Lacking Natural Simplicity

Recent Reading

• The Lillyrian Adventure, by Lloyd Alexander, 1986, E.P. Dutton. This is an slight but enjoyable juvenile Ruritanian, somewhat marred by having an idiot narrator. Although it's not as good as his Westmark Trilogy (Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen), the Pyrdain Cycle, or The Marvellous Misadventures of Sebastian, it's still a fun read.

I hadn't realized that there were a significant number of people who do not like the second Amber series (I don't particularly follow fandom). I think they're being foolish, though: the second series, while quite different in tone, are very good books.

RPG: Storytelling vs. Gaming

I think there's a difference between 'caring about the story' and 'attempting to contrive the plot'. One can do the former without the latter. — happyelf, forums.rpg.net post 1770248.

There is an appearance of conflict between Storytelling gamers and Gamist game players. This is the old "Role- vs. Roll- players" argument. I think that several of Robin Laws games (including HeroQuest) are good arguments that there need be no actual conflict between the two.

Heroquest

Ken Hite reviews Heroquest in his December 21, 2003 Out of the Box, and approves. It's a short but good review.