- Ryan

- Ryan

Is it strictly a taste thing? Or is there an actual principle at work here?

http://cosmicfalcon-70.deviantart.com/art/Bow-Riding-Arrow-171388627

- Ryan

Syndicate’s in the can and off to editing — we gave arguably the most villainous Convention as serious eyeballing, because each book is about them from a heroic perspective. (From what my alpha readers tell me, we knocked it out of the park, so I’m excited for others to check it out!)

We’re working on Void Engineers right now, with most of it back in the writers’ hands for rewrites.

- Ryan

I think I’ve found something for you to use for inspiration for a reformation of the Syndicate if you are still staying on the Technocracy Revised project. BTW, excellent work on that! Anyway, I figured that this might help the revising of the Syndicate and to see how business are now getting their act together by setting different sets of standards which are beneficial. Here is a TEDTalk on B-Corps (beneficial corporations) to help you out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGnz-w9p5FU. I figured that chances are the Syndicate probably needed a correction and would probably wind up following this model in order to improve itself, but also to correct the damage that they did in the process. If you need any more information, let me know; I’m glad to help out.

Yeah, that scares me. Which is why the choice exists: for people to make choices that are frightening as all hell.

- Ryan

If atheists want to remove one of the elements of humanity that make us human, then hell, go for it. I hope to never have to fight for the soul of humanity alongside them :D

The idea there is that your losses and victories are representative of the entire war, so the more humanity will burn parts of itself in order to win, and if everything’s burned off, the world becomes pure dystopia. I welcome being told some other parts that are worth burning off.

- Ryan

What say ye?

with regards to Humanity’s “Hit Points”, the choice of elements bugs me. Since losing them is losing the fight, this to me somehow suggests that they’re the essence of humanity, universally and essentialy good, and there’s no point to living without them. However, people will disagree on whether some of these points are good and worth fighting for at all. In this case I can see both democracy and faith & spirituality being contentious for people who sincerely believe the world would be better without them, as they prefer other political systems (say, anarchists) or religious choices (atheists).

(Unless these are genre-specific choices, in which case fair enough, I don’t know the Terminator franchise well enough to dispute that, although I can’t remember religion playing any part in the movies).

Speaking for myself, I find that it cuts deeper if I’m threatened with loosing stuff that I made a choice to include in the story (selected it from a list or wrote it down), rather than objectives selected by the GM/designer. I’d fight tooth and nail if “women’s reproduction rights” was on the list, for example.

Hmm. The list makes me think of Shock: social science fiction as I think it had a list of possible contentious issues.

Every time you win a mission, there’s a cumulative chance that you’ll cross off one of those truths/change it/add a new one/something like that.

It’s possible that that’s one layer of complexity not needed, though in typing this certainly some words as to how to world works (akin to the Facts & Reassurances document in A Penny For My Thoughts) would make getting into the IP and agreeing on the rules of the world easier. Not just for those who don’t have familiarity with the setting, but for those who are so familiar with what I’m riffing on that setting minutia disagreements are likely.

- Ryan

Seeing as how you’ve not responded to my hastily scribbled invites through snail mail, I’m going to assume you’re never going to join me in a totally heteromantic vodka bath because you are too busy writing cool things I want to buy. Way to be “that guy”, Macklin! I bet you don’t know anything about drinking booze, you tea-sipper!

(Can I add: “Eat a dick, vjj?”, or is that uncool. I’m socially hopeless, sorry.