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Not necessarily. If they make an intro because they saw the professionals do it and it inspired them, but they're fine with it being an amateur-level production, then they've still expanded their toolset.

I mean, sure, it's Powerpoint-level video, but it's our Powerpoint-level video.

And as for video - our Dresden Files campaign was explicitly modeled after a "monster of the week" TV show (at least at first, until the story arcs started to expand), and so we also had an opening credits video sequence that we would start every session with (and that the GM would update for every "season" in the campaign). I don't see a reason not to go multi-modal with non-verbal tools of expression.

Sure, it takes things like "describing what happens when I open the door" out of the "verbally describe scenario -> verbally react to scenario -> mechanically resolve action" loop, but visual aides, from maps to minis, have been doing that since forever.

Instinctively, I rejected both of these as "out of scope for a TTRPG", but once I stopped and evaluated things more clearly, I can definitely see their potential, even if not for the sort of games I personally like to play.

Another is using Roll20 scripting to have interactive elements on the maps, allowing the players to manipulate them directly - light torches, open doors, etc.

Two things I ran into recently (which prompted a 1500 word+ blog post, in Hebrew though) are people who are now playing via Roll20 or similar, and look for ways to use the technology even for things that I would traditionally see as part of the core game loop. One thought of recording video (possibly machinima or some such) to replace verbal descriptions for intro/outro of a scene or session.

For that guy (and many others, to judge by the responses), the concept of an imagined world that "objectively exists" outside of the experience of the players by the table is a holy grail in gaming, a fully realized secondary world you can explore.

Many people, though, really don't like this concept. One guy, specifically, was of the "I spend hours every week building and imagining my campaign world, the players merely visit it. They can't just willy-nilly throw new elements into it".

There was a pretty long discussion in a local gaming forum here a couple of years ago about "The Chandelier principle" - roughly speaking, it states "if a player asks you if the hall we're in has a chandelier, you should lean towards saying "yes" unless there's a really good reason to say "no"". It comes from the improv concept of "yes, and", and being flexible to allow external inputs to enrich your game and environment.

Yup. The public sphere is currently spoiler-averse to a ridiculous degree, with Lost and GoT pushing the sentiment out to the mainstream public the way it was seen in fandom circles before.

But there's always a trade-off. When you read a review, you're accepting a (hopefully mild) spoiler for the gain of being able to filter and prioritize your to-read list. When you check DoestheDogDie.com, you're accepting a spoiler for the gain of not starting to read a book that will impact you negatively.

It depends. I have a talk at a con about it last year and I was originally very anti-spoilers until I talked to some people and refined my position. I definitely see the value in surprise and discovery of plot elements in the pace that the creator intends, even if, for me, it's rarely the main point. But for many it is, and I don't want to disparage that method of engaging with the plot.

@BESW Yeah, hence sites like doesthedogdie.com. Content warnings are the flip side of spoilers - they're for acknowledging that we need some spoilers to know whether we want to engage with the work.

@BESW It's on my list (along with the other best novel hugo nominees, except for Alix Harrow who I don't like)

@BESW Yeah, she has a whole fictional timeline, with stories set from the 16th century to the 25th+, right?

@BESW There are some authors I like because their craft is invisible, but also some where I like to see it, where I enjoy how the craft is explicitly pushed to the forefront. In cinema as well - some directors will affect you without noticing, and some will make a point of showing their technique outright - Edgar Wright, for example, is one of my favorite directors because he enjoys playing with the technique front and center.

@BESW I just read one novelette of hers, I think, that I got as part of a Hugo voters' packet a few years ago. Was nice, but I never explored further.

It takes some time to start. The characters are initially very unlikeable, but it evolves pretty quickly. The sequel is also pretty good and expands the world considerably, but it suffers a bit from being a bit too clever for its own good.

Recently read Malka Older's Infomocracy, Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, and now started on an anthology of short stories revolving around Star Wars: A New Hope.

