Why is Vialle 'still' blind?

TGFKAB actually got me to thinking about this.

With all of the sorcery and technology available to Amberites, why hasn't someone simply brought Vialle to a high-tech shadow and had new eyes grown for her, or taken her to a high-magic shadow to have them magically fixed?

I thought about this and an obvious answer to me came up--it wouldn't last.

Consider: Corwin's eyes were burnt out of his head, and they grew back in five years. Benedict has hopes of his arm growing back. Servants, non-royals, seem to age slower and have greater lifespans. Taking a page and a somewhat allied view to Arref's, I think that since Vialle was born blind, her "natural state" is blindness.

In other words, if you were to give her new eyes that work, by any means, they would work--for a while...and then she would revert to her sightless state. It might even be considered cruel to give her sight only for a while, or make her dependent on "Refreshing" such a procedure. Thus, Vialle remains blind.

An alternative view, offered by Wujick in the game books (I am not sure which one, I don't have my copies) is that Vialle is sightless on purpose. But if you don't want to use that sort of duplicitious line in your game, I humbly offer my suggestion above. And I would love to hear your own ideas on the subject

41-0

First shutout in NY Jets post-season history! They turned the Colts into ponies.

The Jets will probably play AT the Raiders next (assuming the Browns lose to Pittsburgh).

Tomorrow...the Giants take on the 49ers in San Francisco. The other game, for those who could care less and likely skipped this entry, are the Falcons
at the Packers. I know Scott and Felicia are rooting for the latter of course.

Yes, I live in California, but I can still root for my old home teams, can't I? And yes I do remember that the Giants punished the Vikings a couple of years
ago in the NFC championship, and then lost badly in the Super Bowl. And the Raiders are much tougher than the Colts, especially in their "Black Hole"

Over at Caveat Lector, Dorothea a few days ago mentioned Everway.

I agree with what a lot she has to say. I bought a copy of it online last year, just before it slid out of print. Even sweeter, and just as useful is "Spherewalker" which is a stat-free encyclopedia of ideas for the Everway world--but the ideas definitely have portability to other worlds.

My Everway stuff is still in New York, unfortunately. I look at things like Ginger's House of Cards and wish I could play or even be in a position to ask. Or at least have my Everway set nearby to mine for some more ideas. A virtue/fault/fate/usuper sort of rubric for all my shadows in The Shadowwalker's Guide to the Golden Circle, for instance, might be fun.

Sometime back, Arref put a link to the unusual "googlism" page, where you can see what the search enging Google thinks of
a particular topic. At the time, I was a little miffed that while there were entries for Arref and a bunch of other people in our cadre, there was nothing about me.

Today, out of curiosity, I plugged in "jvstin" again to get the message: Jvstin is finally blogging again.

Fun, eh?

Wish 28: Movies for Gamers

Ginger comes up with another goodie:
What are three movies that have inspired you as a gamer? Would you recommend them to other gamers, and if so, what would you tell them to look for and/or hope for them to get?

Lots of great choices and movies have already been mentioned, in passing as well as developed by the WISH group, that I am going to go a little afield for my choices. I don't want to repeat anyone else's ideas, but I'm getting plenty of inspiration of movie rentals, my friends! Thanks!

1. eXistenZ, directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law.

In the "year of the Matrix" two other movies which explored levels of reality and the relationships between them came out, to far less acclaim and fanfare. The other was the Thirteenth Floor. eXistenZ is a very typical Cronenberg movie, strange visuals, odd characters, and a distinctive style. Its not for everyone. On the other hand, though, the movie explores the interface between game reality (virtual reality in this context) and real reality, and the relationships between players and their characters. Plus, I think it would make a pretty wild Over the Edge game.

2.Looking for Richard, by Al Pacino

A small independent documentary film financied and starring Pacino himself, the movie explores Shakespeare, most especially Richard III. Pacino visits Shakespeare's house in Avon, stages various scenes from Richard III in the Cloisters and talks about the character at great length. It's perfect for gamers who want to understand Shakespeare better, and a character like Richard III in particular. Plus Pacino's use of the Cloisters is an inspiration to LARPers.

3. The Three Musketeers

Various versions exist, I understand the 70's version is a classic but its been filmed many times. Even Disney took a crack at it, with a weird casting of Tim Curry as Cardinal Richieleu. But for pure swashbuckling action, to inspire your gamers and get them into the mood to cross swords with their foe, there are few better pure vehicles for such entertainment. Companions, adventure, swordplay, villains you love to hate. All fodder for gamers.

