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tracker7I read Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View last week. It's a collection of 40 short stories about a number of minor or background characters from A New Hope. It's, on the whole, pretty good, but there are a few clunkers in the mix.
After finishing that, I started on Tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance. I think I've read this one before, and if I have, it's sure worth visiting again. Way way way in the future, Earth is a very different world, technology and magic are effectively interchangeable, the Sun is fading and sometimes appears to flicker. Other worlds, in some cases probably pocket universes, are accessible by the wizards who rule parts of the Earth. It's shot full of beautiful language, adventure, and little thought-provoking moments. The Dying Earth stories are cited as influences on Gary Gygax's creating of D&D, and D&D's fire-and-forget magic system is lifted directly out of Vance's work. There's plenty of weird in here, and it's reinforcing my want to - if I ever run D&D of any stripe again - put in plenty of unexplained strangeness.
It must be time for far-future roleplaying weirdness. The current Bundle of Holding has a ton of Numenera material in it, and it is ridiculously cheap. I ignored Numenera when it launched way back when, but when a copy of the core's PDF found its way into my files, I found myself interested in it.
Continuing, in prep for the arrival of Shadow of the Beanstalk, I picked up FFG's Genesys RPG a couple of weeks ago. A few changes from the Star Wars RPGs, and loads of suggestions and rules for using the system to model a myriad of genres. When Shadow arrives, and that could be Really Darn Soon, I'm giving this thing a test run.
After finishing that, I started on Tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance. I think I've read this one before, and if I have, it's sure worth visiting again. Way way way in the future, Earth is a very different world, technology and magic are effectively interchangeable, the Sun is fading and sometimes appears to flicker. Other worlds, in some cases probably pocket universes, are accessible by the wizards who rule parts of the Earth. It's shot full of beautiful language, adventure, and little thought-provoking moments. The Dying Earth stories are cited as influences on Gary Gygax's creating of D&D, and D&D's fire-and-forget magic system is lifted directly out of Vance's work. There's plenty of weird in here, and it's reinforcing my want to - if I ever run D&D of any stripe again - put in plenty of unexplained strangeness.
It must be time for far-future roleplaying weirdness. The current Bundle of Holding has a ton of Numenera material in it, and it is ridiculously cheap. I ignored Numenera when it launched way back when, but when a copy of the core's PDF found its way into my files, I found myself interested in it.
Continuing, in prep for the arrival of Shadow of the Beanstalk, I picked up FFG's Genesys RPG a couple of weeks ago. A few changes from the Star Wars RPGs, and loads of suggestions and rules for using the system to model a myriad of genres. When Shadow arrives, and that could be Really Darn Soon, I'm giving this thing a test run.