From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Fri Sep 24 10:26:58 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id KAA04016; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:26:58 +1200 Received: from mailhost.auckland.ac.nz (mailhost.auckland.ac.nz [130.216.1.4]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id KAA04013 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:26:55 +1200 Received: from sci4 (lbr-122-42.lbrsc.auckland.ac.nz [130.216.122.42]) by mailhost.auckland.ac.nz (8.9.2/8.9.2/8.9.2-ua) with SMTP id KAA29136 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:13:29 +1200 (NZST) Message-Id: <199909232213.KAA29136@mailhost.auckland.ac.nz> Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:18:22 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Calendar X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.53/R1) From: "Michael Parkinson" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: m.parkinson@auckland.ac.nz, dq@dq.sf.org.nz Jim, Although some parts of your opinion are interesting; there are inconsistencies in your logic. > > > >The calendar was designed with a few principles in mind. It was intended > for > >use on Alusia which is the primary shared world of the campaign and needed > to be > >different enough from our own to give a sense of fantasy, but similar > enough > >that the cognitive load on the users was low. > > I know under what considerations the calendar was designed. I don't > think it succeeds. It reads to me more like one of those wretched fantasy > novels where the writer uses Pre-Interregnum English to generate a sense of > period, then forgets when to use 'thee' instead of 'thou'. It doesn't reduce > the cognitive load, because you have to use a different calendar. You are missing the point (Deliberately?). The cognitive load that Martin was talking about is *how difficult* it is for players to understand the Alusian Calendar. > That, in > itself, is a job and a half. > I don't accept that using another calendar generates a sense of fantasy. I disagree stongly, because our real-life calendar has so many overtones to all the dates. Possibly the biggest date of the year is Christmas -- that, with all its associations, is not what I want in our calendar. Not to mention all the other, less special, civil holidays. And conversly the modern-day insignifigance of days that *ought* to be important to players e.g. 21st June (or is it the 22nd?). > Or rather, it might, if it were done well, but I suspect that it would be > pretty hard on players to know where they were. Thus it is important that we use a system where [quote] "the cognitive load on the users was low." > It is very hard to generate > a sense of dread by telling a player that it's coming up on the 4th day of > Heat...On the other hand, if you tell a player that the 31st of Octobers not > far away, then there is a chance that some of them may notice. Sorry, 31st of October has no meaning of dread for me -- it's when candy-hunting kids go around the neighbourhood (my parent's, not mine fortunately) in costumes. > For the new calendar to work, the player has to know that there's > something significant about the 4th day of Heat. On the other hand, a player > may just KNOW that the 31st of October is Hallowe'en. The real calendar lets > the DM foreshadow without having to know everything that has happened to the > character before. After all, if the 4th day of Heat is a day of > significance, but the players just don't know that it is, then you've lost a > lot of tension. You either have to tell them that it's significant, or they > find out why it's significant within the story. Whatever else happens, it is > not something you can use to foreshadow with. If you want to add tension from the date alone, perhaps you do have difficulty. However many parties have operated to a deadline before-- wether it's the day of the ball; OR when someone or something is due to arrive; OR when Hell breaks loose; ... whatever. The party *can* have a sense of counting down to THE day, or THE hour. And, indeed, the party is not always reacting to events -- sometimes they can causing the dramatic tension themselves; e.g. the time when we planned to attact pirates exactly on one of Dramis' holidays. > >The other principle was to make > >it as regular as possible, so that people didn't get hung up on > >designing/finding moon charts and the like. > > > >Hence 12 calendar months x 30 days = 364, 13 lunar months x 28 days = 364, > 7 day > >weeks x 52 = 364. Quarters of the moon fall on the same day every week > >(Moonday), and the 8 major festivals are the solstices and equinoxes and > the 4 > >intercalary days are Samhain/Halloween, Beltane/May Day, Lugnasad/Lammas, > and > >Candlemas/Coming of Light... Walpurgisnacht managed to sneak in because it > has a > >really neat name, though technically it is Beltane eve. :) > > 1) I don't believe that the people fond of tables have been assuaged. > Now, they make tables of calendars. And you can get through the real-world year without looking at a calendar? Not to mention having to change it every year to cover the right days & dates of our official holidays, let alone to fiugre out what day of the week or fortnight personally signifigant dates occur. Actually when I'm GMing I only need to look at the game calender once before each quarter. > 2) I just think this is boring and predictable. Given that this is a multi-player multi-GM game world; I'd rather that something which is inevitably multi-game and ongoing was regular and easy to calculate & imcorporate. Time & tide may now be predictible, but it's the GM who makes it boring. Or do you