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Chalks
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icon Write the story (+4)  
Well. As a new member of the drod.net forums...I got caught up in the spirit of all things that involve the words smite, delver, and Beethro, quite quickly (then promptly became addicted to JtRH despite only having the demo). I then proceded to print out almost every single link in A Cultured Eighth and read it ALL. Now my eyes hurt. :~(

Despite that, I was very intruiged by the Construct The Story thread and the Reconstruct The Story thread. I didn't really feal like posting on top of those threads however because the last post was over 3 months ago. So I decided to start a new one. Following are the AWESOME rules from agaricus5:

agaricus5 wrote:
The Original Rules

1. Do not swear - I'll tolerate low-level rude words (avoid please), but I don't want unpleasant F-words or unpleasant slang floating around.
2. Please avoid references to explicit ideas/content - it may embarrass people or make for unpleasant reading.
3. Keep it DROD-related - absolutely anything can happen on the surface (or in) the Eighth, whether old, new, not yet in existence, logical, illogical, impossible or weird, but don't let the story leave the confines of Beethro's world.
4. Respect the creativity of other people - if you think there is something you don't like about what someone has written, or you want to make a comment, be polite about it.
5. Don't finish the story unless it's been specifically asked for - it's a story that can only be made by the contributions of as many people as possible. I'll tell you if the story needs finishing, but this is unlikely to happen, at least in the near future.
6. Finally, if two of you post at the same time, then unfortunately, it's the first that gets posted that takes precedence.

These rules are great, but in my mind they need two more...

I think the last two Construct the story threads went on for WAY to long. They started becoming very random and VERY confusing after the 10th page (of 8pt type) or so... ;) so here's the new rule:

7. The story must have a satisfactory ending before the 30th post (this will end up being about 10 pages of story).

Therefore, each poster should write the post number above their post (so that we don't have to go back and count every single time).

Also...from the Construct the Story thread...
Sokko wrote:

I've discovered I like this technique of giving the next poster a decision to make before he continues the story. Let's keep it up, shall we?
I like it too.

8. The writer should have a very obvious choice at the end of his post so that the next one can follow the story easily.


That's it! Let me start us off...
04-20-2005 at 06:11 AM
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Chalks
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icon Re: Write the story (+1)  
Post 1

On the 37th day of Twisuary, a strange and dread thing took place.

Beethro went on vacation!
(this was actually only dreadful to King Dugan for he no longer had anyone to annoy with pesky letters and summoners. In fact, this bothered the King so much, his already prominent eating disorder became a full fledged eating disease.)

Arriving at the beautiful island Oyst in the Welmish Ocean on the 5th of Thrisuary, Beethro had taken his leave from the cares of the world. His nephew Halph had even promised to be good for his mother Vonnifa while Beethro was away. Extracting this promise had actually been quite difficult and involved several long stories and one trip into the first level of King Dugan’s Dungeon (which Vonnifa still didn’t know about).

While basking in the sun wearing nothing but his trusty loincloth, Beethro enjoyed day-dreaming. His current dream involved a room full of roaches who all shuddered in fear the instant he entered. Unfortunately reality quickly set in (as it often does with day-dreams) and he realized that roaches were too stupid to understand that their doom had arrived. Sighing, he stood to go grab himself another drink.

Sauntering over to the bar Beethro chuckled to himself at the looks he was getting. It’s not every day that your average tourist is dressed in next to nothing yet still sporting a Huge Sword with Golden Spikes of Hair protruding from their cranium.

“What’ll yah hav’?” growled the barkeep (he had had a bad day).

Beethro grinned, “Just another keg’o’beer.”

Suddenly from the beach came screams of horror! Beethro started to turn around…

“Wait!” he thought, “What about my beer?”



Should Beethro investigate the screams? Or should he grab his beer first (which would involve the lengthy process of arguing about how many greckles it should cost).

04-20-2005 at 06:12 AM
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agaricus5
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Post 2

Chalks wrote:
Well. As a new member of the drod.net forums...I got caught up in the spirit of all things that involve the words smite, delver, and Beethro, quite quickly (then promptly became addicted to JtRH despite only having the demo). I then proceded to print out almost every single link in A Cultured Eighth and read it ALL. Now my eyes hurt. :~(
I never intended my thread to have such an extreme effect; that must have taken a lot of time and effort!

But now look what you've done - exactly how much paper did you use? I hope you recycle it at the least. :)

Despite that, I was very intruiged by the Construct The Story thread and the Reconstruct The Story thread. I didn't really feal like posting on top of those threads however because the last post was over 3 months ago. So I decided to start a new one. Following are the AWESOME rules from agaricus5:

...


I didn't expect people would still be interested in that either. I'm quite flattered.

However, there are one or two (small) artifacts left over from my early posting style, which still make me cringe, actually. Since I don't want to edit the real thread for posterity and reference, maybe you could edit the rules here to bring them up-to-date and make them slightly more readable (at least to me):

1. Avoid swear words - low-level rude words are tolerated (they are best avoided), but no unpleasant slang or swearing, please. In short, stick to the Forum's policy on swearing.
2. Please avoid references to explicit ideas or content - it may embarrass people or make for unpleasant reading.
3. Keep it DROD-related - absolutely anything can happen on the surface (or in) the Eighth, whether old, new, not yet in existence, logical, illogical, impossible or weird, but don't let the story leave the confines of Beethro's world.
4. Respect the creativity of other people - if you think there is something you don't like about what someone has written, or you want to make a comment, be polite about it.
5. - This contradicts rule 7, so it probably should be removed.
6. Finally, if two people post at the same time, then unfortunately, it's the first that gets posted that takes precedence.

