...THIS is the meaning of Lisa's comment!" In a solid argument, it's good to take a linear approach to arriving at your conclusion (what one wants to impress on others).

Here the OP uses said material as a platform to jump off of and goes the opposite direction of deconstructionist rhetoric...instead of exploring an interpretation of the words, instead, explores quickly introduced memes pulled from several different thoughts, feelings, ideas, and actual events that have occurred as far back as the creation of 3e and as recent as moderation on message boards at Paizo (as far as i can tell). Heh, I like to call this the phylomemetic tree build *TM* and looks kinda like the USDA Food pyramid if you consider it graphically.

Problem is...the further away one gets from the actual words that Lisa Stevens says (point of the triangle) the more assumptions one has to make to jump from meme to meme and end up at a conclusion (more on this to come). The same Lisa Stevens quote can be approached the exact same way and end up at largely different conclusions!

I guess what i'm trying to say is that there are so many assumptions to consider in the OP arguement, that it is:
1) difficult to make sense of
2) too wide of an arguement to be convincing (at least to me) and
3) confounding to find the actual point of the post. What's the point? If i had to guess, it would be somewhere in the ballpark of this quote:
"Given what I hope is your new found understanding, I would like to suggest to you that you revisit your quick agreement with the original poster of “Is this board really how Paizo wants to be represented?”

As ever,
ACE

Just a suggestion, but if folks have something to say directly TO another poster, is the content of that correspondance appropriate for our community? Is the subject matter better served by creating a private discourse?

Consider the use of arguing in public, fighting in public, debating in public, and even apologizing in public. What do those things accomplish? When are they appropriate?

Perhaps the obvious needs to be stated again here: Everything that gets posted (and now stays posted) is public. If you find yourself engaged in a one-way post thread with one or two individuals, consider that others are reading and choosing either to respond publicly or not at all.

To a degree it is understandable that folks will get upset about a topic that is affecting all of us in a community (here the RPG community). It should never have to be spelled out what that threshold is for appropriate discourse, but in this case it needed to be.

When i get as upset as some folks have over the past few months i take a break from whatever it is that is upsetting. My advice: if you find yourself highly angered about anything in life, if possible, stop - step back from whatever it is that is upsetting - do something else for a while - come back when you are level headed and can approach whatever WAS upsetting you with measured responses.

As ever,
ACE

And...in the 10 minutes it took me to write this, Lisa said many of the same things. <shrug> In short: "What she said."

As ever,
ACE

It's too bad that folks are leaving these forums for whatever their reasons are. I would encourage those who are considering leaving and read this post to reconsider. I know that I speak for a segment of long time readers and posters to these forums (like myself) when i say that I'll be glad when everyone gets a chance to finally see all of the core material for 4e and gets a chance to playtest the game. I believe that, while it is not too soon to discuss everything that has been discussed in these forums regarding the upcoming edition, it is very much premature to invest personal feelings in 4e and/or divest them from whatever game one enjoys currently playing.

I have specifically stayed away from the 4e forums - i believe this is my third or fourth post in these forums since they started. Why? Because I said my peace the first post regarding the edition, made my viewpoint clear and let it be done. I'd suggest that one can categorize different approaches to the release into several categories and points of perspective...this has been done many times by different folks who are aware of the different viewpoints one could take on the upcoming edition. Paizo has taken polls on it.

Within most other Paizo community forums here, the topics discussed focus on gaming advice, alternate rules systems, game theory, off topic stuff, etc. With 4e most of us are in a camp. You may never buy a 4e product, you may buy everything, you may be waiting and gathering information. Perhaps one could argue that heated debates on pro vs. con will help sway anyone who is still undecided. Other than that, all the chatter is either a bunch of "togethers" bobbing their heads in agreement or "dissidents" throwing stones across a fence.

What's the point?

What it has done is made me and others who were used to engaging in thoughtful discourse on any given topic not contribute to overall discussion. That is a community loss. It is also, in my opinion, a silent acceptance that the behavior that has gone on for months in the 4e forums is acceptable. It is not. Those of us who feel similarly should lead by example and not go away like i have, until now. When the CEO of the company that is hosting the forums has to stickey a thread regarding the behaivor of the guests to these boards everyone needs to stop and listen...and think. It is an embarassment for me to even see that the postmaster general has to moderate...why? Because those of us who have been here for a long time recognize that the extent of the problems in 4e threads is a first on these boards.

