The Windkey and the Lamplighter

We just finished Terror in the Skies, using the Earthdawn Classic
rules as published by Red Brick Games. We even got to use their
new-and-improved Grimoire casting rules in the last session.

It was a fun train-ride. The GMing advice is less bad than in Mists
of Betrayal, but it’s still firmly set in an early-90s model: the GM
has a story to have happen, and the players are expected to fight
it—or at best to not cooperate in shaping it. Use of the combat
minigame should be frequent and need not be tied overmuch to the plot.
Combats should be to the death—there’s no reason to provide
alternate outcomes.

It did have some great dramatic elements. I was suspicious of the
ship-combat system, but it ran great: light and fast, and leading to
wonderful dramatic escapades. It did take a little work to make sure
it didn’t become a standoff-and-shell fight. I’d just been reading
about the Scene Framing rules from Burning Empires, and some of last
night really made their need clear. We spent a lot of time screwing
around. I was too willing to let things wander into what the players
said they did next, and the players didn’t feel like they had the
authority to push on to the next interesting bit. They may not have
had the setting-knowledge to do so effectively. When I did cut
sharply from one scene to another, the players accepted and embraced
it. It appeared to dramatically improve the gaming. I must study
this and improve at it.

Also, I think I now understand more of how treasure (…and take their
stuff) is supposed to work.

Legend Threads

We tried using a mechanic for advancement based on The Shadow of
Yesterday’s "Keys" mechanic. It didn’t work so well. Partly, I
didn’t give it enough power. Partly, it works in PC-driven games, but
has problems with railroads. That issue can only be fixed by running
a free game, instead of using pre-generated adventures. But I think
keys could be a nice flavor addition to a pre-generated module game if
they’re given enough power, and if the base advancement rate still works.

Earthdawn already has a back-off mechanism for advancement: you need
O(fib(N)) points to advance a single skill to its next rank, and O(N)
skills must be advanced to go up a level… each to rank O(N). So
when I added Legend Threads that needed similar advancement and only
gave out O(fib(N)), it was too slow. You have to advance something
that’s O(N^2 fib N) with something that only pays off O(fib N)—not
going to work.

A revision: Keys ought to be binary. Either you have one or you
don’t. They cost 100C to purchase, where C is your character’s
Circle. They pay off 20C, 60C, or 100C when the tSoY equivalent
would pay off 1, 3, or 5. If you buy one off, it pays 200C.

I do think it’s worth trying a system more inspired by Burning Wheel’s
Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits—possibly tied to a generalized
Karma-boost system. More on that later.

This is the worst book I’ve read this year. The editing is simply
atrocious. It reminds me in some ways of the early Black Company
books, the Annals as written by Croaker. Like those, there’s a rough
introduction to a new world through the eyes of one very familiar with
it. Like Croaker, the narrator here is leaving out mountains of data
that might incriminate him.

And like those early books, I have a heck of a time figuring out all
of what’s going on. If you focus on the character, you’re OK. If you
know enough of the history to realize correspondences (Deves are Jews,
Pramas are Muslims, Peter is Gustav?, the Andorans are Norsemen,
Brothe is Rome and I think Draenger is Andalusia), you can do OK—if
not, they’re just random fantasy place-names. If you don’t have a
sense of the sweep of the second millennium in Europe, a whole bunch
of the history happening next to this book is going to be unreadably
confusing.

At some point, a more dedicated fan than I will publish a dictionary
mapping Cook’s terms to the real ones. I’m still not sure who the
Dainshau are. Zoroastrians? Very early Druze? Until then, I think
anyone can read it if he focuses on the characters and not the sweep
of history. This will become more clear when the sequels appear.
Until then, I suspect that I’d have enjoyed the book more if they just
stuck to real names for most things, using fantastic names only for
fantastic entities.

This is one more element of troublingly bad editing at Tor Books.
Maybe it’s intentional—maybe this is part of this narrator’s voice.
Maybe it’s just the sloppiness of a new editor working with a revered
master-author. I’m not inside Tor, so I don’t know why or how this
happened. I do know that many of the sentences are incomplete, a
number use the wrong made-up fantasy analogue-name, and a few are
quite hard to understand.

