Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[TiQuinn]

Unrelated: That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.

 

[Scribe]

--

2 unrelated threads, 2 very different questions and answers, but I had a post gym shower thought that solves both.

You all just have lost the plot on what they mean.

 

[overgeeked]

I mean, there's no lie.

 

[Staffan]

Is it still September?

September 11666, 1993, to be precise.

 

[RealAlHazred]

So, I've read about a third of the 232 entries in the Appendix N Jam -- sorry, people who are charging for the PDFs during the judging period, I'm skipping yours -- and while it's a lot of work, even at four pages each, it's been really helpful.

I'm learning a lot about things I want to do differently when publishing my own PDFs, but I'm also seeing how often background, etc., just doesn't matter. Some of the best adventures waste one of their four pages with background that never impacts the adventure at all.

And cutting generally is a good idea for adventure writers. There are tons of people who clearly feel constrained by the four A5 pages limit and turn their font size waaaay down and have almost no margins, so they can cram in text that is almost completely superfluous.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of writers who can evoke exciting adventures with just a relative handful of words, printed at a decent size, with plenty of white space. I am going to be going back and seeing what I can trim from my entry and my previously published stuff, after this. Super-inspirational.

While buying and reading hundreds of adventures is cost prohibitive for most of us, this jam, where almost all of it is going to be free through at least Aug. 15 -- I'll be raising my price to $1 after that and also publishing it on DriveThruRPG -- is a huge opportunity to read a lot of really good stuff at one time. Highly recommended way to spend some free time this weekend.

Bryce Lynch from tenfootpole.org has what I consider really good guidelines for adventure writing. He's a brutal (but generally fair) reviewer.

 

[dragoner]

I mean, there's no lie.

View attachment 413935

Don't let someone see it though, you'll get an earful.

 

[overgeeked]

Don't let someone see it though, you'll get an earful.

Eh. In one form or another I've been fighting cultists most of my life. A few more don't scare me.

 

[overgeeked]

Again, there is no lie.

 

[dragoner]

Eh. In one form or another I've been fighting cultists most of my life. A few more don't scare me.

Just joking because I posted it in one of the AI threads.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Notably, the antagonists in Brennan's Worlds Beyond Number show all think they're right and are trying hard to do their version of "the right thing," even if that's awful.

The wizard society, for instance, want to conquer the world for its own good and that "all of this" will be worth it, even if no one else would agree, especially those being targeted or genocide and ethnic cleansing.

All three groups -- wizards, witches and spirits -- have forces trying to do the right thing, as they see it, who are absolutely the antagonists of the series.

For the people who only know Dimension 20, it's a really thoughtful podcast. I suspect it might get turned into a novel or something when it's all done.