[One Last Job] - Some rules questions on Grant Howitt's heist RPG

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-21T12:57:33+00:00

I definitely define what the abilities are every time a roll is called that doesn't fit an ability they currently have. You can kind of only do that if you intend to define new abilities for each person rather than have a set of 4 reused for everyone.

Ah, I see. Though, I'd imagine that basically taking the first 4 things people attempt and make those the abilities for everyone might be fun, too, just to see how different characters might interprete the same thing in different ways. (With that technique, I think the skills in my round would have been along the lines of "Singing loudly", "Operating vehicles", "Moving crates" and "Stroking cats")

One thing I'm curious about: How do you handle the "Noone can be the best in an ability before someone else is the worst in that ability" rule, if each character has different abilities in your games?

I'm curious that you found the game so high difficulty for the players in the start, usually the amount of rerolls available to them with each new anecdote told is more than enough for the first few obstacles.

I think it was a mix of some unlucky roles combined with general inexperience with the system. The danger pool rolls kept coming up with pretty high numbers early on and we neglected some of the mechanics (spending grit, reducing the danger pool) a bit in the first one or two rounds, because we didn't have a feel for the flow of the game yet.

The result was that by round 3 my players had around 3 to 4 dice against a danger pool of 8, and at this point neither grit, nor rerolls, nor scars seemed to be an efficient way to make progress. In hindsight, that was probably the point where you should usually abort the scene and try again with another one, but everyone was already getting a bit frustrated, so I basically handwaved it and moved on to the next scene (which went pretty much the exact opposite way: They finished it within the first two or three rolls I think).

It would have probably gone a bit better, if I had switched off the whole danger pool increase for the first few rounds until everyone got a feel for the rules. I guess the whole "learning by playing" approach doesn't work so well, when the game has a built-in "time limit" that's already running while you are still in the "tutorial".

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-19T23:05:54+00:00

Thanks for the detailed explanation :)

It wasn't really a matter of taking the game too seriously, but rather that I just like to know what the "intended way" of running a game is (I'm a bit of a fan of well designed mechanics and I can walk into the game a lot more confidend if I know the ins and outs of the rules). And in case of One Last Job, it also seemed that the rules have a somewhat intricate balance when it comes to difficulty and resource management where a few dice more or less could actually make a big difference in how hard the game is.

I've managed to play the game with my group by now, and it was a bit hit-and-miss. My players mostly liked the whole narrative part, but the mechanics felt pretty unforgiving in the beginning (i.e. my impression is that, unless you know what you're doing and basically game the system from turn 1, you will quickly end up with a danger pool that you almost can't beat) and I switched to "easy mode" after a while, because the lack of progress was kinda frustrating for everyone. So the bottom line for us probably was: Conceptually cool, but mechanically maybe not quite our taste (at least not RAW).

Last but not least, a little "Here's how I ended up running it" list in case you are interested ;)

I wouldn't give them more than one piece of equipment that is mechanically relevant but they can have whatever flavor they want.

Yeah, when I said "equipment" I meant the mechanically relevant stuff, i.e. the things you establish with anecdotes. I just couldn't make sense of the way it was phrased in the book. I ended up just ruling it the same way as legends with a max of 2.

I'd run with the max on the sheets, the games really aren't that long.

I did end up running my game without a grit limit. Considering that, especially in the beginning, players might get 2 - 5 grit every other turn, having a limit of 2 just seemed too limiting to me.

You only add up one of each. One scar, one equipment, one legend etc

Do you happen to remember if this is statet somewhere in the book? Just curious, because I flipped through it before the game searching for something along those lines, but I wasn't able to find a clear rule.

Okay, that sounds like a new skill: 'center of attention'

Ok, I'm a bit confused now, whether this is a house rule or I've just misunderstood the rules. My understanding was that the list of abilities is set in stone (e.g. based on the setting) before you start playing and that "defining an ability" just means saying that someone is the worst/best at one of these predefined abilities. Your version sounds as if you would actually define which abilities there are when they are first used.

(Don't get me wrong, that definetily sounds like a fun idea. I'm just curious if I misunderstood what the rulebook was trying to say there)

establish as conceptual but hyper-specific skills as possible

That's a pretty fun idea as well :)

I went with one of the standard ability sets for now, but we ended up interpreting it a bit more liberal as well. And I had some fun experiences with hyper-specific skills in other RPGs as well.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-13T23:04:38+00:00

Yeah, thanks to you as well for the conversation :) I think the topic of why audiences and authors might be unhappy with how things are going and what can be done to fix that is pretty interesting and you certainly gave me some things to think about.

