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nonathlon posted:Right. I have the impression that Elminster started as "just a guy" that could be used to narrate scenes or give an infodump, an NPC that showed up to drive the plot along. But powercreep ended up making him absurdly awesome until one of the D&D revamps knocked him down to being an enfeebled and deluded geriatric. I think I did a bad job there -- I was agreeing with the post I quoted. I think he's fine as an overpowered winking narrator figure... as long as he's not in a story. if he is then there's no point.
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Mar 30, 2022 13:12
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I liked Elminster as a cameo in a crpg. I think he's in Baldurs Gate and IWD2? I kinda read those books cause I was interested in them for a lore aspect but they kinda even fail even there.
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Mar 30, 2022 13:19
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I've been reading Book of the New Sun, which owns, and it just stands out so much how a book about an actual torturer manages to display the act of torture as a purely clinical and emotionally detached process where the horror comes from the psychological and physiological implications of it being a ritualistic practice that treats humans like projects that need to be broken before they are then discarded - way more effective and terrifying than pouring molten lead down a child's throat and making GBS threads on him or whatever. One method described is being blasted by a weird laser light that awakes *something* within you that wants to kill you. It won't happen immediately, but you will involuntarily start to claw your eyes out while you're asleep and you can try and hold it back but within a month or so you'll have no willpower left and you won't be able to stop your own arms from choking yourself. Hakkesshu fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Mar 30, 2022 |
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Mar 30, 2022 13:28
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I fished up a relevant interview with Greenwood. Elminster isn't his favorite, either: https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/09/interview-ed-greenwood-part-iii.html?m=1
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Mar 30, 2022 13:55
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I wish more fantasy authors had been inspired by Gene "Mr. Pringles" Wolfe. Book of the New Sun is the GOAT.
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Mar 30, 2022 14:03
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Groovelord Neato posted:I wish more fantasy authors had been inspired by Gene "Mr. Pringles" Wolfe. Book of the New Sun is the GOAT. Gene Wolf is an author who every time I read something by him I wonder why I don't read more of his books.
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Mar 30, 2022 14:28
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:So what is the Bad Fantasy of today? Is it all those formulaic YA trilogies? I feel like the bad fantasy of my childhood (I am 35) was more for a male audience and now it's more for a female audience. Do I have any facts to back this up? Absolutely not. I feel like today's bad fantasy are those god awful fairy romance books. A Court of Thorn and Shadows and its sequels. I've never read them and, barring something terrible going wrong in my life, I never will, but I heard they're stupid and bad. They also kicked off the naming trend in fiction of Thing of Thing and Thing, which is another sure-fire sign of a bad novel. (See also any thriller with Wife/Woman/Girl in the title.)
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Mar 30, 2022 17:01
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I'll cast a vote for the scores of similar takes on "I'm Banging A _$shapeshifter_" novels strewn through sf/fantasy sections instead of being dumped in romance or idk, the trash. TAKEN BY THE ALPHA / MARRIED TO A WEREBEAR / ROMANCED BY THE DRAGON KING / BARBARIAN ALIEN'S MISTRESS / POUNDED BY THE PIGEON EMPEROR / etc etc ad infinitum
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Mar 30, 2022 17:19
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Sisal Two-Step posted:I feel like today's bad fantasy are those god awful fairy romance books. A Court of Thorn and Shadows and its sequels. I've never read them and, barring something terrible going wrong in my life, I never will, but I heard they're stupid and bad. A Song of Ice and Fire is surely what set off that trend.
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Mar 30, 2022 17:37
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Jack-Off Lantern posted:So how many books are there and when are the collections coming out? The specific ones i'm talking about are out, you can get them for kindle at least. They're called The Elric Saga and have forwards by Neil Gaiman.
