98k words and no end in sight. Maybe I'm just not made for the average 100k novel, I mean I'm getting along great in the story, or this specific part of the story, but I'm nowhere near done. I have the situations from book numero uno and expand from there. I know at what point this second part of the story will end, the journey is still a mystery to me, but that's cool ... the characters keep surprising me. A lot.

Didn't do any writing on the weekend, Sat I GMed D&D for the better part of the day, and Sunday I recovered from that and tried to force more English grammar into a student who didn't have the mind for it, can't blame her really, but I know this stuff... she doesn't and needs to.

Started picking up where I left off on Friday, after meeting with a friend and talking about this and that and my novel as well, turns out that was just what I needed to get into the mood again.

Started watching and collecting another TV series: Heroes. Fucking awesome the way they're telling those interconnected stories. I try not to watch 3 or 4 DVDs a day, well, after the first season that is. Need to keep my head in the game... err writing that is.

An average of 1.5-2k words per day, decent tempo I think, but then again I'm no expert.

Maybe, by the end of the year I have the end in sight. Have been steering the ship that way, now I just need to figure out how everything is heading for the end. I already know there will be a few characters leaving this story in the near future... hello sequel... or rather a different part of the same story. Kinda hard to explain really, it just doesn't pan out the way I imagined because even though I want the characters to go one way, they most definitely refuse to go that direction... stufpid buggers, have a mind of their own they do...

Then again that leaves me with more stories to tell which is always great.

I only played EverQuest and WoW, and I consider myself cured. One of my older posts dealt with this topic before so I make it brief, a sort of wishlist:

- interactive environment; lemme scale walls and stuff, even with flying mounts or vehicles it's still pretty 2-dimensional, lemme break shit etc
-make it big enough so that I, if I so choose to, be alone and can dig for ore or whatnot without being disturbed
- instances are ok, but there should also be some competition without somesuch achievement nonsense
- when you craft stuff, there should be a chance, however minimal, of failure...adds realism; also, the idea of actually creating something unique, through experimentation or whatnot, has its appeal, be it the sword of slay'em, or a blaster that uses less power, kinda nice the idea of actually having done something unique
- dear designers, don't fuck with access to areas and stuff just because people complain, it just cheapens the time and effort others put into gaining same access, there should be enough to do for everyone who doesn't wanna work for it, see item 2
- if there is such a thing as waypoints, or flightpoint, or whatever, make the transport instantaneous, because after a while the flying shit across lanscapes you've seen dozens of times gets...well... fucking annoying!
- increase ignore lists, at least make'em bigger than friends-lists, because one usually wants to ignore more people than have friends
- implement stories and a timeline, so that I, as a player, can actually see that the shit I am doing actually changes the world... if I kill the orc leader after a valiant battle, I want to see the fucker stay gone for a while, again this goes hand in hand with item 2, if the world is big enough there should also be enough shit to kill
- PVP has its place, yes, but even if I play on a PVP server (because my friends are playing there) allow an option that actually makes a character untouchable and unable to engage in PVP outside given areas, this way no snot-nosed asswipe of a kid can attack me just because I am there and farming ore or something
- maybe, just maybe, offer servers for adults, not because I wanna swear more or whatever your gutterminds are thinking now, but so that I can play/interact with people who are capable of forming and spelling correct sentences... I get eyecancer from the shit some juvenile morons type, a typo or three is ok, hell, I make typos as well, but I want to relax and as a decently educated person I can get rather touchy about fuckwits who can hardly spell anything right

Or, maybe, I'm just too old for this shit and shouldn't even bother

82k words now, another set of chapters finished. Kinda thinkiing/hoping I actually reached the middle now, but until it's done there's no telling which is which. Not that I mind not knowing where the middle is. I have a set end, and until I reach it I ain't done... might as well be just a third of the way done, wait and see.

Ironically enough, this approach suits me, because otherwise, if I ran a tightly plotted ship so to speak, I might not have some of the incredible lightbulbs going off in my head, I mean seriously cool ideas that basically fit in with every fucking thing I came up with in book one (and before).