These rules are great, but in my mind they need two more...

I think the last two Construct the story threads went on for WAY to long. They started becoming very random and VERY confusing after the 10th page (of 8pt type) or so... ;) so here's the new rule:

7. The story must have a satisfactory ending before the 30th post (this will end up being about 10 pages of story).


Therefore, each poster should write the post number above their post (so that we don't have to go back and count every single time).
Nice.

I think the original was just a sort of experiment, and so over time, the order sort of decayed into randomness (people ended up not bothering to check their additions for coherency), so it sort of faded away. 30 posts, however, is a bit short in my opinion; it's only about 2-3 pages, and probably not enough to create a long enough story worth reading. Perhaps 50 might be a better target (although some stricter control on the story will be necessary).

Also...from the Construct the Story thread...
Sokko wrote:

I've discovered I like this technique of giving the next poster a decision to make before he continues the story. Let's keep it up, shall we?
I like it too.

8. The writer should have a very obvious choice at the end of his post so that the next one can follow the story easily.

Indeed, that's a nice rule. Sort of like the Adventure Game, but in a more Eighther style.

Perhaps a rule #9 might be needed, just to make the point more explicit.

9. You can write about whatever you want to happen, but please try to make it in some way linked to what's been written previously.

“Wait!” he thought, “What about my beer?”



Should Beethro investigate the screams? Or should he grab his beer first (which would involve the lengthy process of arguing about how many greckles it should cost).

Beethro did a quick calculation, and worked out that he could probably investigate the screams and return to the table in less time than it would take to negotiate the price of his beer. He therefore ignored the barman, and finished turning round to face the beach. He saw, to his surprise, that a giant squid, which was not normally found outside its dwelling-place in the depths of the Fellsome Wisp, had appeared on the shore and was attacking people near the water's edge with its long tentacles. Fortunately, Beethro still had his Very Big Sword™ on him, so he ran down the beach towards the squid, brandishing the weapon and yelling in order to attract its attention.

The squid, in response, rotated itself slightly to get a better view of Beethro, but was rather unimpressed with what it saw. It didn't know that Beethro was one of the most experienced smitemasters on the Eighth, but that wouldn't have mattered to it much, since its 30 tentacles were all invulnerable to his sword and each was about 20 feet long, leaving Beethro relatively helpless against it. Beethro's yelling, however, began to irritate the squid as he came closer to it, since it didn't like to be shouted at, even by something many times smaller. The squid shifted slightly once more to look at the people running away from it and wondered if it was worth attacking Beethro or not.

Does the squid attack Beethro (but lose its chance to obtain an easily grabbed lunch), or does it pursue the escaping people (and risk getting a headache from Beethro's loud yell)?

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04-21-2005 at 01:21 AM
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stigant
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hmmm, giant squid, invulnerable to sword... sounds like a good idea for a new DROD monster.

ok, back to the story:

Thinking quickly (for a squid, though probably slowly compared to members of the Quick-Thinkers guild, a sub-sub-guild of the Smitemaster's Guild with some shady connections to the Architect's Guild), the squid grabbed the nearest two beach-goers and stuffed them into its sensitive ears. Unfortunatly, the beach goers, having starved themselves all spring to get in shape for their bathing suits were too skinny to effectively filter out Beethro's low frequency yells. Turning its full attention to Beethro, the squid wrapped a tentacle around Beethro's three hairs, and lifted him high into the air.

"Hey, let go of my hair, you overgrown appetizer!" yelled Beethro.

"Raaahaahhhrrrrrcchhhh" screached the squid as it started to lower Beethro to its waiting beak.

Suddenly, Beethro had a genius thought.

Was that thought to cut off his own, beloved hair, thus freeing himself from the vile clutches of the squid. Or was it to remove his bathing suit and use it to jam the craw of the squid?

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04-21-2005 at 01:52 AM
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NoahT
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Post 4

Beethro began to reach for his trunks. But he stopped abruptly, noticing something out of the corner of his eye. It was a keg of beer, flying right at the tentacle holding Beethro. The keg broke on the tentacle, causing the squid to drop Beethro, who barely missed the beak and landed on the sand right in front of the terrible beast. Beethro turned to see the barman holding a beer keg in one hand, his other outstretched from his throwing beer at the squid. The squid roared in pain, and the vibrations from the roar caused the two beach-goers to fall out of its ears. As the beach-goers ran away screaming in terror, Beethro ran up to the barman.

"Thanks," Beethro gasped, panting.

"That'll teach the squid to mess with my customers when I'm in a bad mood!" the barman yelled, shaking his fist in the squid's direction.

"Anyway, could you just quickly tell me how many greckles so we can take care of this squid?" Beethro asked.

"Just take this keg free," said the barman, not wanting to get in the way of dealing with the squid.

"Uh, thanks," Beethro said as he took the keg. "Now, for this squid..."

What should Beethro and the barman do now-try to take on the squid immediately, or look for someone who might know about the squid?

-Noah

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04-26-2005 at 01:45 AM
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