The Wheel of Time
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Yeah I know, it's just that the show is taking a bit of a different take than the books since in the books the Dark One's prison is at Shayol Ghul. I guess I'll take a watch again and see what the X-ray stuff is saying during that conversation as I don't have it up all that often, usually just when seeing who side characters are.
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@runescryer said in The Wheel of Time:
Yeah, I think the best way to go with a WoT game would be to sell it as 'a different Turning of the Wheel'; which is basically what the show is doing. Have a lot of the basics (The One Power, the Dark One, the Dragon, the Forsaken, etc.), but also make some changes for the game to be more playable (men can be Aes Sedai; both men and women can be corrupted by using the One Power, just not as severely as in the books...)
There is no best way. It's a way. For example I really don't like several of the notions in that very list you mention.
Not that there's anything wrong with them, but they don't fit what I'd like to play. As, I imagine, you - or others - wouldn't like the vision that I have of what a WoT game should be about.
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@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:
As, I imagine, you - or others - wouldn't like the vision that I have of what a WoT game should be about.
You've made me curious, what is your vision? I promise to only be as judgy as an MSB poster can be (but not really because I think any WoT MU concept can be fun depending on factors :P)
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@runescryer said in The Wheel of Time:
@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:
@dvoraen said in The Wheel of Time:
This thread makes me want WoT MU*s to be a fad again.
The problem with WoT MU*s is that we as fans disagree on just about everything about how they should be done.
Yeah, I think the best way to go with a WoT game would be to sell it as 'a different Turning of the Wheel'; which is basically what the show is doing. Have a lot of the basics (The One Power, the Dark One, the Dragon, the Forsaken, etc.), but also make some changes for the game to be more playable (men can be Aes Sedai; both men and women can be corrupted by using the One Power, just not as severely as in the books...)
I played on AngrealMOO II, Tales of Ta'veren and eventually became staff there, and I ran Cuendillar. I was very young when I ran Cuendillar. I made a lot of mistakes. There's so much I would change in how I approached things now that I have more experience GMing and running a game in general.
However, the major theme all three games had in common is that they always approached playing them as a different setting than the books, not so much turning of the Wheel, because that was a possibility with the Portal Stones taking you to different dimensions that allowed for a different weaving of the same timeline. Even Tales of Ta'veren II, which took Rhonda's and Tabbifli's existing game setting and code base, did the same thing - but in their case they were a Portal of the original Tales of Ta'veren. We didn't want to follow the roadmap already presented in the books.
This allowed us to still have male channelers and even the Forsaken, and allowed us to create our own Heroes and/or manifest them to become the Dragon should we wish, without needing the major book characters as the main characters in our setting.
There's a whole LOT a person can do with a Portal Stone setting, where anything is possible and the events that happened on one 'dimension' may not necessarily be the same as the 'other dimensions' through the stones; and the same people might not even be alive.
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@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:
@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:
As, I imagine, you - or others - wouldn't like the vision that I have of what a WoT game should be about.
I'd make a L&L take on the Wheel of Time. Set at the time of the books leading up (but never quite reaching) Tarmon Gaidon, probably around book 3-5, focused either in Andor or Cairhien.
No playable book characters but only where they would enhance the plot in some way as NPCs. All of the 'rules' from the books being active. Asha'man and male wilders are playable but application-based. Female channelers more open but on a shorter curriculum - it shouldn't take nearly as long to go from Novice to Accepted as in the books dur to gameplay reasons.
That gives every playable 'good guy' faction. Nobles of course but also Aiel, Aes Sedai and Warders, Asha'man, tua'thaan, Whitecloaks, Band of the Red Hand and Dragonsworn.
I'd allow darkfriends but heavily controlled by staff-controlled, NPC Forsaken. Some IC paranoia is good.
Do I think that's the 'best' way to do it? Of course not! It's just how I would do it.
Another fun way would be to set it six months after the last book. The politics, major Houses, the condition of most factions etc are still known - players wouldn't need to figure too much out on their own - but with the whole Last Battle thing out of the way there'd be more room for plotting and scheming, especially in a world wrecked by war. It'd be harder to figure out how to keep the tension going without the constant threat of being eaten by monsters, though.
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@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:
yeah, that shit was dope.
Just to be super clear I loved it. Surprised me in the best way.