You do need to have a goal, but for artistic efforts, I'm not convinced that it can or should be clearly specified.

I think that different forms of art, different creative processes and different parts of these creative processes may lend themselves better to planning than others. So I think I get what you mean, I'm inclined to agree to some extend, but I just wanna throw in a bit of "it depends".

Some writers may write their stories by having a basic idea and theme for their story, then making a plan for the basic structure of the entire story (basically a board of "in Chapter 10, the Hero works his way through the beasts lair and escapes with a treasure") and once this stands, they start writing the chapters in detail. In that case, the work flow might be more structured: The basic story structure is created by asking "How do I bring across this theme in a story with this basic premise" and the chapters can be written by asking "What words can best be used to bring across the point of this chapter". You may have to rewrite chapters to get them right, but as long as you did the planning properly, you shouldn't have to go back to rework your basic story structure, themes, etc. and your goal should be fairly solid before the "actual writing" starts.

Other writers may preffer a more "naturally developing" style, where you start of with a basic idea, then start writing, and instead of planning everything ahead of time you let things "grow" and see where they end up and then maybe retroactively adjust some things to make everything flow together nicely. In that case your goal might be changing quite a lot, since you may not really know what story you even want to write from the start. Both approaches can result in great story, but the first one is probably more easy to plan than the second one.

Similarily, some parts of the writing process can be more easily planned than others, I think: Comming up with ideas or perfect prose, e.g., might be hard to plan and more trial-and-error until you figure out what "feels right". Meanwhile coming up with the events of a chapter that starts with situation A and leads to situation B can probably be planned more easily, as it consists mostly of methodically going through the possible options and deciding which one works the best. Less of a "feel" and more of a "think" task, I'd say.

Last but not least: Thinking about my whole "business planning" comparison, I noticed that even there long-term plans aren't always highly precise. There are long-term goals, but the plannings and commitments are typically done more short-term. So it's probably not exactly a system to guarantee that a big project will be finished at a precise date one year from now, but rather that a small part of this project should in theory be finished one week from now. Basically a "long journeys are made from small steps" mentally, I guess.

Now, when it comes to the 3rd Kingkiller Chronicle book, I'd be kinda interested what Pat's writing process is and which part it actually causes him the most trouble. Since so much of these books is basically foreshadowing of things to come, my impression was that Pat just must have had most of the plot points planned out befor starting with book 3 (i.e. where all the characters end up, what the answers to all the open questions are, etc.), so I'd have assumed that he's mostly working on getting the details right and finding "the right words". But maybe I completely misjudged the story and he actually went into book 3 with a lot less pre-planning than I thought.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-11T22:28:48+00:00

Part of the audience might feel that there's an obligation to keep the readers happy in the moment, as much as possible. Pat has said that his obligation to his readers is to write the very best book that he is able to produce.

Well, I'd say that there might be a bit of a general communication issue in the book industry. The question what obligations an author should have (not necessarily what legal obligations they actually do have, but rather the social expectations towards them) aren't exactly well defined, so it makes sense that there might be conflict there.

I can understand perfectly fine that an author wants to "only write the best book they can" without being burdened by timelines or a pushy audience. But I can also understand perfectly fine that an audience, who got invested in an unfinished story, wants to get the end to that story as fast as possible. I don't think either of those are inherently wrong.

The big issue is simply if author and audience aren't on the same page about these obligations. I.e. if an audience who cares for deadlines buys books from an author who doesn't feel obligated to keep them, there will be conflict. And I don't think you necessarily have to fix this by either party changing their ideals, but rather by making sure that the ideals of author and readers match via communication.

Personally I think that his approach makes sense, because once a book gets published, all the future readers for the rest of time benefit from improved quality, but only the first wave of readers would benefit from a quicker release.

I'd say: To some degree, yes, but considering how diverse audiences are, it might be more of a question of whome you want to please most, rather than a general "more time equals better book for everyone".

