Read-a-Thon #3 - Individual Quest

[Marina]

Laura wrote: "Since the rule was added late, I would be open to hearing thoughts. If people want it to be totally open to any length, then I wouldn't have an issue with that."

Personally I've always thought it was fair that a book should be at least 125 pages long or have that number of pages left when the challenge starts.
If not, you could have any number of books on the go and only a few pages to finish in each and wait till the readathon starts before finishing them.
And there's always been a rule for number of pages.

[°~Amy~°]

Bryony wrote: "How about a compromise where if you want to “compete” against others then the 125 page rule applies, whereas if you just want to play for your own enjoyment then you can count any books regardless ..."

That's exactly it, that with a competition element added, there does have to be a page count rule, just like in the summer readathon. I did that challenge, knowing all the rules and planning accordingly. If I had known there was a page count for this readathon, I would have planned it out that way and it still would have been fun. It was just deflating to have a plan all worked out and then to find out it was wrong. Anyway, I'm not mad, just disappointed and I just don't have the motivation on day 3 to redo my plan. I hope everyone else has fun with the game, it was very creative.

[Allegra]

All right, I'm going to stop trying to figure this out and just jump in before the week is over. It's a shame you guys went to so much trouble for a game that only lasts a week. Here goes:

WEAPONS
>Magic Staff - Current Level: 2 Still working on the stand-alone, but 2 in reserve
- Earn the magic staff by reading a stand-a-lone book: B Is for Beer
- Read 1 book that's #1 in the series to gain level 1 magic staff: River of Teeth
- Read #2 in a series to upgrade to level 2: ttfn
- Add a #3 to upgrade to level 3

>Sword Current Level: 5
🍁 Level 1 - 100 pages
🍁 Level 2 - 300 pages
🍁 Level 3 - 500 pages
🍁 Level 4 - 750 pages
🍁 Level 5 - 1,000 pages
(Daily totals: 1,053. >9/7: 78*; 9/8: 105; 9/9: 108; 9/10: 70; 9/11: 153; 9/12: 111; 9/13: 137; 9/14: 94; 9/15: 197)
*To the best of my memory. I can't find the post I did on Saturday night.

HEALTH Total skill points: 10
>Gather Berries - 10 health
Read a book that starts with a letter found in one of the following words: YUM, BLUE, RASP, STRAW.
>Gather Bones - 50 health
Read a book with a title that mentions bones, has bones on the cover or is in the horror or paranormal genre.
>Rare Gems - 75 health
Read at least one "Rare Story" book. Rare Story books must have less than 500 ratings.
(One Greater Rare Story book may be read that has less than 10 ratings which can count for +100 Health)
🍁 >Timewalker - 10 health
Read a book first published in each of the following years: 2005, 2006, 2007: ttfn, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. [Each year completed will earn +10 Health]
>Gift of Love - 50 health
Read an award winning book or a book that someone in the group rated 5 stars

MONSTERS Total skill points: 155
>Goblin - 10 skill points
- Read a book with a simple or unattractive cover
🍁 >Sewer Rat - 5 skill points
- Read a short story "Harbor" by Garth Greenwell
🍁 >Omnibus Troll - 50 skill points
- Read a genre mash-up (a book that fits into multiple genres) Catch-22 (My argument would be this book fits Historical Fiction, Humor, War, Literary Fiction, and possibly Dystopian)
🍁 >Lexicon Ness Monster - 50 skill points
Read a book related to water [on the cover, blue, setting, etc.] -- B Is for Beer As stated clearly in the book, "As for water, that's a no-brainer, since beer is essentially enhanced Water."
🍁 >Great Red Dragon - 50 skill points
- Read a book related to fire [on cover, red, title, storyline, etc.] -- River of Teeth The story is set in action because a fire destroyed Houndstooth's ranch
>Great Green Dragon - 50 skill points
- Read a book related to earth day

Completed Books (on hold until I can figure al this out): Woo-hoo! I think I've finally got it!