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Mar 30, 2022 17:50
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Lord Awkward posted:I'll cast a vote for the scores of similar takes on "I'm Banging A _$shapeshifter_" novels strewn through sf/fantasy sections instead of being dumped in romance or idk, the trash. ngl would buy the poo poo out of POUNDED BY THE PIGEON EMPEROR if I saw it on a shelf.
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Mar 30, 2022 17:51
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The Moon Monster posted:No it's just strongly encouraged. Also when not casting spells. Wait what? I read like... two of them? Before wandering off to something else, and I don't recall this! (Whatever the reason for bloviating may have been, noble or not, Jordan did bloviate.) All I remember was some questionable gender politics (dudes can't do magic bc it makes the crazy evil, bc men suck, ooh bad men with no self control or agency to not be evil!) with the wizard ladies.
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Mar 30, 2022 18:36
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DicktheCat posted:All I remember was some questionable gender politics (dudes can't do magic bc it makes the crazy evil, bc men suck, ooh bad men with no self control or agency to not be evil!) with the wizard ladies. Iirc it's not that men are inherently bad it's that they can only tap the male half of the Magic Source and that got booby trapped and tainted during Historic Events
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Mar 30, 2022 18:40
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DicktheCat posted:Wait what? It was a joke because as the series goes on it references spanking and other light BDSM stuff a lot. It was clearly a fetish of the author's but it is mostly not very important but whatever it's there. Unfortunately a major plot point in one of the Sanderson books resolved itself by a villain getting spanked, and Sanderson kind of had to shrug his shoulders and say that he didn't come up with idea, it was pure Robert Jordan, to which every fan immediately nodded in understanding. The reason WOT is so slow is that there are too many plot threads. Each of the major characters has at least 3-5 plot threads they are involved with at any given time from book 6 on. Then there are are plot threads from the bad guys, and random plot threads from minor characters that show up like maybe once a book. So you have somewhere between 30 and 40 plot threads going at once. Robert Jordan would then write a book where 3-5 of those plots threads would develop significantly, about 5 to 7 would be sort of 'ghosted' so they wouldn't show up for a book, but this leaves about 20-30 plots that have to be mentioned so you remember what they were and maybe have some incremental progress on them per book. And if the plot threads involve a major character, that usually means spending multiple chapter on them, even if they aren't really developing their story in this book.
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Mar 30, 2022 19:11
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Random Stranger posted:Gene Wolf is an author who every time I read something by him I wonder why I don't read more of his books. One of a handful of authors who, when I read them, make me feel simultaneously very smart and also very dumb. (Others in that category include Borges and Eco. None really belong in this thread.)
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Mar 30, 2022 19:17
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Groke posted:One of a handful of authors who, when I read them, make me feel simultaneously very smart and also very dumb. (Others in that category include Borges and Eco. None really belong in this thread.) The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert kinda made me feel that way. Like it seemed like it was making some kind of really deep and philosophical statement, but I could never figure out what the hell it actually was.
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Mar 30, 2022 21:57
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Lord Awkward posted:I'll cast a vote for the scores of similar takes on "I'm Banging A _$shapeshifter_" novels strewn through sf/fantasy sections instead of being dumped in romance or idk, the trash. Listen, buckaroo, love is real, and furthermore
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Mar 30, 2022 22:31
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I'm probably looking back with heavily rose tinted glasses due to being much younger, but I remember some of the short stories in Dragonlance were fun. There was some sort of spooky ghost monster that would not only kill you if it touched you, but make it so you no longer existed - everyone's memory of you would be erased, etc etc. One story was a bunch of mercs hired to loot an estate on an island that turned out to be full of said ghosts. Naturally over time they screw up and lose their Anti Ghost Devices or whatever, and eventually there's just the boat's pilot wondering why the hell he went to this island on his own, until he finds the ship full of belongings and figures out to gtfo. Fun story.