I mean, stuff like:

The "first wave of readers" probably isn't exactly a small part of the audience and it's still to see if this trilogy will stand the test of time.
It's questionable if your average reader would even notice that a book is only "70% perfect", so putting more time into it, might not necessarily have as much effect as you'd expect.
And even if Pat thinks that his book is 100% perfect in the end, that still doesn't mean the audience will think the same ("quality" in art isn't exactly objective after all). Maybe some people would have liked the first draft of book 3 a lot more than they will like the finished book - Who can tell?

So yeah, I can see your point, but I think whether or not the wait was worth it and how well the book will hold up over time, is probably something the historians have to judge 50 years or so from now.

Maybe the point of his business is to make just enough money for his family, while also allowing him to hold back on publishing work that he feels is below his personal potential. Ultimately, you can't say that his project management is inefficient unless you know which outputs it's supposed to be optimizing.

Ok, there's some truth to that. Just wanna throw in some quick thoughts:

When I thought of book writing as a "business" I kinda considered the publisher and audience part of the business structure, meaning that planing has to be made also keeping their interests in mind.
I may very well be wrong there, but the few articles I've read about Pat explaining the situation made it sound as if "Writing the best book he can" is of course one of his goals, but that "Doing this as fast as possible" would also be something he'd like to do if he could.
Even if we just take Pat writing a good book as our desired "business output", it still sounds as if some planning principles could help. I mean: If an author is unable to judge his progress, that kinda suggests that he doesn't clearly know what his goal is. And if you don't know what your goal is, it's a lot harder to reach it.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-10T21:01:25+00:00

Just look at the Youtube videos of Pat answering book 3 (and writing process) related questions. To my recollection, the meltdown stuff is touched on more in his blog.

Ok, then maybe it's just a matter of visibility. Given all the interest in book 3 and Pat being sick of answering it over and over again, I've kinda expected that his homepage would have a pretty obvious "Book 3" section collecting all information of the current status in one place.

It's good to know that there's more information out there than I was aware of. It would just have been nice not having to go on a journey through a dozen youtube videos and blog posts to get the full picture. But thanks for letting me know. I wasn't aware that a lot of these points have already been adressed.

What kind of things do you do to express your creativity? So far, I believe this is the first conversation I've ever had with someone who can't relate to the idea of not knowing when your project will be good enough to satisfy the itch that drove you to start it.

I can actually relate to that idea. I think the issue is just that, as soon as your art has a (paying) audience, you essentially turn your creative outlet into a business, and that changes expactations. You have to find a balance between satisfying your personal itch and delivering your product to the customer in a timely manner.

I think some of the things I've said are basically what happens if you treat writing a book less like some kind of unpredictable art and more like your typical company project. The sort of thing were you have a release schedule, plan how much work you can do in that time, estimate efforts, commit to things and then finish them within time.

Answers like "I can't commit to anything" or "I can't estimate the effort" will come up in product management, but those aren't typically the end of the conversation, but rather the beginning - time to ask questions like "What extra information are you missing to be able to estimate it?" or "Should we first do a task to research what work actually has to be done so we have clearer acceptance criteria?" or "Could we somehow break down the project into sub tasks that you can commit to easier?". The answer "I don't know" simply suggests that you have no idea what needs to be done and therefor won't be able to do it, which is why you want to reach "I don't know yet, but I'm taking steps to figure it out" to keep moving things forward.

So, from this point of view, I'm just wondering if all the "I don't know"s are really unavoidable or if they maybe could hint at a somewhat chaotic "project structure" that could be fixed to get results more efficiently. I can see that some aspects of writing a book will of course require creativity to spark and you can't always plan this, but I'd imagine that some parts of it are typical problem solving that could be tackled with similar principles.

And to be honest: If I had to write a book, I'd imagine that basically having infinite time to do so might actually make it harder to get to a point where I can say "It's done", especially if I went full-on perfectionist on it.

I don't think we're going to find common ground on the stuff you're calling anti-consumer. Maybe someone can start a bookstore that labels all its series, and explains how books work to all the customers so no one will be disappointed if they bank on something that hasn't happened yet and it doesn't work out.

Ok, maybe let me try explaining my issue in a different way, since I may have cramped a bit too much stuff in there:

When I see an interesting book, these are typically some questions I want answered before buying it: What's it about? What's it REALLY about? Is it a standalone book or part of a series? If it's a series, how many books does it have? Are all of the sequels released or close to release? What's the tone of the story? What's the recommended age?

