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Messages - clockworkfish

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Books / Re: Truly unique fantasy worlds
« on: January 11, 2011, 04:47:59 PM »
I think it is a fantastic idea.  The fantasy genre could use more of this type of thinking.

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Talked my wife into reading it.  She read it in a day and immediately bought Mr. Monster.  She's hooked!

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Patrick Rothfuss's review of Way of Kings
« on: September 07, 2010, 04:58:05 PM »
Ha ha!  I loved it.

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Role-Playing Games / Re: D&D: Where are the meaningful choices?
« on: September 05, 2010, 07:44:48 AM »
I haven't tried WFRP, but that sounds like it's in the right direction.

To be honest, I haven't played too many RPGs.  This is just what I've noticed with D&D, 3, 3.5, and 4.  I have a feeling there are new ones that I know nothing about that probably do what I'm talking.

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Role-Playing Games / Re: D&D: Where are the meaningful choices?
« on: September 04, 2010, 08:38:37 AM »
The first board game that comes to mind is Small World.  The meat in this game is choosing which race to be and use to attack next, as this can make all the difference in winning or losing.  Having multiple options to choose from, and deciding which is most beneficial, makes the choice interesting and fun. 

An even better example, that may relate more to RPG battles, is Battle Lore.  Each player has a set of cards that determines which troops can move.  It's tempting to use up all your cards on one side to push the enemy back and pin him against a wall, but this will leave you open later.  Lots of great tactical and strategic decisions.

One of the best games for decision-making is Pandemic.  Figuring out what to do with your four action points each turn, with an excellent press your luck mechanic, makes me want to play it over and over.

I think these basic principles of modern game design could be applied to RPGs, especially RPG battles.

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Books / Re: Choose your own adventure books! (i.e. interactive fiction)
« on: September 01, 2010, 06:45:49 AM »
You really need to check out Fabled Lands.  They're like Choose Your Own Adventure, but span multiple books and are really interactive!  This link has a free program that took all the books and put them together, which also makes sure you can't cheat and takes care of record keeping.  It's really cool!

http://flapp.sourceforge.net/

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Writing Group / Re: Let's play: Where does my book go?
« on: August 27, 2010, 01:56:37 AM »
Thanks for the advice!

I was afraid about the color illustrations.

I looked at UN LUN DUN and it looks pretty cool!  I definitely like some of the illustrations I saw.  Maybe I should be thinking more about b&w.

I work pretty much only in color, so I think I might want to try it anyway, even if I would have a hard time getting it published.  But this gives me something to think about.

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Role-Playing Games / D&D: Where are the meaningful choices?
« on: August 25, 2010, 04:01:41 AM »
Having spent the last few years playing board games, and mostly ignoring RPGs, I've given it some thought, and I realize: battles in the d20 system have no meaningful choices.  Especially at lower level.  Player Characters run up from one side of the room, monsters run up from the other side, and the two sides smack each other until one side falls down.  I understand there is some room for more interesting battles, but you end up with 2-hour combat scenes.  How boring!

Most modern, popular board games are crammed full of intense decision making in an hour or less.  Why can't the popular RPGs do this?  Am I wrong?  Where are the RPGs with the painful (the good kind of pain) choices in battle?

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Table-Top Games / Re: Dominion. Anyone played it?
« on: August 25, 2010, 01:43:03 AM »
I'm one of the artists for Dominion (there are many).  I did the Adventurer card in the original, and some others include the Merchant Ship and the Treasury in Seaside.

I'm a huge fan of all kinds of games, and I think Dominion is great.  It tends to work well for new people as well as gamers.  I will say that the look of it is pretty intimidating for new people (and that's coming from one of the artists).  I think it looks a little too much like Magic: The Gathering, and may scare some people off.  I'm always convincing people it's not nearly as complicated as it looks.

Having said that, the game my wife and I can't get enough of is Race for the Galaxy.  It's my favorite card game by far.  It does have a pretty nasty learning curve though, so I tend not to introduce it to new gamers.

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Writing Group / Re: Let's play: Where does my book go?
« on: August 24, 2010, 12:37:49 AM »
Thanks!  I didn't know about him, and it looks sort of like what I had in mind.

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Writing Group / Let's play: Where does my book go?
« on: August 23, 2010, 12:14:25 AM »
I'm about one-third through the first draft of my book.  My original concept for it was to be a young-adult novel with lots of color illustrations (as I am an illustrator, and part of the motivation to write the story was so I could paint for it as well).  Then I realized, the local book store doesn't seem to have anything like that!  So, before I plunge onward, and paint tons of color illustrations, I need to figure out where the market is.

So, should I be promoting this thing like it's a graphic novel, with lots of color illustrations, but no panels?  (In which case, it would have to have at least one page illustration per page of text, sort of like The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett, illustrated by Paul Kidby.)

Or, should I be promoting it like it's a YA novel with some color illustrations?  Is there anything like that?

Or, would it not fit into the market right now in its current form?

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Movies and TV / Re: The Last Airbender
« on: August 22, 2010, 05:12:09 PM »
Biggest disappointment of recent years for me.  I will say no more.

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Video Games / Re: favorite FF
« on: August 22, 2010, 05:06:08 PM »
VI is one of my favorite games ever!  Then it goes: VII, Tactics, XII.  Most of the other new ones have been seriously disappointing, especially XIII.  Talk about a game with no choices!  It should have been a movie.

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