Arref, on his blog puts up some suggested Ten best Fantasy, SF
and Comic Book Characters.

Some Suggestions of mine, not intended to disparage or take away from his own lists:

SF:

• Joshua Calvert (Reality Dysfunction)
  
• Ser Olmy (Eon series by Greg Bear)
  
• Ash (from the eponymous Mary Gentle novels)
  

Fantasy:

• Morgaine (from Cherryh's series)
  
• Anita Blake (Guilty Pleasures)
  
• Jane Alderberry (The Iron Dragon's Daughter)
  

I am not conversant enough with Comic books to make intelligent additions to Arref's list!

Sean Russell, whose work I like (I loved The One Kingdom so much that I am taking some ideas for it for that ACUS scenario I keep promising to do the prologue for) has done his own review of LOTR: The Two Towers.

He makes some interesting points and gives the point of view of an excellent fantasy writer to what Peter Jackson has done right (and wrong) with his adaptation of the Master. After all of the pure Tolkien bashing around lately, from Brin to Moorcock, this is a relief.

Finished reading Wolves of the Gods. Unfortunately, it was as disappointing as the first in the series, Wizard in the Winds.

Why, you ask, did I bother with the second after the first was lackluster? Well, for reasons I am still not sure, I didn't chuck the second and the first book, and they are among the books that wound up here. While I disliked the first for the possibly misogynistic way the author treated some of the female characters, one in particular, in this second book, Cole's writing just left me...flat. The culture was interesting, based on the Rubiayat, Persian in flavor. But the writing itself, I am not sure, it just didn't thrill me. I will not seek out the third book, its out of print anyway.

Next up is non fiction.
The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by William O'Neill. Believe it or not, I have not read a complete general history of the world since the days of college. Oh, I've read many history books, and I love the Penguin illustrated atlases of history (I have Ancient World, Rome and Medieval History)..I've read things like Boorstin's essays, and such, too...but not a complete general world history.

Ginger's Turn of a Friendly Die has been rechristened Perverse Access Memory, and will now reincorporate views and posts beyond the realm of gaming (although those, too, of course).

"New great name, new great content." Now why can't I come up with titles like this? Ginger goes from a good one (especially for an Alan Parsons fan) to another great one.

Game Wish 27

Ginger's latest WISH:

The RPG market is dominated by fantasy (with horror coming in second). Why have most attempts at creating a science fiction RPG failed (commercially or artistically), and what would a hypothetical SFRPG need to catch on the way fantasy has?

The reason, I think, for SFRPG's doing much less well than Fantasy and Horror RPGs is simply a reflection of the market of fantastic literature. Fantasy and Horror sell much more briskly than SF.

Looking at Amazon's bestseller list of SF/F, out of the top 25, 2 (3 if you count Michael Crichton, who writes more in a thriller vein than pure SF) are SF and the rest are Fantasy or Horror. Fantasy sells, and sells much more than SF has, probably since the early 80's. Once the "phat fantasy" and series fantasies really got cranking...Eddings, and Kerr, and Brooks, and Jordan...SF fell into an eclipse and hasn't recovered since.

Some of the points from my fellow bloggers dovetail into this. Fantasy is far easier, I think, to make into a game, than SF. Whip up a world, a magic system, new races and creatures, and you have a fantasy novel...or at least that is the perception. Writing SF involves a lot more variables, and providing an SF universe is likewise much larger for a GM to deal with. I think, thus, that since there are more fantasy readers, or more fantasy is read, the creative efforts at RPGs naturally head to fantasy rather than Science Fiction

Worse, one of the only current good examples of an "SF" RPG, Star Wars, is based on a franchise which George Lucas has admitted has as much or more roots in fantasy and myth as it does in Science Fiction. Traveller is around in a couple of forms, now in a D20 format (and I wants the precious. :grin: Traveller was the second RPG I ever played, after D&D)

What you need, I think for a good SFRPG is a setting that both invokes the sense of wonder that SF allows for the variety and experience of an SF universe, while being manageable by the GM. I am interested in the new and improved Blue Planet setting, for example, and I think it might meet those requirements--but, then, people not interested in an aquatic, exotic, world are out of luck. Traveller is around in a few forms, as is Fading Suns. I can hope that Traveller T20 helps invoke interest in SFRPGs. I'd love to try my hand at it.

Watching the Packers-Jets game, they had a shot in the stands of some "cheeseheads" which the announcer said "apparently made their way from Wisconsin to New Jersey"

I just hope the cheeseheads find their way out again of the morass that New Jersey can be.