RE: (TFT)What happend to the Mnoren?

[David Michael Grouchy II <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

> > From: selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com

> > To: tft@brainiac.com

> > Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:08:07 +0800

> > Subject: Re: (TFT)What happened to the Mnoren?

> >

> >

> > Cidri was a mistake. There is no need to have some HUGE world that

> > encompasses everybody's campaign, reality (and a touch of whimsy)

> > does the job for us as so eloquently described in the aforementioned

> > novel. All we got was a few widely scattered or buried facts about

> > the designers campaign and 2 two page appendixes. If you dig through

> > the supplemental material you can dig up quite a bit more but the

> > fact remains that Cidri is superfluous. Not unimportant, but

> > unnecessary. What I've been after is a game with a few tools that

> > are beyond refute. Off the top of my head the big three are DICE,

> > FIGURES, and HEXES.



Jay,
     Alright so I have dealt with the second section of this, and made up
small web pages illustrating alternate interpretations of DICE, FIGURES, and
HEXES. Feel free to use them in your wiki edits or discard them as you see
fit. Now onto the first half about ''cidri was a mistake.''

     As the subject heading of the thread states the relevant question put
forward by Jay is '''What happened to the Mnoren?'' Before I approach that
question, indulge me a tad while I illustrate the question(s) that Steve
Jackson originally asked. About the Mnoren Steve Jackson wrote...

     ''Where did they go?''
          -In The Labyrinth, page 4, first line of paragraph 12

     So Jay asks ''what happened to,'' and Steve asked ''where did they.'' Now
on the surface this seems to be a mutually exclusive line of inquiriy. If they
went somewhere then maybe nothing happened to them. In the same story Steve
also asks these questions.

     ''And in their power, they built Cidri. How?''
          -In The Labyrinth, page 4, first line of paragraph 8

     ''Few traveled elsewhere - what need, when Cidri held all?''
          -In The Labyrinth, page 4, second line of paragraph 11

     Ok let's boil this down using the old newspaperman questions. The classic
who, what, when, where, why, and how. Here they are, labeled as Jay, Steve,
and Unasked.

     Who: unasked
     What: Steve
     When: unasked
     Where: Jay
     Why: unasked
     How: Steve.

     Now I'm sure the one person who is still reading all this is bored to
tears, and everyone else has left the room. So for you the one person still
sitting in the back of the room, I will quickly answer the other questions and
then go onto Jays real thesis. Who were the Mnoren? Suffice it to say that
they changed their spelling and became the Menorean, and latter the
new-menorean, and then simply the numenorean. Voila we have a word game to
preempt Tolkiens' world. This leads to the second answer. When was Cidri made?
it was made in the second half of the 20th century. And lastly Why was it
made? Well Steve goes on to say...

     ''This enormous polyglot world was chosen as a background for two very
good and totally opposite reasons.''
-In The Labyrinth, page 5, second line of paragraph 2

     Now that the game of questions is out of the way, one may be asking
themselves, ''yes, but what does this mean to _me_ the consumer.'' Well I'm
glad you asked that question. What it means is that Jays Thesis is more
relevant than his line of questions. In his thread titled ''what happened to
the Mnoren'' he raises the question and then dismisses it with this telling
bit. Herein is the Thesis I believe I have discovered.

     ''What I've been after is a game with a few rules that are above
refute.''

     He goes on to mention things like dice and hexes. Of course human nature
being what it is, we all immediately rush to refute his standard. He is
pulling together specific real world data to form a standard. Just as the
metric system does for distance, temperature, atmospheric pressure, the speed
of light, et al, so Jay is laboring to achieve with measurement of Hex sizes,
1 point of damage converted to joules, and the dice vs. stats used in the game
systems.
Empirically it is more fitting for us to observe and critique his numbers and
data. But since we are all self appointed supreme deities of our own worlds we
take the easy road and challenge his right to even try in the first place.
Most critiques are levied towards his style of writing, his spelling, even his
right to post at all. There is almost no heat brought to bear on any of the
copious bits of actual numbers and data that his research has provided.

     Now I hope I have helped some small bit in being the dutiful brother in
spirit and interpreting Jays ''speaking in tongs'' to the rest of the temple
members. Normally I too would join in the cries and attempts to shout him to
silence. But in fairness to my own conscience I cannot. In this I must stand
shoulder to shoulder with Jay. If he is to be stoned to death, then so to am
I. Because my data and tables have been passed over with little more than a
sentence or two.

     Thank you for you time,
     David Michael Grouchy II
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