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Mar 30, 2022 22:38
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sweet geek swag posted:The reason WOT is so slow is that there are too many plot threads. Each of the major characters has at least 3-5 plot threads they are involved with at any given time from book 6 on. Then there are are plot threads from the bad guys, and random plot threads from minor characters that show up like maybe once a book. So you have somewhere between 30 and 40 plot threads going at once. Robert Jordan would then write a book where 3-5 of those plots threads would develop significantly, about 5 to 7 would be sort of 'ghosted' so they wouldn't show up for a book, but this leaves about 20-30 plots that have to be mentioned so you remember what they were and maybe have some incremental progress on them per book. And if the plot threads involve a major character, that usually means spending multiple chapter on them, even if they aren't really developing their story in this book. Also Robert Jordan was a FIRM believer in Cheko'vs Gun, so a lot of random details would show up 3-4 books later. He was setting up Lost-esque payoffs decades before the show.
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Mar 30, 2022 22:58
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:Listen, buckaroo, love is real, and furthermore Chuck Tingle gets a pass. sweet geek swag posted:threads threads threads When you have a wheel weaving on it's own they get everywhere. Lord Awkward fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Mar 30, 2022 |
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Mar 30, 2022 23:00
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Runcible Cat posted:ngl would buy the poo poo out of POUNDED BY THE PIGEON EMPEROR if I saw it on a shelf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatoful_Boyfriend
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Mar 30, 2022 23:01
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I'll admit to having enjoyed the first few Dragonlance books, when I was like 15 or so. Belgariad, same. Probably wouldn't push either series on my own kids, there's better stuff easily available now.
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Mar 30, 2022 23:15
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As a kid and tween I remember reading a lot of the Forgotten Realms books. I also remember picking some of them up in my early twenties and realizing that some of them didn't even hold up as dump pulp fiction. The ones that were based on the Pools of Radiance games were super-abysmal. Just all the worst elements of a paper RPG and video game adaption combined. Also Ed Greenwood seemed like a giant pervert who worked his fetishes into everything he possibly could. Yes, I know that describes about 90% of the guys who were writing sci-fi and fantasy books in the 80's and 90's, but out of the D&D writers he seemed especially blatant.
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Mar 30, 2022 23:52
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Second best fantasy series is Mrs. Piggle Wiggle The switch to magic potions was a step down from the first book's method of indulging the bad behavior in a way that forces them to realize they were wrong. In a way it was very prescient of how society stopped raising kids and started feeding them ritalin. Don't touch Dick Jack-Off Lantern posted:I liked Elminster as a cameo in a crpg. I think he's in Baldurs Gate and IWD2? Yeah, he doesn't get in the way when he shows up in D&D Online either.
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Mar 30, 2022 23:55
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Razakai posted:There was some sort of spooky ghost monster that would not only kill you if it touched you, but make it so you no longer existed - everyone's memory of you would be erased, etc etc. **** I remember a Dragonlance book that was basically "what if WWII air combat but DRAGONS!" and while the fact I read it age 17 probably matters, I remember it being one of two books I've ever had to pause reading just to pump my fist and say "gently caress yeah!" Good times.
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Mar 31, 2022 00:09
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DicktheCat posted:Wait what? The Wizard Ladies were the epitome of MAN-HATING EVIL FEMINAZIS and everyone hated them and disrespected them and there was huge anti-Wizard Lady murder squads roaming the countryside despite the Wizard Ladies supposedly running the continent. And then when men became able to safely become channelers it turned out that a fresh newbie male channeler tended to be stronger than any given female channeler, and in fact a female channeler's max power level (DBZ style, yes) was capped much lower than a male channeler's.
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Mar 31, 2022 01:10
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Blastedhellscape posted:
I remember reading Spellfire and being appalled by the number of times "main character uses her superpower, her tits fall out, and she passes out" got used in one book.
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Mar 31, 2022 02:39
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Ed Greenwood should stick to dungeon design.
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Mar 31, 2022 02:45
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ExecuDork posted:
what was the other?