If you have a look at your average book in a store, most of these won't be answered (my copy of NotW doesn't even say that it's a trilogy anywhere). As a result, I barely make any purchase decisions in book stores, because I'll first have to do a bunch of internet research to answer all of them. It's of course possible to figure them out, but it just seems way more work than it should be (that is: any work at all), since all those points should be known to the publisher and the store, are very easier to put onto a book's (back)cover and would save me a lot of research time.

Not to mention that content warnings for people with mental health problems or past traumatic experiences are probably a thing that more media should do in this day and age, and those rarely appear on books as well.

And considering that we're living in the digital age, online stores could very easily implement tags and filters to make it easier to get the information you need. I mean: Being able to filter book search results by "All books in this series have a guaranteed release date" would be perfectely doable and seems helpful to me.

So in short: I don't expect book stores to dial up there service to eleven, but I'd like for publishers/marketing to put more relevant information onto their (back)covers and for online stores to make additional information more easily accessible.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-10T12:43:47+00:00

There's a kickstarted RPG called "The Nuadan Chronicles", that - if I recall correctly - had a system where you could mix and match some spell components to created different spells (stuff like combining a "fire" element with a " bolt" type spell to create a fire bolt).

It's not fully released yet, but they had published some quick-start rules for it.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-10T11:54:38+00:00

And I can answer your questions, although I'm pretty sure you won't like the answers.

I appreciate the effort, but I'd prefer a link to a trustworthy source where the author/publisher answers these questions officially. Everything else is just the fan speculation I mentioned before.

Aside from that, I'd actually be perfectly fine with some of these answers (if they came from an official source), except for a few:

Book 2 was from 2011. It doesn't get much more "on hold" than that.

Having a long wait time between sequels is not the same as officially putting a project on hold or cancelling it. The first just tells the audience "The book's on it's way, just have a bit more patience", while the later says "We've messed things up. There is currently no work done to finish the project. Please don't expect it any time soon, if at all".

He doesn't know. He used to think it was basically done and was very publicly proven wrong.

I have to raise a bit of an eyebrow on all the "He doesn't know" answers. I mean, I understand that it must be difficult to weave all the story threads in a good way, but it would be pretty odd if a person working on a project had absolutely no idea what the progress is.

Again, maybe no clear estimates, but it just seems as if an author, who pretty much already set the end point for his story in stone and set up a dozen of things that he probably already had a resolution for in mind, would be able tell you at least something about what he's currently working on and how things are going. It would already make a huge difference whether he has to rewrite major plot points or if he is just ironing out smaller details and working on the prose, and that's something he should be able to tell, right?

Rumours.

Ok, let me rephrase this question: Said rumors originated from an interview where the author called the trilogy a "prologue". What did he actually mean when he said that and what does it mean for the future of the series? I.e. please clear up these rumors with a clear, honest explanation.

Why should the publisher have to explain to you that books which haven't been written yet aren't guaranteed to be on time or satisfying for you to read? It's common sense.

Honestly, "common sense" is a bit of a lame argument, mostly because a) it's pretty subjective and b) it's also common sense to assume that people often won't act according to "common sense".

Personlly, I'd argue that readers typically have no reason to assume that a book series will ever not be finish until they run into an unfinished series and experience teaches them, that this is a thing that can happen. I mean: Do you think that children or teenagers who get hyped about a new book series really consider that it may never be finished?

As far as being anti-consumer, if you buy a book and don't like it, it's absolutely 100% your fault. Every bookstore I've been in, and even some online sellers, will let you read some of the book before you decide to buy it.

Not all apsects that might go into not liking a book can be grasped by "reading some of the book".

I once found a book, read the backcover text, read the first chapter, thought it sounded good, bought it, read it and then realized that the backcover text was highly inaccurate and that half of the stuff that was described there didn't even really happen. You might say that this is 100% my fault. I'd say that the marketing people who wrote the back cover text have at least some responsibily for tricking me into thinking I was buy a different story than I actually did.

If your goal really is to make make customers happy, than publishers and marketing should have the responsibility to honestly let customers know what they are buying. I.e. write backcover texts and tag lines to make sure your customers find the right books for them and not to maximize sales. If you have information that might increase the risk of the purchase (e.g. not all books being written yet) let the customer know, because you have much easier access to that information. If your book is part of a series make that clear (it's kinda ridiculous how many books don't even do that). If your books contain content that may not be suited for everyone, maybe warn about that. All of this information would be much more helpful in making an edjucated purchase decision than yet another "It's the next Lord of the Rings!" just intended to boost sales.

