wordman reviewed Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin Laws
None
4 stars
This odd little book about analyzing the "beats" of three dramatic works of stage and screen (Hamlet, Dr. No, Casablanca) as if they were sessions of a role-playing game serves pretty well at rewiring how your brain looks at scenes. The visual nature of the result of the technique also works pretty well, but a larger body of examples would make it patterns more evident. There is a bit more disagreement between the visual icons used and the text of the page (that is, editing mistakes) than you might expect, but they are easy to spot. If you like deconstructing stuff, this may be a book for you, even if you aren't a roleplayer.
This odd little book about analyzing the "beats" of three dramatic works of stage and screen (Hamlet, Dr. No, Casablanca) as if they were sessions of a role-playing game serves pretty well at rewiring how your brain looks at scenes. The visual nature of the result of the technique also works pretty well, but a larger body of examples would make it patterns more evident. There is a bit more disagreement between the visual icons used and the text of the page (that is, editing mistakes) than you might expect, but they are easy to spot. If you like deconstructing stuff, this may be a book for you, even if you aren't a roleplayer.