I would urge all of us to consider why and how these boards are being used especially with a topic that is obviously very sensitive to our entire community right now.

As ever,
ACE

RIP, Brother.

As ever,
ACE

I'd like to add a new professional usage of the term "smurf" or smurf derivitives. From one of our Fraud Handbook publications glossary:

Smurfing: The use of couriers (also known as smurfs) to deposit and withdraw cash or cash equivalents at financial institutions in amounts less than the reporting limit to avoid reporting requirements.

See also: Money laundering.

As ever,
ACE

That's cool...postulate all you like about how things shook out with everything here. All i'm suggesting is: call the idea something else. Life of title and life of product are already taken...and they don't mean what has been said here (FYI)!

As ever
ACE

crosswiredmind wrote:

Razz wrote:

---It took 3 years until 3.5E was released after 3.0

---It took 2 years after 3.5e release for them to begin WORKING on 4th Edition.

Total Lifespan of 3rd Edition: 5 years

No. The life of a product is from the time it is released until the next release. Not until the planning for the next release.

No, it's until they begin working on a new edition. Because any books written after they start working on a new edition is not books written with the current edition at heart, but "playtest" books for the new edition.

I don't know if the term life of product is the same as life of title...i suspect that is what you are both trying to say. If that's the case you are both kinda wrong. Life of title (LOT) has to do with print runs. In publishing, at a project proposal stage, the product viability is based on LOT print runs for either a specific product code or ISBN. This is (at first) an estimation of how many products will be printed or produced and is used for estimating gross profit margins. Of course, the publisher can run reprints for as long as they wish...in that case, the LOT can go on forever (as long as the product code or ISBN is the exact same). After the publisher puts that specific product to rest, only then can one review a true LOT number.

Hope this helps.

As ever,
ACE

Actually...the Tennessee/Memphis game was not very well played by either team IMO. It was an exciting finish, but neither team played to their potential.

As ever,
ACE

When we gamed, we used anything published by WoTC.

As ever,
ACE

If you'd like a print run of about 10,000 copies or more, i know of a few decent printers in China that could do it on the cheap. :)

Sounds like that won't help much though.

As ever,
ACE

theacemu wrote:

My Art History professor in undergrad always used to tell us: "If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!"

You stole that joke off Cogsworth the Clock, in 'Beauty & the Beast'.

But I won't tell...

If i had heard it from a clock, i would have quoted it!

As ever,
ACE

If something is good (not just not broken, but good) why change it?

My Art History professor in undergrad always used to tell us: "If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!"

As ever,
ACE

From DM Tools Chatroom:

