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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4787401" data-attributes="member: 54707">Well, you gotta point if I were indeed trying to write a typical essay. But the difference is that on the internet the reader can instantly respond to the essay (maybe there needs to be a new kinda term for this kinda thing) so it really isn't an essay, but more like an Interactive Essay.(You know I've never really thought about this before in the way you mentioned it, but what I've actually been trying to do for awhile is develop a new form of arguing out these things on the internet. You know sometimes you can set out to do something and not really understand exactly what you're shooting for til somebody else point sit out for ya. You kinda made it crystallize for me when you said that. Danke.)So, that being the case I think with interactive essays the point is not to be pedantic, or even to express an absolute set of points, and then prove them, but to provoke in a sort of generalized set of terms and language points that imply what you mean but don't necessarily limit what you mean. So that the readers can then take up what is suggested and debate it out or wring it out among themselves, and maybe then come to a sort of conclusion or consensus about the definition of the thing. Maybe even develop  a theory of it. At least a working one anyways.So I'm not trying to define the contents, I'm trying to demonstrate the context (without necessarily proving it), and then let others see how they can (interactively? inter-reactively) work out the details. It ain't exactly a modern/internet Socratic method, then again it ain't a standard my point is A, and yours is B, and therefore here's my essay or thesis, like it or lump it. I kinda want the reader to come to their own points. I'm giving a point to push against. I can't of course take no position at all on some things or I really wouldn't have a point about anything. But I'm trying to leave it as open and loose as possible.But you're right the language is definitely provocative and hyperbolic. That's a good way to put.You don't prove much by hyperbole, but it beats, "Salvatore sucks." As a method I mean. Maybe not as a truism. (By the way, I got nothing against the man, and don't even know him. Don't take my critiques of his writing, anybody, for saying anything about him. That's two separate issues, and that's the same for everybody as far as I'm concerned.)Anywho you got a point, but I hope rather than just looking for my particulars as examples, you'll come up with your own and then say to others by thinking about it, "oh, so that's what fantasy is, or ain't."Thanks Cad. I did not know that. I've never seen that kinda thing before. In or out of university. You learn something new every day.But you will admit won't ya that some things do indeed have boundaries? Otherwise anything becomes everything else merely cause somebody says it should be. I mean would you say that cardiac arrest is different from mad cow disease? What if I wanna call them the same thing cause I'd like too? Is it a pragmatic problem, or merely academic and aescetic?That's a good observation from my point of view. But a thing doesn't necessarily have to be gory to be really scary and dangerous. So that's one thing, but not necessarily the limits of the thing.Personally I also miss real poetry, and a vocabulary that extends beyond, "fireball spell" and "goblin horde."In any case rather than trying to just decipher what I meant maybe people can start thinking about what exactly constitutes fantasy for them, and what ain't fantasy, and why, and then test those points against each other.Whew. I just barely got this finished. Anyways I gotta go meet my CAP squadron tonight. So, later.Carry on.</blockquote>

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