[Comments] The Coffee Shop

[Vitus]

Well it is certainly nice to win, I don't think winning by default has the same warmth to it. I do enjoy the challenge the contest presents by the changing topics every month. It MAKES me write. I think motivation sparks creativity and this contest does motivate me. I hope we have a whole lot of entries this time, though. SPREAD THE WORD! I'd really like to see some stories about games that are being played out there... Is it less than cool to do a story on a game that I'm running? Jeez one happens in the Solterra world I created. It's like I can't get away from it.

Get the word out, gang! I don't want to win by default again, it just doesn't feel the same.

Any feedback on the Solterra world, by the way? Am I giving the reader too much of a geography lesson everytime I write, or should I give more details to put the reader in the setting. I've worked with the campaign world so long, I sort of forget that nobody besides my players have seen it.

[Peter172]

I'll try and get something up this month. It kind of feels like I'd be stealing someone else's story, writing about someone else's campaign, but I'm sure it can be forgiven just this once. I guess I can change the names and personalities of the characters.

@Vitus: I read some, but not all of your setting, and I did get the feeling that there was more geographic info than there was info on the people and places, BUT, that's usually how campaign settings are written and it's pretty important to have a lot of detail on the setting, so it looked pretty good to me. I'll try and find some time to finish it soon.

[samuelsan]

Hi guys I would like to write something for this if I may, i am not currently in any games that I can base this on. So if I could use maybe Vitus' Solterra campaign world (Nice work by the way I like what I have read so far.) or just a published campaign world that would be cool.

[Klazzform]

As long as Vitus is cool with it, than I am fine as well. Good luck!

[Vitus]

Oh that's extra cool Samuelsan. I'd love to see another person's take on the world I've been playing with...with which I've been playing... Anyway, maybe I'm just a sucker for flattery, but it is nice to have some hard work acknowledged. I really wanted to have the world be full of fantasy but with familiar things everywhere. We might all have a vision of what the Lighthouse of Alexandria looked like, so I threw in a wonder of the world that is The Mariner's Lighthouse. Crystal Loch is still more of city from the Renaissance than the Dark Ages but magic is a powerful force throughout...rather like we use electricity today. I'm not sure if the blend is cohesive. Do things seem out of place? Would gun powder (a secret kind of "weapon of mass destruction" in Solterra) have ever been developed if someone can just blast something with a fireball? On the other hand, I love a cannon battle over the high seas with scurvy dogs stalking the islands of Thalassa's Craig to capture ships headed for the Wes-Kha Empire!

It's all alive to me and I like to think my players have enjoyed the setting, but I wonder if all the rich detail is translating in the short story format. Tolkien waxed poetic about a mountain for a whole chapter...do people have the patience for that anymore? I do, but I'm considered rather weird...especially here in Kentucky. Ho, ho indeed.

Anyway, these questions and many others could be answered if we get people to write about their games!!! I want to see some of those awesome games out there set to letters! The Homebrew 2e has plenty for the pickings, I intend to choose carefully.

[Peter172]

Tolkien waxed poetic about a mountain for a whole chapter...do people have the patience for that anymore?

I barely had the patience for it when I read it myself, and I love the genre. Too much detail is a bad thing in my humble opinion, but then again, I'm not the guy who brought fantasy into the hearts and homes of millions of people, so what do I know?.

On another note; I've got two thousand words done for this month's contest so far.

[Aeternis]

There are a number of campaign worlds and plotlines I've been involved in and/or read that deserve extension or conversion in short story form, but I'll probably do one of the following:

• A logical extension of Rcc's game Noblesse Oblige: The Hensburg Heritage (Now defunct)
• Historical events from my own world in Shattered Inheritance (Which are about to become an important part of said campaign)
• A new perspective on Turtler7's old Defense of Pandar plot

Problem is, the one I want to do most is Noblesse Oblige, but Rcc has since left the site and I'm not sure about the permissions issue involved.

I could get into a rant about some of the best DMs not sticking around for the long haul, but I won't. To be safe, I'll probably just go with one of the latter two, as Shattered Inheritance is my own work and I can easily contact Turtler7 off-site to get his permission to borrow Pandar.

[Antigone]

Vitus even let me rip off the Eastern part of Solterra so I could run a campaign on this site. I made the Port of Lords into a Roman-like civilization bent on conquest. My players have to beat them back at 3rd level.

[samuelsan]

Vitus thank you and I must say I do like your campaign world from what I have read so far. I am a bit of a lover of the high fantasy style, and I think that the genre itself will always create a few inconsistencies and areas where we transpose our own world view illogically onto the fantasy world. These can be ignored easily because of the connection the bits and pieces of familiarity gives us with the world and the story.

As to the age old would gunpowder develop in such a world question, hell yes it would, all those non-magicals would be desperate to even the odds.

Tolkien a genius and I love to wax lyrical occasionally but don't think I have the patience to write like that.

I like the short story format, you can give a lot of attention to an individual idea or time in someones life.

[Antigone]

In other news...i am having a VERy hard time selecting which campaign I want to write about.

[Vitus]

I must be honest, it's midway through the month and I still haven't chosen a plot line yet. I think I must go with my campaign setting, though. I know it best and the Crystal Loch Contention (my first game on this site) has been put on the shelf and picked up again. Maybe I'll explain the political situation through the eyes of a citizen of the city...who gave Antigone's character that kukri? Hmmm..

I've started several other stories as well which is my other problem AND I've got three other games waiting for my post. I have Christmas break coming up, though. I'll have time then.

Also thanks for your kind compliments. I've struggled to make a cohesive world that encompasses all the little things I enjoy in the D&D genre. I like my hobgoblins like Klingon warriors rather than brutes. I like my elves reclusive and snooty and have several variety thereof (one of whom is into sacrificing their enemies on the alter of the tree gods). I still think I'll change the river system in the center of the continent to come closer to the Hoofed Hills where roving bands of marauding centaurs count coo on their enemies. Isn't it fun to imagine all this stuff? I love this game, I feel like I always have.

[Aeternis]

Yeah, I slammed out a draft and submitted it to a resident nitpicker for review... He gave me a C+ and lots of red ink. So I have a lot of work yet to do.

[Vitus]

Well I've got a rough draft together but it is little more than describing a big scene with a flashy ending. I don't think there is a cohesive story to speak of in it. I copied and pasted the thing almost entirely from one of the chapters in The Crystal Loch Contention, but it turned out to be something like 12,000 words. So I paired it down but in the process I lost almost all of the story concerning the players. So it reads like a big scene setting with a big event at the end. I don't know if it'll hold the reader's interest and Antigone can't be bothered to give me a real critique so I can find out. I'll submit it to you all to let me know I guess.

[Vitus]

Well, there it is. I cheated entirely and cut and paste much on what turned out to be the story. Unfortunately the posts I pasted from didn't have much to do with the players. I would have liked for everyone to meet the players involved because they came up with some great ones. I swear the 3000 words is like a straight jacket. I know nobody would read these if it was longer, but....

[Aeternis]

My entry, The Rescue of Prince Lorvado has been posted.

When I started writing this story the first week of this month, I anticipated that at least one of the two pairs of players in Shattered Inheritance would reach a part where this was relevant by January 1. Obviously, this wishful thinking during the holiday season was not warranted. It is also carefully written to avoid short-term (but not long-term, if you know what you are looking for, which is unlikely) spoilers for my players, in case any of them frequent this part of the site.

Now I can stop reading and editing the same 3,000 words over and over again.

May the best tale win. I'll be reading all entries myself, after all, an afternoon reading short fiction is an afternoon well spent in my book.