Approach this book with caution.

Books read this year: 28

Orks in Space! This is the fourth book in the Council Wars series,
which began with the aptly future-tense There Will Be Dragons. It
is a Baen book. It is by John Ringo. This is almost all you need to
know.

Herzer Herrick makes his usual dashing appearance. Edmund has only
bit-parts. Some of the microgravity physics seems a little bit
off… but given the nano-built orcs and Dark Elves, it seems
ridiculous to complain. There’s a lot of fun adventure, though less
than in the earlier books. More time is spent on character
development of Herzer and Megan. The integration of their personal
lives with the great war is executed with more grace and capability
than previously shown.

This book is noticeably shorter than its brothers, and more of its
bulk is spent on tables of organization embedded in the text. Much
like the Posleen War series, I’m starting to worry around book
four—but Ringo’s learned a lot since his excellent start, so I hope
he’ll surpass Hell’s Faire and Cally’s War with the Council Wars.

Books read this year: 26

"The warrior should not have a favorite weapon." This book’s been
represented to me several times as a good complement to Art of War.
That’s a somewhat misleading characterization. Musashi’s approach to
strategy is through swordsmanship: to fight with an army of ten
thousand as you fight with two swords. But though he has much to say
about the spirit and principles of a warrior, he leaves blank most of
the larger canvas. Certainly, his core precepts are worth
remembering:

• The warrior should not have a favorite weapon.

• The spirit of is to win.

• The spirit of fighting is to cut the other man.

• Study the techniques of others, across all strata of society. Then
  do your own job well.

I think I would have gotten much more out of this if I knew more of
sword-fighting; even so, there was much to learn even from the most
sword-focused chapters.

Books read this year: 25

I don’t usually read the MIT Alumni Association web site. I was
logging in today to check a friend’s address and saw this article on
Range Voting. The Range Voting part is a little
interesting, but the best part for me is the
anti-Gerrymandering system.

I don’t think we need to overhaul our whole system. It’s just the
combination of gerrymandering, TV ads, overemphasis of parties, a
fixed-size house, and half a dozen other factors that make the current
system broken. I advocate conservative, limited changes, tried on a
state-by-state basis to find unexpected difficulties. Algorithmic
districting is a fine approach. Massachusetts should try it.

I’m also curious about emergent districting approaches. What if any
quarter-million people could declare themselves a district and select
a congressman? I think you’d see much more direct allegiance to
representation of a constituency. On the other hand, it would take
major party-like organization to coordinate a quarter-million-man
petition drive.

A friend gave me a page photocopied from "A Vermont Cook Book", by
Vermont Cooks (Published by Green Mountain Studios, Inc.). At least
one of the recipes bears sharing, even if it means I have to retype
it:

To Preserve a Husband

A good many husbands are spoiled by mismanagement. Some women go about
it as if their husbands were balloons and blow them up. Others keep
them in hot water. Others let them freeze by indifference and
carelessness. Some keepthem in a stew by irritating ways and
words. Others roast them. Some keep them in a pickle all their lives.

It cannot be supposed that any husband will be tender and good if
managed in this way, but they are really delicious if properly
treated.

In selecting your husband, do not go to market for him as the best are
always brought to your door.

It is far better to have none unless you will patiently learn how to
govern him. See that the linen in which you wrap him is properly
washed and mended, with the required number of buttons and strings
tightly sewed on.

Tie him in the kettle by a strong silk cord called comfort, as the one
called duty is apt to be weak. They are apt to fall out of the kettle
and be burned and crusty on the edges, since, like crabs and lobsters
you have to cook them while alive. If he sputters and fusses do not
be anxious—some husbands do this until they are called done. Add a
little sugar in the form of what confectioners call kisses, but no
vinegar or pepper on any account. A little spice improves them, but it
must be used with judgement. Do not stick any sharp instrument into
him to see if he is becoming tender. Stir him gently, watching the
while lest he adhere to the kettle, and so become useless. You cannot
fail to know when he is done.
If this treatment is closely followed you will find him all that is
desirable, but do not be careless with him and keep him in too cool a
place.
Lemira Heath