Actually managed to implement part of the first version of book 2, though I had to edit almost every sentence, I kinda like the structure and plot, now that it's more up to what I'm capable of now. Considering that I wrote part two back in 2001/2002 and my style has changed significantly. But now with a clear goal in mind, and knowing and feeling who and what I am (a writer), the entire thing has taken on a life of its own. The bastards...err characters... do what they want to do and not what I tell'em to.

Maybe...just maybe, if enough folks here want to read it, I might post the prologue to book one here and await your comments...

On Saturday I did something I have never been able to do before, and don't really wanna repeat, but it kinda just happened, because I needed to write it. What basically happened was me pondering the pages I had written that day, all the while drinking some beer and talking with some friends at a party, and though I wouldn't have minded to stay I knew I had to get the additions I had been pondering about outa my system, so I left the party, slightly intoxicated, went home and wrote... next day I checked the stuff and I was rather satisfied because it was rather good, not the gibberish I wrote back in the day when I was drunk, which, thankfully, I ain't anymore.

72k words into book two. I'm happy about the progress altho getting that swinflu-shot knocked me off my game yesterday and today. I have a feeling that the second part will be bigger, much bigger than part one. Wrote some 5 pages or so today, not that much but considering that I'm still sorta wobbly it's ok.

I recently read a romance novel, a first for me. Gave me some insight how to write not only romance but in depth character trauma, for lack of a better word. And besides, it wasn't such a bad read either. It's strange but I don't feel that attracted anymore to "light" reading, the book has to be fun, if it ain't it goes back to the shelf, much like LotR, yea I know, a classic, but I can't seem to get through it.

Oh well.

says I, to myself. After all, I haven't DMed in about a year and Saturday we gonna revive the longest running RPG campaign I've ever DMed.

Some things will be altered from the usual 3.5 stew, or 3.5 + Pathfinder stew. I'm gonna alter the classes a bit, since one of the players has a Knight from PHB 2 now and those new core-classes outclass the old shit, so I had to salvage some stuff from Pathfinder. I'm not gonna change over to PF totally, mainly because I don't have the cash to get everything PF now (unfortunately), and because I have an almost complete D&D 3.5 collection standing around and still have to read more than just whatever I read while in the bathroom or for reference reasons. OK, I read the PHB, DMG and lots of other stuff, but reading rules is so tedious at times.

Another thing I also will change is combat. I still use minis, but only for important fights. Sure, if the group challenges the entire Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, it will be with minis, but HiGiCh has been slaughtered. Most battles will be straightforward like I used to run'em in the olden days, no conditional modifiers, just AC, TH-Roll, damage, wash, rinse, repeat. Many of my players have complained that the game has become mostly combat, and they are right, so I change it... a 7 piece adventuring party of 12th level will have zero problems with an orc ambush, or even a sngle bigass monster, unless it's a dragon, I don't have the big red 'un standing around just for looks.

I had for sme time now is to switch certain things I very much like in AD&D 2nd edition over to 3.5.

For example, the spheres of influence for a cleric were a masterstroke...errr... still are a masterstroke. And I still wonder why the hell they changed that to the system now used. OK, there are now 9 spell levels to deal with, but I figure that is a small obstacle. Even most of the other divine casters could work with the sphere access stuff. Minor and Major sphere access was as plug and play as you could get.

Some time soon, I will clear my workdesk and pile all them books with spells on there. Then I 'll compile a list. It will be a bitch, no doubt, but it might well be worth it, because then clerics will again be different.

Another thing that has been nagging at my gamer-heart is the switches made to the planes. The more I read of Planescape the more I dig what they've done. Planar distance to a deity's habitat lessens his influence, great flavor there, also the entire magic gets reduced the further you are from the plane the item was created on.

Does everything in a game has to conform to the min-maxing Diablo and Co are preaching? No, I don't think so.

What is good game design? In my opinion whatever the players (all players!) enjoy. If it's just about killing shit and never dealing with less than perfect circumstances these people should stick to WoW

and neither was fourth.

Initially I thought about naming this post: Books I'll never finish, but that would, possibly, be too offensive.

OK, I began reading the Lord of the Rings the first time when I was 16, I think. Got about 80 pages done and left it, cuz it bored me. A few years later I tried again, 180 pages and I called it a day. Both time I read the book in German. Then I tried it in English, figuring that it might be better in the original language. About halfway through, or something like that, I dropped it again, bored to tears.

