NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Epic Meepo" data-source="post: 9376051" data-attributes="member: 57073">On Fish, Shellfish, and Inline CitationsUntil recently, I hadn’t set a deadline for the project mentioned in this thread. (Don’t try this at home if you’re trying to actually finish what you’re doing.) The lack of time pressure has given me plenty of chances to go down all sorts of strange rabbit holes. Occasionally, there’s useful information at the bottom of the rabbit hole. More often than not, the only pay-off is the enjoyment I get when I finally dig up some obscure piece of trivia that has eluded me for hours. (What can I say? I’m weird like that.)My latest rabbit hole involved fish and shellfish in the Forgotten Realms. The details are relatively unimportant, so I’m putting them in a spoiler block:[spoiler=A tale of fish and shellfish]Among other things, my sourcebook lists some of the foods commonly consumed in each of the hundred-plus cultures described within. As it so happens, Forgotten Realms products mention fish and fishing in connection with certain cultures fairly frequently, so that food staple was relatively easy to associate with specific groups.But I was left with a nit-picky question: when Forgotten Realms products mention fish being eaten, are they using the archaic definition of the word “fish” (in which shellfish count as fish)? Or are they using the scientific definition (in which shellfish are distinct from fish)? And would listing shellfish as a separate category from fish be worth the effort?After scouring my sources for references to various types of shellfish, I determined shellfish are consumed in most parts of the Realms where “fish” are consumed. Given the the overlap between fish and shellfish, I decided to use the archaic definition of the word “fish” in my sourcebook. There would be no meaningful benefit if I listed fish and shellfish as separate categories of food.[/spoiler]One lesson I’ve learned from my trips down rabbit holes: I don’t want to include too many trivial facts in my sourcebook. I want to focus on big picture details that inform meaningful player choices.I’ve also realized—after counting the number of sources I would have to cite just to confirm which cultures eat fish—that I don’t want to include inline citations in my book. I’ll include a self-contained list of my sources so folks can do further reading if they so desire, but my primary goal is presenting useful information, not documenting the underlying research behind every paragraph.In any case, it occurs to me that none of my musings in this post are previews of cool stuff I’m putting in my book. I’ll be sure to focus more on that cool stuff in future posts.</blockquote>

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