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unsolicited opinions
May. 11th, 2025 03:01 pmA few opinions/fixits that I had in the past 24 hours:
1) Newest Dr Who episode about storytelling: ("The Story & the Engine", apparently)
- I really liked the story-powered engine thing
- I really liked the idea of storytelling + barbershop chair, and the twist later on that it doesn't have to be hair-trimming, it can also be hair braiding (there's a nice symbolism there about cutting vs braiding to create something new)
- Very frustrating that a lot of the larger motivations doesn't make sense -- what do you mean, that cutting the gods from the stories would then cut all humans from stories which would then doom all humankind? None of that's clearly established. What does it mean for the Story Engine Spider to collapse? Does that mean there's no way to weave more stories into the story web anymore? What is that dude's role anyway? Is he some sort of ur-story collector? Why does the Doctor get to be the neverending story that powers the story engine? How does the story engine relate to the story web, and how does the story web relate to the gods?
- There's so much I liked about the episode, but those questions just make it fall short of greatness.
- As such, here's my fixit:
---- make it that the story engine is powered by stories and the reason why the doctor has more power over it is that he has 900+ years of stories to tell
---- make it that the stories are what give the gods their power, but the doctor isn't a god because he chooses to live his stories instead of telling them
---- make it that instead of going to the center of the web to cut the gods out of the web (whatever that means), the Story Collector is doing what he claimed to do: become the king of stories. But of course, that would ruin the web because what makes it all work is that stories are organically created by humans, and should not be ruled over by a singular king, because there isn't a singular story. (And since the story collector initially started out by wanted to collect and capture stories, this would be a good example where his spite of never being remembered that then drives his megalomaniacal desires actually ends up going against his original values, which would then lead to a nice villain reversal moment where the doctor's like "you loved stories, remember? they're things to be collected and woven, not controlled" or whatever)
---- really lean into the whole weaving vs cutting of hair thing. Maybe Abby is able to weave stories into the story web in a way that the story collector was never able to, and so she is able to weave the storyteller's own story into the web (therefore he gets the recognition he desires!). And maybe part of the ending is that Abby gets to take charge of her own story, or gets to become steward of the story engine and the story web.
2) Molly House board game
Just played this board game this morning and there's some really interesting dynamics in the game:
- there's a community victory point tracker, and you basically have 5 rounds to get the community tracker past 35 points, and simultaneously be the highest-point person when the community wins.
- in order to advance the community points, you need to throw "parties" at one of 4 molly houses. At these parties, there's a combination of cards being played by the "host" of the party, the "community" (the deck of cards), and the other players, in order to determine the nature of the party. The cooler the party, the more the community (and relevant individual trackers) move forward. (Individual trackers move forward by putting down cards that get used in the final "party" setup, but you can also push the party to be one kind or another by the cards you put down. There's even a "quiet party" option which is where you dump all of your bad cards in a safe way)
- there's a "gossip" pile of cards where at the end of each round, 2/3rds of those cards get counted to see if any of the 4 molly houses (4 suits, basically), get raided.
But I was also really frustrated because there was a really complicated individual reputation tracker system that had something to do with the cards you're playing vs not playing at different parts of the game. There were equally complex rules about what cards end up in the "gossip" pile and which don't. So if I were to house-rule the game:
- Parties are hosted as usual, with the additional caveat that the host needs to play cards in the suit of the molly house that they're hosting the party in.
- At the end of the party, victory points are counted as usual, but then all the cards in that party go into the gossip pile
---- this means that there isn't any complicated individual reputation thing. You play your cards at the party in order to maximize both community and self points
---- this means that any rogues played in the party (as a wild card) will also land in the gossip pile, increasing the chance of raiding later (thus having a clear risk/reward for using rogues)
---- exception: "quiet parties" with constables still have the constables go into the "safe" pile.
- Get rid of the individual reputation tracking. Or, if you really want to have *something*, have it be that you get 1 cube for every party that you contribute a winning set to, and 2 cubes if you were hosting that party. Then that connects more directly to you hosting and participating in parties.
