Kasimir

I've tried this fantasy series by Kelly McCullough (his Fallen Blade series, the first book of which would be Broken Blade), which turns out as "Der zerborstene Klinge" auf Deutsch. I've tried den Hobbit, as well as a children's series by Robert Flanagan (Ranger's Apprentice.) The latter is easier for me as my German is not very good. DzK has proven to be very, very, very difficult even with the help of the original English. And I've tried Alexey Pehov's Schattenwanderer, and the second book, whose title eludes me at the moment. Kinder des Nebels kind of makes sense, if you squint. Krieger des Feuers? I don't even--I just can't see how that makes sense

...There are some things that even Mashadar refuses to touch.

I will not procrastinate on my work, no matter the temptation.

I semi-agree that it might be more luck that gives us our first mutineer, but I have to admit, I kind of like the no-reliance on Seeker-type roles that goes on. It makes the game more fun and challenging, in a sense, because really, there's a lot to do, even without having to wait for a Seeker. We'll definitely have to really be on the ball for this one!And possibly a second Elantrian-blooded, although it is all lies. Blatant lies. He just won't tell you where he's from And Meta: Thank you! Yes, I was referring to gambled coins. Sorry for my bad phrasing!

They're not all mine Some of them come from shy comrades in the dead doc! Of whom Rengar is not one Extra question: just to make sure this is the case, do people who don't succeed in their gambling attempt lose all their coins? So winner gets one extra and keeps his current amount, losers lose everything?

Ah, fair enough. I was curious about how you found the translations of Sanderson (partly, I admit, because I was wondering if it was worth getting my grubby paws on a copy ) I have tried this experiment with one or two other authors, but it didn't work so well. I definitely think I can understand what you mean by things getting lost, especially when the author has created his own terms (e.g. Shardblade, Shardplate...) And you started with Elantris and Mistborn! That was the route I took as well I'm surprised that they split WoK as well; that would definitely be pretty annoying, to have to wait for the second half or get two copies. But then again, I think I recall them doing something like that with Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles as well. 'Splitterklinge' klingt richtig seltsam, oder? Unfortunately, I have to take the opposite route: read it in English, and then read it in German, and hope for the best

Meta: Thank you so much for your forbearance and your explanation. It makes perfect sense to me now!

Argh. Sorry I seem to be the Leeroy and this game hasn't even really started yet, but just to make sure I'm absolutely clear about what we're supposed to do: Standard win conditions apply. Mutineers need to outnumber Crew, at which point they can lynch you. Crew needs to get rid of all the Mutineers, and there's no danger of the Crew accidentally pitching in on a lynch on Crushthroat, i.e. you. Would that be the case? Again, I'm sorry. I seem to be getting more and more confused. If I'm not getting this right, and it's too much of a bother, could someone else explain this to me, please? :S

Thanks so much, Meta! I have one last clarification (for now ) regarding what you said in response to Question 4. Does 'it has to be a lynch' apply to both the Mutineers and loyal Crewmembers? So if Crushthroat manages to kill a Mutineer, that causes the Crew to fail their objective immediately as they have to be taken out by a lynch?

Welcome to 17th Shard! I've always wanted to ask this: do you read Sanderson's books translated or do you prefer the English versions, then?

It would be awesome, but I have other means of inciting chaos outside of the court. I do not need to be permanently associated with Mashadar, much less a Mashadar Zoo

GM-to-be: if it's ok, I have some clarificatory questions from myself and from shy comrades in the dead doc 1. Are players allowed to give items? 2. Is gambling public? How much of it gets revealed in the write-up? 3. Are secondary actions done by PM or in-thread as well? 4. The win condition says 'lynch'. Does a kill by axe of a mutineer or Crushthroat count towards this condition? 5. What is Crushthroat's role? Will Crushthroat even know if he's Crushthroat? 6. How do the multiple kills allowed by the axe work? Is there a kill limit per cycle, or in the entire game? 7. When you say the Mutineers can only send one PM, do you mean one PM message, or that they can only start one for that cycle? (I'm leaning towards the former but I'd like to be sure ) Thank you so much! Sorry, we were discussing a bit in there as it's...dead boring

Kai signing up. Some people think he's Wyrm's bastard half-brother but it's lies. All lies.

Oh yes, and thanks for the squirrels. I'm just looking into the matter of aquiring some dolphins and cats now Oh, fair distance isn't a worry. I reckon this gig will be over as soon as the game is. My attention had just been drawn by the remark about Mashadar

I do hope you're not referring to Good Guy Fain of the Mashadar pandas, Bengal Tigers, penguins and meerkats

Hero, thank you for the advice. I'll look at how I can run with it

When you do the "Page 45" meme and the book you use is one of Sanderson's.

This is less of a full-fledged game than a mechanic I'm struggling to figure how to incorporate into an Elimination game set on Threnody. There may be spoilers for people who haven't read Shadows for Silence, so despite these being just scattered ideas, I'm going to put them under a spoiler tag. At the moment, I'm pitching it for a Quick-Fix, because of the kill count, although I might throw one or two more brakes into the process. So far, the rule-set I've been working on is for your standard game, with two factions, Travellers (Village) and the Criminals (Spiked.) Thoughts? I'd really appreciate some help as I've been thinking about this for quite a bit with no real success/progress.

