(no subject)
Books:
I don't think I'm going to do reviews of all of the books I've read since my last real set of updates, other than a couple of quick notes and recommendations (assuming that anyone is reading this and cares about my recommendations). We read a story collection by George Saunders called CivilWarLand in Bad Decline for my book club a few months back. Saunders gets a ton of acclaim from modern critics, so I was eager to check this book out, but I didn't see the hype at first. A lot of his stories from CiBD deal with very similar issues and even have similar structures - they're all really freaking depressing, for one thing, and involve people getting absolutely crushed by life and despair. I tried another collection of his called Pastoralia, which I thought was more of the same - even more of the same specific ideas. For example, he's really into the idea of theme parks about mundane things, like a hyper-realistic amusement park showing the detailed minutia of the lives of some cavemen, or medieval theme parks where modern serfs pretend to be medieval serfs. Those were both the kind of books where, intellectually, as you read them you know they're good, and they make you think, but you don't connect with them emotionally. When I recently picked up his newest collection, Tenth of December, I was blown away - the stories are less experimental, I guess, but way more emotionally accessible. They're sad, but not so soul crushing you feel like the author is laughing at you and the characters. Great stuff, particularly the last story.
I also read Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series a few months back, which I enjoyed, though not nearly as much as the Dresden Files. I thought the world was really well-built, and he did a lot of cool thinking about how magic would function in warfare, but I wasn't too impressed with the main character. He was a bit of a Mary Sue - he's a genius, he's good at everything he tries, he's a badass in combat, his intellectual and moral instincts are always right, and every single competent character in the series either loves him or really respects him. The closest thing he has to a character flaw is that he cares too much. Seriously.
I also just recently started reading the Bible. I'm going through it front to back, and I'm currently in the middle of the book of Joshua. The Torah is fascinating, but also pretty shocking. I knew that there were passages portraying slavery as acceptable, but what I didn't expect was so much genocide, which is not merely acceptable but actively encouraged. Politically I understand why it's in there, but it raises a bunch of questions about how to apply the Bible to one's life. Anyway, I'm very glad to finally be doing this and look forward to continuing the project.
RPG Books:
Thinking about these is what made me decide to get back to this journal, as I've been reading some interesting RPG books that I have no plans to run, but about which I have some thoughts I'd like to get down somewhere. Most notably, I've recently been reading two fairly elaborate myth-based RPGs by noted indie RPG designers. I don't think I'd run either, but they're interesting for different reasons. The first one, which I'm finished reading, is called Nine Worlds, and is about a setting where the Greek gods and Titans are in the process of battling over the planets in the solar system. Modern science is totally fake in this setting, and is Prometheus' (Earth's "ruler") way of protecting its inhabitants from the Titans. Each character in the game has a set of story goals which tie him to the setting and which the game is about resolving. The conflict resolution mechanic involves playing cards, with players drawing cards depending on how they choose to resolve a situation (with magic or without), then picking a suit to represent the kind of solution they're using (active, static, etc.). The player with the higher total when adding the number of cards of that suit to a stat wins the conflict. When you win rounds of a conflict, you get to affect the game, depending on what stat you used to win - you can take the other person's stats down, raise yours, transfer stat points, or lock someone's stat at a certain level. Moderately complicated and not really related to the theme, but interesting.
Next up is the game I'm currently reading, called Mythender. This one has a setting where all of the gods and creatures of myth are real, and you play someone who wants to kill them and convert them to mythology...for some reason. It's up to you why they all need to die. You battle mythological creatures, then you have scenes where you can either try to reclaim some humanity by making a connection with a person or gain godly power by...I don't know, doing godly stuff. The problem is that if you get too godly, you become a god and the other players have to murder you...for reasons. If you can't tell, I'm not in love with the theme. The mechanics are also really complex, and I'm not sure why except that part of the design philosophy was that you should chuck a ton of dice. You have one pool of dice that you roll to gain tokens that can be spent to damage foes or do some other stuff, and you have another pool that you roll to get more dice into the first pool. When you get hurt, dice come out of that first pool, also. Then you have some more tokens that you use to activate powers and such. You also have weapons that you spend time charging up so that you can drain them for more dice in later rounds. Seems really complicated and not really worth the time, but it's an interesting failure. You can tell the designer was way into the concept of being a group of dudes running around killing gods.