- Get rid of the whole indictment/informer thing. If a house gets raided and you've hosted a party there, you lose 1 vp per party-hosting cube you have. If all 4 houses get raided before the community wins, then the person with the least VP wins the game
1) Newest Dr Who episode about storytelling: ("The Story & the Engine", apparently)
- I really liked the story-powered engine thing
- I really liked the idea of storytelling + barbershop chair, and the twist later on that it doesn't have to be hair-trimming, it can also be hair braiding (there's a nice symbolism there about cutting vs braiding to create something new)
- Very frustrating that a lot of the larger motivations doesn't make sense -- what do you mean, that cutting the gods from the stories would then cut all humans from stories which would then doom all humankind? None of that's clearly established. What does it mean for the Story Engine Spider to collapse? Does that mean there's no way to weave more stories into the story web anymore? What is that dude's role anyway? Is he some sort of ur-story collector? Why does the Doctor get to be the neverending story that powers the story engine? How does the story engine relate to the story web, and how does the story web relate to the gods?
- There's so much I liked about the episode, but those questions just make it fall short of greatness.
- As such, here's my fixit:
---- make it that the story engine is powered by stories and the reason why the doctor has more power over it is that he has 900+ years of stories to tell
---- make it that the stories are what give the gods their power, but the doctor isn't a god because he chooses to live his stories instead of telling them
---- make it that instead of going to the center of the web to cut the gods out of the web (whatever that means), the Story Collector is doing what he claimed to do: become the king of stories. But of course, that would ruin the web because what makes it all work is that stories are organically created by humans, and should not be ruled over by a singular king, because there isn't a singular story. (And since the story collector initially started out by wanted to collect and capture stories, this would be a good example where his spite of never being remembered that then drives his megalomaniacal desires actually ends up going against his original values, which would then lead to a nice villain reversal moment where the doctor's like "you loved stories, remember? they're things to be collected and woven, not controlled" or whatever)
---- really lean into the whole weaving vs cutting of hair thing. Maybe Abby is able to weave stories into the story web in a way that the story collector was never able to, and so she is able to weave the storyteller's own story into the web (therefore he gets the recognition he desires!). And maybe part of the ending is that Abby gets to take charge of her own story, or gets to become steward of the story engine and the story web.
2) Molly House board game
Just played this board game this morning and there's some really interesting dynamics in the game:
- there's a community victory point tracker, and you basically have 5 rounds to get the community tracker past 35 points, and simultaneously be the highest-point person when the community wins.
- in order to advance the community points, you need to throw "parties" at one of 4 molly houses. At these parties, there's a combination of cards being played by the "host" of the party, the "community" (the deck of cards), and the other players, in order to determine the nature of the party. The cooler the party, the more the community (and relevant individual trackers) move forward. (Individual trackers move forward by putting down cards that get used in the final "party" setup, but you can also push the party to be one kind or another by the cards you put down. There's even a "quiet party" option which is where you dump all of your bad cards in a safe way)
- there's a "gossip" pile of cards where at the end of each round, 2/3rds of those cards get counted to see if any of the 4 molly houses (4 suits, basically), get raided.
But I was also really frustrated because there was a really complicated individual reputation tracker system that had something to do with the cards you're playing vs not playing at different parts of the game. There were equally complex rules about what cards end up in the "gossip" pile and which don't. So if I were to house-rule the game:
- Parties are hosted as usual, with the additional caveat that the host needs to play cards in the suit of the molly house that they're hosting the party in.
- At the end of the party, victory points are counted as usual, but then all the cards in that party go into the gossip pile
---- this means that there isn't any complicated individual reputation thing. You play your cards at the party in order to maximize both community and self points
---- this means that any rogues played in the party (as a wild card) will also land in the gossip pile, increasing the chance of raiding later (thus having a clear risk/reward for using rogues)
---- exception: "quiet parties" with constables still have the constables go into the "safe" pile.
- Get rid of the individual reputation tracking. Or, if you really want to have *something*, have it be that you get 1 cube for every party that you contribute a winning set to, and 2 cubes if you were hosting that party. Then that connects more directly to you hosting and participating in parties.
- Get rid of the whole indictment/informer thing. If a house gets raided and you've hosted a party there, you lose 1 vp per party-hosting cube you have. If all 4 houses get raided before the community wins, then the person with the least VP wins the game
