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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 19, 2017 10:20:30 GMT -6
The mimicry is amazing, but the original characters don't fit in. The counselor character, besides being a totally unnecessary nod to 24th century ship's counselors, is very badly acted. The drama tries too hard to be oh, so poignant, to the point that they overdo it. I've only seen some of the episodes, but the Mirror, Mirror sequel made no sense: most of the crew suddenly realizes what jerks everyone is and reforms? Nonsense. The projected-to-the-Civil-War episode was too obviously just a bunch of Civil War reenactors who wanted to be in Star Trek, and the angst beat itself over my head.
So, it's great as a reproduction, but they're so busy mimicking something else they forget to make their original stuff good in itself.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 19, 2017 9:36:38 GMT -6
The question is, though, ***should*** a producer even be concerned about the artistic dimension? Yes. A producer can, at whim, declare what he or she wants in any aspect of a production. "I want Aragorn to be bald, because bald is the new sexy." "I want to make all the dwarves women, because gender-swapping is the new hotness." If you want to keep true to artistry, the producer must be on board with that.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 18, 2017 15:05:32 GMT -6
can an ultra-powerful CEO use his vast resources to find and enable just the right person to creatively helm the project? Sure, one can. How likely do you think it is that an ultra-powerful CEO—and the board telling him or her what to do—are also interested in producing a labor of love that will not produce the greatest possible financial return?
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 18, 2017 11:21:17 GMT -6
Or, the Blind Guardian quasi-musical "Nightfall on Middleearth", to name something completely different: Corny as hell, but still... A labor of love. While I'm certain Tolkien would not have cared for power metal, I believe he would have appreciated the idea behind Nightfall in Middle-earth nonetheless. The album is not fan-fiction or making things up to suit commercial consumption; it is singing songs about the Silmarillion stories. Tolkien invented the stories; Blind Guardian is singing ABOUT the stories. The purpose of the Amazon deal is to make money. Bezos has said he wants something as big a hit as Game of Thrones; Tolkien fits that bill, so he'll produce it. If Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, suddenly became the most popular thing on the internet, and everyone was clamoring for a TV show of it, you can bet he'd pick that instead of Tolkien. Bezos doesn't want to make a Tolkien TV show because the artist in him wants to express itself reflecting Tolkien's world; he recognizes the commercial opportunity and wants to exploit it. I don't fault him for that; that's how his business works. But it's not a labor of love.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 17, 2017 8:27:19 GMT -6
what about, say, a good graphic novel [...] Instead, we're getting mass market ware that, for or better or worse, always has to strive to reduce complexity, and speak to the zeitgeist of a teenage audience. Graphic novel adaptations must, by necessity of the form, reduce complexity, and they almost always speak to the zeitgeist of a teenage audience while maintaining the pretense that they are for a more mature audience (usually by being moody). I have a graphic novel adaptation of The Hobbit, and that describes it exactly. I really can't see the point of it (I was given it as a gift). So there ARE graphic novel adaptations of Tolkien. If the Tolkien Estate really does loosen up, we may eventually see one of The Silmarillion.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 15, 2017 21:43:46 GMT -6
You are surely aware of the ‘Hobbit’ movies. This brings it to a whole new level, and you must know that. Christopher Tolkien believed in sticking to the terms of the film license, because he had to, and not one inch more. That protection is gone now. And frankly, seeing Tolkien turned into Game of Thrones (because you know that's what they're going to do) is heartbreaking. Remember, they're talking about almost entirely non-Tolkien stories clinging to the Tolkien license by the slimmest of threads. You thought the Kili/Tauriel romance was bad? Superhero Legolas? That's nothing compared to what's to come. And the worst part will always be trying to explain to people, "No, there's no such character in the books, and that thing never happens."
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 15, 2017 16:10:39 GMT -6
Ah, exploitation. Let the Disneyfication process begin!
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 9, 2017 8:43:33 GMT -6
But now give the wolf ten friends, which is a more likely wolf scenario. The Veteran might not even get the chance to climb the tree! Oh, well if we're making the scenario more realistic, give the veteran five adventuring buddies and some hirelings. The medium takes out many wolves with his sleep spell, and the rest of the party deals with any remaining wolves.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 7, 2017 9:25:12 GMT -6
it might have been the very purpose and reason the alternate combat was made for in the first place, as a catch-all for those situations where weapons and armor won't fit particular combat rules. Ya think? It's not. The veteran is likely to have chain mail armor (AC 5), and his two-handed sword will give him the first attack according to any sensible dungeon master. By the guidelines in Monsters & Treasure, a wolf has AC 8. The veteran needs an 11 to hit the wolf; the wolf needs a 14 to hit. Even if the veteran blew his roll for money and could only afford leather armor, the wolf still needs a 12 to hit. If the veteran's constitution is high, he'll have a +1 advantage over the wolf in possible hit points. The veteran has superior intelligence and can plan ambushes, call for help, climb a tree, whatever. Overall, the veteran has a decided advantage.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 7, 2017 9:05:05 GMT -6
The Lord of the Rings Online handles this in an interesting way. While enemies have the usual "Health" which, when it reaches zero, tells when the enemy dies, players have "Morale" instead. When your Morale reaches zero, you are forced to retreat to the nearest ring of stones (because you never die in the game). "Healing potions" deal with wounds; "morale potions" raise your Morale.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 7, 2017 9:00:15 GMT -6
Why would an old rule from an old game convince you to deny your players the fun of getting a crit? Your question is biased; it presupposes that critical hits are fun, which is not obviously the prevailing viewpoint around here. Otherwise, your question is valid: Piper did not explain what it is about the Empire of the Petal Throne rule that makes him not want to use critical hit rules in games he runs.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 4, 2017 15:07:49 GMT -6
Critical hits that appear in the rules are not house rules.
