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Djeser posted:the only good sex scene in books is the one in Angelmaker where the sexy sex lady has her bed mounted on a giant steel frame driven under the train tracks and had conditioned herself into only being able to cum when a train is passing next to her house I got a feeling the author heard and greatly misunderstood the phrase "ran a train on her."
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Mar 2, 2020 05:17
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it's exactly as bonkers as everything else that happens in that book
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Mar 2, 2020 05:46
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https://twitter.com/Devon_OnEarth/status/1234229657702207490?s=19 Can't wait to see how Rowling justifies how all these schools in areas with vastly more population and different languages than Hogwarts even function. "No no no. Great Britain gets a school all to itself because the British are simply more inherently magical, you see." Edit: Also, Italy, Greece and a chunk of the Middle East don't even get to go to magic school. grittyreboot has a new favorite as of 07:29 on Mar 2, 2020 |
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Mar 2, 2020 07:17
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grittyreboot posted:https://twitter.com/Devon_OnEarth/status/1234229657702207490?s=19 ...Magic, surely?
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Mar 2, 2020 07:29
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The idea that snow wizards need to go to some school called Numberwang is pretty laughable.
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Mar 2, 2020 07:40
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I'm a big fan of "Japan gets its own school and the entire rest of Asia, including the two most populous countries on Earth, shares one"
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Mar 2, 2020 09:08
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Antivehicular posted:I'm a big fan of "Japan gets its own school and the entire rest of Asia, including the two most populous countries on Earth, shares one" Not all of Asia. Some of it's grouped in with Australia and New Zealand and the Pacific islands.
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Mar 2, 2020 09:16
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grittyreboot posted:https://twitter.com/Devon_OnEarth/status/1234229657702207490?s=19 You could argue that these are just the major or world famous schools, and that there's a network of lesser or less famous schools, or that it's somehow an accident of history where they are and what populations they serve. Something like world famous universities, or research institutes. But it seems that she's clear that, no, these are all of them.
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Mar 2, 2020 09:38
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grittyreboot posted:https://twitter.com/Devon_OnEarth/status/1234229657702207490?s=19 That's Afghanistan, and I seriously had a moment where I was like 'the Caspian Sea is farther east than I thought" because it just looks like a hole in the map. The worst part about all JK's 'new' HP stuff is how creatively dead it comes off in comparison to her books. Like the lore is that most magicians are taught at home, so it would make sense to only have a few schools in the world where magical populations are particularly dense and/or formal schooling is common. But I guess then fans couldn't look at a map and find their school so here's a bunch of geographically implausible districts with no logical assumption or detailed backstory for how they came to exist. Anyone remember the name of the alternative US school that tumblr invented? It was located inside Mt. Rushmore and Joe Biden was headmaster.
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Mar 2, 2020 10:00
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It just occurred to me: wizards can teleport. Why would these schools be based around geographic region rather than eg. language? It's no easier to get to a school that's nearby. If you want to go to Hogwarts, you just teleport to London and get the train like everyone else.
Tiggum has a new favorite as of 10:20 on Mar 2, 2020 |
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Mar 2, 2020 10:18
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Wizard teleportation is explicitly a difficult thing to do and generally not done too casually, Harry and pals only get taught how to do it in the last book or two. (more or less equivalent to getting a driver's license) They do have other means, but I think the idea of using mass transit is to safely and conveniently transport hundreds of children, the youngest of which can't do any magic reliably yet.
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Mar 2, 2020 10:21
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Tiggum posted:It just occurred to me: wizards can teleport. Why would these schools be based around geographic region rather than eg. language? It's no easier to get to a school that's nearby. If you want to go to Hogwarts, you just teleport to London and get the train like everyone else. I mean the only other school JKR fleshed out at all was Ilvermorny in the U.S. and it was founded by a bunch of British immigrants who had to teach the backwards native wizards in some real white man's burden poo poo. I'm assuming if she expanded on the others they'd all be explicitly British boarding schools with four houses conveniently founded by some family that got a throw-away mention in the books.
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Mar 2, 2020 10:40
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there wolf posted:The worst part about all JK's 'new' HP stuff is how creatively dead it comes off in comparison to her books. Sorry, this is the same person who named a werewolf 'Remus Lupin', right?