]00:00:12 * theacemu joins Main
18/02/2008 00:00:15 ‹W. E. Ray› Ah, well, I'm out for a bit-
18/02/2008 00:00:21 ‹theacemu› not yet we
18/02/2008 00:00:29 ‹theacemu› ...go post on the thread you started!
18/02/2008 00:00:36 ‹W. E. Ray› Hey, someone's here!
18/02/2008 00:00:46 ‹W. E. Ray› Oh crap
18/02/2008 00:00:51 ‹W. E. Ray› got caught
18/02/2008 00:00:57 ‹W. E. Ray› How's the Thread goin'
18/02/2008 00:01:03 ‹theacemu› lol - you have time to chat, but not time to lead your thread?
18/02/2008 00:01:07 ‹theacemu› not very well
18/02/2008 00:01:09 ‹W. E. Ray› I'm still on CH 6
18/02/2008 00:01:19 ‹theacemu› finished
18/02/2008 00:01:33 ‹W. E. Ray› What'd you think of Edna's suicide?
18/02/2008 00:01:51 ‹W. E. Ray› I guess her "wings" aren't strong enough
18/02/2008 00:01:53 ‹theacemu› acceptable ending - i'm not sure if i learned anything personally by it though...
18/02/2008 00:02:47 ‹W. E. Ray› Gotta admit, the Gulf's "calling" to Edna is great throughout the book
18/02/2008 00:02:52 ‹Pygon› sorry Ray - yes I've been through 7-8 sessions of ST with Wyvern
18/02/2008 00:03:06 ‹theacemu› great forshadowing, yes
18/02/2008 00:03:09 ‹Pygon› we just started the 4th adventure
18/02/2008 00:03:17 ‹W. E. Ray› And beautiful prose
18/02/2008 00:03:31 ‹W. E. Ray› Mdm. Reisz is a brilliant character
18/02/2008 00:03:34 ‹theacemu› the size of the chapters lends to that "poetic prose"
18/02/2008 00:03:50 ‹theacemu› i enjoyed chopin's imagery very much
18/02/2008 00:03:54 ‹W. E. Ray› tell that to Hemingway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18/02/2008 00:04:05 ‹theacemu› lol - fair enough
18/02/2008 00:04:12 ‹W. E. Ray› the chapter size thing
18/02/2008 00:04:16 ‹theacemu› i know!
18/02/2008 00:04:16 ‹W. E. Ray› lol
18/02/2008 00:04:38 ‹theacemu› i can't remember the name of it, Prelude to something...
18/02/2008 00:04:38 * Fray at Target changes his/her nickname to Fray
18/02/2008 00:04:41 ‹W. E. Ray› Do you think Adele and Reisz are opposites?
18/02/2008 00:04:58 ‹theacemu› where he rows the boat out on the lake and he thinks the mountain is chasing him...
18/02/2008 00:05:04 ‹W. E. Ray› The perfect woman vs the independent woman
18/02/2008 00:05:06 ‹theacemu› opposites?
18/02/2008 00:05:09 ‹theacemu› ah
18/02/2008 00:05:29 ‹theacemu› perfect woman?
18/02/2008 00:05:30 ‹W. E. Ray› and see how they're the 2 main influences/friends of Edna
18/02/2008 00:05:49 ‹theacemu› you mean the embodiment of the "ideal" woman?
18/02/2008 00:05:52 ‹W. E. Ray› Even early on Adele is described as a "Madonna"
18/02/2008 00:05:58 ‹theacemu› right
18/02/2008 00:06:01 ‹W. E. Ray› yes, "ideal" is much better
18/02/2008 00:06:15 ‹theacemu› in the end, how did they function in the story though?
18/02/2008 00:06:21 ‹W. E. Ray› and, of course, she dies in childbirth
18/02/2008 00:06:25 ‹theacemu›
18/02/2008 00:06:38 ‹W. E. Ray› that is a really neat question
18/02/2008 00:06:45 ‹theacemu› what is?
18/02/2008 00:06:49 ‹W. E. Ray› do they only "support" Edna?!
18/02/2008 00:07:13 ‹W. E. Ray› or is it, because Edna commits suicide, she supports those 2 opposites
18/02/2008 00:07:32 ‹W. E. Ray› "What's their purpos?"
18/02/2008 00:07:43 ‹W. E. Ray› "function"
18/02/2008 00:07:47 ‹theacemu› if you read the one post about character roles along a gradient that's how i tend to look at supporting characters in a story
18/02/2008 00:07:52 ‹theacemu› so, yes...
18/02/2008 00:08:08 ‹theacemu› you have adele and reiz set as foils
18/02/2008 00:08:10 ‹W. E. Ray› do they support Edna or does Edna support them?
18/02/2008 00:08:22 ‹theacemu› and edna explores everywhere between throughout the text
18/02/2008 00:08:25 ‹theacemu› neither
18/02/2008 00:08:35 ‹theacemu› they are for the reader!
18/02/2008 00:08:38 ‹W. E. Ray› good point
18/02/2008 00:08:49 ‹theacemu› they set the boundaries of the extent of edna's exploration
18/02/2008 00:08:54 ‹theacemu› ?
18/02/2008 00:08:55 ‹theacemu› maybe?
18/02/2008 00:08:56 ‹W. E. Ray› What'd you think of Alcee and Edna
18/02/2008 00:09:12 ‹theacemu› i dont know...