Critical hits have been appearing in games in one form or another LONG before the invention of the role-playing game. They accompanied the invention of D&D. Gygax was fully aware of them when he published D&D, and he specifically chose NOT to include them in the rules, citing the desire that players be able to judge when they should withdraw from danger.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 3, 2017 21:13:14 GMT -6
If rolling a 20 on the attack roll is already visceral and satisfying, then why do you need to add critical hits? I've seen lots of players thrilled when they rolled a 20, even though they knew ahead of time they wouldn't get any mechanical benefit from it. They don't care; they just like to imagine how awesome the hit was.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 3, 2017 12:10:28 GMT -6
Most pole arms were a lot cheaper than swords, being metal points at the end of wooden poles, though some were more complicated than that. Most peasants weren't well trained in close combat, so instead they relied on massed pole arms to do damage to an enemy not in close combat. You mostly just stand in formation and put your weapon in position. Maybe you walk or run in formation. But as a peasant, that's about all the skill you have or need; you're no hero.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 3, 2017 12:00:16 GMT -6
There's a simpler way to stress the abstract nature of hit points.
Stop calling them hit points.
Excise the words hit, miss, damage, and heal from the game's mechanics, because these make people think that every hit is a swung sword that chops into someone, that damage is physical, bloody damage to the body, and that healing is bodily recuperation and open wounds being closed.
I dunno what you want to call them instead. If the term weren't already loaded from other games, I'd say call them fate points, and a good attack makes you lose fate points. A cleric might use magic to restore those fate points. Maybe the game world's inhabitants are obsessed with keeping their destinies at bay.
Or just call them life points. As long as you have 'em, you are alive.
Or call them doom points, and instead of taking away from your points, a successful attack on you adds doom points until you reach your destiny, which equals what we now call "full hit points," and then you die and go to your destiny.
Even better, don't call them points at all. Represent them as a clock counting down to your doom, or even a game of hangman.
The point is, all the hand-wringing people go through trying to convince each other what hit points philosophically represent is kind of silly, when they're really just working from the wrong image because of the specific words the authors of the game used.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 29, 2017 6:57:50 GMT -6
Because it's a lot quicker to say "You slaughtered... [clatter] four mooks" than it is to say "Swing number one.. [clatter, check] hit. You did... [clatter] two points. It's still up. Swing number two... [clatter, check] miss. Swing number three..." Etc.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 25, 2017 7:45:22 GMT -6
You're missing my point. Any shield heavier than a trashcan lid that has to be held in a certain position during a life-or-death struggle is going to get very, very heavy very quickly. Unless you train your muscles to hold shields like that, you just can't maintain it. How you hold a shield is all about keeping it in the right position and having to move it as little as possible.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 24, 2017 7:44:10 GMT -6
Go through the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and see how many spells Gandalf actually casts. It's minimal! Go through The Lord of the Rings book with more than a cursory reading and you'll see people, including Gandalf, doing magic far, far more subtle than crass D&D spells.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 23, 2017 19:51:46 GMT -6
There were exceptions. It all depends on the time period and culture in question. But the type asked about by the original poster has a limited range of sizes. When I fought in the SCA, I made a shield of that type as light as could possibly be made out of as light a wood as I could get, and I could barely hold my shield in a block position for five minutes. Other fighters I knew carried much heavier shields for much longer and were sure to take advantage of the opening when I could no longer hold mine up. You simply never use those muscles in that way for anything else. If you haven't trained to do it, it's hard. That's what I meant by shields being heavy. They may seem light if you just heft one once, but try blocking a flurry of attacks and you soon learn just how heavy they can be.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 23, 2017 13:43:04 GMT -6
Shields are heavy! You can hold one in a battle for less than five minutes before your arm drops from exhaustion, unless you've trained. When you hold it, assuming you're holding it in your left hand, you want the top-right corner to point somewhat upward, to protect your face. The pointy bottom part will point a little rightward, protecting your legs. Your left arm will be pointing around forty-five degrees up. There's a forearm strap near the elbow and a hand-grip; whatever arrangement will lead to the correct placement of the shield while you put as little strain on your arm as possible is the correct placement of your arm. The idea is to cover as much of your body as possible while being able to swing your weapon arm over the shield to hit your enemy. Forget about thrusting, forget about swinging around the side; you want to keep your weapon above your head, pointing down over the front of the shield to act as a further barrier to head-blows, and you want to keep your weapon arm back so you're not exposing it to attack. Whenever you attack, you're opening your head-defense, so it's absolutely vital you are able to move your shield to block with as little movement as possible.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 23, 2017 13:32:00 GMT -6