Guess you know where this is headed... I did my fourth attempt... 380 pages, and again I was bored. Does this mean the Lord of the Rings is a bad book to me? No, it just isn't the kind of book I like to read. Neither does it mean I dislike reading long books, hell, I blazed through Song of Ice and Fire's 3k+ pages in under a month.

What I dislike is long winding pages spent with nothing more than descriptions that really don't go anywhere, storywise. I know that many people consider that one of LotR's greatest assets, that these pages make the world come alive. Not to me, but then again, I'm not really into staring at nature for ages either. And rereading "Concerning Hobbits" for the fourth time didn't help matters, and neither did all those songs. OK, there is one song in my first book as well... one song... and it is of significance to the overall situation and its recital advances the story as well. Many of the songs broke up the, in my opinion, already fractured storyline in LotR even more.

To compare Wheel of Time to Tolkien would be an insult to the good professor, but I never got past a quarter of the first book either.

The way the LotR is told is basically the same style as many other myths, and I have to admit that I haven't read the Greek and Roman and German myths un well over two and a half decades. But I'm not sure they bogged the story down by endless descriptions of nature and stuff. Especially the Nibelungelied was far more concerned with intrigue and bloodshed... I like that, character-driven stuff... at a later point, the one I never reached I think, LotR gets to that as well, but to me that's almost like dating a woman for months without ever getting to kiss her.

Not my piece of cake, really.

I like what Peter Jackson did, sure he left out Old Man Willow, Glorfindel, Tom Bombadil, but especially in Tom Bombadil's case I am very glad I did not have to listen to his inane songs on screen, even though the character does have his role in the book, that I'm ready to admit. The distilled version of Peter Jackson, brings forth the essence of the books, and brings a dynamic to the story, the novel, again in my opinion, sorely lacks.

This is solely my opinion, and any fan of Tolkien's please don't be insulted, if I wanted to insult, I would have added a shitload of fucking obscenities

Specifically on the prequels.

I guess I wasn't the only one severely disappointed by what Uncle George cooked up. Fancy lightsaber fighting and orgiastic special effects aside the movies weren't that great. Or maybe I am just a nostalgic bugger who perfers the films where Han Solo shot (not first or some shit, he plainly killed Greedo without ever having to return fire or some such, but maybe that's just me)

Back to the prequels.

I'm not gonna ramble about JarJar, it has been done ad vomitum. I wanna discuss some issues in terms of ... well ... errr... realism. Yea, I know it is a fantasy universe, but even in such a universe the laws of numbers and shit should apply.

For instance: the Jedi were the keepers of peace and love and all happiness-stuff, and all that, there was no army in the Republic. Hmmm, so when an invasion force from outside the Republic comes a-knocking the Jedi do ... what? Peel potatoes and throw 'em at 'em? Sorry, I don't buy that. Even if the members of the Republic have their own military forces... ok, lemme get this straight, the individual states have their military but there is no overall command structure... what the hell is keeping the members together? A bunch of folks waving shiny swords about?

Bottom line to that is: the Republic had to have its own military.

Next up: the fabulous Clone army.

When Obi-Wan comes to Camino he is told that 200,000 models are ready and about a million more are well on the way. 1.2 million soldiers to defend a couple thousand systems. Considering that the official number of soldiers in WWII was a whole bunch of million soldiers (I am too lazy to check the numbers now!) to fight over one planet, the amount of troopers created for the Republic wouldn't have defended more than a continent (and a small one at that) effectively. Sure there might be native military forces (to that, see the paragraph above). And who the hell was supposed to man the battleships? The crew number should have been more than on an ISD mk 2, and that skeleton crew was 5k, with about 36k of full crew. So even if those ships were smaller, maybe a total of 25k in a full complement, the initial 200k clones would have manned, what? 8 capital ships? Damn good ships! Mighty clone army! With the amount of droids the other worlds were fielding the clone wars would have been over in... I dunno how long it would've taken to blast those ships, but it wouldn't have lasted a couple of years.

