DragonCon

[segaily]

Jim mentioned taking a negative 18 hit to [something] in [some game] to cast the spell. Apparently, from the way Jim said it and audience reaction, that's bad. I didn't catch the something or the game, and I'm not very experienced in RPG's outside of 90's Nintendo games.

I would take that to mean you need to think about it as rolling a 20 sided dice. If you roll a 19 or 20 it works anything else you are at zero or less meaning it does not work.  In other words you have a 1 in 10 chance of pulling off the spell.  Guessing a bit but it may well mean 9 out of 10 times the vampire gets to tear you apart because you are so tired from the failed spell you have no chance and had to be near the vamp to cast it.

[Bad Alias]

I think it might of been some kind of alignment shift. It sounded more like a character stat than a die roll.

[magnuskn]

The "Male Stars of Fantasy/SF" panel with Jim, Michael A. Stackpole, Brandon Sanderson, Kevin J. Anderson and Robert J. Sawyer was great as well, with very useful advice for aspiring writers. Jims advice was especially good and encouraging for someone like me, who aspires to write his first novel.

[Snark Knight]

I think it might of been some kind of alignment shift. It sounded more like a character stat than a die roll.

Being a Kemmler spell, it's pretty much guaranteed to use dark magic. So even if it's not a technical violation of the seven laws to use necromancy to wreck blampires since they're not human, it makes sense for there to be a serious risk of mental / spiritual corruption.

If Harry lives long enough to graduate past Rashid's warning that he's not ready to tap the Demonreach prisoners' leyline without it changing him, though, he might also be less vulnerable to being changed by using necromancy against the black court. Or if he inherits the Blackstaff, he's covered to use it at will.

[Kindler]

If she's aware of how risky it would be for him to actually do, she can probably guess he's not going to hat up and use it unless pressed. I figured there had to have been some downside to Harry actually using it, or he would have just opened a can of whoop-ass on the BCV's in It's My Birthday Too instead of sneaking around backstabbing them with gravitus and spitting garlic on them.

So Mavra probably thinks she can leave him on the back burner for the short to intermediate term, but taking him out is going to have to happen before she starts making any big moves that would really piss him off.


I also kind of want to know which of the crack theories really bothered him.

There are some pretty awful ones that get thrown around on Reddit. There was a particularly uncomfortable one that received tons of negative replies and downvotes, and was universally rejected. I'm going to spoil it because it's pretty gross. Basically, this person wrote a 1,000-3,000 word post that insisted Marcone is a

(click to show/hide)

pedophile.

I've read a lot of WAGs, some good and fun, some kinda dumb and/or boring, some just ridiculous. That one was just wrong, on many, many levels. There are alternate character interpretations and then there are alternate character interpretations. I pop over to Reddit and see what other people are talking about because there are usually a couple of threads that are interesting, but there's also a fair amount like the one I'm talking about. I don't know if this is the one that bothered Jim or not, but if Jim did read it, I'd understand being bothered or disturbed.

[g33k]

The "Male Stars of Fantasy/SF" panel  ...

WaitWHAT?
...
but
WHY?
 

[Kindler]

WaitWHAT?
...
but
WHY?
 

Isn't that... most stars for that genre? Are they separating the panels by gender now?

[Bad Alias]

I believe there was at least one woman on every other panel I saw. Maybe they happened to have a panel that ended up with just guys on it, so they gave it that name? It struck me as odd, and I don't care about any of that equity stuff.

On an unrelated note, does anyone recall which panel it was that Jim said that the White Council's interpretation of the Laws of Magic was overly strict? It makes me wonder what's really going on with the laws. Maybe the borders of the laws aren't what we've thought or maybe there is gray area where, for example, killing but not murdering with magic is only a little bit corrupting and is something that can be "easily" recovered from.

[fetchzee]

I would take that to mean you need to think about it as rolling a 20 sided dice. If you roll a 19 or 20 it works anything else you are at zero or less meaning it does not work.  In other words you have a 1 in 10 chance of pulling off the spell.  Guessing a bit but it may well mean 9 out of 10 times the vampire gets to tear you apart because you are so tired from the failed spell you have no chance and had to be near the vamp to cast it.

I think Jim said it was rolling a -19 on sanity by using the spell.

[Bad Alias]

I think Jim said it was rolling a -19 on sanity by using the spell.

I think that's right.

[magnuskn]

WaitWHAT?
...
but
WHY?

Uh, because they booked male stars of Fantasy/SF, I guess? I mean, what's the question here?

[Kindler]

Uh, because they booked male stars of Fantasy/SF, I guess? I mean, what's the question here?

Just odd that they have a panel dedicated to male stars of Fantasy/SF, when they're genres typically dominated by men in the first place. Most conventions either A) wouldn't name the panel that (just "stars of Fantasy/SF," or B) would go the opposite route and have a female stars panel. It's an unusual choice in today's climate.

It'd be almost (not quite, but almost) like having an African American NBA Player panel.

[magnuskn]

Well, the moderator was female. All in all, it was a panel very much worth watching.

[g33k]

Uh, because they booked male stars of Fantasy/SF, I guess? I mean, what's the question here?

Maybe I misunderstood, and it was just the only panel (of several such) that had all-male presenters, and colloquially id'ed that way.

But if it was titled & presented as the one where only male authors would be on the panel...  That seems weird.

And not in a good way.  Like it'd be extra work to prevent it from being weird-in-an-actively-bad-way.
 
<shrug>  But I wasn't there.

[magnuskn]

Still don't get it. They had some of the most accredited popular authors in SF/Fantasy on and they happened to be male. It was a very informative panel on the technical side of writing.

Here's a link to Priscilla's video of it. I highly recommend watching it if you want to get into writing:

https://youtu.be/AJV4E0eNO-0?