Has anyone else been having technical issues replying to threads? I've tried to post in a few these past days with almost 0 success... ...but I guess if this one works, something is still functioning. edit: it is working!
There had been one or more hiccups in the past, if I recall. But I haven't had any problems recently, so I don't know what may be going on.
Ah darn. I haven't seen this. Can you describe the symptoms? EDIT: It looks like our reply system could be all futuristic and ajaxxy, so if you're losing your connection it might look more like a forum software failure than a network failure. Are you having trouble elsewhere on the web, with pages not loading etc?
I was trying to comment on Sir Knight's post about his outside project. Every time I tried to "post reply" I got the little grey progress meter flashing in the upper corner of the page for a second, but then no post. I tried about a dozen times over a period of an afternoon and eventually made this post instead. edit: But... apparently replies here work just fine! So maybe it was just some short-term issue on my side.
Just had the same issue with his post in that thread. May be a localized thing involving how much awesome is in that post it overwhelms the reply feature and prevents negative comments
Huh, really? I had just been going to jump in here and say . . . Hey, A Bear: if you were going to say something about reddit, I noticed you over there and was very grateful. . . . but apparently there's some bigger problem? I dunno; I don't see any setting that says "disallow replies to this thread," so that's out. And I just tested my own ability to post in it (then deleted the evidence), so it's not fully locked or anything.
Sir Knight, it was my pleasure. I did get the demo downloaded, and my wife and I ended up reading through it twice that night. My wife was really hooked, and quite a bit surprised when I told her the similarities between AA and D&D.
Oh, then great! Glad you enjoyed it. Though . . . . . . similarities? I find myself quite a bit surprised. Care to explain the angle by which said similarities can be viewed? Once you've thought about my strange phrasing enough to figure out what I'm asking? ( . . . And possibly try to post in that thread again, so as not to take up too much forum space with my crass commercialism?)
Replies still seem to not be working over there, so here it is over here! As a preface: my wife knows little about tabletop RPGs, other than I've played them occasionally, and they're easily the nerdiest thing I do. After thoroughly enjoying two back-t0-back readthroughs, I mentioned to her after the 2nd that we had basically played a tabletop RPG together. She knows enough about the basic gameplay of D&D that once I make the general comparison, she did that sort of "no way... really? Hah!" thing people do when they know they've been caught. Here's the general comparison I made to her: Both AA and RPGs have characters you play, and those characters have different stats, HP, backgrounds, and personalities. This alone was pretty convincing to her--she knew D&D characters have a pretty similar set of numbers. (and the introduction pages acted to us as de facto character sheets) Both AA and RPGs have tests that rely on PC stats + dice rolls which determine success or failure. (We actually grabbed my little set of D&D dice for 2d6). Both AA and RPGs have items you can add to your inventory, use, and have lasting status effects on your PCs. Both AA and RPGs have events which can change a PCs stats or abilities (aka you can unlock new "powers" or gameplay options) While not as freeform as some tabletop RPGs, AA is plot-driven and has a great deal of different choices to make (and a really nifty mechanic to cut off some decisions). Both AA and RPGs have NPCs with backgrounds and their own agendas. This was all compounded by the fact that I was reading to her the story out loud in the first readthrough and us discussing the decisions to make (and she read the story out loud to me in the second). In that way, I felt a lot like a DM setting the scene. We even gave everyone their own "voice" and tried to act through their personalities--she more than me! In the end, while more "on rails" than an open D&D session--all the PC actions and dialogue are printed right in the book for you--I could imagine buying all the AA books, sitting down with my wife, a set of dice, and reading the books to one another just like how a DM would read out a pre-printed module to a table of adventurers. If anything, the AA world and gameplay mechanics could make it the perfect "RPG system" for my wife and I. She (and I) really dig the 1930's New York setting, and I can see how having all the PC actions printed out for you while not removing player choice could be the perfect answer to my limited DM creativity and her possible analysis paralysis as a player. It also makes actually playing the game a lot easier. I know I sometimes feel silly acting out a RPG character with too much gusto, or havent thought out enough how my PC would react in a situation. In AA you still make the decisions, but the book has so kindly kept you in character the whole time! Even just looking at AA from a one-player perspective, what else is the book other than a written-out DM? Keeping secrets from you, injecting flavor in the setting, and letting you know the outcomes of your decisions. I always thought the "game" in "gamebook" was an adventure-RPG. And, frankly, you guys made a pretty darn good one for me and my wife!
Well now I'm just flattered. Okay, actually, I'm more than that. I'm thinking about a mini-essay I just wrote on a similar topic. Over on a different discussion place devoted to gamebooks, people were talking about what sort of audience enjoys the things. Someone was surprised to see a section of an RPG convention devoted to Lone Wolf reprints, and wondered whether it were mostly RPG gamers that played gamebooks in the first place. Someone else described coming at gamebooks from the "book" side: not originally knowing much about RPG's, never drawing the connection between the two, and instead coming to enjoy gamebooks because they were literature. If you look at our project, you'll see we put it in the "tabletop games" category--is that even correct? What IS a gamebook? I find it difficult to say whether gamebooks are "RPG's" or "tabletop games" or whatever other options there are. Personally, I didn't come to them from any particular direction: I was a kid, and I read some books that happened to have rules in them. Kids are very good at discerning "the rules" in the world, so it was just one more experience out of all the new experiences to comprehend (including books, RPG's, and tabletop games). In the end, I've grown up to retain that sort of "all things are created equal" attitude. I find it odd when people draw battle lines between concepts. For instance, we know today that TV never "replaced" the radio, despite how many people thought it would: TV may have been more popular, but even now folks are pulling stunts in "radio plays" that you can't do on TV. Yet people will still say "oh, I don't like videogames" or even "oh, I don't like [insert broad literary genre here]"--you don't? Not even the unique stunts that can only be pulled in that format? How odd. I've probably rambled way too long. I guess it's all I can do in response to such a thorough and interesting post.