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Mar 2, 2020 10:42
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Angry Salami posted:Sorry, this is the same person who named a werewolf 'Remus Lupin', right? I always wonder why this always gets trotted out, but not that she named the dude who turns into a large black dog 'Sirius Black'. Also named a dude Marvolo just for a throw-away anagram that still had an extraneous 'I am' thrown in
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Mar 2, 2020 10:59
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All of this just makes me glad that when people were saying "you should totally read these kid's books despite being a grown-rear end man" I said "lol no?" But enough about Terry Pratchett.
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Mar 2, 2020 11:13
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Wizard teleportation is explicitly a difficult thing to do and generally not done too casually, Harry and pals only get taught how to do it in the last book or two. (more or less equivalent to getting a driver's license)
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Mar 2, 2020 13:07
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in the thumbnail, the North American school looks like it is called EVERHORNY and I can get behind that, esp. if there was some trashy 80s sex comedy about wizard school to be made
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Mar 2, 2020 13:37
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Pastry of the Year posted:in the thumbnail, the North American school looks like it is called EVERHORNY and I can get behind that, esp. if there was some trashy 80s sex comedy about wizard school to be made *uses a spell to lift a line of girls' robes* *imitates a boner with wand*
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Mar 2, 2020 13:42
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Pastry of the Year posted:in the thumbnail, the North American school looks like it is called EVERHORNY and I can get behind that, esp. if there was some trashy 80s sex comedy about wizard school to be made The Magicians is sort of that, and its terrible. Its also recommended by JK rowing. I'm pretty sure that map is just fan made though, based on what schools have been revealed in canon material.
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Mar 2, 2020 13:53
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Antivehicular posted:I'm a big fan of "Japan gets its own school and the entire rest of Asia, including the two most populous countries on Earth, shares one" Lol that the Korean peninsula is also coloured in with Japan school colours. No can of worms there, no-siree. Also ew I would have to go to wizard school with Australians.
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Mar 2, 2020 16:17
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Might be worth it just to hear someone yell out OI, CHECK OUT THAT oval office'S PATRONUS! though.
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Mar 2, 2020 16:21
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If I recall correctly, the Japanese one is literally named "magic place" (and it's not even a grammatical Japanese compound word). Maybe it's better that she didn't bother to name the last three.
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Mar 2, 2020 16:35
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quote:all of Latin America being served by a school named in Portuguese. Indeed. This reminds me that, at the height of my involvement in Harry Potter fandom (2000-2001), I amused myself in Spanish class by writing a series of dialogues about a journey to Mexico's very own colegio magico (yes, there should be an accent mark, but I'm phoneposting). I don't remember giving it a name, though, and those fanworks were lost in the FFN script-format purge of 2004. Ninja edit: That is, indeed, what the Japanese name means - that one killed me, too. You'd think whoever made this map could have at least looked up a word for 'school' or 'academy.' PurpleButterfly has a new favorite as of 16:43 on Mar 2, 2020 |
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Mar 2, 2020 16:41
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I actually had an idea for an RPG campaign set in the Harry Potter universe, but based around street kids in 1970s New York. Basically The Warriors with magic.
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Mar 2, 2020 16:42
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chitoryu12 posted:I actually had an idea for an RPG campaign set in the Harry Potter universe, but based around street kids in 1970s New York. Basically The Warriors with magic. You better have wanted to use the Unknown Armies rules for this. 'cos if you didn't... 
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Mar 2, 2020 16:59
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Rascar Capac posted:You better have wanted to use the Unknown Armies rules for this. I have no idea what that is! It's actually somewhat hard to balance Harry Potter magic in game terms because it's a setting where magic is completely effortless. There's no mana or exhaustion or energy requirements or spell slots, you just wave your wand and things happen. Except for potions and complicated ritual stuff, it's more about learning spells than actually making strategic choices because you can just cast again and again. I was thinking about setting the spells as if they were "skills" and you have to put in time and resources for study instead to raise your chance of success, with spell difficulty levels determining how much study and practice is needed to put the next point in. The ease of magic is one of the things I wish Rowling had covered more instead of using it for a few gags. Wizarding society has actually stagnated because (in addition to their self-imposed isolation from non-magical humans) access to magic has made life so easy that they've gotten used to using it as a crutch. It would be interesting to see the deeper implications, like wizards and witches having an extremely poor grasp of science and technology compared to Muggles because their education is almost exclusively about magic and they've never had to learn it as deeply as someone who needs to use science to improve society. Or their reliance on using magic to solve all their problems means a lot of them grow up with poor problem-solving skills and are hopeless when confronted with a situation that they can't magic away.