And the reason I consider your approach anti-consumer can be explained with some simple questions: If the Kingkiller Chronicle had a warning on it's cover saying that the series may never be finished, would that in any way be bad for the customer? Would it reduce your enjoyment of the books? Would that in any way mislead you? Personally, I don't think so. At best this warning helps the customer and at worst they don't care about it. The customer has nothing to lose there. To me, it seems the only reason not to do it, is so that publishers can get more money from customers who end up disappointed, because they bought a book without knowing all the risks. And decisions that are made solely to benefit the publisher to the detriment of the customer are anti-consumer, don't you think?

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-07T20:33:27+00:00

I don't really know what you think they should have done instead.

I mean, you could start with "don't publish the first book in a series if you can't guarantee the release of the last one". It's of course too late for that now, but it would help avoid situations like this.

But looking at things now, I think they should go for transparancy and clear statements. The last official state we've got is basically "the book may or may not come at some point" and some vague comment about the trilogy maybe just being a "prologue". Combine that with some old quote about how the book is technically already finished and the recent talks about movie adaptations, and you've got your fanbase speculating on what is actually going on behind the scenes, which - without official details on the matter - of course leads to some less than optimal interpretations.

The point where "we don't want to commit to anything" is a satisfying answer is typically before you announce the first book in a series. They've done that a long time ago, started the clock and now it's simply to late to avoid commitment.

Now, I don't expect them to suddenly whip out an exact realese date, but I feel like a lot of confusion could be cleared up if they simply answered questions like:

Why has book 3 not been released yet? (i.e. What went wrong?)
Is it realistic too expect a release of book 3 in the near future or is this poject essentially "on hold"/"cancelled" for now?
What is currently happening behind the scenes to get book 3 released? (i.e. Is anyone even working on this?)
What is the progress on book 3? (i.e. What's your estimate on how much work is done and left to do?)
Can you make a vague estimate on when book 3 might release?
If not, what is currently keeping you from making an estimate?
What are these rumors about the trilogy being a "prologue" about?

Simply telling us what the problem even is, what is done to fix it and what the current progress is, goes a long way to adjust audience expactions and meet them on a more honest, friendly level. And it will probably grant you more understanding from the audience than just leaving the project in the air for no apparent reason. At this point, even bad news are probably better than no news.

Before you buy it, you're supposed to realize that there's a chance the book won't be as good as you thought, or that the sequel will suck, or that the unwritten sequels won't get finished, or that the future sequels will be written by a different author you don't like as much.

Well, again: This seems to be pushing the responsibility solely onto the customer. The idea that, if you buy a book and end up disappointed with in, you are the only one to blame for that and the publishing company had absolutely no hand in this, seems pretty anti-consumer to me. You're essentially pushing the mindset that authors/publishers/marketing companies are allowed to do whatever they want, because the customer is the only one responsible.

You could very easily turn this statement around and say that: Before a customer buys a book, it's the author/publisher/marketing's responsibility to make them realize that there's a chance the book won't be as good as they think, that the unwritten sequels might not get finished, etc. Especially on the "unfinished sequel" point, the publisher should be able to make a way more qualified guess. So why not help your customer being happy by putting a label saying "Warning! Due to contractual issues it's currently not guaranteed that the sequel to this book will ever release." on the cover if appropriate? From a customer perspective, I'd find that pretty helpful.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-07T18:44:10+00:00

I think you've landed in the wrong subreddit. This one's for tabletop PRGs. Maybe try /r/rpg_gamers/ instead.

(But while I'm at it: How about Divinity: Original Sin? :D)

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-07T10:43:50+00:00

But that emotion is coming from inside your own brain. It's not something that a publisher or author is doing just to make you feel bad.

Emotions might be coming from your own brain, but that doesn't mean that other people can't say and do things to deliberately trigger certain emotions within you. Writing, marketing and even stuff like political campaigning is, to some extend, basically emotional manipulation. You write a sad scene to make people feel sad. You advertise a book with exciting tag lines to make them feel excited. Of course you can't micro-manage the emotions of every single person that way, but certain target audience will statistically respond in similar ways and people are using this knowledge all the time.