Now about technology, or a different aspect of it. Droid armies... cool idea... very effective... until the enemy starts using EMP. Do I need to say more?

From the very first time that I saw Star Wars, I was under the impression that the Clone Wars were fought against the clones, not with them against robots. Why? Because it sounded far more reasonable to me, and still does. Usually we name wars after the area they were fought in, or against the enemy the victor's defeated. (Krimmian War, Indian (or should I say Native American?) War, Vietnam War). I mean, can you imagine the Vietnam War suddenly being called the GI War? Uh... I can't...would sound pretty stupid also. Sure, we also had the Napoleonic War, but again it was the main enemy/threat who lend his name to the war. There was also the Colonial War... it wasn't fought by Colonians... or something like that... too sleepy to write more on this, creative juices spent.

May the Farce be with you

Haven't done much writing today, only 3 pages or so... was too tired or something...dunno.


As in book 1, the entire novel will be divided into days, some days lots of shit happens, others aren't that eventful, day 1 of the book will have a lot of stuff going on, considering that it picks up where the first book ends... and it does end with some major action and cliffhangers, also some sort of ending, of course, but it is really (I hope) that sort of thing where you just wanna read the sequel immediately.

Lots of balls in the air... now I just gotta keep on juggling... and subtract and add balls.

My therapist asked me if I am focused just on this one story, better said, she worried that I put all my bets on this one horse, so to speak. I'm not, but I've been living with this story for so long, I need to finish it first... although, there are a lot of things spooking in my head, some directly related to storytelling, others to gaming, and still others more of a sarcastic, satiric (if that's a word) nature... hell, maybe I even sit down and write a play... who knows.

Also, might be fun if I ever got together with a good guitarist again just to write some songs...

But for now it is sequel time...

or something like that.

Not much more to say about the novel, it's done. Any further alterations should be very minor. Although I haven't started sending out pitches to agents yet, I have started on book numero 2, some 5 pages or so in the box. I decided to rewrite most of it, or rather everything, keeping the general direction of what I wrote 8-9 years ago. Mainly because I consider my style vastly improved, naturally, over what I did a decade early... would be a bitch if it wasn't so.

Now the routine begins again: sitcoms & tea after getting up, a cappucino or two in my café with something to read, then writing. Oh, and occasionally doing something in my appartment. I've been in the book one zone for so long, it's a tad hard to switch back into whole writing mode, what with all the editing and shit.

Bought the new Dan Brown book... some light, uncomplicated reading will help.

I've been reading some old school blogs, and that got me thinking. There is something appealing to seperate XP tables for the various classes. It makes sense, the thief needs to learn, sure, but whereas his trade is relatively easy to pick up, the warrior or wizard need more training, cuz mainly they train with much more stuff, all the weapons, armor etc for the warrior and those spells and studies for mages (wizard singular is ok, the plural not really as it might be copyright infringement...ok, that was bad). Some jobs are easier than others, otherwise we'd have a whole bunch of neurosurgeons cutting the shit out of people.

Of course one could argue that intelligence and education shorten any sort of apprenticeship. But since INT in D&D never served as "knowledge/education" there is no such thing. The more complex a job the more XP it took to progress. And once you learned a skill (in 2nd edition) you were pretty damn good at it. Immediately. This detachment from reality annoyed me, from a DM's perspective, in terms of realism for PCs, but for fleshing out folks like sages it was easy, give 'em a high INT and all knowledge stuff was pretty much a 90% chance of a winner. Still, the mechanic wasn't as time consuming as 3e... if you need an expert at something you would have to build him. Lvl 5 expert with weaponsmith maxed to 8, Skill focus Feat +2, high INT + 3, Masterwork tools +1 or so...  total value +14... and how does a civilian get XP in the first place? Practicing his craft? If that was the case every application of a skill has to result in XPs also. The toolbox should be logical. If the NPCs earn XP by using their skills, shouldn't the PC smith also get XP for crafting shit? And if the NPC does not get XP for skill use, how does he level up to become a good crafter/master artisan? Does he go out and kill shit as well?

