Does any1 want to make a D&D Ezine?

[EOL]

Sometimes I wonder about the benefit of letting people know how difficult something is going to be. In the past I have generally favored the brutally honest approach, "You want to start an e-zine? Okay be prepared to cry yourself to sleep every night after putting in a 26 hour day... " But lately I've had occasion to reverse my position, if I had understood how difficult it would be to start my own pseudo-e-zine. I never would have tried it. Only complete obliviousness prevented me from running, screaming into the hills. This, combined with the fact that [shameless plug]no one had ever done quite what I was doing[/shamless plug] so there was no one to tell me how hard it was going to be, gave me the neccessary ignorance to pull it off.

Basically what I'm saying is you'll never know what you're capable of until you try, so what the heck go for it, Dragonsword. If nothing else it will be educational.

 

[Wayside]

Read Finnegans Wake lately Vaxalon?

"Bad" grammar is no good for gamebooks (whose authorship ought to be completely deficient in style, more or less anonymous, since it is written for utility), but an article by a person can do anything.

As far as the difficulty involved, when two friends of mine and I decided to put together the Holocron (netbook) for WEG's d6 Star Wars we didn't find it terribly difficult, and that thing was large. I'm sure there were hundreds of editorial errors (we didn't really care), but I havn't purchased a book, let alone got something for free, in which I didn't spot at least 10-20 errors (probably per 100 pages), not counting the shoddy prose; and for those of us with sensitive ears bad prose reads like an oboe out of tune sounds.

The only advice I would offer on writing "opinion" pieces for an ezine is that you use the kind of English you can talk perfectly well with. Most people run into trouble when they try to do this thing called "writing" (whatever that is).

 

[DragonSword]

Important!

If you are or were interested in this thread visit: http://www.ethos.0catch.com.

DragonSword

 

[Mark]

Re: Important!

...gamebooks (whose authorship ought to be completely deficient in style, more or less anonymous, since it is written for utility...

I do not disagree with your stance on grammar nor your views on article writing, but I do take exception to this. Gamebooks are as much about sparking the imagination as they are laying out the rules. It's might be the old debate about crunchy vs. flavor-text, but I feel style is important in anything less than a pure technical manual (which does not include gamebooks, IMO.)

If you are or were interested in this thread visit: http://www.ethos.0catch.com.

DragonSword

Congrats on the new site and full speed ahead!

(You may wish to continue to search for some free webspace that includes less intrusive advertising. The combination of banners and two pop up ads is more than most places have, if I am not mistaken. Perhaps you can do a little searching here-

http://www.freewebspace.net/

Hope that helps!

 

[Wayside]

Re: Re: Important!

Gamebooks are as much about sparking the imagination as they are laying out the rules. It's might be the old debate about crunchy vs. flavor-text, but I feel style is important in anything less than a pure technical manual (which does not include gamebooks, IMO.)

You're definitely right about style in the non-rules sections of gamebooks, which I hadn't thought about when I said that. The problem with sparking the imagination is how impossible it is to do in any specific way on purpose (the ol' affective fallacy), but I think we would all agree that it's the nature of peoples' individual (and unpredictable) responses to these 'idea' aspects that makes those responses valuable (so to speak) at all. So, yes, I agree completely.

 

[Vaxalon]

...perticularly...

particularly

 

[Wayside]

particularly

Perhaps you are not familiar with the schwa?

My guess is you've never seen an unedited edition of Shakespeare. Let's just say that old adage of Mark Twain's, over-cited by chronically bad spellers, is particularly apt in both cases: "I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way."

And while we're on the subject of proper spelling and proper grammar and proper propriety let's talk about proper pronunciation. How do you say 'hegemony'? And what about proper etymology? Is it ok to use a word that is wrong? Not to say that 'internecine' is part of your idiolect (and was that a complete sentence?). "There's glory for you!" But I suppose Humpty Dumpty and all his subtleties are lost in this context.

 

[Skade]

Well, the site is quite prettily done-especially for having been done so quickly. I don't know that I could promise to help. I seem to be a bit unmotivated lately, and have never attempted to publish anything for d20/OGL.

On the subject of opinion pieces give me a large sample please. Just a specific idea. Like what is i that you would be interested in seeing done for the bard?

is this kind of what you were thinking? (see below)

I for instance would love to explore the love/hate relationship I have with the sorceror and wizard classes, from both a mechanical and story perspective. It is an old argument, and I have no wish to (bad cliche coming) open that particular cave of kobolds. Instead I would be interested in showing a pro and con chart of the classes for interested players. Also, I would describe the place of each in society (based on a generic game setting) and of course how the two classes deal with one another. New skills and feats might be presented, but for the most part it would be a kit for a player to improve his immersion into the character.

Is that the sort of thing you would be interested in Dragonsword?

 

[DragonSword]

Yes, very much so.

DragonSword

 

[Mark]

Re: Re: Re: Important!

The problem with sparking the imagination is how impossible it is to do in any specific way on purpose (the ol' affective fallacy), but I think we would all agree that it's the nature of peoples' individual (and unpredictable) responses to these 'idea' aspects that makes those responses valuable (so to speak) at all.

I can't argue with that one bit (nor is that my intention, of course.) I guess there is always a fine line to tread between giving options and limiting the very options that you give. *shrug*