Gibraltar notice the similarity to the profile of Amber recently posted.
Some combination of Positano, Italy and Gibraltar with the profile document I did for Amber will get you a good result.
I took out the drafting software and sketched this quick profile to give some idea of scale for my own Eternal City. Twenty-five city blocks is based on a quick guess as to how many switchbacks a "carriage road" might have to make to cover the vertical climb of supply wagons and visiting nobles.
There are real city examples of this sort of mountain city on a coast.
image example 123 Positano, Italy
Ok, so if we used 5000 feet, which is a nice large mountain for a coast. Two thirds up would be 3300 feet. Mmm, nice view.
So the "carriage road" (which is what I've always supposed to be the supply road up to the castle) would need to climb about 33,000 feet long, or about Six 'n' a quarter miles long, wrapping back and forth in quarter mile lengths? for a switchback of twenty-five zags.
One to Grow on 3: the Afterlife Everyone has their own idea of what the afterlife could be, or should be like. If you could choose the form that the afterlife takes, what would it be, and why?
Hahaha... it would be Amber, the Eternal City, specifically as fitted out in my own campaign, not as it is portrayed in novel, comics, or in Amber DRPG game books. Why?
Because that Afterlife would allow me an immortal life to explore an infinite universe.
One to Grow on 2: Pop Culture Pop culture phenomena are always manifesting themselves. Some die out almost immediately, while some last for quite a while. Write about one in particular that you simply don't get, despite its popularity.
Easy. Reality programming. Survivor. Bachelor. Who Wants to Marry... This is pap of the worst sort. I'm about as eager to look at any of it as I am to stare at a traffic fatality. And that's the truth. Bleh!
One To Grow On 1: Parents:
Everyone has fantasized, at one point or another, about having a famous parent, or parents. If you could swap out your own parents for a more celebrated set, who would you choose and why?
This is like the curse, "may you live in interesting times".
I'd go for broke and pick:
Nick and Nora Charles as portrayed by William Powell and Myrna Loy. Honestly, a scary idea since there can't be two better choices for "alcoholic poster-couple" than these two. However, the bright energy, the loving competition, the integrity of never allowing injustice to go uncovered, and the down-to-earth lack of elitism in the story have always charmed me. The performers cinch otherwise good solid writing. I would like to think I'd have grown to be a sharp cookie and an artistically free soul with these parents.
Beware-- as the movies get progressively more trite as they move through the series.
I'm imagining a RPG game that has as its internal structure a "contest". The setting would involve a time limit, such as we see in the narrative of "A Night in the Lonesome October", that is building to some sort of climax, while Characters feel each other out and make their preparations for the End. The Characters would have latitude to decide which; and if; they were on each other's "side". In addition, I'm thinking that these Characters would be in-game "agents" of a NPC authority, be it crown, nation, or force-to-be-reckoned-with. All of this structured to allow for a blog-like, or message board sort of environment, where part of the "fun" would be seeing threads--- less-so actually trying to spring surprises or rely on isolating OOC information.
So what ideas might improve this?
I see the game statistics being narrative-based. (ie. Character Ms. A: uncanny flexibility, grace under pressure, eye for analysis)
Succinct answer to WISH 27: why not successful SF RPGs?
Q.E.D. -- Quinn Elicits Dismay The Star Wars RPG might have had a shot, for a while, if the movies were better. Star Trek RPG has no chance after Voyager and Enterprise. Babylon 5 is a fading memory. Farscape got axed to make more room for charlatans. Firefly got Foxed.
The Adventures of Nerdgirl and the Neutron Powered Samurai links to an interesting take on fan-fic. As someone who has stretched my fingers on absurd world-bending fiction, I don't usually care for fan-fic at all. I prefer to see that energy spent on creating something new. But there are some good points in Neal Pollack's comments.
Roll the Bones Everyone has played, or does play, D&D. It's the game of games, the undisputed king of roleplaying, whether one likes or dislikes it. Bearing that in mind, what's your favorite class to play, and why?
Mages for me.
1) Because they are so wimpy that anything you accomplish is a great feat.
2) Because they take so long to acquire 'solutions via game mechanic' that they are mostly character driven. If you don't spend time thinking about them this way, they aren't but shadows of the game system itself.