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Mar 31, 2022 03:18
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Veth posted:I remember reading Spellfire and being appalled by the number of times "main character uses her superpower, her tits fall out, and she passes out" got used in one book. I can't help it, I am curious of how exactly that works.
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Mar 31, 2022 04:15
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Runcible Cat posted:ngl would buy the poo poo out of POUNDED BY THE PIGEON EMPEROR if I saw it on a shelf. Came here to post this.
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Mar 31, 2022 05:16
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Kchama posted:The Wizard Ladies were the epitome of MAN-HATING EVIL FEMINAZIS and everyone hated them and disrespected them and there was huge anti-Wizard Lady murder squads roaming the countryside despite the Wizard Ladies supposedly running the continent. I thought only the.... red? Green? Ones hated men? They were by colors, I recall that. Part of why I did fall off the wagon was that I could see where it was going, the male half of magic was sick, but more powerful. Don't divide your magic on gender lines, that's dumb. I don't even know what a trans person would be able to do in such a world. A nonbinary individual might just be a god.
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Mar 31, 2022 13:20
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Cornwind Evil posted:I can't help it, I am curious of how exactly that works. Not OP, but iirc, her powers involved the magical fire she wielded conveniently burning her clothes off. (When I was younger and had more time to waste, I made multiple attempts to read Spellfire. I want that time back now.)
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Mar 31, 2022 13:29
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DicktheCat posted:I thought only the.... red? Green? Ones hated men? They were by colors, I recall that. Red Ajah were the man haters, Green Ajah loved the bouncy bouncy with men and had harems, iirc.
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Mar 31, 2022 13:36
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Veth posted:I remember reading Spellfire and being appalled by the number of times "main character uses her superpower, her tits fall out, and she passes out" got used in one book. Oh god you just reminded me of "Peter Saxon". He was a house name used by 60s/70s UK pulp publishers, and you could always tell when it was actually - I think Wilfred McNeilly? - writing them because at some point you'd have the heroine in peril accidentally showing her "frilly knickers". drat he loved those frilly knickers.
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Mar 31, 2022 14:06
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ExecuDork posted:That's basically the main point of John Dies at the End. John doesn't die, but another character does about 1/2-way through and is erased. All of the other characters simply stop talking about him. Their story becomes/always was "crazy poo poo happened to the four of us", and it's only in the author notes at the end of the book that the reader is reminded that five characters got together in the first few chapters. I wonder if David Wong / Jason Pargin read that Dragonlance story when he was younger. The Legend of Huma. Noticeable for Huma not actually loving his silver dragon. Kaz the Minotaur rode a bronze dragon into battle with the good guys. One for the very few D&D books to have an otherwise evil inhuman race not be automatically evil.
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Mar 31, 2022 16:29
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DicktheCat posted:Wait what? I don't remember the actual frequency, but the books are definitely proponents of wife spanking a la old timey western movies. There was also a bunch of frat-boy hazing style stuff involved in the ceremonies and punishments of the worlds various magical societies.
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Mar 31, 2022 17:42
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Runcible Cat posted:drat he loved those frilly knickers. This is the most British thing I’ve ever heard. Proving once again that Britain is the world’s least sexy country. Azerbaijan is Brazil in comparison.
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Mar 31, 2022 18:39
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feedmegin posted:Red Ajah were the man haters, Green Ajah loved the bouncy bouncy with men and had harems, iirc. yes, correct Red Ajah is rawr men suck, i have PMS literally nonstop Green is i am an ethically polyamorous vegan crystal witch, swipe right if you're a unicorn  Yellow is Healer Class uh... Blue is like... Ravenclaw? Maybe? i think there's a White Ajah? Black is obviously Bad Girls Club i think that's all of them.... oh wait no there's also Brown, which is I Am Boring
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Mar 31, 2022 20:19
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robert jordan had a deep and comprehensve grasp on the full specrum of women, truly
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