want to go back to the old system where every PLAYER concerned about the moon (e.g. for were-creatures) had to carry about a table, whereas their CHARACTER would automatically know what the current day of the lunar cycle was. Living in cities in the mundane world, we players are much vaguer about such things. > Where is the lunar > inconstancy, fabled in song, story and lycanthropy? This is just an > accountant's answer to the mystery of the operations of the heavens, and > lacks all poetry, colour and majesty. That's an opinion, (not reflected in the rules; but one of the few strengths of the DQ rules is that it we can usually aid different flavours to the same rules). But for all images there are oposites. The lunar cycle is also a symbol of regularity and a basic counting unit for almost all human cultures. You don't think it reflects our game-world where astrological forces have an *inevitable & signifigant* effect that each day is named after a celestial body, and some are particularly important. i like the idea that "moonday" has immediate signifigance to those concerned with the phase of the moon -- which is not just were-creatures. regards, michael Michael Parkinson Mathematics & Statistics Subject Librarian Science Library, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, AUCKLAND, N.Z. Email: m.parkinson@auckland.ac.nz Phone: (09) 3737 599 x 5858 Fax: (09) 3082 304 -------------------------------------------------------------- ... at a great distance from its empirical source, or after much "abstract" inbreeding, a mathematical subject is in danger of degeneration. At the inception the style is usually classical; when it shows signs of becoming baroque, then the danger signal is up. -- von Neumann (1947) in "The Neumann Compendium" edited by Brody & Vamos (1995) ======================================================================== -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Fri Sep 24 10:54:03 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id KAA04065; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:54:03 +1200 Received: from akl-notes.aj.co.nz (ns.aj.co.nz [202.27.194.165]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with SMTP id KAA04062 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:54:02 +1200 Received: by akl-notes.aj.co.nz(Lotus SMTP MTA v4.6.5 (863.2 5-20-1999)) id 4C2567F5.007C2E09 ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:36:22 +1200 X-Lotus-FromDomain: AJ.CO.NZ Message-ID: <4C2567F5.007C2D44.00@akl-notes.aj.co.nz> Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:36:20 +1200 Subject: RE: Price LIst Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline From: Rosemary_Mansfield/AJNzl/NZ@aj.co.nz To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz I have a PDF of the price list (which I have sent Mandos). If any one else is interested email me. Rosemary -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Fri Sep 24 16:08:53 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id QAA04415; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:08:53 +1200 Received: from freezer.stevensons.co.nz (freezer.stevensons.co.nz [202.27.250.5]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id QAA04412 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:08:51 +1200 Received: from lupine.darknight.gen.nz (lupine.darknight.gen.nz [202.27.250.202]) by freezer.stevensons.co.nz (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA28849 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:54:42 +1200 (NZST) Received: from psyclone ([202.27.250.201]) by lupine.darknight.gen.nz (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id PAA01429 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:55:02 +1200 Message-ID: <002901bf0640$87bc4740$c9fa1bca@psyclone.darknight.gen.nz> Subject: Re: Price LIst Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:54:38 +1200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 From: "Jason Saggers" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Price List Of What may I ask??? Subject: RE: Price LIst > > >I have a PDF of the price list (which I have sent Mandos). If any one else is >interested email me. >Rosemary > > > >-- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- > -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Fri Sep 24 19:45:04 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id TAA04591; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:45:04 +1200 Received: from smtp1.ihug.co.nz (tk1.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.13]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id TAA04588 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:45:03 +1200 Received: from jimarona.ihug.co.nz (p245-tnt6.akl.ihug.co.nz [203.109.136.5]) by smtp1.ihug.co.nz (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian/GNU) with SMTP id TAA09986; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:31:26 +1200 Subject: Re: Calendar Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:29:46 +1200 Message-ID: <01bf065e$93ec69a0$05886dcb@jimarona.ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 From: "Jim Arona" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Michael Parkinson wrote: Although some parts of your opinion are interesting; there are inconsistencies in your logic. I don't agree. You are missing the point [about the Alusian Calendar](Deliberately?). The cognitive load that Martin was talking about is *how difficult* it is for players to understand the Alusian Calendar. I don't think I'm missing the point. I'm saying that the cognitive load is greater whenever you have a calendar that is different to the current one. It means that players and DMs have to learn a new calendar. That is a cognitive load. It is increased. Therefore, it is not a move toward easier gaming in an area that is, after all, more to do with bookkeeping than any other aspect of the game. > That, in > itself, is a job and a half. > I don't accept that using another calendar generates a sense of fantasy. Michael wrote: I disagree stongly, because our real-life calendar has so many overtones to all the dates. That is, precisely, my point. The real calendar has overtones. The Alusian one doesn't, unless the DM knows that an event that is important to a player (players) occurs on a particular date(s). Alternatively, you could publish significant dates, as George suggested. Again, the cognitive load increases. We are confronted with a calendar that becomes more and more difficult to keep track of. Michael continues: Possibly the biggest date of the year is Christmas -- that, with all its associations, is not what I want in our calendar. Not to mention all the other, less special, civil holidays.And conversly the modern-day insignifigance of days that *ought* to be important to players e.g. 21st June (or is it the 22nd?). I have not made up my mind about Christmas, but I have no particular problem with other important dates, civil, religious, traditional or simply commemorative. > Or rather, it might, if it were done well, but I suspect that it would be > pretty hard on players to know where they were. Michael, again: Thus it is important that we use a system where [quote] "the cognitive load on the users was low." It isn't enough for something to be simple, I think. It should be better, as well. The only thing the Alusian calendar does well is let you calculate your time expenditure whilst on adventure, Ranking or laying about in whatever den of iniquity takes your fancy. It is so regular it has the appearance of a spreadsheet, and it lacks a sense of dynamism. It doesn't FEEL like a calendar that people have lived through...It most reminds me of the French Revolutionary calendar. They abandoned that one, too. Jim had written: > It is very hard to generate > a sense of dread by telling a player that it's coming up on the 4th day of > Heat...On the other hand, if you tell a player that the 31st of Octobers not > far away, then there is a chance that some of them may notice. To which Michael responded: Sorry, 31st of October has no meaning of dread for me -- it's when candy-hunting kids go around the neighbourhood (my parent's, not mine fortunately) in costumes. You may not have an emotional connection to the holiday...At least, I hope you don't, but you know what it's about, and framed within the context of the right game, I suggest to you that it would have more impact on you than televised images of costumed, sweet-smeared infants sadly lacking in manners. Therefore, if you came across the date in a game, then it would be a legitimate incidence of foreshadowing, which is to say, it is a hint about something that is to come. Allowing players to legitimately use this information is important, because it means that the DM doesn't have to tell them explicitly. It joins the player more firmly to the game if they can bring something they know to the story and have it validated. Jim had further elucidated, thus: > For the new calendar to work, the player has to know that there's > something significant about the 4th day of Heat. On the other hand, a player > may just KNOW that the 31st of October is Hallowe'en. The real calendar lets > the DM foreshadow without having to know everything that has happened to the > character before. After all, if the 4th day of Heat is a day of > significance, but the players just don't know that it is, then you've lost a > lot of tension. You either have to tell them that it's significant, or they > find out why it's significant within the story. Whatever else happens, it is > not something you can use to foreshadow with. To which, Michael replied: If you want to add tension from the date alone, perhaps you do have difficulty. However many parties have operated to a deadline before-- wether it's the day of the ball; OR when someone or something is due to arrive; OR when Hell breaks loose; ... whatever. The party *can* have a sense of counting down to THE day, or THE hour. And, indeed, the party is not always reacting to events -- sometimes they can causing the dramatic tension themselves; e.g. the time when we planned to attact pirates exactly on one of Dramis' holidays. I was not suggesting that calendar dates were the only way of generating tension. I was merely saying that they can be used to do that. Of course you can generate tension in other ways, but you cannot foreshadow merely using a date, unless 1) the date has some known game relevance to all of the players, or 2) the DM knows that a particular date is important to a particular character. The problem with point 1) is that the more important dates you have, the harder the calendar becomes to administer and the problem with point 2) is that it's a multi-DM environment and it's hard to know what dates are important to all of the players. Jim had declared: > > 1) I don't believe that the people fond of tables have been assuaged. > Now, they make tables of calendars. To which, Michael riposted: And you can get through the real-world year without looking at a calendar? Not to mention having to change it every year to cover the right days & dates of our official holidays, let alone to fiugre out what day of the week or fortnight personally signifigant dates occur. Actually when I'm GMing I only need to look at the game calender once before each quarter. I regularly