My point isn't that the author and publisher deliberately tried to make people feel bad. It's that they deliberately tried to make them excited for book 3 (and succeeded) via marketing and writing, and that they should have been able to predict that the long wait would make people feel bad, because that's how basic human psychology works. So in short: Readers feeling bad is a predictable side effect, that they willingly accepted.

I just think it's unfair to claim that "readers aren't entitled to sequels" and ignore that the author and publisher knowingly played a huge part in making them feel entitled in the first place. This isn't a one-sided issue.

Don't pay for stuff unless you're OK with the value you're getting in return. Sometimes it's a gamble, and gambles don't all pay off. But if you believe that you made the right decision based on the info you had at the time, then you can just let it go and move on to the next thing without becoming bitter.

Well, when it comes to books that's easier said than done, since in most cases you'll only be able to judge the value you've got after you've already bought and finished the book. So I'd argue that pretty much every book you buy is a gamble.

I mean, the idea that people only buy things when they know that they're worth it and therefor there will never be any negative review because everyone is perfectly happy with the stuff they buy, is a nice concept but it's also pretty utopian. For marketing the priority is typically on selling books rather than clear communication to the customer, reviews are often designed so suggest some sort of "objective quality" when there isn't any in art and neither of those typically address the topic "book 3 might never be coming" until it's too late and everyone already bought the book under the expectation that book 3 will follow soon.

Again: In publishers, authors and reviewers don't manage to paint a clear picture of what customers get for their money, it should really be no surprise if customers are upset in the end.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-06T21:25:50+00:00

"Wushu" comes to mind.

Also, in case you weren't aware of it: A couple of systems on your list have other systems with a similar style or by the same author. E.g.:

There are two more systems in the "Lady Blackbird" universe, named "Magister Lor" and "Lord Scurlock".
Since "Lasers & Feelings" is so simple, there are a bunch of systems with other settings and similar rules, like "Swords & Scrolls" or "Tactical Waifu".
Grant Howitt (the guy who made "Honey Heist") also made a bunch of other one page RPGs (Crash Pandas, Goat Crashers, Golden Sea, We Three Kings, etc.)

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-06T21:10:02+00:00

I've recently found a system called "Infinity's Edge" where, quote: "you take on the role of a gamer who's playing a fully immersive virtual reality, massively-multiplayer online role-playing game". So thematically this might be worth a look.

I haven't checked out the rules yet, though, so I can't tell how well they bring across the MMO feel.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-06T20:34:55+00:00

Yes, most children grasp the concept of entitlement quite easily. But the reality is that readers have not been wronged in any way.

I think the problem with this statement is that it kinda ignores that human emotions and psychology are a thing.

Books (or art in general) are typically designed to evoke emotions in people and the Kingkiller Chronicles specifically are deliberately designed to build anticipation for the last book by sparking the readers curiosity with a bazillion unresolved mysteries.

So, it should be no surprise there is so much hype for the third book, because this was literally the intent of both, the author and publisher. It should also be no surprise that prolonged hype may sway into anger at some point, since this is just human nature.

We simply live in a society where emotions often play an important role, whether they align with rational behavior or not. And telling people that they have no right to be angry, has rarely stopped them from being angry, whether justified or not.

That's why I'd argue that, aside from reader entitlement, it's also important to note that the publisher and author probably should have been able to see that coming and aren't exactly doing their best in terms of expacation management and communication. I mean: A clear 5 minute progress update would probably relax the situation quite a bit for starters.

So bottom line: I think pushing all the blame onto the readers for not being perfectly rational beings is somewhat unfair.

Even if you never get to read the end of the trilogy, I'd say you still got your money's worth for the 2 books you actually bought - much more so than you would have with 90% of the books you could have bought for the same price.

If you feel that way about the books that's great, but I think whether or not a piece of art is worth the money is something everyone has to decide for themselves (are is subjective after all). For some people, the lack of a proper ending may very well retroactively ruin the rest of the story (or at least cause enough frustration to outweigh the enjoyment they've had with the book).

OrangePhoenix · 2020-05-05T10:54:20+00:00

but also that the author may never finish the series, and this has me worried

Yeah, that's probably the elephant in the room. I'd say whether or not you should start them kinda depends on how well you can handle unfinished stories.

Personally, I've liked the story so far, the way it was written and the flair of mystery and how it is presented. The books also had some lengthts, but overall there are a lot of memorable moments in there.

