%#@$& Subconsious*

I have just written the prologue to a novel. It jumped almost fully formed into my head and after typing it out, I like it. Even in it's rough draft form, I want to read the book that it's attached to. The only problem is, I doesn't offer me any hints about what story I'm supposed to write after it. Oh, sure, it gives me a bunch of setting stuff. Enough to know that I have only one other story fragment that might even possibly intersect with it. Unfortunately, while a creation myth can do a wonderful job of getting someone into the mindset of a fictional universe, it doesn't tell you jack about what your plot should be or any of your characters. Although, if the teller of the narrator of the myth is a character rather than a general narratorial voice . . . well, at least I've got some sketches for one personality.

But still, it would be nice to have somewhere to go from here rather than having to stop because I've reached the end of what I know.


*do those of you who refer to it as your Muse get better results? It doesn't really sound like you do, but maybe it's just that the complaints end up on livejournal, and you're too busy to post when there's nothing to complain about. I know I said I wouldn't use that term until I was allowed to complete something, but that threat doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition

Well, I got to take a look in these books today, and I'm kind of glad I was able to do so without having to buy them. I'm sure they'll be great for some people, but probably not me. It looks like this edition makes things much easier for someone to just pick it up and halfway know what they are doing, as long as there's someone in the group who's fully read the books. On the other hand, it looks like it makes things much harder for creating your own stuff rather than using the classes and creatures in the official rulebooks.

Those who have gamed with me know of my penchant for creating characters that bend the rules. I've made both classes and races for 3rd edition, and I have to say that none of them ended up unbalanced. Some of the characters made using them got that way, but it was because of existing imbalances in the official material I based them off of. There was the giant octopus incident, for example, and the poisonous breath weapon of DOOM. (which I would never have used, even if the DM hadn't said "NO!!!") These were things that could have been done by anyone who had access to the necessary D&D books, and in one case that was merely the players guide and the monster manual.

In any case, as kierthos has said, there are a number of places where MMO style gameplay has noticeably impacted the rules. There are also a number of places where Wizards of the Coast's background in collectible card games is apparent. Most importantly, I think it may actually be harder for someone with experience in previous editions to get up to speed with this new one than it would be for someone with similar intelligence and experience, but who hadn't previously tried D&D in particular. It looks like there are a lot of things that work almost the same as before, but with differences that would trip one up.

Maybe my quick perusal gave me an inaccurate view of it. If anyone who reads this plans on getting it and giving it a thorough read through, I'd be glad to hear your take on it. As I said at the start,however, it just doesn't seem like it's for me.