Reading Mary Robinette Kowal's Relentless Moon now, the third in the Lady Astronaut books, and it's kind of a letdown, unfortunately.

Because I have so many books in my to-read pile that buying new ones full-price seems excessive.

Definitely. I grabbed the first two when Tor had a giveaway for the ebooks a while ago, so now I'm waiting for a sale to pick up the rest of them.

I've actually, miraculously, managed to read quite a bit these last couple of months. After a few very unproductive years in that department.

@BESW Not too much, really. The never-ending present of the Plague Year continues its march.

good morning or morning-equivalent time-of-day.

hola

Yo.

@ThomasMarkov I don't know if 1962 counts as "very early 1900s".

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Ah, of course, I'm sorry if it seemed I was saying you were.

Hmm, I see what you meant. Yes, I do think that when a country squashes a langauge or dialect, there's a Sapir-Whorfian element here in that it tries to eliminate the identity of that language's speakers. But still, it's not a question of cognition but of identity, which is a claim I can stand behind. :)

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Nah, quite the opposite. Language doesn't change your cognition, but it's an expression of your identity.

So standardizing language is part of the process of standardizing identity, which... sometimes worked? And often didn't?

@AncientSwordRage That's a very "neutral" view of language as simply a way to convey thought. But language is tied very closely to culture, social class, race and identity. And seeing as most modern nations contain a mix of many different identities, often smushed together by modernity or colonialism or conquest or ideology and pretending to be a single national identity.

I'm just suspicious of standardization of language as a solution to any of them. Because language is almost never the problem, it's often just a symptom of the problem (which might be racial or ethnic or social inequality, or something else)

@AncientSwordRage There are many problems, different ones, ni different places. :)

@AncientSwordRage Not shifting the blame, just saying why I think a standards body is not the right solution.

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica It's a communication protocol that is self-adjusting and ever-changing. "ridiculous" is subjective, but everything about language is subjective. "A nation" can practice self determination in establishing a standard because it wants to squash down on its minorities, for instance.

@AncientSwordRage I don't think it will be, because a standards body will either reinforce the existing dominant cultural approach (in which case it will exacerbate any problems there might be) or it might go against them, in which case it will be ignored by many. Just like you can't really fix inter-player problems with in-game mechanics.

Or, in things like IPA, into a technical jargon.

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica The issue I have with standardization is that it inevitably leads either into irrelevance (e.g. Esperanto as a standard language, or the Hebrew Language Academy, whose neologisms are often treated as ridiculous), or to an attempt to straightjacket language and culture into a a narrow, approved list.

@AncientSwordRage And yet, children will be corrected at school for using idiomatic or regional English. "Correct" and "Standard" might be themselves regional (and contemporary), but that doesn't change the fact that they're treated as correct, while other dialects (almost always those of immigrants, lower social classes, etc) are corrected as, at best, "non-standard".

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica "American accent" is also not really a thing. I think I read that a classic "southern" accent, common in south-eastern states, is the one that is similar to 1800's English.

@AncientSwordRage I know, I'm just saying that defining a "standard language" will, de facto, always be used to define social hierarchy.

@AncientSwordRage But why would it need a "Originally spoken in England" stamp of approval, if there wasn't an underlying sentiment that "Indian English is inherently inferior and any neologisms they create are invalid"?

Hell, you can make interesting socio-linguistic claims about a single US state, or even city.

I can talk about how English in the US enforces a "proper English" as a way to reinforce social and ethnic superiority without needing this "proper English" to be the norm in every English speaking country.

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica But there are 300 million English speakers in the US. 60 million in the UK. I don't need an international standard when each of these locations are big and interesting enough on their own.

@AncientSwordRage It's mainly key to the fact that treating "English" as a single entity is misleading in many contexts.

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica No, I don't think it does. Social norms and conventions are much stronger than a governing body that has no real power.