I've been pondering, when my brain ain't occupied with my novels, how to change that, but the truth is that to change it to a system I would really prefer to run, I'd have to build the thing from the ground up, since it would be more like Runequest and very little like D&D, because use of an ability does not grant the skill to go up in D&D. Level based games have their limits.

If, as the old schoolers play it, the game was boiled down to combat relevant stats and nothing else you could wing it all. I like 3e with all the possibilities, feats, and all that, and AD&D is, mechanically speaking, not really that good. Sure, the item, AC, HP inflation of 3e is akin to what MMORPGs do, lots of bonuses with the challenges rising the same way, life-points/hitpoints...whatever. It is an arms-race, quite literally.

The basic mechanic to OGL/Pathfinder/3e is fucking awesome, d20+bonus to reach a target number, pretty much the same idea the entire d6 engine is based on. I like some of the mechanice, in part, from the older versions of the game as well, e.g. the long combat round with one or two or three chances to get a solid hit through the enemy's defense. The problem with the minute round was that movement was pretty pathetic, I mean 12 yards in 1 minute...or some such thing....come ON! The discussions I had at the table because of this bugger still give me nightmares. If I find a way to prolong the combat round while keeping the attacks of 3e it might just be worthwhile, because if you convert the 6 second round of 3e to real time seconds a battle lasts maybe 30 seconds. If you look at this from a cinematic point, the entire affair might have lots of action, but it'd have to be shown in slow motion so that you actually get something for your money. Not really epic, if you consider that the game is supposed to be epic in scope...

So, if I can bring the movement of 3e into the 1 minutes combat round realistically things would change, sure casting times would have to be increased as well, and durations, and attacks of opportunity would have to be adjusted. Lots of adjusting... and I 'm also pondering the entire XP difference thing.

Maybe I should just design my own game...

I do my proofreading in my favorite café, cuz I can focus on the stuff without any distractions. Aside from cute waitresses, or not so cute waitresses, asking me if I want a fresh cappucino, or some such stuff. I sit at the bar, my manuscript spread out and a trusty pencil next to it, and of course my tobacco etc. It's relaxing to sit there, even if there are more comfortable places. But comfort gets no work done, and being critical of your own work is a bitch.

I rewrote a hell of a lot, and now, while reading it, I discover inconsistencies since I didn't stop and review the manuscript for every piece of info I changed. That happens now... almost 300 pages read so far. Some of 'em need more attention then others, but I can live with it.

Especially if it means that the thing is polished. No idea how many hundreds of words I can delete, but everything that makes it more concise will be done. I'm confident that after this proofing the book is as great as I can make it at the moment, and that it kicks some serious ass.

Then all that's left is for an agent and a publisher to see the power behind the novel as well. And I'm pretty sure someone will. But in the meantime, once the corrections are made, book deux will be written. I haven't really looked at it in about 8 years, and I'm sure it needs even more attention.

But the great thing about all this is, when I'm writing I am much more content than I've ever been before, maybe because I realize now that this is not just a hobby, but my calling. Yea, I'm a writer, and bloody proud of it!

Today I printed out the novel, and started proofing it. 350 pages (2 manuscript pages per print out), big bugger that.

And I started reading my baby, about 100 pages today. Aaaand, well, I erred... it ain't whatever I said before words long, I accidentally put in a chapter twice, thankfully right after one another, so the screw-up was noticed the moment I finished chapter 9 and began chapter 10. I went (basically) "What the fuck!", now that I think about it I think I said it out loud in my favorite cafe, but since the staff knows me, and no one really gives a damn if you swear anyway, no one gave a fuck :)

Anyways, the novel is just about 155k words long...still a whopper, but that's life.

Chapters/Events arranged: CHECK
Confusing stuff smoothed out/clarified: CHECK

Manuscript reviewed: nope not yet, got to print that bugger out first... 700 pages, ok 350 since I will again put 2 manuscript pages on one A4... uh... page

And then I have to see if it still fits together, and where I need to smooth out the edges. 157k words... but I'm confident that it works much better now. Everything in chronological order, dates included. Spent most of the day cutting and pasting...

