Hooked on Books discussion

I'm going to ask if there is a minimum number of books we need for Step 2. Step 1 and Step 3 both have 4 book minimums, there isn't a min listed for Step 2 but on the spreadsheet she has the 2 required but 3 lines for create your own. Not sure if they are there just because or if we need at least 5 in total.

We can use the titles for books used in Steps 1 &2 in step 3 per the Q&A thread. We may still need a few other books but it's helpful to know!

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I can work in Serpent and the Wings of Night and Lucky into the story especially if you are both planning to read them anyway.

I'm going to add another tab to the worksheet to list books we are reading for whatever reason and are available for the story so they are all in one place.

This was Donna's response to my question about a book minimum for Step 2:

Judith wrote: "For the Heist Quest, steps 1 & 3 have a 4 book minimum but I don't see a minimum for step 2.

Is there a minimum number of books we need for that step (well just the 2 required tasks at a minimum)?"

I would prefer that everyone participate but I don't know what your team's plan involves. This really depends on your plan. I left that open to your plan. Remember that you each have skills that you may be able to use in your heist. Don't forget about those.

she did give a good reminder that we need to remember we can incorporate our race/class skills into quests.

I'd not really though much about that

As an elf druid, I believe I need to focus on either Wild Shape or spells. I really like Wild Shape and find it useful for my character's health and longevity, but I also have to factor in what books I have.

Right now I'm reading The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading, which is wonderful, and as you can see in the title, there is the word, "magic." So I guess that's something available to us if we want it?

Hi! I know I’m probably relying a lot on others to help guide the team in this first quest, but do we have a plan? I’m at a good place to start a book and want it to be something that’ll be useful.

I think I’m going to start Lucky and hope it’ll be the right fit and an ability we can use.

We put you down for ribbon on cover and knife on cover Ruth.

Sorry, I think maybe our communication wasn’t the clearest. But lucky can be worked into step 3 for sure

Thanks, Judith. I don’t know why I didn’t look at the ss to check, but, interestingly, I started reading my book with a ribbon on the cover instead, so this worked out! I’ll be finishing it today and can start on knife next.

I think we are down to just 1 book left to finish for Quest 1. I'm going to take a crack at writing up the plan/story using some of the book titles. I'll post it here and in the spreadsheet when I'm done.

The Chaos Crew sits in the White Elephant diner and finalizes the plan to steal back their precious bag of flour. Judith (shapeshifter/ranger) will perch in the small copse of trees in the middle of the blacktop wasteland surrounding the bank. There, Judith will serve as the lookout aided by binoculars. Any sign of danger will be communicated to the rest of the crew via their telepathic communication link. She will also keep their getaway birds read to race to the sun once the heist is successful.
Erin (human/fighter), Ruth (elf/druid), and Catherine (fairy/monk) will be the extraction part of the team. Erin will be hidden by the cloak of protection to help Ruth and Catherine appear less threatening to the security guard. Ruth and Catherine will appear as a pair of darling girls doing charitable works for Catherine’s monastery approaching the bank for donations. Catherine will jump into the security guard’s body and disable the alarm. Ruth and Erin will hide Catherine’s body behind a large potted plant. Catherine (in the security guard’s body) will escort Ruth and Erin to the iron vault to retrieve the stolen flour sack. Along the way Ruth will tie up other guards using her magical ribbons. Erin will use her knife fighting skills as the need arises to subdue bank security.
Once the sack of flour has been retrieved, they will calmly exit the bank. Catherine will jump back into her body. The security guard will be as unconscious as a fangirl down at a boyband concert from the body jumping. He’ll be placed behind the same potted plant as Catherine’s body was allowing for a quick and quiet getaway. Once they reach the copse of trees, everyone hops on a giant blackbird and the Chaos Crew flies away smoothly on their wings of night.

That's what I came up with and I worked in 7 titles (bolded text). It's certainly not going to win any literary prizes. LOL

Let me know if anyone has edits

I like it!

Thanks Erin!

I went ahead and dropped it into the spreadsheet but Ruth & Catherine if you have any changes you want to make, by all means.