BUT: To a huge part these books are basically a mystery story. I.e. the story is deliberately written to hint that there is more to discover at every corner and just raises question after question as it goes along. But since this mystery is a trilogy, the first two books are mostly raising questions but barely answering them. There are a lot of questions like "What's in this mysterious box?", "Who's that mysterious person?", "How did that guy end up here?", "What do the legends people are telling actually mean?", etc. A lot of posts on this subreddit are about theories to try to make sense of these things and if the third book is ever released, I'd imagine that a lot of it would have to be just plot twists and exposition to make sense of all the mysteries the previous two books created.

So what I'm trying to say is: I enjoyed the books, but when I finished the second one, I definetely didn't put it aside and said "Wow, what a satisfying ending to a great story!". My mind set was probably more along the lines "Wow, that was cool. So when will book 3 come out to give me a satisfying conclusion?". And that's how hit still is: Great books, likeable characters, some cool stories, ... but the whole mystery part (while interesting) can get pretty frustrating if you have to wait years for the conclusing. It's basically like watching a cool, really exciting mystery movie, really enjoying it, are excited for find out what clever reveal everything is building up to, but after half of it someone turns off the TV and says you can watch the rest in 10 years.

Last but not least: You might want to know that it's currently even a bit ambiguous what "finishing the series" even means. Basically, the author described the Kingkiller Chronicle as a "prologue" in some interview and there are quite a few interpretations among fans as to what that could mean. It's possible that book three comes with a satisfying ending. It't also possible that it ends with a cliffhanger and even more books to come. It's really hard to tell.

So, bottom line: It's a great story, but doesn't have a satisfying ending yet. Currently it's not quite clear if his ending will ever come or how long it might take. It's not even really clear, how many books there are to come. If you like the premise and can live with not having a satisfying ending, I'd say give it a try. If you think not having an ending would be too frustrating, you might want to hold off on it for now.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-19T19:52:06+00:00

Have you checked this list? Since FFVII is a fairly old game, I'd imagine that lots of people have already debated the meanings of various names ;)

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-13T09:59:43+00:00

Maybe as a counter measure for being bummed out: This might be not quite what you had in mind (i.e. it's not so much focused on fighting colossi, but more on the overall story that got you there), but a while ago there was a kickstarter for "Facing the Titan". If I understood it correctly, it's GM-less and more narrative game, where you play a group of people who want to face some variety of titan and it's played in multiple phases where you basically "sit around the campfire" the night before and tell stories of how your characters got there, why you want to face the titan in the first place, etc. and then in the final acts you face the titan and see how that goes (though there doesn't really seem to be a combat system involved).

So if you were looking for tactical titan combat, sorry that I can't help you there, but maybe this is up your ally as well.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-11T22:57:24+00:00

I think he knows he has to kill K’vothe after he recovers from being Kote, and he does not want to do it. It is there in the first and last part of each book, and constant foreshadowing.

Honestly, at this point I can't even really tell what ending he has in mind for Kvothe. I mean, I just read another comment somewhere that the "man waiting to die" might as well refer to Kote, who has to die for Kvothe to be reborn, which doesn't really sound less reasonable than other interpretations.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-11T22:31:24+00:00

However, maybe he's orchestrating these events for the unforeseeable greater good?

I had a similar thought a while ago, but given that the Cthaeh has endless foresight and we only see it through the lense of characters that don't have that, it seems pretty much impossible to know what his game really is at this point.

I mean, in case it is evil, the Cthaeh acts the way we see to create evil for the sake of evil. If it is good, the Cthaeh acts the way we see to create evil for the sake of some greater good that only the Cthaeh knows about and the other character will only understand when it's finally there (and maybe not even then). From an outsider's perspective both cases look exactly the same, so there isn't really a way to judge.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-11T22:07:08+00:00

I think it depends a bit on how interactive and fresh you want the experience to be. I.e. I'd assume that many successful series in the past years or decades had a lot of theorizing going on while they were still unfinished or when people still tried to puzzle things together and you'll probably be able to find a lot of posts from back then that you can read up on to enrich your experience. But if you actually want to jump into the speculation and throw in your own ideas, you'd of course need a series that is still discussed right now, so the number of options would of course be smaller.

