Re: Blue Pill Time

From: Jeff Richard <richaje_at_A2E5VHWNb4p4l4UQZBLkK152iOE1D_eyxmaVqyLZvY0VhEapS5wn4rpBITMsdmvTuiDM>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:52:54 -0000


> It may well do, but the way it was presented was still
> horrible. Nothing to say "sorry to not use the
> existing perfectly good lists, but..." Just ignoring
> them.

They aren't perfectly good. Sorry but if one of the key lists refuses to comply with minimal IP protection requirements then it is not perfectly good. Severely, fundamentally, terminally flawed. Sorry to burst any bubbles you may have had.

> > Which is different from the creative mythology stuff
> > - mythology
> > doesn't necessarily have MGF as a driving principle.
>
> Sure. But the one that people actually use has to be
> the "real" one, and exercises in what the mythology
> might be like if it wasn't like it really is, are
> interesting as local variations, no more.

No. That's completely backwards. Again, I'm sorry to burst any bubbles, but the RPG game setting is not the primary purpose of writing. That may be YOUR primary interest in the stories, but that is not the primary purpose for many of the writers.

> > This isn't software, this is creative literature.
>
> No, it's roleplaying supplements.

Not really even that. This isn't stuff that is designed for a particular function - even the roleplaying supplements are simply designed to allow folk to play around in and with the creative setting.

> > What the fuck is "correctness" supposed to mean?
> Usability. Fitness for purpose. Which includes, among
> other things, compatibility. And that means
> compatibility with the universe actually in use, not
> some other one that might have existed in a parallel
> universe.

I'm afraid you are approaching this from a way I find completely alien. There is no "universe in use" there is no "universe". There are just stories - written stories and roleplayed stories. And nothing more.

> Stories... if an author writes a standard fiction
> trilogy, and a fact alters between volume 1 and volume
> 2, they get slated, and quite right too. That's not
> artistic or creative, it's just sloppy workmanship. If
> this stuff is fiction, then the same standards apply.

That is complete crap except as applied to hacks of the lowest order (granted most fantasy writers are hacks of the lowest order). As long as things work within the story itself, who gives a damn whether the facts change from story to story (a good example is the factual differences between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings). Because in fiction there really aren't "facts", just storytelling techniques. Consistency between stories is just a technique, not an end in and of itself.

Check out the difference between Plutarch and Herodotus, the Heimskringlasaga and Egil's Saga - all texts describing the same "fantasy land" (given that Viking Age Scandinavia and Classical Greece are far enough removed from now that they exist primarily as literary conceits and not as knowable real places). Wildly different as to "facts" and sequencing of events, but still describing what we recognize as the "same thing".

> > And for that matter, I'm
> > selling copies of the Orlmarthingsaga at Tentacles
>
> That's campaign chronicles? And sold as such? Or
> presented as how the background "really" is?

Presented as the Orlmarthingsaga. Whatever that is. Written by myself, David Dunham, Greg Stafford and others. Do with it as you will. Want to know how we would (and will) likely write stuff about a Sartar campaign leading up to Whitewall? Then buy it. Want something that is holy gospel or an engineering text? Well you have a loooooooong wait.

Jeff            

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