18/02/2008 00:09:15 ‹theacemu›
18/02/2008 00:09:33 ‹theacemu› before Alcee, it was quite evident that Mr P and Robert were the foils
18/02/2008 00:09:40 ‹W. E. Ray› just as a note -- "Alcee" is a name Chopin often gives to guys who a female character has an afair with
18/02/2008 00:09:49 ‹theacemu› what does he represent? i'm not quite sure...
18/02/2008 00:09:53 ‹W. E. Ray› "The Storm" is the most famous example
18/02/2008 00:09:56 ‹theacemu› ah
18/02/2008 00:10:32 ‹W. E. Ray› Leonce as a foil?!
18/02/2008 00:10:36 ‹W. E. Ray› hmmm
18/02/2008 00:10:44 ‹theacemu› leonce vs robert?
18/02/2008 00:10:54 ‹W. E. Ray› both losers
18/02/2008 00:10:58 ‹theacemu› on one hand - pillar of "proper" society
18/02/2008 00:11:02 ‹theacemu› on the other
18/02/2008 00:11:19 ‹W. E. Ray› Robert...?
18/02/2008 00:11:31 ‹W. E. Ray› he's as flimsy as Edna
18/02/2008 00:11:34 ‹theacemu› wears his heart on his sleeve (under the pretext of "properness"
18/02/2008 00:11:50 ‹theacemu› yes
18/02/2008 00:11:50 ‹W. E. Ray› Why does he go to Mexico??
18/02/2008 00:11:57 ‹W. E. Ray› And then come back?!
18/02/2008 00:12:12 ‹W. E. Ray› Acee and Victor are the strong men
18/02/2008 00:12:17 ‹W. E. Ray› "Alcee"
18/02/2008 00:12:18 ‹theacemu› i don't think we can really be sure as the reader...
18/02/2008 00:12:34 ‹W. E. Ray› ah, but we treat our opinions as facts anyway
18/02/2008 00:12:35 ‹theacemu› which brings me to another question...who is telling this story?
18/02/2008 00:12:43 ‹theacemu› from who's POV?
18/02/2008 00:12:46 ‹theacemu› chopin?
18/02/2008 00:12:51 ‹theacemu› a narrator?
18/02/2008 00:12:56 ‹W. E. Ray› 3rd person omniscient
18/02/2008 00:13:05 ‹W. E. Ray› "Eye in the sky" kinda thing
18/02/2008 00:13:23 ‹W. E. Ray› Chopin does that so we see all the characters equally
18/02/2008 00:13:42 ‹theacemu› right...it's strange how, i'd say, about 70% of the novel focuses on the action of Edna and the other 30% is "other"
18/02/2008 00:13:43 ‹W. E. Ray› thus a good argument can be made that Edna is "equal" to the other characters
18/02/2008 00:13:46 ‹theacemu› why?
18/02/2008 00:13:58 ‹theacemu› hum...
18/02/2008 00:14:00 ‹theacemu› equally?
18/02/2008 00:14:04 ‹theacemu›
18/02/2008 00:14:23 ‹W. E. Ray› well, are Adele and Mme Reisz the most important in the story?
18/02/2008 00:14:51 ‹W. E. Ray› They're the ones who represent the 2 pinnacles of Edna's "choices"
18/02/2008 00:15:05 ‹W. E. Ray› Independence or "ideal woman"
18/02/2008 00:15:28 ‹theacemu› i wouldn't presume to dub any particular character as important or not
18/02/2008 00:15:44 ‹W. E. Ray› Think of when Reisz feels Ednas shoulder blades, saying that you have to have strong wings
18/02/2008 00:15:57 ‹W. E. Ray› oh, BS, presume away!!
18/02/2008 00:16:02 ‹theacemu› hahahaha
18/02/2008 00:16:30 ‹theacemu› if i was writing a paper on this...i wouldn't focus on import, let's put it that way!
18/02/2008 00:16:56 ‹W. E. Ray› then Edna as a child, "flying" or "swimming" in the grasses of Kentucky, trying "to get away"
18/02/2008 00:17:09 ‹W. E. Ray› on whatwould you focus it?
18/02/2008 00:17:15 ‹theacemu› I'd probably run Robert thorugh a psychoanalytic rhetoric...boring...
18/02/2008 00:17:20 ‹theacemu› i dunno...
18/02/2008 00:17:34 ‹theacemu› like i said in my one post, this text just didn't speake TO me very well
18/02/2008 00:17:45 ‹theacemu› you know how some books you read you really connect with?
18/02/2008 00:17:52 ‹W. E. Ray› Say it ain't so
18/02/2008 00:17:53 ‹theacemu› not so much this one, but it was still a decent read!
18/02/2008 00:18:07 ‹W. E. Ray› gald it was a good read for you
18/02/2008 00:18:08 ‹theacemu› what's next?
18/02/2008 00:18:29 ‹W. E. Ray› Well, I'd like to get some time to finish reading it and add more post
18/02/2008 00:18:35 ‹W. E. Ray› "posts"
18/02/2008 00:18:51 ‹theacemu› i know tensor was on it
18/02/2008 00:18:59 ‹theacemu› dunno about anyone else...
18/02/2008 00:19:13 ‹W. E. Ray› And Tensor seems always to be here, where is he?
18/02/2008 00:19:22 ‹theacemu› she?

