Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - RangerSG

Pages: [1]
1
Author Craft / Re: Writing Reference: What's on your bookshelf?
« on: July 21, 2009, 06:47:39 AM »
"On Writing" by Stephan King. Another very down-to-earth book with a lot of well-presented information on how to strengthen your technique.

Yep, I have this one too. I forgot about it in my first list because I filed it under my "King" books and not my "writing" books on the shelves. Great book.

I also keep a translation page and a visual thesaurus up on my Google page, which is always up when I write. The visual thesaurus is a neat tool.

2
Author Craft / Re: Writing Reference: What's on your bookshelf?
« on: July 20, 2009, 09:47:01 PM »
Bible, Book of Mormon, Quran.

Various and sundry works of fantasy and science fiction not limited to but including : The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, The vampire earth books by E.E. Knight, The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, The Brothers Leandros series by Rob Thurman, a bunch of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k novels (Eisenhorn, spacewolves, grey knights, gotrek and felix, blackhearts. Gaunts ghosts)

Plus a whollllleeeee lot of sci fi from authors whose names i can't remember off the top of my head. (no more room on the shelves.  everthing is stacked, not but away.  there are books scattered about the room on every availible surface :) )

Also Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein (an original paperback that is in dreadful condition it was my dads, and the unabriged version) and the Forever War by Jon Haldeman.  Good stuff.

Well now, if we're talking fantasy currently on my shelves...

LoTR, Steven Erickson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, The Baroque Cycle and Anathem, Steven King's The Dark Tower and The Stand, Martin's ASoIaF, Kay's Tigana, Heard's Otori saga, Glen Cook's The Black Company and The Instrumentalites of the Night, Bakker's Prince of Nothing and the Aspect-Emperor and, of course, Dresden.

Also forgot Shelby Foote's Narrative History of the Civil War in my list yesterday.  :P

3
Author Craft / Re: Writing Reference: What's on your bookshelf?
« on: July 19, 2009, 12:46:13 AM »
I have a plethora of resources on Biblical studies (my Masters lies in NT studies). Including grammars of Biblical Greek and Hebrew, theologies and commentaries on all the commonly accepted books, and the Apocrypha and other works, and a few books on the Septuagint. Then a bunch of cultural resources on the Biblical age.

For history I have Norman Davies' 1 volume histories on the Isles and Europe, Diarmaid McCullolloch's The Reformation, Latourette's two volume history of Christianity, Cantor's Civilization in the Middle Ages. The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici. Sanford's history of Japan. A one volume biography on Churchill and his own The Second World War.

General literature; The Complete works of Shakespeare, a 1 volume anthology of American Literature, Tennyson's Poetry, and a book of Celtic Myths and Legends.

For writing resources I have The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy; a thesaurus, The American Heritage College Dictionary and my MLA manual to remind me of my English grammar. :P

4
Author Craft / Re: Authors and Procrastination
« on: July 01, 2009, 06:57:14 AM »
I've gotten up to chapter IV and 10000 words now. Been pretty steady at around 1200 per day, taking Sunday's off (well, and when the US National Team was playing last week. ;) )

5
Site Suggestions & Support / Re: next page button
« on: June 30, 2009, 01:07:18 PM »
When I first joined the forum I hit that "page up" button by reflex a few times and went to the next thread. It is a rather counterintuitive bit of design not to have a next page button. But I'm used to it now.

6
Author Craft / Re: Chapter Titles yes or no?
« on: June 22, 2009, 07:13:30 PM »
An interesting twist I've encountered on Chapter Titles is having a quote precede a chapter rather than a title. In books like "This Alien Shore" they add a depth and flavor to the novel's world as well as add a commentary on, rather than spoiler for, the following chapter. They also seem to create a universal undercurrent to the themes of the novel as a whole. 

Brandon Sanderson does the same thing in his Mistborn series. So does Steven Erikson frequently in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I like it. But I don't know if I'd want to do something like that unless I was writing a history-style work.

7
DFRPG / Re: GenCon Anyone?
« on: June 22, 2009, 05:17:34 AM »
I thought I read on another thread a while back where Evil Hat said definitively they would not be at GenCon. Not that I wouldn't want to see what's up, mind you. Assuming I could go, which I can't.  :-[

8
DFRPG / Re: Sample pages
« on: June 05, 2009, 10:16:49 PM »
Thanks, it looks great. :)

9
Author Craft / Re: Authors and Procrastination
« on: June 05, 2009, 10:12:51 PM »
All I will say is I can stop procrastinating anytime I want...I just don't want to yet. ;)

10
Author Craft / Re: Making Generic Magic more Appealing
« on: June 03, 2009, 06:12:49 AM »
What if there is a defensive spell that causes a magic to return to the environment.

Well, in my setting there's no real room for "defensive" magic as such, in terms of shields or combat wards. With sorcerers aspected as they are, you could never defend against every type of sorcery through magic. That said, you could ward an area via a ritual ahead of time, creating a spell that would consume all other magical energy in the area, for instance. Thus any sorcerer coming into the warded area gets shut down until they leave.

Also if you were rich enough, you could use white gold, which when refined properly grounded out magical energy, so sorcery wouldn't work when cast at that person. Of course, their sorcery wouldn't work either. But that only worked against direct attack. It wouldn't stop say, an illusionist from conjuring images to confuse you. Or an evoker could cast at the hillside above you and crush you still. So it stopped direct attacks, but not the natural effect of said attack.

That said, some casters such as illusionists or shadowmages, would by their nature specialize in defensive magic. Shadows for concealment, illusions to pass off yourself as someone else or deceive their senses. So a coven operating together, if they were all sorceresses (not a given, since they're actually very rare in my world among humans) could exercise "combined tactics" as it were to defend one another. Or exercise a ritual ahead of time to prepare the ground in their favor.



11
Author Craft / Re: Making Generic Magic more Appealing
« on: June 02, 2009, 11:25:09 PM »
Juggernaught gets his powers from a magic stone. Perhaps it is the Blarney Stone since Mr. Juggernaut is such an eloquent speaker.

The trap I fall into is details. The detail that has snared me today is wheather magic predates humans or not. Was there a spirt realm before hummans came along? A lot of magical creatures are based in myth and folklore. Perhapes they caused myth and folklore, or perhaps they where formed from the collecective unconcience of the humans that believe in them. It sounds like an important question, but I know the truth... IT'S A TRAP!

I can't deside on a setting, or if the magic is a secret or not.

To me that's why it's important to decide on the nature of the world first, then the nature of magic. Is this a world that has an "open door" to other realities/realms. If so, then it's logical that magic flows by those paths. If not, then magic likely comes from within the world and/or it's characters.

And I designed a base magic system once where sorcery was aspected to the key part of the character's nature. Rituals and alchemy and such could be done by anyone who believed in them additionally. But that was how sorcery worked. It was a fascinating system. Now if I can just figure a story for that world. *snickers*

12
The OP seems to be of the opinion that house rules are an insult to the author.

That's how I took it too. And I would submit that only a quality RPG can be loved so dearly to have house rules made for it.  ;)

And I am in full geek-mode over what I've read so far here.

Pages: [1]