Well, just to answer another of the raised questions: the medieval era is a very usual period for fantasy, but my understanding is, the moment you dissect it a bit, it's really more complicated than it appears on first blush. First, what do you define as the medieval era? In which country? Depending on the time-slice you pick and the country, you're going to get a very different balance of science and technology. Decent fantasy could even pick the classical era, where you have Greek proto-science or Roman engineering coming into play. Fantasy set in the Renaissance tends to be promising, in that it can take advantage of the emergence of science as something not-quite what we recognise, but at the same time, because it's still in the early days of science, can afford to blend science and magic. Some historians of chemistry, according to my prof, study alchemy in order to gain context of how chemistry emerged. Consider things such as Newton having an active interest in the occult--without feeling the sense of tension we seem to do nowadays. Science wasn't a formal institution back then: it was a (systematic) way of studying the world, and I think there's some case for how it's not always--in that historical period, anyway--something easily separable from magic. (Really, I vastly oversimplify, so apologies to any historians of science I may have inadvertently annoyed with my crude sketch.) I do enjoy my urban fantasy books, so that, I'm going to have to say, yes, I would consider them admissible as fantasy I find it interesting (in the example you mentioned) that Dresden does often employ science to his advantage (read: freezing a lake by casting a fire spell) but at the same time, there's this sense of tension between science and magic as well. (In addition to that: I might have to ask if we should draw a further separate category for engineering/technology because at times, these things do come apart.) With regard to the development and study of magic itself, an initial thought is: this, to me, is where the question of our categories of magic and science matters. Think about things like (somewhat modern) developments of systems based on the Kabbalah, which are pretty systematic but mystical at the same time, versus things like Ghostlab (Ghostbusters? ) in a world where those things actually come out true. So, mystical stuff versus pseudoscience (?--I'm willing to relax this label; I hope it offends no one.) Do we recognise either as a blend of science and magic? The former would not go amiss in medieval times. The latter seems a bit less magic than (sometimes) magic plus jargon/"rigour". For that, I think Gamma's suggestions of cases in which these things actually have been done well are pretty interesting. Kingkiller, I think, does well where it links physical laws (and to some extent, terminology/material constraints) to magic. There are clearly some magical forces going on with sygaldry, but by ending those elements and the impression of rigour, it seems a good case of a nice fusion.

Thanks, I may eventually have to look into that possibility >>.

So it's not just me who has trouble with these things! What is this (magic) wand of which you speak?

Actually, I have another one I'm just going to throw out here. Any one familiar with the (philosophical) concept of possible worlds? (It's mostly just a tool to be able to think about modality in a way that doesn't drive people nuts, but some people, like David Lewis, who pioneered that concept, think those are actually real things.) I guess our closest analogue would be the idea of alternate universes. In any case, kind of like burning gold (but not very much like it)--it'd be nice to be able to access the memories, skills, and mental states of your possible world counterparts. Need to fix your car but not sure where to get started? Sure. Just access the skills and memories of the counterpart who was an automechanic in a presumably distant possible world. [Edit: I do mean Allomantic Gold. Kind of like having the gold shadow who can advise you on how to do it, and you can kind of access their memories, but not in the Forgery sort of way.] Another idea: it might be interesting to have time-travelling powers restricted in specific ways. Think about being counselled through your mid-life crisis by your future self!

Despite my past experiences, I've currently tried again with the closest book to me. (Technically, it's books as there are two stacks of books close to me at the moment.) With the one on the right: "However, if the ultimate form of Tea can be reduced to the bare simplicity of Rikyu's poem, we may wonder why so much fuss could be created out of something so apparently simple." (Tea Life, Tea Mind, Soshitsu Sen XV.) I'm not so sure about this one, but it's not Kant, it's not population biology and it's got tea in it, capitalised, even. That's good, right? And from the pile on the left: "Lesen Sie zuerst die Situationen (1-8) und dann die Anzeigen (a-i)." Ok. This one doesn't look promising. But then again, one hardly expects some wisdom pertaining to your life to be found in a stack of German textbooks :/

Unfortunately, matcha is a bit more expensive here, despite the recent proliferation of cafes. And Starbucks is not good to anyone on a student budget. In my case, it's more a good friend on a student exchange to Japan (who also loves tea) brought me back some, and asked me to try brewing it up. Sadly, I have yet to be successful

Well, at least off the top of my head, here are some things I've considered: 1. Path dependency It's something interesting to think about when you consider issues of technological determinism in the history of technology. I guess the easy case study to illustrate the matter is something like this: consider what happens if DC had won the Current Wars. Once you have DC infrastructure set up, things and the technological options you then get become 'locked in', in a sense. Infrastructure isn't always easy to change (though it can be done) and which options look appealing often depend both on socio-political interests as well as what the existing infrastructure allows for. (Actually, how this dynamic really works is a contentious issue, and I'm too tired to sketch it out properly ) The thing about how technology often seems static in fantasy worlds with magic--I sometimes wonder if it is in fact, partly to be expected. That simply put, infrastructure, or at least the tools people have to solve real life problems end up being magical ones. Which gives less incentive (despite curiosity) to develop sciences as compared to studying magical arts, for instance. (Realistically, I think, we could even have an interesting dynamic where meddling with the early forerunners of the natural sciences--think about how this was dominated by nobles/gentleman hobbyists--is something 'impractical' only aristocracy can handle, while magic is more practical and working-class. Like engineering.) 2. I'm really wondering about how stable our categories of 'magic' and 'technology' and 'science' are. Which is to say, that especially in your post in Jerric's thread, I get the idea that it's actually pretty hard to come up with a coherent, unique/interesting (and probably realistic) picture of how magic and science could end up working in a society, and in part, this is because of the way people can or can't draw the lines between them, to have a robust picture of magic as an enterprise/project or science. (*I actually think this would pose less problem in fantasy, but this would be heavily dependent on how we think of magic and science. Which is always going to be a tricky thing.) And I haven't yet answered your questions but I want to not go further for now >>.