***=Things I really enjoyed***
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@wizz This is and is not a spoiler I guess, it's a weird thing but putting it in tags anyway. Not a book spoiler:
***Mat***
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@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:
@wizz This is and is not a spoiler I guess, it's a weird thing but putting it in tags anyway. Not a book spoiler:
***Mat***
click to showYeah, the departure was mentioned earlier in the thread even, but man I didn't realize it was so sudden, like mid-filming for this season. That's wild. I just wonder what they'll do with the character.
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***Episode 6 Spoiler Content in Here***
click to showMy guess that I am stealing wholesale from a friend and is in no way my original work goes as follows:
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...why?
I mean -- really. Why? If that were to happen, why would you leave behind a show that is otherwise doing very well at tellign an entertaining story to hear a story that you've already heard?
That would be like someone just giving up on G. R. R. M. if he writes something in his books different from what the HBO series went into, assuming that we ever get the others. That would be kind of silly, IMO.
I mean, YMMV and all, but that seems a rather strange path to take, to me, and I'm curious what the reasoning there is.
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@arkandel
The power of friendship was the real Dragon all along! -
@derp said in The Wheel of Time:
That would be like someone just giving up on G. R. R. M. if he writes something in his books different from what the HBO series went into, assuming that we ever get the others. That would be kind of silly, IMO.
I'll give you two reasons. Again, this is just a personal preference; I don't think people are terrible or anything for being okay with the same things I'm not.
So I'm fine with relatively departures which are perfectly plausible within the context of the original work (such as the relationship we saw today in WoT Ep 6). This didn't happen in the books but there was no reason that it couldn't have.
I'm also entirely fine with changes made to accommodate the story in the format it's being told. The most obvious example here is in Lord of the Rings where Tom Bombadil - an important but not strictly relevant-to-the-plot character was taken out entirely. It'd have added another good half hour to an already long movie - it was the right call to make.
On the other hand I wouldn't watch a Silmarillion series where Morgoth is killed by Beren. I wouldn't want to watch Lord of the Rings either where Saruman makes his own Ring of Power and the characters have to go take it from him. Either of those might make for a great fantasy movies - but it wouldn't be Tolkien. It'd be too different from the books for my tastes.
Now I'll put some spoiler tags and I'll explain my reasoning for the identity of the Dragon Reborn specifically.
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@derp said in The Wheel of Time:
...why?
I'm not Arkandel, but I have some thoughts on this.
***Book Spoiler Talk***
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I think there's something to be said for the fact that both Harriet and Brandon are also very heavily involved as consultants. The show /doesn't/ have to use them. Once a contract is signed giving up your rights, producers usually pay authors (or their representatives) a stipend as consultant, and just don't consult them. They essentially pay them hush money and tell them to go away; every author ever will tell you this.
These two are the rare elite, like Diana Gabaldon with Outlander, where they have people willing to listen to them and allow them both to sign off on all the scripts and give notes that might be heeded. This is largely why I'm sitting back and comfortably watching things play out as they are. I think if they are as willing as they are to heed Jordan's wife and the person chosen to finish out the story, the major plot points will still be hit somewhere, even if the getting there is different than in the books.
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@raemira And yet...
In an AMA, Brandon Sanderson was asked about the 'Perrin's wife' thing. He said he objected to it, felt it was completely unnecessary, and suggested that Master Luhhan could fulfil the role of shocking Perrin in the same way, without being problematic. And he was ignored.
Just because they're listed as consultants, doesn't mean they're being listened to. Or have any real input.
William Gibson was a consultant on the film adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic, and that was horrible. Because the director didn't listen to Gibson at all.
Sometimes, the consultant gig is only a rubber stamp to keep fans quiet.
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Luhan would not at all be the same. A mentor as opposed to a lover with a rocky relationship you are attempting to fix who may or may not be having your kid? No contest.
People keep saying this is fridging. It’s not. This was, so far as I can tell, an important plot point and departure from the standard timeline to show the true weight and cost of battle against someone you care for intimately in a show that already passes the Bechdel test by leaps and bounds.
Bad things happen to people. It is not problematic because the sacrificial character was a woman. If you want to talk campy tropes, let’s talk ‘man strapped to table and tortured so another can hear his screams as leverage’. Because that one is overdone too. To a person of color, even, by a literally whitewashes black man.
Guys. Luhan would not have been just as good. Of
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I had to skim through Eye of the World for reminders. It's been a long time since I read the books.
***=Book Spoilers***
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