[UA] no pity for Towns Without Pity

[kabael at softhome.net]

> >Will the "Towns Without Pity" cover any non-US city? Can you guys please not
> >picture Brazil or Rio like the "fantasy mexican dream" we see in Tim Powers
> >books? :):)
> 
> There won't be a TOWNS sourcebook at all; I wanted to do one, but dropped 
> it in favor of a hoped-for web project instead, which would be generated 
> by gamers.

I have to say I'm somewhat leery of this idea, for two reasons.

Despite the quality this list puts out, I would prefer a professionally
published book because it's at least some guarantee of quality. The problem
(and strength) of the net is that anyone and their brother can and does
post stuff, so you have a lot of noise to get through to find the useful
signal. How many World of Darkness website are there out there? How many
have something more useful than "WoD: Highlander" and "Bloodline:
Woop-your-ass-good"? Is there going to be an editor for this online
project, or is everything going to be accepted and posted? That's the
problem with the net, capturing the quality information in the sea of crap.

Second, again despite the dedication of this list, I'd be concerned about
the sustainability of the project. How many wonderful websites have started
wonderfully and then died with a whisper? I know that I have a gi-normous
stack of "I'll get to that real soon now" projects to do, but it only gets
bigger.

Personally, I would much prefer such a database to be an _adjunct_ to the
book, not a replacement. Then again, it could work well as a general UA
resource as well.

Publishing Towns Without Pity would provide a baseline of quality (and
provide access to those without net resources) and the online database is
just more information to be used as well. That would be the ideal
situation.

Then again, I might just be a pessimistic nay-sayer here. Go ahead with the
database, by all means, but please don't junk the book as well.

(btw, I think TWP would to well to be about "locations" and not only towns.
Little bizarre caves, shops, boats, islands, trees, etc. would make for a
good book. Occult settings as opposed to occult undergrounds.)

- kabael - Kintaro Oe - Derek the Guder - kabael at softhome.net - ICQ#
24193592
the McGuffin Group - the End Times - RPG Action - the Thirteenth Legion

"Smiling fishee please don't attack me" - Steven Martini, "Corduroy Penis"


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