One of the benefits of being sick is that I'm able to spend some time in reading. as such, I have finished it and have started to reread some of the non-analysis portions for utility.
As a read and examination of the three tales, its well written. As a matter of fact, I think Robin shoots himself in the foot by marketing this to role players.
I say this, because I'm not finding a ton of utility in terms of role playing games.
Now part of this may be that I'm firmly in the old D&D camp. Part of it may be when the book talks about combat and how it has so many up and down beats that its probably best not to track it that way.
Even when it uses something that would be considered combat in analysis, it essentially whiffles like when the blind mice are trying to kill Bond, "best handled by a narrative-style rules set like..." Useful advice but not so useful if you're playing Rolemaster or other systems that have hard interaction between success and the strength of the dice.
In terms of applying the system, we get six pages. There are some interesting things alluded to in those six pages but those need serious expanding. For example, the part about players pushing the beats in character as opposed to player wise ass comments. That would be better served with some examples. The part about setting up scenarios and information instead of just doing it so to speak.
An analysis on a pregenerated adventure, for example, the Keep on the Shadowfell, since it's free from WoTC, would go far in show casing how these ideas work in well, a typical game.
I found the sidebars scattered throughout the book often more useful in bringing good guidelines to the table. For example, under Roasted by the boss. It's an interesting note that it brings an up moment but that the character still suffers from it so that these should be used rarely. Good advice and something that I as a GM have probably fallen into myself.
this isn't always true though. Even when a sidebar provides solid advice, some examples would go a long way in making that advice shine. While reading the bit about Seizing Dominance and remidning the players what bad asses their characters are, how do you go about doing so? Do you as the GM say, "Hey, remember that you're a bass ass." or do you use a foil to reinforce the character is a bad ass in game? What are the differences? what are the pros and cons of each method?
Mind you, these are problems I have with it not problems with the book itself. as a read and an analysis of the stories and coming up with the concepts of beats/ups/downs, it does a great job but it leaves me wanting much more specific ideas on how that would apply to say, how the most popular RPG, D&D, would actually play out as opposed to 'narrative' games like Dying Earth and other games that have such facets essentially built into them.
or am I overreading it?
