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archiveofourown.org/works/54787366… Starting a new fanfic to get back into the writing groove. Posting the first chapter for fun. Thanks for checking it out!
character you’d bench immediately?
@strattslapdog Andy Weir said he straight up fucked up because he wrote this in third person and not first and NO ONE corrected him.
Why are people so adamant that reading improves writing? The sheer number of terrible writers proves that’s not true. Writing is difficult!
One of the ways I think Call of Cthulhu has an advantage for new players is the setting. If you brought in a group of newbies to Greyhawk, you'd have to explain that they are in the Free City of Greyhawk, overseen by Castle Greyhawk. If the players sit in a bar, and you say, "A Flan tribesman walks in and makes a beeline for your table." you now must explain what a Flan is, and why it is interesting they showed up. Plus at every step there's more odd stuff to see and comprehend. But if you are playing Call of Cthulhu, and you tell the players, "You're in the Ground Zero bar and grill, and a huge Navajo walks in and makes a beeline for your table." The players immediately understand what type of bar it is with a name like "Ground Zero". They know what a Navajo is, and what his presence could imply. Everything makes sense. If the players decided they want to contact an accountant, they know to wait till the morning and make a phone call. In Greyhawk who even knows if there ARE accountants. None of this means Call of Cthulhu is overall superior. It just means you can get to the adventure sooner with new players. I've DONE this in the last year. My teenage granddaughter ordered me to run a TRPG with her & her friends. I started on RuneQuest and they liked it. They were exploring Dragon Pass and having fun. Then one day I went to run the game and realized I'd forgotten my scenario materials. So I told them, "Hey, we're going to do Call of Cthulhu instead." They rolled up invesetigators and BANG we were off. The kids immediately understood everything. They knew when things were creepy or not. They all liked scary movies so they absolutely got into Call of Cthulhu from the get-go. It was really interesting to me. Of course, they'd already been "prepped" to the idea of roleplaying from Runequest, but they took to it like a cat to an open can of tuna. They really got into the creepy stuff too. (Yes I toned it down. They're just kids.)
for anyone curious on how to spot it, this is from an actual book that was published and then exposed for using AI. it has allllll the best tells
Reading fiction—if it's serious fiction and not bullshit—is not easier than reading philosophy or nonfiction. People saying fiction is easier don't read the right books.
