Discworld

As a Yank, I had never heard this slang before. Did any U.K. residence know of this? It certainly makes sense....

Monstrous Regiment is being performed in Sheffield, UK between 18th-21st February!

It looks like good fun.

If you haven't heard before, Wincanton had the privilege of being home to the original Discworld Emporium. The shop sadly closed a few years ago. Now I found that the building is "No longer on the market". I hope the new owner proves to be deserving of this house, its history and the ties to Ankh Morpork and the beloved Discworld.

An older article Wincanton High Street Discworld Emporium building up for sale that offers a few more pictures.

@discworld@lemmy.ml @discworld@a.gup.pe
@books

I'm reading "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett for the umpteenth time, and realized that the bad guy, Lupine Wonse, uses the same technique Donald Trump does.

Terry Pratchett really did know everything.
*****
"Let the other societies take the skilled, the hopefuls, the ambitious, the self-confident. He’d take the whining resentful ones, the ones with a bellyful of spite and bile, the ones who knew they could make it big if only they’d been given the chance. Give him the ones in which the floods of venom and vindictiveness were dammed up behind thin walls of ineptitude and low-grade paranoia.

And stupidity, too."
*****
"Ye gods, I’m good at this, thought the Supreme Grand Master. I can play on their horrible little minds like a xylophone. It’s amazing, the sheer power of mundanity. Who’d have thought that weakness could be a greater force than strength? But you have to know how to direct it. And I do."
*****
"It was so easy. All you had to do was channel that great septic reservoir of jealousy and cringing resentment that the Brothers had in such abundance..."

cross-posted from: https://mstdn.social/users/grickle/statuses/114348487734807305

Love thyself. #grickledoodle #death #horror #pretty #love #cartoon #art #drawing #funny #fashion

Love thyself. #grickledoodle #death #horror #pretty #love #cartoon #art #drawing #funny #fashion

I just think Vimes and Columbo would Vibe. Especially the Vimes we se in Jingo.

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence."

This image was originally posted to Flickr by Myrmi at https://www.flickr.com/photos/68905839@N00/15294909. It was reviewed on 14 March 2008 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.

Hey folks, I am curious how the community feels about the Penguin re-production of the Discworld audio books. I’d imagine people become attached to whatever they listen to first. I read Guards, Guards on my own, Men At Arms with Nigel Planer, and now am trying the new release of Feet of Clay.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/39505305

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/39505302

The final 6 books have been numbered out of main continuity, because the labelled 40th is the first children's novel in the series, and 41-45 are a miniseries, also for children. However, the file metadata is all in release order, so if viewed in Explorer they will order themselves by release.

"Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The series began in 1983 with The Colour of Magic and continued until the final novel The Shepherd's Crown was published in 2015, following Pratchett's death. The books frequently parody or take inspiration from J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with cultural, political and scientific issues."

There are many ways to read the series, obviously, so I am curious as to what are people's preferred method.

I read them chronologically by publishing date the first time, then once by theme (Watch, Witches, and Moist novels first) and then been reading books here and there kinda randomly (although when I read one Watch novel, I tend to read all of them to the end, plus Raising Steam).

What do others do?

The People's Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May is depicted in Night Watch. It ended the increasingly tough reign of Lord Winder. Tension had been rising, and while the nobility arranged a quiet succession by Lord Snapcase in the background, the people on the streets started a revolution and attacked Watch Houses all over the city.

A few streets around Treacle Mine Road were barricaded at first. Soon more people started barricading streets, barricades were moved forward and merged together, covering at least a quarter of the city - including the food industry. The resulting area was called The People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road. The watchmen of the Treacle Mine Road Watch House led the Republic together with some enthusiastic angry young men, among them the then-living Reg Shoe.

Although the Republic originally was invaded succesfully, the change of history recorded in Night Watch resulted in Sam Vimes under the name of John Keel saving the Republic until Lord Snapcase had become Patrician. But because history finds a way, those who died in the original revolution still died, in an attack planned by Carcer prompted by Snapcase's concerns about what "Keel" could get up to if left alone for a month after serving as such a prominent leader after less than a week in the city.

Each year, on the 25th of May, a group of survivors of the uprising gathers at Small Gods' Cemetery to honor the casualties with lilacs and, affectionately, one hard-boiled egg (from Madam Roberta Meserole). The seven killed were mostly Watchmen from Treacle Mine Road: John Keel, Cecil Clapman, Horace Nancyball, Billy Wiglet, Dai Dickins, Ned Coates, and, temporarily, Reg Shoe - he will lie in his grave for a time during that day, and then leave.

The 25th of May is also memorialized, among those who survive, by the wearing of lilac on that date. Persons known to wear it include Sam Vimes, Fred Colon, Nobby Nobbs, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, and, improbably, Havelock Vetinari (he, at the time a young assassin, has kept his and his aristocratic aunt Lady Roberta Meserole's, not-insignificant involvement in the affair entirely secret).

The date is not publicly known as it was one of those revolutions where everybody likes to pretend in the aftermath that it never happened, with many new Watchmen uncertain of its relevance to the point that one new recruit tried wearing lilac only to be sharply criticised by Fred Colon. Vetinari once speculated about erecting a statue in memory of the soldiers, but Vimes rejected the idea, stating that the dead men would not want to be immortalised and inspire others to be heroes after they were betrayed for going beyond the call of duty, requesting that the men be simply left in peace.

Wear your lilac and if you're well prepared bring a towel, too.