I think there's just one book (Fangirl Down) that needs to be finished and we'll be done with Quest 1.

No rush though!

I should be done with that one in the next day or two

Let me know if you like it, I've almost picked that one up to read a couple times

And finished! And I've checked us in

Great, thanks Erin!

Judith… The story was great! Thanks for taking the lead on that and now I have a better concept of what we’re doing so I can help out more in the future.

Erin… Thanks much for getting us checked in! We done good.

Quest 1A
Did you really think it was that easy? You just waltz in there and the flour was just lying out in the open with no wards or vault to secure it? Only a few measly security guards monitoring it? Too bad you stole the decoy bag of flour. The real bag of magical flour which can cure world hunger because of the fact that it is bottomless is hidden away in a secret vault. You got away cleanly with your first attempt but you only obtained a useless bag of flour. Do you concede? Or do you have another plan?

Do we just rewrite our plan? Do we have to use new/different books? I was trying not to have the plan be super long and detailed. I mean it was in a vault and multiple security guards but I guess that wasn't enough?

What do you all want to do?

In theory I would be in favor of trying again? Just because I think saying yes in D&D is more fun than saying no to story hooks.

But logistically for this challenge I'm not actually sure how to do that? I have the same questions you do. Do we just repeat the same tasks?

There’s a new tab for Quest 1a and it just has a space for a new plan. So maybe we just need a new story/plan?

I agree to creating a new plan, and maybe we can use the framework of our existing plan while adding to the story? Seems like we have to switch up roles and/or do some shifting because the guards now know what we look like.

The original story was just so cute and clever! Tomorrow will be a busy day for me, but I can try to put something together at some point in time if no one has already beaten me to the story-writing task.

Okay so as far as titles go here's what I'm reading now and then some possibilities of what I can pick up soon

Currently reading
- Fourth Wing
- The Oleander Sword
- Only the Stars Know the Meaning of Space

Books in my up next queue
- The Courting of Bristol Keats
- Heavenly Tyrant
- One Perfect Couple
- The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
- The Ornithologists Field Guide to Love

I’m not going to be around much this weekend but I just finished

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Small Admissions

Currently Reading:
Excuse me While I Disappear
The Dragon Squisher
The Whisper Man


Outside of that I can find pretty much anything/words we might need or want

What is the earliest read date we can list books for the story

I think Quest 1A is where we tell our story with words from the books we read.

1A is where we put the new story, based on how that tab looks I don't think we need to have more task books.

For the story, I think any books read from when Donna gave us the prompt for Quest 1 should be okay to use.

Ruth wrote: "I have a book titled, "Lucky" and I'm wondering if we can use that to give us the luck ability? Not sure if luck would be helpful in executing the heist, but it's an idea.

Other than that, the boo..."

Could use the word Luck in our story that we have to tell through book titles

Maybe some of my recent books will help with a new narrative for the heist where we have better intuition or planning and skills to carry off the heist (such as a "guide," published or in spectral form, to help with finding and opening the secret vault). Unfortunately, none of the covers are very helpful, but something can be worked from the title, I think.

Books I recently finished:
The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland
The Field Guide and The Seeing Stone
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Currently Reading or "on deck":
Reverie
Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote
Haunt Sweet Home

Hi everyone... I took a stab at writing a new heist plan and entered it into the spreadsheet tab for Quest 1A. I was able to incorporate all of our original heist materials and multiple books. However, I think my story could probably use a good editor and someone nimbler than me when it comes to describing what happens or can happen in the DnD world. LOL!

Please take a look and feel free to tighten up the storyline where you think it's needed. Hopefully, we'll have something to submit by this weekend and will be able to move forward. Thanks!

I think it looks good! Thanks for taking that on Ruth, this week has been a rough one workwise and I haven't had a lot of spare time.

I like it! Thanks for writing that up Ruth!

I'm just going to go ahead and check us in so we can get things moving (fingers crossed)

Judith wrote: "I'm just going to go ahead and check us in so we can get things moving (fingers crossed)"

Thank you, Judith! I've been busy with work and only getting on to my personal computer right now, so you've saved us a few hours and I hope we'll be seeing a new quest soon.