What do we learn from the last chapter in this book?

As ever,
ACE

Got my wife a new Coach bag - she loved it! What did i get? A nasty flu, so we couldn't even enjoy yesterday :(

As ever,
ACE

By the by...it's an excellent question to ask anyone. It tells you a little about how they think. Some of the folks responding above considered the question very well. It asks the responder to consider the non-absolutes: what components of storytelling are useful? and what components are truth(ful)? I don't think there are right or wrong answers to the question (BTW).

Haroun asks his father this very question in Rushdie's: Haroun and the Sea of Stories in a fit of anger and sorrow after his mother leaves his father. Haroun's father is a storyteller by trade - that's his only job and he is the only storyteller in an otherwise gloomy and mechanized city. Rushdie explores this question throughout the text (as well as several others) and I highly recommend the read to anyone who is interested.

As ever,
ACE

Thought this may be interesting to note, but i couldn't find a forum to post it in, so it winds up here!

Hasbro News

As ever,
ACE

There hasn't been much traffic here, so i'll toss out some psychoanalysis rhetoric to tack on to what Tensor was hitting on in her posts.

In his touchstone work: Literary Theory, Terry Eagleton writes:
"Every human being has to undergo this repression of what Freud named the 'pleasure principle', but for some of us, and arguably for whole societies, the repression may become excessive and make us ill." (p. 131)

I think that it is quite appropriate to categorize Edna as a self-repressed individual as far as Freud's "pleasure principle" can be applied in The Awakening. Her relationships with Mr. P and her children, Chopan's characterization of Edna's youth and love-interests, and the obivous foil of her personality vs. the Creole personality type.

If you conceptualize what it means to live in relation to Freud's "pleasure principle" along a gradient, I would submit that over the first six chapters, Edna is set up as the extreme repressed and Robert represents extreme excess.

Over the next few chapters, ask yourself how the changes that the reader sees in these characters where they may fall along that gradient!

As ever,
ACE

RPGamers are in the business of constructing stories as a part of the game they play.

Consider this question carefully: What's the use in telling stories that aren't even true?

As ever,
ACE

Through Chapter 22...i'll reserve serious discussion for those who would like to bring up topics. If you read a bunch of literature, you can pick out the tropes and themes that most interest you in a text. Those are typically the stories that the individual can connect to most intimately and are recalled best with that reader even after they finish the story from cover to cover. I just wanted those of us who are going to discuss The Awakening to know that this is not one of those books that resonates with me. So, I'll probably pick a mode of study to approach this text and stick with it not because i'm passionate about the topic, but as a personal intellectual exercise and to perhaps interest someone else to passionately take up where my rhetoric leaves off on this subject.

As ever,
ACE

I don't think anyone thought WotC wouldn't publish occasional splatbooks or sourcebooks. But I think many of us thought the majority of that material would be absorbed by the subsequent PHBs that were well thought out and playtested (maybe not to the extent the first 3 core will be, but to some extent). But with the implied release every month of a sourcebook, I foresee good ideas poorly developed, game breaking material, inconsistencies across various sourcebooks, and more confusion that will scare any newcomer to the game. I had hoped (apparently incorrectly) that we had moved past all that.

I don't think it was naivety to think otherwise - I just assumed that WotC planned to get our money in other ways (such as "had to have" material on DDI, or updates on campaign settings every year, or absolutely essential PHB sequels, or more minis, or their own version of Adventure Paths, or something else.)

Bingo!

As ever,
ACE

So, uh, when do we get started?

Yah, how is this being organized?

As ever,
ACE

Just finished a little short story by Neil Gaiman called The Dream Hunters. Beautiful artwork by Yoshitaka Amano. Highly recommend the read if you can stomach $20 for a short story.

As ever,
ACE