To celebrate Sir Terry's Birthday there are some things on the official page:

We have brought together ways to get involved for all ages, from activity sheets to social media assets, all of which focus on one thing: celebrating the joy of Terry’s work. You can click on all the below images to access and download the files to use.

Made this proof-of-concept "Discworld" inspired gameplay video starring Discworld's the Watch

GNU Terry Pratchett!❤️

Collaboration with @Imajunation (https://imajunation.com/), Thijs Viegers and Paco Vink

#Discworld #GNUTerryPratchett #SpeakHisName #TerryPratchett
@discworld

GamesRadar+ can exclusively reveal that Modiphius, the studio responsible for tabletop adaptations of Star Trek, Fallout, and more, is working on a Discworld TTRPG.

Having secured the rights to the beloved series with an agreement from the late author Sir Terry Pratchett's estate, Modiphius is already at work on a Discworld roleplaying game "around the city of Ankh-Morpork and the wider Disc." This will hit Kickstarter later in the year.

Dubbed 'Terry Pratchett's Discworld: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork,' it's the first tabletop RPG to use that setting in almost 30 years. (To be precise, Discworld's last pen-and-paper outing was in 1998.) While it's unclear whether this version will use a new system or utilize one from the best tabletop RPGs, Modiphius promises "to publish tabletop games that honor the humor, satire, and darkly entertaining fantasy series."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/7849066

A follow up to a previous post:

Eeek. Writer and narrative designer Rhianna Pratchett has kindled a little frail hope that we might one day play another brand new Discworld videogame, while responding to earlier comments from Perfect Entertainment co-founder Gregg Barnett about who exactly owns the intellectual property rights to Perfect's old Discworld adventure titles from the 90s.

Barnett made these comments during a lengthy interview with Time Extension about the creation of the 90s games. In between the anecdotes about collaborating with Terry Pratchett and getting cussed out by John Cleese, he dangled the carrot of a potential re-release, explaining that the key problem is that half the intellectual property rights for the games have now reverted to the British monarchy under UK law. To quote Night Watch, "two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it."

...

"Whenever something closes in the UK, intellectual property rights revert 50% to the original creator and 50% to the crown, which is King Charles. So that's the two owners of the games. So yes, there have been discussions and something may be happening down the track - a rerelease or a remaster. But it's obviously a complicated process when you're dealing with the crown."

...

"We only have rights to the characters, not the games themselves," Pratchett told PCGamer following Barnett's statements. "If we did have the rights, then this would be a whole lot easier. We're genuinely not sure who does own the rights because studios have been bought and sold over the years, along with IP.

"Last time we investigated this, they were thought to be with Sony, but that's never been fully confirmed," she continued. "We'd certainly love to see the old games rereleased. It's news to us if His Majesty owns 50% of the Discworld games. Who knows what might happen if that's really the case. Maybe he's a fan!"

In the same interview with Time Extension, Barnett broached the ambition of making a brand new Discworld game, but suggested that this would be impossible, again due to legal obstacles. "Unfortunately, before Terry passed away, him or his agent or somebody had signed off every property to either ITV or Prime or the BBC literally across the board," he said.

Pratchett says this is incorrect, however. "No one has signed off everything to anybody," she told PCG. "We still own the IP rights... The reason why Gregg got the rights to do the games was that he came with solid ideas which fitted the nature of Discworld. The simple reason that there's never been a fully fledged Discworld game since then is no one has come to us with the right ideas and the resources to actually make it happen."

what the hell happened in there

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/7568495

In a recent interview with Time Extension, Gregg Barnett (the designer of the classic Discworld point-and-click adventures from the '90s) revealed that remasters of the games may finally be on the cards after years of confusion over who owns the rights.

The series of games based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld books was released between 1995-2000, and is comprised of Discworld, Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!?, and Discworld Noir. All three titles were originally published on PC and were also notably created with the input of Pratchett himself, who helped to edit the dialogue.

For years, it's been believed that the rights around the game were in a state of limbo due to most of the companies involved in their creation either being absorbed by a larger company or going out of business altogether. Still, though, we couldn't resist sneaking in a cheeky question to Barnett during our recent chat regarding a potential rerelease, and his answer sort of took us by surprise.

We asked Barnett whether any retro publishers had tried to contact him to try and pick up the trail of where the rights may be, and shortly after, he replied:

"Yeah! We are a little bit beyond that point. I don’t want to give you a scoop, but a Discworld re-release may happen. The original rights are complicated in the UK, but it turns out that 50% reverted to me as the creator because the company Perfect Entertainment had been closed for over 10 years."

"Whenever something closes in the UK, intellectual property rights revert 50% to the original creator and 50% to the crown, which is King Charles. So that’s the two owners of the games. So yes, there have been discussions and something may be happening down the track – a rerelease or a remaster. But it’s obviously a complicated process when you’re dealing with the crown."

TierMaker Discworld Community Tier List

Apologies for not being able to upload an image at the moment.

Obviously TierMaker isn't the be all end all of community opinion, but I stumbled upon this tier list recently and found it strange. I have a handful of friends who have read some of the books, and they were surprised by some of the tierings too. Some trends I noticed:

• "Entry" books seem to be tiered high, and books occuring later in the Discworld timeline get tiered lower
• Tiffany Aching books are tiered very low
• I believe the earlier books are generally getting tiered higher than the later books, but I haven't actually verified that.

I guess my biggest question is is the opinions of the community actually so diverse? Maybe many folks haven't read all the books so it gets skewed like that? The site says it compiles 32 tier lists which sounds like a decent amount of data to me.