Purple sage
May. 3rd, 2005 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avramI’m halfway through Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, which was recommended as a good inspirational source for Dogs in the Vineyard. And it is, even though the Mormons in the book are the bad guys. There’s a strong faithful-versus-the-unfaithful plotline, with a Mormon Elder organizing his community to interfere with a powerful businesswoman who’s being too friendly with the Gentiles. There’s lots of useful period and location color — I’d never thought about how visible people would be against the sky when standing on a ridge.
And the opening chapter reads almost like a series of just-talking conflicts, with stakes clearly defined and the hero bringing his gun dice in at the end of the last one without actually escalating. I’m going to disappoint![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drcpunk here by not actually marking up the damn chapter with game mechanics, mostly because it would be tedious, but also because I can’t resolve whether it’s got three conflicts with the second and third being over the same stakes (a no-no), or just two conflicts with a new PC joining in the middle of the second (also a no-no). Here, go read it for yourself.
I’ve read that Riders was phenomenally popular in its time. It was published in 1912, which means that most of the old pulp SF writers probably read it growing up. When I read the first of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth books I realized that this was the prose style that Gary Gygax had been trying to imitate, and sadly failing. With Riders I see the style that those old pulp writers were trying to imitate, and sadly succeeding. There are enough puzzles set up that I actually want to see how the story comes out, but if I have to read much more about the damn three-year-old girl who says things like “Has oo a little dirl?” I may just give up.
And the opening chapter reads almost like a series of just-talking conflicts, with stakes clearly defined and the hero bringing his gun dice in at the end of the last one without actually escalating. I’m going to disappoint
drcpunk here by not actually marking up the damn chapter with game mechanics, mostly because it would be tedious, but also because I can’t resolve whether it’s got three conflicts with the second and third being over the same stakes (a no-no), or just two conflicts with a new PC joining in the middle of the second (also a no-no). Here, go read it for yourself. I’ve read that Riders was phenomenally popular in its time. It was published in 1912, which means that most of the old pulp SF writers probably read it growing up. When I read the first of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth books I realized that this was the prose style that Gary Gygax had been trying to imitate, and sadly failing. With Riders I see the style that those old pulp writers were trying to imitate, and sadly succeeding. There are enough puzzles set up that I actually want to see how the story comes out, but if I have to read much more about the damn three-year-old girl who says things like “Has oo a little dirl?” I may just give up.
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Date: 2005-05-08 01:32 pm (UTC)