Author Topic: Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)  (Read 2235 times)

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Offline Kristen Mork

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Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)
« on: December 31, 2013, 11:53:48 AM »
Greetings from the Guild Companion; Issue 179 is available at www.guildcompanion.com.

This month we present the seventh installment of "Forgotten Realms Deities" and chapter 9 of "Mind Over Matter," the psionics companion. You will also find a discussion of "Incorporating Poetry in a Game."

Peter Mork
Guild Companion Editor

Offline pyrotech

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Re: Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2013, 06:21:29 PM »
Thanks for another issue!

As for dates and calanders, I like the atmosphere they provide.  Unfortunately my players have historically not been interested in those details.

I have taken to using 7 day weeks and 30 day months.  This keeps players easily able to relate to time periods but keeps the math fairly easy.  If players worry enough about this to see the missing days, I mention a 5 day festival week at the new years.  If they really worry about it, I also mention that some years the festival lasts 6 days according to portents from he stars and the predictions of learned sages. 

I almost always name these days and months, but my players almost always ignore these details.  So I don't usually devote too much time to it.  Simple modifications or inspiration from reality usually work best for me(Sun-day, Moon-day, some appropriate god whose name starts with T 's-day, some appropriate god whose name starts with W 's-day, etc...).

For Sci-Fi games I usually either use modern calenders or a "standard" calender (usually involving a more decimal math friendly system).  Usually just modern calenders since travel times and the like in rules almost always use these.

-Pyrotech
-Pyrotech

Offline Kristen Mork

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Re: Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2014, 11:18:32 AM »
Yeah, that sounds pretty similar to my experiences.  :)

Offline jdale

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Re: Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2014, 10:12:06 PM »
I like the little details that make a world feel different and more immersive. Month names are part of that, even different names for different cultures. Still, I wouldn't change the calendar significantly (e.g. 10-day weeks) unless it had some consequence for the world (e.g. I could see making the lunar cycle more prominent if magic waxed and waned with the lunar phase).

In our live action game, we have several different sets of month names but for simplicity use the real-world date. For the year, it's minus 1500 years. So e.g. today is the 1st Day of the Ice Moon, 514th A.L.

In our RM game, haven't done much poetry. Our GM has sometimes lapsed into Latin, that's as classical as we have gotten. In the live action game, I've written some poetry (mostly religious), and also borrowed especially from Clark Ashton Smith who wrote a lot of fantasy oriented poetry early last century (and was a friend of Lovecraft). http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/ or a good collection is http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Oblivion-Fantastic-Poetry/dp/0967321557/

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Offline PhillipAEllis

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Re: Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2014, 04:13:34 AM »
For the completist, I can recommend the 3-volume collected edition by CAS (also by the same publisher, Hippocampus Press). If you are really into poetry (like myself) then I recommend George Sterling & Samuel Loveman (Loveman was the shared friend of CAS & Lovecraft, who introduced them to each other).

Have you read any of Robert E. Howard's poetry?
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Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: Guild Companion January 2014 (Issue 179)
« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2014, 11:03:10 AM »
I've read most of Howard's stuff, though it's been some years back (I did a couple of papers on him in my school years). It was pretty interesting as I recall, as were his Westerns and much of his non-Conan writing. I like his Conan, too, mind...but there was more to REH than many realize.
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