On and off I spent 11 years of my life working on this book... damn... this better be good... hell, I'm convinced it is, but if I wanna sell my baby, my opinion counts only so much.

well, not really arrrrgh, but I dunno, it's alive. My novel that is. And it's growing still. Just burst through the 150k words barrier. Scary, really, but fun...more depth and all that. I like it, but should I find a publisher it might get trimmed down a tad again. Hopefully it won't, cuz even though I like reading a 300 or so pages book, I love monster-novels. And since my book(s) aren't as much sword&sorcery as drama with action it would be wrong to trim it down... where's the fun in that? Now I have to rewrite some scenes but I can live with that.

or something like that.

I started my story (or stories rather... or novels...whatever) a long time ago. First as shortstories, basically taking my first limps (I dare not call it steps) as a writer. I had an idea and tried to realize it in an environment that, in the end, didn't suit me. At the end of my stint in that fantasy club, after much soulsearching, and realizing that German wasn't (ironically enough) my language when it came to writing (after all most of the books I was reading/am still reading are in English).

Freed from a restraining environment I sat down and wrote, and wrote...without sense and direction. Well, I knew the beginning, middle and end after a fashion. I finished the book once... the first book, and the second as well.

Now when I look at the stuff and compare it to what I wrote in the past year or so, and assembled the first part as a whole, it is very different from what went before. I learned a whole lot. Did I learn enough? Hardly, but I'm happy with the preliminary end result. With my buddy's wife poking and prodding at the story I improve it still. OK, it's not just her prodding, but also a hurdle I finally managed to jump, at least part of the way. The hurdle being my inability to learn in the conventional way.

I never learned to learn, ironically enough. Back in elementary school I never had to, I understood the stuff they were teaching, quickly, and when it came to reading/writing, I guess I taught myself that before I ever set a foot into a school. I can't be sure about it, to be honest, but my mother told me that I could recite several childrens' books by the time I was 4. Thinking logically the next step was to associate the words in my mind with the funny letters that stood next to the pictures.
When I didn't understand something I lost interest... unfortunately my mother (who incidentally is/was an elementary school teacher) told me she never had the force of will to get me to learn this stuff. So, ultimately I was on my own, and I got by. Why? I'm pretty smart, that's why. But a high IQ only gets you that far, and when it came to college/university, with all the freedom a German uni gave its students, I tried to go through those halls like I had all my live, with ease. Needless to say, it didn't work.
Last year, I met an old friend of mine whom I finished school with. He's on the best way to become chief-surgeon in a local hospital. He told me something along the lines of "You could have been anything you wanted." If I had learned to learn. Funny how so many people around me saw my brains for what they are way before I did. I never considered myself special, far from it. And it took me a long time to wrap my head around the concept of book-learning, that did not involve picking up a truckload of facts from novels. Sure, I read some fact-books, but usually they bored me so much that I still learned more from watching historic documentaries on TV.
That changed, ironically enough, only recently with roleplaying sourcebooks. As mentioned before, I learn more from novels/films/documentaries, but I finally sat down and read some sourcebooks. And when my buddy's wife commented on some autheticity, or lack thereof rather, in my novel, I finally swallowed the pill and began to read some history books dealing with the Middle Ages. Books I, for the most part, have owned for about 10 years.

That's when I began to rewrite the novel again. Not everything, mind you, but those parts that were "wrong". No, I'm not going to detail every bloody thing (OK, I detail lots of bloody things, read gore) but with the alterations so far it feels even more alive. Also, I will restructurte the entire book.

I usually map out the stuff in my head, but with all the random thoughts I admit I do lose track of things occasionally. So I sat down and prepared a calendar for the world and also arranged the events chronologically. And now I have to first finish the rewrite and then rearrange the stuff and rewrite the edges again.
Why don't I rearrange first? Well, if the comments are aimed at certain chapters/passages it is far easier going about it the old way and then sort out the chronology. Though I have started.

As for the sequel (remember book deux was already finished once), I will rewrite the baby first, then rearrange it, and then give it people to comment.

And maybe, I even have an agent and a bookdeal by then... who knows.

this will be utterly random, some thoughts that crossed my mind in the past few weeks.

There are things that bug me... continuity for one thing, but those who read my mutterings already know that...

