arhyalon

The picture is showing a red X - is there a way to repost it?

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Thanks for letting me know. I think I fixed it. Let me know if it still doesn't show.

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I finally got the book from Amazon and got to read your story. It looks like you are getting yourself back in the mood to write Corruption. ;-)

It was a fun little story. I enjoyed it very much. I would have to say that the biggest difference between your writing style and John's is charm. When John write's short fiction, (for one it's not short,) it is austere and impressive, while yours is charming and vibrant. You write much more character focused stories, (something that might also be indicative of female authors,) while John's stories are more situational, idealistic and setting driven. In saying that, I mean that John takes an idea or idealistic principle and decides what setting and situation would exemplify or allow for such an idea to come to fruition, then the story and characters seem to fall from that. Your stories seem to start with the people and you reveal what happens to them and the where tends to be part of the what. You take the reader along on the adventure with your characters while John's scope insight establishes a buffer zone between the action and the reader. As much as I like his books and get engrossed in the telling, I do not feel like I am there the same way I do with yours.

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What actually happened with this story is that I was not going to write anything for this anthology, but Danielle -- who has been a fan of Orlando Crowe's ever since the scene where he fell face down into his shrip scampi (she wanted to take through the subway so he could rest at her house. ;-) -- asked for an Orlando Crowe story. It was kind of hard to think of how to put him in a short story, so I wasn't going to. But then this story came leaping into my mind practically full-blown, and I figured it deserved a chance.

You're comparison of John and I is quite accurate, I think. His actual prose is better than mine, but he does write more at a distance to the characters.

The one difference is the Corruption Campaign, where his version is just as lively and vivid as mine, if not more so...but even his other roleplaying games read more like Jack Vance and less like Lloyd Alexander.

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I apologize, I was not logged in when I posted.

Did you mean his moderating of the Corruption Campaign, or has he written parts of the Corruption Campaign as well? I haven't seen those if he has. I have actually not played Corruption under John well enough to compare the two of you.

As to other games, I did not think the Intimidation Campaign was distant. In fact the one thing I would say about that game in contrast to your own is that John does not work as hard to accomidate the players personal tastes as much as you do, but he makes up for it by establishing very strong goals for the adventures. Details of the action are not customized to the player as they are in your games, but the players have a very clear idea of what is happening and what needs to be done. Perhaps this is also because you and I have run solos on the side and I have never done anything like that with John.

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I meant John's moderating.

Again, your analysis is spot on. John is frankly a much better moderator. He can keep a wide range of characters acting in character with little effort, he has a much better command of battles and action, and is very good at posing problems to be overcome. However, he does not cater to the particular players at all.

I, on the other hand, am not as good at these things, but I do try to make the story meet the interests of the players. I'm also good at melodramatic romantic twists, which always amuse me. (Mark once pointed out that I laughed whenever something bad was going to happen to his character. Sadly, he was right...but it was always a personality/character driven type of bad thing, not a 'you fall down a hole' type of bad thing.)

What John does that I cannot do is run hundreds of characters able to hold long conversations in character at the drop of a hat. I am much more likely to just say "he tells you that..." because many of the characters I can't do well enough to pull them off in long conversations on a regular basis. (Some I can, like Mephisto or the Nimwingas.)

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I forgot to mention that Danielle is not the only Orlando Crowe fan. I have a friend up here that will go nuts for your story for the exact same reason.

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