Your team has successfully completed your bank heist and brought back the magical bag of flour. Some of you may have been recognized by the guard that you subdued so one or more of you may end up on wanted posters.

Quest #2

After a night in a tavern, each member of the party wakes up in the body of another member with no memory of what happened. One party member's body is gone, however, their mind instead inside a sentient item... a bag of beans.

Are these magic beans? Maybe, maybe not; plant them and find out. Worst case scenario, you could eat them. Do you eat the beans? If they are magic beans, how do you use them? Can you get everyone back in their bodies?

If you eat the beans, spell out BEANS
B
E
A
N
S

If you think they are magic beans, start here
Plant the beans
Read a book with dirt on the cover
Read a book with all the letters of BEANS in the title
Read a book with water on the cover
Read a book with a sun on the cover

Step 2: Find a solution to the body problems listed above. Use book titles BUT please use filler words as needed to tell me your solution. Minimum of 4 books. (everyone will do step 2 no matter the choices above)

For those of you playing solo... you will play this as if you were a member of the party experiencing this issue. How would you solve this? You can play as any member the party, one that is in another body or the beans. But you must present a solution.

I'm good with going either route, buy maybe prefer using the beans for magic instead of just eating them.

I have books ready to go with titles that start with all the letters in BEANS, except for 'E.' And I have books with covers that have dirt, water, and all the letters in BEANS in title.

I have an idea for a body swap solution but need to think it through a little more and see what book titles are available.

I’d rather plant them too.

I’m reading one now that works for water on cover or BEANS in title.

Once I’m done that I can grab whatever is needed. The others I’m reading right now don’t work for the tasks and not sure they help with the story.

If there are specific words Ruth that would help with your idea, toss them in the thread and I can see what I have/can find

One title that might be used?

My hold for The God of the Woods just came in from my library. With Ruth being a Druid, maybe when can work that in somehow to seek their help switching them from the beans back to the body?

I like doing the magic beans route too. Nothing I'm currently reading works for any of those tasks, but I'll look through my available next options to see what I can grab

okay I've got one that works for sun on the cover

Thanks for the feedback. Let’s go for planting the beans. I’ll work on a story and see what specific words we can use that come from the content of our books.

Erin = sun on cover
Judith = letters of BEANS in title
Ruth = dirt on cover

Catherine… Do you have a book with water on the cover? There are a lot of ocean-adjacent thrillers and romance books, and if you like cozy mysteries, it seems like lots of those have seaside or lakeside cover art. LOL!

Or a BEANS in title, mine works for both 🙂

Edit: actually I just realized it has a sun on the cover too, hanging out behind a mountain.

Added my book to the spreadsheet, please move it to a different task if someone wants to swap as it works for 3 of the tasks.

I hid the rows for the books on the story tab read during the time for Quest 1. I figured we can just keep using that tab and we move through the tasks.

Hi everyone. I wrote a (long) story in the Quest 2 tab (thanks to Judith for managing the Chaos Crew SS). Two more book titles must be incorporated into the story, which doesn't mean a longer story, but maybe slight rewrites or different phrasing. I'm glad to have others edit, etc. as the story probably needs some attention and maybe could be shortened up a bit.

I also added where there are filler words in the story and we need to list the books we're reading that contain those words, or an item on the cover. Trying to be flexible. Thanks!

Sory guys I have been out of reach this past weekend but I absolutely love the story!!! Looks like we need the following still


Read a book with a sun on the cover
Read a book with the word dragon in the text.
Read a book with a character that is a bartender.

One of my current reads works for dragon in text. And I have one on deck for sun on the cover. I think I should get to it later this week

Also Catherine it looks like one of your books is marked as completed on January 7 so I don't think we can use it for this quest since it was finishd before we got the task

Erin wrote: "Also Catherine it looks like one of your books is marked as completed on January 7 so I don't think we can use it for this quest since it was finishd before we got the task"

OOH ok no problem. I am finishing up House of Sky and Breath and I think I can swing that as a water cover.