I'm also an addict... does it bug me? Only on the rare occasion I have no tobacco at home or I realize the price for my drug has gone up again. Amazingly enough people don't quit smoking because the price has gone up. The government is counting on that, ironically enough. On the one hand EU policy demands warnings are printed on tobacco products. On the other hand these products are taxed quite heavily here in Germany. Even if it was just one Euro in taxes, the sum is mind-boggling. If there were 10 million smokers in Germany, and each of those statistically smokes a pack a day, the government rakes in 10 million Euros a day. But I doubt it's just one Euro, more like 2.50 or so. 25million per day, or 9,125,000,000 per year, if I did my math right. Yes indeed, the guys up there want us to quit smoking... not.

And why is it a whole bunch of workers get the shaft before a manager calls it quits? I mean kicking out 10 workers who make a total of 650,000 a year is ten families that are ruined. Kick out an idiot manager who makes the same amount and you just screw one family...numbers just numbers.

Listening to Led Zeppelin right now... did it ever occur to anyone that in our day and age titans like Zep would never be signed to a major label? Too ugly for TV, no appeal to the masses... a new Brittney Spears? yes please, cash cows... but the music is good? Who cares? It won't sell as much as some boy-, girl-group. And then there's the public to consider... it's numbers, baby, a barely pubescent chick is good for all target audiences... that Lolita appeal for the older generation, her cuteness for barely pubescent boys to look at (well, not that some pervs from the older generation don't do the same), a role-model for barely pubescent girls... sex sells... always has... well, not always, "Showgirls" anyone?

Back to continuity, and yes, I am well aware of my mind wandering to very strange places all the time. I love TV-series, Buffy, BSG, Babylon 5, Rome, Smallville, Firefly. You get the picture... over the past couple weeks one thing has always swum to the forefront of my mind, despite numerous attempts to just ignore it:
Vampires don't breathe, right? Right. OK, so why does the First in Season 7 Buffy torture Spike by putting his head under water? And why is Spike gasping for breath when his head emerges? Yea, I do have too much time on my hand! Still, kinda silly, when you consider that it has been established that vampires don't breathe. That's almost like something that happened years and years ago at one of the games I was playing in:

Our flagship (it was a scifi game) had taken a bunch of hostages. The admiral (one of the players) contacted the enemy and said: "We have some of your folks as hostages! If we don't contact you within one hour, the first hostage dies!"

OK, not as fitting, but funny nonetheless.

And if Vampires don't breathe, how come they can talk? Isn't the vocal cords just like some strings so to speak?

Enough ramblings...going to bed with "Kashmir" humming me into sleep...

kinda reminded of "The Boondock Saints" if I look at what I just put into writing.

OK, let's start t the "new" beginning. The wife of a good friend o' mine agreed to read and critique my novel. This is like a creative nuclear blast, I'm spewing ideas right and left with what she's told me so far. I rewrote about 2.5k words so far...well, not rewrote, rather added, and rewrote, but that's beside the point... the point is...I scare myself...

She suggested an opening which I really dig, and after the conversation I had with her tonight, I fired up my comp to start writing after the Simpsons was done, made a quick "Fringe" break and continued writing, all to the "lovely" soundtrack of "13 Ghosts". I think I have the near perfect prologue to my novel now...

and that's why I'm reminded of Boondock... there's this one scene where Rocco bashes in the head of a killer with a billard-ball, screaming "Sick Fuck, Sick Fuck!" Well, after writing this intro I felt like screaming the same at myself... really, I scared even myself... then again, maybe I should start compiling CDs with mood music... music influences me a whole lot, and, well, my most sensual scene I wrote while listening to Celtic Romance... so, now I need to create my soundtracks so to speak, decide what kind of scene I wanna write and pop in the CD...maybe it works.

or whatever you wanna call it... maybe I should go with stupidity... I dunno, nor do I really care.

About what it's called, not the issue.

The issue is the murder of an abortion doctor by a religious fanatic. Yep, Christianity has'em too, en masse in certain places (*cough* bible belt). Whoever shot this doc and all the others who wish to hurt pro-abortionists are not an iota better than the bastards who piloted planes into the World Trade Center.

