Value of Fiction: Hope

Artist Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal

An important role that fiction sometimes plays is to give people hope. I know many people who have particular books that they turn to when things feel down or overwhelming in their own lives. In many cases, it's the Harry Potter series.

Everyone has moments that seem dark to them individually-the death of a loved one, financial ruin, the loss of a friendship, medical depression, etc. For all these things, there are stories, fictional or not, that have people overcoming the same challenges-or symbolically similar ones. When executed well and with consideration paid to those suffering, this can be reassuring to an individual that is going through suffering, even if the story is wholly fictional.

Descent into Laughter

I have very clear goals for what I need to focus on completing this month...

So, of course, I've gotten distracted by a smaller more personal project.

I recently tried to run a Numenera game for new players, mostly unfamiliar with tabletop RPGs or the setting of the Ninth World. I was using one of the adventures from Weird Discoveries. These adventures are designed to be run with little to no prep and sort of be the sort of thing one could recommend in the place of a board game. My experience running some of these with my regular players is that they have taken roughly 1.5-2 hours. We spent 3+ hours playing and didn't finish the adventure.

Which is fine. And I think that the players mostly had a good time, which is good. That's the objective.

But I was a bit surprised by how...slowly things seemed to go. Which isn't my normal experience with Numenera/Cypher System. Especially since I had chosen something I thought would be fast/exciting for my new players. I don't think either my players or I did anything wrong, and, as I said, it wasn't a bad experience. It just wasn't the experience I'd expected to have.

I spent a lot of time questioning if there was something that I could have run which would have been more in line with my objectives.

My objective was this: to find something that could introduce new players to roleplaying games with a simple system and fast-paced/exciting adventure.

Thus began my Descent.

Ruins & Robots Announcement

Humanity is gone. In their absence, robot-kind has grown and raised up its own civilization. 

I recently posted on my Facebook page about some of my upcoming projects, including (but not limited to Ruins & Robots. So, for those of you wondering, here's a little more about what that's all about.

Ruins and Robots is an upcoming series of books that I am working on. Like Heroism and Other Lies, these will be shorter books (between 15,000 and 30,000 words).

The Last Jedi: Lies and Heroism

Perhaps you've heard, a new Star Wars movie was released last week. I had a lot of different thoughts on it, so I figured I would share them with you, whoever you are.

I liked the movie overall. I accept that it had some flaws, but most/many of them I can justify and understand. The only thing that I can't really justify is the amount of attempted humor throughout the movie. I didn't think it was anywhere near as excessive as Thor: Ragnarok, but I also think it feels a bit more out of place when it does show up. I didn't really have a problem with it, since I felt like they placed it in okay places, but I know people who really did.

It's impossible to share the rest of my thoughts without spoilers, so consider this your SPOILER WARNING

If you do not want to see spoilers for The Last Jedi (and potentially other Star Wars movies), read no further. Bookmark or save this page, and come back when you have seen the movie. Seriously. I am going to spoil almost every major point or twist.

The Wrong Wolf

Image Copyright Disney 2015

I recently re-watched the movie Tomorrowland. Released in 2015, Disney's Tomorrowland is a very thematic movie that has a good message and, like most science fiction movies that aren't already a part of a major franchise, it was not a financial success.


I don't blame this entirely on the movie being science fiction. I liked it a lot, but I also accept that it's not a great movie. And while I like the theme and the message it's trying to send, I think it raises a very valid problem while its solution is somewhere in between too general and too implausible to be useful.


But that's only sort of tangential to the point. In the movie, the characters reference a "story" about two wolves. In real life, it's actually an old Cherokee Legend.

Place Clever Title Here

Hi.


A lot has happened since last time we talked.


I can remember telling you that I wasn't dead, nor was I dying, and now I've vanished for like two months. It's not very honest of me. Hopefully I'll do better, but I'm not sure what I can promise. It's often hard for me to know what to give.

The Toybox Closes

Last night, the Toybox closed for good. The campaign ended. The Toybox crew had found a portal to the realm from which Vinka had been assembling her universe-altering efforts. They were accompanied by knights riding Xi-Drakes, Aeon Priests, WRENCHes, and reality-bending flying entities from another planet.


As they traveled Vinka's realm, each ally was necessary against a particular challenge. The Xi-Drakes took on some flying monsters that acted in Vinka's defense. The Aeon Priests battled members of the Convergence and kept their esoteries from taking effect. The WRENCHes worked on a mechanical machine that was producing numerous automaton warriors. The aviators used their powers to hold back the Iron Wind itself.

Volos: An Offer of Help

I was talking to Gilthk the diruk when the woman known as Cherub approached me. “Iadace Volos, you’re getting the diruk to help in studying the Trilling Shard or maybe to help defend against the margr? I can help you out, no worries, you’ve got nothing to worry about us Ring of Deva at all. I’ve heard you’re the reserved type so I’ll just get to the point: We were ran out of our own village because an artifact we found mutated us. Since then we took some jobs to earn some shins and shelter while disguising our mutations with a special device I made. Unfortunately it broke at some point so we had to make use of disguise kits but here in Ellomyr, we don’t have to hide as much since there’s plenty of people here helping out who just don’t happen to conform to the human from. I see you have a hard time trusting people but right now, there are margr coming to kill us all. There’s nothing complicated about that at all and I’m pretty sure everyone’s too busy thinking of ways to save each other from the margr than they do on hurting each other. Can’t you see everyone trying to find a way to save Ellomyr, how my sister is asking Rihanur to better use the device against the margr? There’s still plenty of time so I can actually help you with anything you need, so long as it involves helping people and not hurting them.” Cherub smiled sweetly as she waited for a reply.


"Of course," I answered to Cherub's offer of help. It wasn't my shard or even my city, after all. "Like Rihanur, I also am trying to look at the Shard to see if it can be used against the margr. I think that this is one of many ways of trying to defend the city. I think there are plenty of other secrets within the area-who knows what among them might be able to be turned against the invading abhumans? I hope that some of this can be worked out." To the end of me solving my puzzles, I thought to myself. "It seems that you have skilled nanos with you. It makes sense to pool our efforts, to share what we can figure out and to utilize our command over the nanotech as a unified force. I am happy to have your help, and to offer my own."


Previous Entry: Helping Hands


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