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Mar 2, 2020 17:27
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chitoryu12 posted:I actually had an idea for an RPG campaign set in the Harry Potter universe, but based around street kids in 1970s New York. Basically The Warriors with magic. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to bring in Vinz Clortho High! https://youtu.be/j-2ZxldMO-M
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Mar 2, 2020 18:59
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PurpleButterfly posted:Indeed. This reminds me that, at the height of my involvement in Harry Potter fandom (2000-2001), I amused myself in Spanish class by writing a series of dialogues about a journey to Mexico's very own colegio magico (yes, there should be an accent mark, but I'm phoneposting). I don't remember giving it a name, though, and those fanworks were lost in the FFN script-format purge of 2004. the map is fanmade. the names are official.
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Mar 2, 2020 23:35
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chitoryu12 posted:I have no idea what that is! Unknown Armies is an RPG based around 'postmodern magic'. There's three major magic types: Rituals: This is doing poo poo like wrapping your fists in an original VHS tape of Enter the Dragon to give yourself the fighting prowess of Bruce Lee (OG mages use ripped Torah pages for Prowess of Samson, but getting your hands on one is harder), or pricking your finger into an egg yolk to point to your family. Even 'regular' characters in the game can learn a couple of these and it's pretty valuable to be a 'normie' because the next school is... Adepts: People who draw upon some kind of paradox/contradiction/irony for their magic. 'Epideromancers' (the game acknowledges that -mancy should not be a catch-all suffix but wizards think it sounds cooler than -urgy) self-mutilate to get body-warping powers. Videomancers need to watch their syndicated show every day and in return can make life more like TV shows. Entropomancers take life-threatening risks in order to manipulate luck in their favour later on. Being any of these basically requires being a bit insane. Avatars: People who draw upon some kind of 'personality archetype' like the Masterless Man, or The Mother, or the True King, and get passive benefits from that. Becoming superpowerful in your archetype lets you 'ascend' (and supposedly have control over the next incarnation of the universe once 333 people manage it) but runs the risk of drawing the ire of who you're replacing if there's already a Mother up there. The archetypal party, if one exists, is some adepts supporting an avatar in their ascension quest, minded by a normie who is actually able to do things like manage money, not be drunk all the time, or do something other than watch Seinfeld reruns at 6PM. Notable in this thread that the rulebooks are written pretty well and are pretty inspiring. -- That said for Harry Potter style wizarding the easiest thing to do is steal the rules from Ars Magica, which are already faux Latin combinations of a verb (like creating, shaping, etc) and a noun (plants, forces, etc) so you can even geek out and say "Creo Fauna" or something. On the other hand Ars Magica is explicitly set in a more supernatural version of medieval Europe and surrounds (northern Africa, Turkey, etc) so have fun sticking that in the modern world.
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Mar 3, 2020 00:55
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A friend of mine made a syntactic/word of power magic system based on a game that I ran a few years prior. The test game was run as kind of a long burning Harry Potter style of game where we combined teenagers and learning how to use phenomenal cosmic power day by day. It turned out that brutally fair consequences for magic, high power, and really low stakes for the rest of the world is a really fun combination. My original game, and one of the default settings of the system (Grimoire: Tales of Wizardry and Intrigue. This whole post has been enough of a plug without me directly linking to DTRPG) was about older students, and the rules are adaptable to any world. The basic idea behind spellcasting is pretty similar: string together some vaguely Latin words, which get interpreted along with your intent to form an effect. For example, potentia radia - energy line - is a lightning bolt. One fun thing is that while you can use all the different words, there are some that your character will be better at, and when all you have is a hammer (magic), the world looks like one big nail. Also, waving a wand prop at the table as part of the casting is in the rules and I thoroughly recommend anyone looking to do a Harry Potter kind of game to do something else.  I've also been plucking away at writing up a ruleset for doing magic school shenanigans but this is getting way too trad games already and I don't post here regularly enough to get away with it  e: Unknown Armies is great and I need to check out the new edition to see how changes in the way we consume media have affected stuff like Videomancers.
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Mar 3, 2020 01:35
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Obviously the only reasonable high school rpg system is Monsterhearts.
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Mar 3, 2020 03:14
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Anticheese posted:] I'd be surprised if videomancers were still a thing since the whole contradiction required you to be viewing it as everyone else did, to consume in the cultural zeitgeist by shunning reality for fiction.