There is no difference, none, zero... anyone who forces his or her belief on another one, whatever that belief may be, is a delusional bastard, a religious fanatic in one way or another, anyone who kills others because of his "faith" is not an ounce better than the fucking assholes that set up concentration camps to mass slaughter others.

And those who tell me a lump of cells is already a human being: a woman has a right to decide over her own body... um... wait ... no... don't wait... it's her body, and she can do what she bloody wants with it. Those who disagree probably want to see women in the traditional housewife role as well, since...well, that's just "right" ... ah fuck it, the day people start thinking with the brains instead of their holy books, which are in part history books and part of "my god's better than yours" and in part, the most important part IMO, common sense (which is the part that those fuckwits usually ignore the most, throwing the first stone and all that), will be the day mankind has made the first major evolutionary step since developing bi-bedal, upright movement.

maybe it should read old timers, but what the hell, like I care...well, actually I do care, but old times is maybe more appropriate.

Am I a dinosaur roleplayer? Given that I only gamed for 23 or so years, no, I'm no dinosaur of gaming...neanderthal of gaming maybe.

But I evolved, much like the game did, but at a quicker pace. Sure, at first it was going down a corridor, kicking open the door, killing the orcs and looting the corpses. Wash, rinse, repeat as needed. But as a buddy and me discussed yesterday, gaming changed, evolved. In the beginning it was one dungeon after the next, maybe with a story linking the dungeons (GDQ) or a story linking the levels of a dungeon (Temple of Elemental Evil). It was basically nothing more than hack'n'slash, whatever character-play developed probably was up to the individual group. But the game evolved, you got story arcs, interesting backstories etc, because one thing a prepared module could never really anticipate was the madness creative players brought to the table.

RPGs evolved, incorporated non-combat skills and living in the (fantastic-)world at large. I'm sure there are people who enjoy perpetual killing and looting, but the success of WhiteWolf's World of Darkness in general showed there was a desire for even more...role. Admittedly, WW's rules are, IMO, attached to the game as an afterthought, sure when you just play intrigues and shit you don't need functioning, easy to manage combat (or other die-based) rules, but that's beside the point.

Now, with 4e RPGs have taken a quantumleap ... er... back. The world doesn't really matter, characters in it matter only in terms of what (can they give, supply, is their loot, is the quest they can give the PCs) not who. OK, 3e did the curriculum vitae approach, listing every bloody thing anybody could do....everything had to be created equal. 1st and 2nd edition AD&D gave HP, THAc0, AC, damage and possible extras, it's still nice to see half a dozen opponents of different classes be summarized in a couple of lines instead of the amazing one page spread of mighty enemy. Hell, even the earliest 3e adventures gave merely HPs and shit for common monsters referring to the page in the MM. Paizo is doing, thankfully, the same, bad guys, sure, need more info there, but the encounter format WotC adapted for the latter duration of 3e and now 4e is just a way to add to the pagecount with very little to show. What would GDQ look like if they actually adapted the entire affair to 3e, or 4e? Instead of something along the lines of 100 pages (if that many), you'd have to deal with so many combat encounters that the module might rival the PHB in volume.

What I'm trying to say is this: maybe 4e is getting more new people to play, maybe it feels like the old times are back, but 35 years ago we didn't have DVDs, hell no one would be able to share their thoughts over the net cuz computers were bigger than an appartment and their cooling unit could heat entire blocks (or something like that, was too young to remember), games evolve, and in some occasions the past might hold a key to our future, but ask any German over 70 if they want to go back 60 years, the answer would be FUCK NO! The same answer would come from African-Americans.

Sure D&D, might be easier now, but wouldn't a different, easier to handle game line, have accomplished the same, something like Basic D&D (I mean really simple) and for the experienced gamers something like Advanced D&D? Oh, no, wait, we had that, and it evolved pretty good until ... well, you know...

I'm an old-timer of gaming, but the new Forgotten Realms are an insult, and the fourth edition of a game I've been playing for over 20 years is a step back...


and yes, there're a couple of reasons I would have loved to be born earlier...like the chance of seeing Led Zeppelin live... or Deep Purple MkII, or Black Sabbath...then again, I would've missed out on Dream Theater...Bablyon 5... you know, it's always a trade-off, I think...bwahahahaha