name a game setting the players must be familiar with before you run it.

Voros · November 19, 2017, 03:13:18 PM

It's possible that the less-than-commercial theme was better to tackle in short stories instead of novels but he didn't really abandon it so much as dilute the intensity. Solipisism continued to be a recurrent theme throughout Heinlein's writing, it pretty much takes over and ruins many of his last novels which hardly seemed aimed at being commercial with their nearly plotless 'stories' and didactic monologues. I know Heinlein liked to play the folksy and/or cynical pulp writer (that exact persona/character is the protagonist in 'All you Zombies') but these earlier stories have an intensity and personal tone that goes beyond mere pulp.

But we're way OT perhaps I'll create a Heinlein thread in Media.

Headless · November 19, 2017, 03:20:21 PM

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1008436Well, time travel stories are not everyone's cup of tea I suppose. Personally I really enjoy them, but if they don't work for you, they don't work for you.

I am curious Headless, how do you feel about things like Back to the Future?

Back to the future is a great movie.

Paycheck was a cool movie. Predestination was very well done.

I'm not sure why I picked this "time travel is stupid" hill to die on. I'm not angry about it.

WillInNewHaven · November 19, 2017, 04:43:34 PM

I've never looked into the media forums and I won't start now. I've dealt with two much ignorant, from my point of view, early Heinlein good, late Heinlein bad nonsense to get into it again at this late date.

Voros · November 20, 2017, 02:10:10 AM

It's not ignorant for others to hold a different opinion. I've read a lot of Heinlein and I struggled with his later books, I think there's a good, reasoned arguments that the late period work is a lot weaker than his mid-period peak. Lots of writers decline in their later years.

Headless · November 20, 2017, 02:36:47 AM

From the outside, their work seems to go down hill when the author becomes more successful than the editor.

Bedrockbrendan · November 20, 2017, 08:52:04 AM

Guys, this is getting off topic. If you want to discuss the literary merits of given writer, take it to the Media subforum.

AsenRG · November 21, 2017, 04:32:02 PM

Quote from: Headless;1008386Except that the thing you are anticipating hasn't happened and might not.

Same as with time travel. Your presence as an observer might be changing what happens in a time travel story, too:).

QuoteGo back to 1990? Where are you going with this.

I assume you were born back then, and could benefit from having pre-knowledge.

QuoteYou can have time travel stories. You can have time travel shows which amount to going to a new place every week. The new place is supposedly a different time but since every place is imaginary it doesn't matter.

Yes, so?

Quotef you try to have a plot based story where the plot turns on time travel it all falls apart on close examination. Plot is a narritive about cause and effect, cause and effect are irrelevant to time travel. It makes a mockery of them.

Apart from proving that plots aren't the best way to deliver an RPG experience, where are you going with that;)?

Headless · November 21, 2017, 10:32:45 PM

You've lost me Asen.

RPGPundit · November 23, 2017, 07:07:08 AM

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1007673Doctor Who is what most people brought up on it regard as a staple of science fiction. It may be a British vs American thing, but to say it's not standard sci-fi is like arguing Star Trek isn't standard sci-fi. For many people, as a popular family show, its their first experience of scifi. You could argue that there is an issue about who plays the Doctor (or not), but that is no different to the issue of who plays Gandalf in Middle Earth games. Moreover, almost every Doctor Who plot is basically just a Monster of the Week or some other form of melodramatic plot.

Doctor Who is a game and genre I could run on the fly with almost zero preparation, it already has strong brand and genre recognition from pretty much every player I've ever ran it with and it's easy to run with the mechanics it has. I really don't see what would be difficult. For me, it's primary use is as an intro game for newbies.

Yeah, I think you're thinking in terms of the UK experience. Certainly, Doctor Who has become steadily more popular in the rest of the world on a yearly basis, but it wasn't a show every kid watched like it is in Great Britain.

Anyways, the point of the exercise is to assume that players are NOT familiar with it.

AsenRG · November 23, 2017, 07:12:32 AM

Quote from: Headless;1008883You've lost me Asen.

...OK, can we just agree to disagree on the matter of time travel destroying causality? I don't think the point I was making was important enough to dwell for much longer on it.

RPGPundit · November 25, 2017, 12:15:06 AM

Not using time travel for cheap tricks is one of the elements of Doctor Who players must be familiar with.