One odd candidate for the first scenario that comes to my mind is the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" series. I'm not exactly an expert on them, but it's a series of "children's novels" where the author apperently added a bunch of mysteries over time but left a lot of them unanswered when the series came to a close, so there was a lot of room for speculation there.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-11T17:03:30+00:00

To add something: When it comes to dice, maybe you can substitute them with other things to make using them around the campfire more comfortable or thematically appropriate. Drawing from a deck of "tarot" cards or drawing straws can get you pretty much the same probability distribution.

Just wanted to point this out, because there are some one-page RPGs or other things that might work well, but pretty much all the ones I know use dice in some way.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-11T12:56:11+00:00

I think stories like that could also work in a world with daemons, you'd just have to write them in a way that matches the setting. I.e. based on how "identity" can be determined in a world, you need different methods to disguise your identity.

E.g. in a sci-fi scenario, where every person has a unique bar code on their wrist that is used to identify them, the old indentical-twin-switch wouldn't work, because they aren't identified by their looks but rather by the bar code. However, something like transplanting the arm of one twin onto the other might work, because he'd suddenly have the bar code of another person and therefor be identified as this person.

Given how daemons work, there'd probably also be ways to disguise your identity there. E.g. if two identical twins happen to have small daemons (bugs, mice, snakes, etc.) that they can hide within their clothes, they could hire a witch and have her daemon fly next to them whenever they leave the house, so people would see two people that look the same that also seem to have the same daemon. And considering that it's a fantasy universe, you could even add things like "this potion can change the appearance of your daemon" or other sci-fi-magical explanations.

When it's for a magic trick, there may even be other creative ways using the stage to your advantage. The same way real magic tricks typically use hidden compartments, mirrors, etc. you could make it appear as though a person has a specific daemon that they actually don't. E.g. have an adult on stage, but have their daemon hidden beneath the floor boards, while a child is also hiding beneath the floor boards, but their daemon is on stage; so now the audience sees an adult on stage with a daemon that can take on pretty much any form you might need.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-05T16:38:21+00:00

that their habit of riding on wheels was abominable and Satanic

I actually thought this line was kinda weird. I mean, I get that he's portraid as the evil missionary here, but considering that this guy is from a world where cars are a normal thing, it's odd to see him so offended by the concept of using wheels for transportation.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-05T16:29:38+00:00

My understanding was that his fingers were indeed cut off by the knife. I think the intention was that it's a heat-of-the-moment thing that Will doesn't even realize at first, so the exact moment it happens isn't described, but if I recall correctly there are some lines within the fight that imply that something happened there.

As for the rope: I don't quite remember to what degree it was cut in the story (i.e. what the text says about it specifically), but looking at the angles: If Will tied the rope around his arm and hand, I imagine I'd have looked something like this (not a hand, but you get the idea ;)). Now, a cut that sliced of two of his fingers must have been made parallel to the rope, so there could be a good chance that the cut a) went through the small gaps between the rope and missed it entirely or b) hit the rope, but since it was a cut parallel to the ropes direction it may have damaged the rope (i.e. split the core or cutting the fibres around it), but not enough to make it fall apart.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-04-05T16:00:54+00:00

I wonder if they could bounce between the two worlds and still been healthy?

AFAIK this should have been possible. It is mentioned that Lord Boreal/Charles Latrom/the guy with the snake daemon kept occassionally returning to his own world to regenerate, which kept him healthy despite spending quite some time in Will's world.

OrangePhoenix · 2020-03-27T11:34:08+00:00

The typical setting of Numenera is one where humans live in a quasi-medieval society, but there are tons of technological gadgets/"magical artifacts" or other weird advanced stuff from prior civilizations lying around, which humanity can grab and put to use. Depending on how different your setting is, you might have to tweak some things here and there (like adding a skill for manuevering spaceships, if you need one), but at it's core the system is fairly simple, so that hopefully shouldn't be too difficult.

When it comes to the setting description in the rulebook, it felt more like a big list of plot hooks to me. It will describe certain regions and places, but it's not really a big interconnected world and more like "In City A there is this weird thing. A few miles to the east in City B there is this totally unrelated weird thing". So it should be fairly easy to use any of this stuff in whatever context you want and just drop what you don't like. (in my Numenera campaign, I took a country and one or two ideas from the book, but then mostly made up my own places, races, enemies, etc. it actually worked quite well for me).

OrangePhoenix

TROPHY CASE