From: owner-the-edge-digest@ (The Edge Digested) To: the-edge-digest@robin-nvh.bvsd.k12.co.us Subject: The Edge Digested V1 #46 Reply-To: the-edge@robin-nvh.bvsd.k12.co.us Sender: owner-the-edge-digest@ Errors-To: owner-the-edge-digest@ Precedence: bulk The Edge Digested Sunday, April 19 1998 Volume 01 : Number 046 Today's subjects from The Edge: [The Edge] Eco - Foucault's Pendulum Re: [The Edge] A Moment of Silence, Please Re: [The Edge] Tulpas - Origins? [The Edge] My little campaign idea Re: [The Edge] Eco - Foucault's Pendulum ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 21:41:47 +0100 (British Summer Time) From: James Palmer Subject: [The Edge] Eco - Foucault's Pendulum Kristofer Johanisson wrote > > Suppose that you, just for fun, make up a conspiracy theory together with > two of your friends. What if you, after spending some time developing your > joke (your theory), find that one of these friends actually believes in it? > What if your other friend mysteriously disappears? (This is not a > description of the development of the "Over the Edge"-RPG) > > In "Foucault's Pendulum" you could read more about this and more about > conspiracies, mysticism, Cabbalistic BASIC-programs, superstition, > trumpets, God, publishers, the Order of Knights Templars, . . . Since this > book was written by Umberto Eco, there is a lot to be found in it. > I've noticed that the only people who 'get' Foucault's Pendulum seem to be gamers - most folk who liked the Name of the Rose found FP unreadable, apparently. I suppose the general weird-shit approach suits gamers. The Name of the Rose is also one of the greatest books ever when it comes to getting a feel for any medieval game, but particular Ars Magica. Island of the Day Before wasn't much cop, unfortunately - not really worth getting hold of, IMHO. I heard Eco talk on how he 'got his ideas' once - apparently he gets particular images in his head and then weaves a plot around them, which sounds like quite a few GM's I know. Umberto Eco - The Gamer's Chum. James Palmer. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Germans are a cruel people, Baldrick. Their operas last for three days and there is no word in their language for fluffy" - Blackadder. My Ars Magica campaign: www.christs.cam.ac.uk/~ajb72/index.htm My beloved college: www.jesus.cam.ac.uk [O] You received this message because you are subscribed to the-edge [0] To (un)subscribe, send a message to majordomo@robin.ml.org with body of [O] (un)subscribe the-edge ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:28:50 GMT From: robin@execulink.com (robin) Subject: Re: [The Edge] A Moment of Silence, Please >This is an announcement that as of the end of this quarter, the Conspiracy has >been cancelled. The Conspiracy was the official OnTE player's league. I would like to thank Atlas Games, especially Jeff Tidball, for their support of On the Edge through the Conspiracy. It certainly did much to keep the game alive locally. One store here in London, Ontario (L.A. Mood) currently has stock of all the On the Edge product, and regularly orders from the rest of the Atlas Games catalogue. The fact that Grey Room plays in-store on a continuing basis has a lot to do with that. I am not surprised that the Conspiracy has outlived its usefulness. It was a very generous arrangement for us players -- the equivalent of an entire box of boosters in prizes every quarter. But aside from the product, it obviously took a certain amount of time and a non-trivial amount of postage to maintain. Thanks again to the stellar folk in Fargo-land! See you in Al Amarja and -- look out for that wood-chipper! +--------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | robin, co-ordinator | : W.S. Burroughs | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | jupiter.execulink.com/~robin/ | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ [O] You received this message because you are subscribed to the-edge [0] To (un)subscribe, send a message to majordomo@robin.ml.org with body of [O] (un)subscribe the-edge ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:36:04 GMT From: robin@execulink.com (robin) Subject: Re: [The Edge] Tulpas - Origins? >This sounds very much like the story "The Circular Ruins" by Jorge >Luis Borges, in which a magician decides to dream a human, and dream >him in complexity that everything was encompassed, everything obeyed >the laws of reality. Everyone should read Borges, whose brilliant stories contain a rigorous logic applied to surreal occurrences. On the subject of Tulpas, you may like to know that there was a band here in southwestern Ontario called Tulpa, who released an LP Mosaic Fish in 1985 on Midnight Music. Only one of the three members -- John Bottomley, I believe -- ever went on to other music, recording a solo album a number of years later. It's a rough punky album that nonetheless reflects a great deal of musical learning. +--------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | robin, co-ordinator | : W.S. Burroughs | +--------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | jupiter.execulink.com/~robin/ | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ [O] You received this message because you are subscribed to the-edge [0] To (un)subscribe, send a message to majordomo@robin.ml.org with body of [O] (un)subscribe the-edge ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 21:39:26 -0600 From: "Roger D. Congdon" Subject: [The Edge] My little campaign idea How does this sound? My campaign revolves around the Cut-Ups Machine and the Throckmorton Device playing "chess" with their Al Amarjan "pawns." Those conspiracies that tend to favor Control get "played" by the Throck. Dev., while those who tend to be fringe and bizarre get "played" by the Cut-Up Machine. The trick is that those who are on the same team don't necessarily get along. Why? Because these gadgets represent Chaos and Order, which everyone has a different opinion on. Also, a mysterious alliance between groups that have been fighting each other for centuries (maybe) would seem suspicious, and up the risk that someone would spoil the game by discovering what was going on. Thus my characters would enter into Al Amarja when things were starting to heat up, due to "the game." Conspiracies that used to be patient and subtle are suddenly acting hastily, and sudenly risking discovery. Not to mention that aliens, being disturbed by the psychic activity, would be curious to investigate. Or that fringe tech has begun to experience a weird surge in development. What do you think? [O] You received this message because you are subscribed to the-edge [0] To (un)subscribe, send a message to majordomo@robin.ml.org with body of [O] (un)subscribe the-edge ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 01:28:20 -0600 From: David Ebrey Subject: Re: [The Edge] Eco - Foucault's Pendulum Ken Hite, the guy who writes the weekly article "Out of the Box" for Mania Magazine (Free: www.mania.com/mania) has started writing the biweekly article "Suppressed transmissions" for Pyramid ($15 year: http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/). He began his most recent article with a quotation from Foucault's Pendulum and then wrote an interesting and amusing article on drawing conspiracies from the real world. Before you get a subscription to Pyramid you can read the first three paragraphs of any article, so check it out if you are interested. BTW, I suggest Gurps Illuminati to any OTE GM. David [O] You received this message because you are subscribed to the-edge [0] To (un)subscribe, send a message to majordomo@robin.ml.org with body of [O] (un)subscribe the-edge ------------------------------ End of The Edge Digested V1 #46 ******************************* [O] You received this message because you are subscribed to the-edge-digest [0] To (un)subscribe, send a message to majordomo@robin.ml.org with body of [O] (un)subscribe the-edge-digest To get off digest, subscribe the-edge [O] To post a message, send it to the-edge@robin.ml.org