Forget the affected voices. Role-play does not mean acting. You can conduct an entire game in the third person if you want.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 23, 2017 13:27:20 GMT -6
Play GURPS. You can do all this in the standard magic system. In fact, the simpler spells like Ignite Fire are required for the bigger spells like Explosive Fireball.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 22, 2017 14:46:06 GMT -6
I'm friends with Ernie on FB so I went ahead and asked him about this today. His answer is here. I'm surprised they actually wanted to roll everything randomly instead of just assigning scores all the way down the page.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 21, 2017 10:35:28 GMT -6
More sand. This however is specifically where you are overdrawing; ......wargamers like Bath were assigning statistics to individuals in the manner of this sheet long before this sheet was written... No they weren't. As can be readily seen, the manner statistics were assigned to the Spanish Royals characters was a specific protocol following a consistent list of characteristics with rule integral scores assigned to all characters. This is exactly the same "manner" as D&D to this day. (SIWDCnC) It is not the manner used by "wargamers like Bath" to "characterize" figures. Bath's characterisitcs were limited, random and individualized in design for the purpose of influencing the decisions of the gamer and not otherwise integral to the operation of the rules. What Bath was doing was nothing like ability scores in D&D. The Spanish Royals trait list however, is very like D&D. I take from this that you define character sheet as a list of scores to be used directly in the operation of the game mechanics, and that a list of characteristics used to judge decisions taken by characters isn't a character sheet. If that is your definition, that is the source of our disagreement. "These characters will have a great bearing on any decisions which you have to make involving them, and this is particularly important for the controller of a mythical continent, whether he is running it by himself or whether he has a group of players involved. There will always be occasions when the attitudes of nobles and officers who are not being played by actual people - what we in Hyboria call cardboard characters - can be vital to an event, and by using these characters you can often solve the question." -- Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming
That book not only gives Bath's own playing card–based system of personality characteristics; it also gives a "somewhat later" system (meaning Bath's was "somewhat earlier") by Richard Nelson in which each character had the following characteristics, all scaled from 1 to 6: General Disposition, Morals, Generosity, Loyalty, Appearance, Popularity, Intelligence, Activity, Martial Aptitude, Martial Experience, Political Aptitude, and Political Experience. These characteristics do interact directly with the game rules, though Bath doesn't tell much about how: "The effect of individual characteristics in a given case will obviously depend on individual campaign rules, but a character with Morals 3, Loyalty 1 and Appearance 5 should not be left to look after the castle and Queen while Hubby is away at the wars!" So even if you don't consider a list under Bath's system a character sheet, you really should under Nelson's system.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 20, 2017 18:34:09 GMT -6
You're one of TPD's sock puppets, aren't you? What or who the heck is TBD? As far as I know, TBD is short for "to be determined". Look again. "The exact statistics may differ..." (A) I said "straight," not "strait." (B) I said it " looks like it's otherwise straight out of Bath's Ancient Wargaming," not that it did come from there. It, and Bath, share the same form. That, I claim, is because they originated from the same wargaming culture. I believe Bath claims in his book to have come up with the system of randomly generating statistics for a noble and randomly generating his family and putting it all in a chart. If true, the idea comes to the wargaming world through Bath. Unless he was taking credit for ideas others came up with. Congratulations. I never said otherwise. How wonderful. You are missing my point that whether you use 2d6 or 3d6 or card suits or Norse runes is irrelevant to whether something is a "character sheet"; wargamers like Bath were assigning statistics to individuals in the manner of this sheet long before this sheet was written. If you want to claim that assigning 2d6 scores on this sheet is a direct ancestor of the habit of assigning 2d6 scores on a Blackmoor sheet, go right ahead; I don't doubt you.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 20, 2017 13:13:25 GMT -6
You're one of TPD's sock puppets, aren't you?
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Post by Stormcrow on May 20, 2017 5:45:17 GMT -6
I did read his blog. I didn't say they got the advice of doing that from Bath's book; I said they got the advice from Bath. I recognize the advice from Bath's book in the form of the sheet. Bath had been doing that sort of thing and getting the idea in circulation for years before he published his book.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 19, 2017 18:27:06 GMT -6
I wonder if I see where this is going? "Tony Bath's True Genius." Oh, waitaminnit.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 19, 2017 18:25:30 GMT -6
Yes, don't think of these as PC-style murder-hobos; they've most likely got a more specific agenda than that. Of course, that agenda could be just about anything.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 19, 2017 16:06:21 GMT -6
Gary almost certainly could not have known about Tolkien's "at most seven." Eldritch Wizardry was published before The Silmarillion or The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, let alone The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2. This is a coincidence.
Besides, "six are known to exist" is not the same as "it is known that only six exist." It means knowledge of only six is recorded. There could be others.
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