use a calendar. It doesn't open wounds when I do so. As far as a game is concerned, I really don't like player's to be fossicking around looking for stuff in the middle of a game, although I don't have an objection to them doing it when there's nothing pressing happening. But, a character who is checking stuff out during a moment of high drama invariably bleeds tension out of the story. This can happen as easily with the real calendar as it can with the Alusian one. Neither, really, reduces the effect of that happening. A player that will want to check out something on one calendar will want to check out the same thing on another. I'm inclined to believe that they will have more things to check out with the Alusian calendar, than they will the real one. Jim rambled: > 2) I just think this is boring and predictable. Michael thrust: Given that this is a multi-player multi-GM game world; I'd rather that something which is inevitably multi-game and ongoing was regular and easy to calculate & imcorporate. Time & tide may now be predictible, but it's the GM who makes it boring. Or do you want to go back to the old system where every PLAYER concerned about the moon (e.g. for were-creatures) had to carry about a table, whereas their CHARACTER would automatically know what the current day of the lunar cycle was. Living in cities in the mundane world, we players are much vaguer about such things. Yes. I'd much rather that players who were concerned about lycanthropy carried around a lunar chart. That isn't bookkeeping, that's a kind of paranoia I admire in a PC. Such a trait tells the other players and the DM something about the character. It is a communication. As for making the predictable interesting, you can make porridge interesting, as well, if you're imaginative enough. Nevertheless, why start with some boring, and try to make it interesting, when the real calendar isn't boring, and isn't hard to use? Your last comment says to me that a fantasy character will almost always know what phase of the moon they're in, and that might be true. I'm not prepared to concede the point, but I don't think it's important. If a character of the game would know what the phase of the moon was, then the player should make sure they know what it is, in the same way that they know what their vital stats are. Jim alliterated: > Where is the lunar > inconstancy, fabled in song, story and lycanthropy? This is just an > accountant's answer to the mystery of the operations of the heavens, and > lacks all poetry, colour and majesty. Michael dissented: That's an opinion, (not reflected in the rules; but one of the few strengths of the DQ rules is that it we can usually aid different flavours to the same rules). (Actually, Michael, it's not a strength of DQ. It's a strength of almost any fantasy based roleplaying game. DQ has no particular laurel to vaunt, here.) But for all images there are oposites. The lunar cycle is also a symbol of regularity and a basic counting unit for almost all human cultures. I'm sure it is, Michael, for accountants the world over. It isn't usually that way for poets, though. Michael declaimed: You don't think it reflects our game-world where astrological forces have an *inevitable & signifigant* effect that each day is named after a celestial body, and some are particularly important. i like the idea that "moonday" has immediate signifigance to those concerned with the phase of the moon -- which is not just were-creatures. I don't. It means that the horde of were nasties only get started on a particular Monday of the month...It seems to me almost completey devoid of mystery and enchantment. I like the idea of a world where the Moon is mostly regular, but occasionally does something weird, just to keep everyone guessing...In fact, I like to think of the Moon as the thing that makes divinations and prophesies riddle-ridden and vague, foiling mortal attempts to interfere with Fate, at the same time that it provides opportunities to excercise free will. But, I digress... Perhaps it would be wise for me to recapitulate your position, as I understand it, to avoid writing at cross-purposes. You like the Alusian calendar because it provides little effort when it comes to administering it, because it is regular and predictable. It has none of the ... 'idiosyncrasy' of the real calendar, and doesn't require effort to work out where important days fall. You seem to think that the Alusian calendar adds to the flavour of a fantasy game, because of the structure of the months and days. On the other hand you believe that the real calendar has too much of the wrong flavour. My position is this: I don't think there's any great effort involved in using a real calendar. They aren't hard to get your hands on, and they come in a variety of sizes. For the purposes of bookkeeping, I don't believe there is any particular added load. I like the associations of the real calendar, and find the Alusian one empty and banal. I also see it as indulgent, with little sense of art. I believe that the Alusian calendar should be one that someone could feel people might actually use. I don't get that feeling from it. I find it contrived and artificial. And, while there are some dates in the real calendar that reflect moments of moment in the modern world, many of the dates have associations that are ancient. To use an artificial calendar is to throw out all associations. To introduce associations to the calendar, you would have to add them to it. This means that you have to make that calendar more complex. That doesn't sound like reducing the cognitive load, to me. Jim. -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers --