One Side of a Conversation

Right, have to say something.

Excuse me, if you don't mind just a moment doing me a bit of a favor?  Right, no I didn't particularly have a question.  Just a simple request is all.  Right? 

Faith Manages Episode 2: He's Always Been This Way

Faith Manages Episode 2: He's Always Been This Way

What D&D 3.5 Needed

What Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 needed.  A lot of this is stuff 4e did correctly.

Open Letter to Bethesda Games and White Wolf

Something I'd like to see for a CRPG sandbox game in the vein of Skyrim or Fallout 3 is a game along the lines of the White Wolf Scion game.  For those that aren't familiar with the game, scion is a game where you play the children of the old gods in a modern time battling the servants of the titans (and occasionally the other gods).  Very recently, some time after World War II, the Titans escaped their prisons (at least partially) and are now once again trying to return the World to a state of primal chaos that existed prior to the development of humanity and the subsequent birth of the gods.

But in the "real" myths...

To be perfectly frank, there is something of a fuzzy line between when something goes from being a story to being a myth, but I'm not going to go into that line of discussion.  My intent here is to discuss the tendency of some people to hold up the "real myths" as a criticism of various pieces of fiction that have come out in the last couple of decades.  Admittedly, I'm no stranger to making this argument, but I do at least try to make sure I'm referring to myths that actually developed organically within a culture as adverse to stuff that came out of more recent fictions, as in within a century or two.

Numenera Review

The illustrations are beautiful. The setting is evocative and lean toward genres I heavily enjoy. The character creation is intriguing and very much geared toward building a unique character rather than a simple collection of stats. The adventure links and PC connections are very useful for creating a coherent party from the get go.

Fate Core and Strands of Fate

A comparison between Fate Core by Evil Hat Productions and Strands of Fate by Void Star Studios

Evil Hat Productions: www.facebook.com/EvilHatProduc…

Void Star Studios: www.facebook.com/VoidStarGames

I'm comparing to Strands of Fate core rules Hero Level.  I prefer Strands of Power's alternate advancement and usually aim at a higher level, but I'm sticking to the core book for this.

Fiction is a Shadow

All fiction is a shadow of real life.  

This sounds ridiculous on first glimpse.  After all, a sizeable portion of fiction involves elements that are very much unreal. Stuff like talking animals, magic, curses, faster than light speed capable starships and other such things are not elements you'll find in real life. That being true, how can a piece of fiction that involves such things be connected to real life at all, much less being a shadow of it.

Popular Character Hell

So, there are a lot of characters out there that are popular and have been popular for a long time...and have suffered for it.  It isn't true of all popular characters, but it certainly seems to afflict a number of them.  I'm going to talk about some of the signs and symptoms of this.

There is no coincidence

When you're watching a TV show or movie or reading a book, you'll often run across an instance where the main character has noticed some detail or another that clues them in on what is going in the story.  Some other character, usually the designated Scully, will often dismiss it as coincidence.  This dismissal is usually used as a tool to show how the character with the idea is elevated above the perceptions of other people.  After all, he or she has just noticed and understood something that everyone else neglects as being unimportant.  The tone of the dismissal is either frustrated, negligent or contemptuous.  This will often come with a summary of the discovering-character's theory followed by the phrase "it's just coincidence" or something similar.  Immediately following the main character will have a "there is no such thing as coincidence" speech and the story will continue.

Mary Sue vs MCS

For ease of reference, assume anything about Mary Sue applies to Marty Stu.

The term Mary Sue dates back to a 1974 Star Trek fanfic that was written as a parody of various self-insert fanfictions that were coming out at the time.  There is some controversy as to just what constitutes a Mary Sue or Marty Stu but it is considered one of the worst insults you can lay on any particular character.  On the other hand, there is what I call "Main Character Syndrome" which probably exists under some other name but is my catch all term for situations that tend to develop simply because a character is the central character of a story.  These two situations can appear very close to each other, but one is generally overlooked while the other is lambasted.  So what's the difference?