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Mar 3, 2020 03:16
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Anticheese posted:A friend of mine made a syntactic/word of power magic system based on a game that I ran a few years prior. The test game was run as kind of a long burning Harry Potter style of game where we combined teenagers and learning how to use phenomenal cosmic power day by day. It turned out that brutally fair consequences for magic, high power, and really low stakes for the rest of the world is a really fun combination. My original game, and one of the default settings of the system (Grimoire: Tales of Wizardry and Intrigue. This whole post has been enough of a plug without me directly linking to DTRPG) was about older students, and the rules are adaptable to any world. That's an interesting idea for creating spells, since the books establish that even smart high schoolers can create new spells but doesn't provide any information about it. Children can perform magic that fulfills their base desires (like young Harry teleporting around or making the glass at the zoo disappear) but with limited control, so maybe there's something about creating an incantation and wand motion that acts as a sufficient mnemonic device in addition to focusing on the effects? I know it's kid books but I think she could have excused a deeper dive into the magic system for the later ones that were aimed at teens. They're already doorstoppers.
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Mar 3, 2020 03:20
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I'm one of those weirdos that doesn't like playing tabletop RPGs, but does like reading the books. I liked reading Unknown Armies. Anyway, a few goons did writeups on various UA materials and you can read them on this quite good archive site: https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/
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Mar 3, 2020 03:31
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I feel I should mention Pigsmoke, which I think was written by a goon. Perfect for playing your Harry Potter RPG shenanigans. Well, except you play as the faculty and you wish that those annoying students (particularly that one with the weird scar and the tragic backstory) would leave you alone so you can finish publishing your next paper and get the dean off your back. The dean may also be some sort of time traveling golem and you may have made some promises to an ancient forgotten god in order to obtain tenure. You know, academia.
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Mar 3, 2020 04:10
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Unknown Armies is the one that gives me Venture Bros vibes in practice because the whole theme is basically 'magical bumfights' with crazy people powered by their obsessions and delusions fighting it out over... whatever, probably in the parking lot of an Arby's.
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Mar 3, 2020 04:44
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i'm in a game of UA and one of the players joined a cult and became a pornomancer
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Mar 3, 2020 05:23
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Mycroft Holmes posted:i'm in a game of UA and one of the players joined a cult and became a pornomancer pro-tier username there, my dude
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Mar 4, 2020 05:17
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Mycroft Holmes posted:i'm in a game of UA and one of the players joined a cult and became a pornomancer It's the kind of game where the homeless Santa-looking dude living out of a shopping cart and dressed in five bathrobes might be the most powerful wizard in the city, or just some alcoholic bum with PTSD and at least a couple of psychoses. Or, not unlikely, both at once.
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Mar 5, 2020 11:28
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Orson Scott Card has already been poked fun at quite a lot but as a fellow Mormon I thought I'd shed some light on something you might not have been aware of. Early in the thread someone said that Speaker for the Dead is decent. Did you know that Card served his 2 year mission for the LDS church in Brazil? Speaker for the Dead is about some folks going to a place full of noble savage natives that speak Portuguese and ends with the main guy sacrificing his life to save everyone and there's a whole 'I taught them and they taught me' subtext. Sort of like how Mormon missionaries sacrifice (two years of) their lives to preach the gospel in strange and exotic locations to the natives. Re-read the book but substitute the main character for 19-year-old Card and the natives as Brazilians. Substitute the disease with 'sin' and the cure with 'the gospel'. Speaker of the Dead was Card whacking it to a starry-eyed version of the great sacrifice he made bringing light to our misguided brethren and sisters down south. You're welcome. Edit: Though if you ever thought Christian fiction was bad, maybe try some Mormon fiction. Look up Chris Heimerdinger, he's our main Mormon fiction guy. He wrote a bunch of YA books about kids traveling back in time to Book of Mormon days and stuff. Also his self-insert character gets to take his kids to meet Jesus. He even does weird stuff where he takes ambiguous lines from the Book of Mormon and says 'that was referring to these time-traveling characters' (I mean he doesn't actually believe that of course but he uses that to build the lore of the books). In one of the books a character comments that Mexico's state bird is a cockroach. In the same book, he pauses to call out a UFO cult forming at BYU and put it in no uncertain terms that UFO cults do not mesh with Mormon beliefs, no sir. So get that club out of our school! anyway back to the story I think his best(?) one was some nice historical fanfiction about how one of the main characters in the Book of Mormon was BFFs with Daniel from the Bible. Getsuya has a new favorite as of 20:02 on Mar 6, 2020 |
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Mar 6, 2020 19:55
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