I don't think I'm going to do reviews of all of the books I've read since my last real set of updates, other than a couple of quick notes and recommendations (assuming that anyone is reading this and cares about my recommendations). We read a story collection by George Saunders called CivilWarLand in Bad Decline for my book club a few months back. Saunders gets a ton of acclaim from modern critics, so I was eager to check this book out, but I didn't see the hype at first. A lot of his stories from CiBD deal with very similar issues and even have similar structures - they're all really freaking depressing, for one thing, and involve people getting absolutely crushed by life and despair. I tried another collection of his called Pastoralia, which I thought was more of the same - even more of the same specific ideas. For example, he's really into the idea of theme parks about mundane things, like a hyper-realistic amusement park showing the detailed minutia of the lives of some cavemen, or medieval theme parks where modern serfs pretend to be medieval serfs. Those were both the kind of books where, intellectually, as you read them you know they're good, and they make you think, but you don't connect with them emotionally. When I recently picked up his newest collection, Tenth of December, I was blown away - the stories are less experimental, I guess, but way more emotionally accessible. They're sad, but not so soul crushing you feel like the author is laughing at you and the characters. Great stuff, particularly the last story.
I also read Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series a few months back, which I enjoyed, though not nearly as much as the Dresden Files. I thought the world was really well-built, and he did a lot of cool thinking about how magic would function in warfare, but I wasn't too impressed with the main character. He was a bit of a Mary Sue - he's a genius, he's good at everything he tries, he's a badass in combat, his intellectual and moral instincts are always right, and every single competent character in the series either loves him or really respects him. The closest thing he has to a character flaw is that he cares too much. Seriously.
I also just recently started reading the Bible. I'm going through it front to back, and I'm currently in the middle of the book of Joshua. The Torah is fascinating, but also pretty shocking. I knew that there were passages portraying slavery as acceptable, but what I didn't expect was so much genocide, which is not merely acceptable but actively encouraged. Politically I understand why it's in there, but it raises a bunch of questions about how to apply the Bible to one's life. Anyway, I'm very glad to finally be doing this and look forward to continuing the project.
RPG Books:
Thinking about these is what made me decide to get back to this journal, as I've been reading some interesting RPG books that I have no plans to run, but about which I have some thoughts I'd like to get down somewhere. Most notably, I've recently been reading two fairly elaborate myth-based RPGs by noted indie RPG designers. I don't think I'd run either, but they're interesting for different reasons. The first one, which I'm finished reading, is called Nine Worlds, and is about a setting where the Greek gods and Titans are in the process of battling over the planets in the solar system. Modern science is totally fake in this setting, and is Prometheus' (Earth's "ruler") way of protecting its inhabitants from the Titans. Each character in the game has a set of story goals which tie him to the setting and which the game is about resolving. The conflict resolution mechanic involves playing cards, with players drawing cards depending on how they choose to resolve a situation (with magic or without), then picking a suit to represent the kind of solution they're using (active, static, etc.). The player with the higher total when adding the number of cards of that suit to a stat wins the conflict. When you win rounds of a conflict, you get to affect the game, depending on what stat you used to win - you can take the other person's stats down, raise yours, transfer stat points, or lock someone's stat at a certain level. Moderately complicated and not really related to the theme, but interesting.
Next up is the game I'm currently reading, called Mythender. This one has a setting where all of the gods and creatures of myth are real, and you play someone who wants to kill them and convert them to mythology...for some reason. It's up to you why they all need to die. You battle mythological creatures, then you have scenes where you can either try to reclaim some humanity by making a connection with a person or gain godly power by...I don't know, doing godly stuff. The problem is that if you get too godly, you become a god and the other players have to murder you...for reasons. If you can't tell, I'm not in love with the theme. The mechanics are also really complex, and I'm not sure why except that part of the design philosophy was that you should chuck a ton of dice. You have one pool of dice that you roll to gain tokens that can be spent to damage foes or do some other stuff, and you have another pool that you roll to get more dice into the first pool. When you get hurt, dice come out of that first pool, also. Then you have some more tokens that you use to activate powers and such. You also have weapons that you spend time charging up so that you can drain them for more dice in later rounds. Seems really complicated and not really worth the time, but it's an interesting failure. You can tell the designer was way into the concept of being a group of dudes running around killing gods.