[Brittany]

GENERAL STATS
Health: 70
Skill Points: 0
Weapons:
Magic Staff
Sword

WEAPONS ACCRUED
Magic Staff - El Deafo (stand alone) finished 9/9/2019
level 1: Kristy's Great Idea finished 9/11/2019
level2:
level 3:

Sword:
Level 1: 100 pages finished 9/7/2019
Level 2: 300 pages finished 9/9/2019
Level 3: 500 pages finished 9/9/2019
Level 4: 750 pages finished 9/10/2019
Level 5: 1000 pages finished 9/11/2019

QUESTS COMPLETED
Total Health Points: 70
Gift of Love: 50 Health Points - You finished 9/9/2019 (rated 5 stars by mod Laura)
Gather Berries: 10 Health Points - Bridget Jones's Diary finished 9/11/2019

MONSTERS SLAYED
Total Skill Points: 0
None Yet!

BOOKS COMPLETED AND ASSIGNED
You finished 9/9/2019
El Deafo finished 9/9/2019
Bridget Jones's Diary finished 9/11/2019
Kristy's Great Idea finished 9/11/2019

BOOKS COMPLETED TO BE ASSIGNED
None Yet!

RUNNING PAGE TOTAL
9/7: 124 pages
9/8: 0 pages
9/9: 542 pages
9/10: 233 pages
9/11: 208 pages
9/12:
9/13:
9/14:
9/15:
TOTAL: 1,107 pages

[Storm]

Storm's Adventure!

General Stats
Health: 110
Skill Points:
Weapons: Sword 2 + Staff 0

Weapons
~~Magic Staff - level 0
-Stand a lone =Charlotte's Web

~~Sword - level 2
-398 pages

Quests
~~Gift of Love: Read an award winning book (or a book that someone in the group rated 5 stars) Charlotte's Web - 50 HP

~~Gather Bones: Read a Horror Book We Have Always Lived in the Castle - 50 HP

Monsters

Book Reserve

[Sarah]

INDIVIDUAL QUEST PROGRESS

WEAPONS ACCRUED

Magical Staff - Level 1
Stand-alone Book - Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
1st Book in a Series - Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews

Sword - Level 5 (1000 pages)

QUESTS COMPLETED
Total Health Points: 60

Gift of Love: [Rachel A. rated 5 stars] The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

MONSTERS SLAYED
Total Skill Points: 50

Lexicon Ness Monster: Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews [Blue on cover, in title]

----------------------

RUNNING PAGE TOTAL
9/7:
9/8: Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews 400 pages
9/9: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 10 pages; The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 222 pages
9/10: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 111 pages; Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams 178 pages; Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 60 pages; Normal People by Sally Rooney 11 pages
9/11: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams 59 pages
9/12: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams 69 pages
9/13: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams 24 pages; Normal People by Sally Rooney 11 pages
9/14: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 132 pages
9/15: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness 255 pages
TOTAL: 1542 pages

BOOKS COMPLETED AND ASSIGNED
Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

BOOKS COMPLETED TO BE ASSIGNED
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

BOOKS IN PROGRESS
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Normal People by Sally Rooney

BOOKS UP NEXT/POSSIBILITIES
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Severance by Ling Ma
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

[Rachel]

Bryony wrote: "How about a compromise where if you want to “compete” against others then the 125 page rule applies, whereas if you just want to play for your own enjoyment then you can count any books regardless ..."

I think that's the most fair given the situation. I am going to play just for fun if that's the case. I don't really understand how badges work anyway, nor do I care about competition.

To be clear though, I agree that a page count requirement makes sense for a competition. My concern, and what I think others were concerned about as well, was that the page count requirement did not seem to be clearly specified for this part of the challenge from the beginning. I definitely saw it mentioned for the Team Challenge, but was confused about whether it applied anywhere else. For example, I also asked in the progress thread if I could count pages read from a book started before the read-a-thon, and was told that I could.

[Laura, Celestial Sphere Mod]

I thought I included it in the rules for this one but that was my mistake :)

You can definitely count all pages for miles of pages and progress since that’s just focused on pages and is more informal.

You can also count all pages for the sword levels, regardless of which book they belong to.

But as Bryony said, we can just say that those who want to compete should also include books that were at least 125 pages.

[Errlee]

For the Gift of Love quest, is there a way to search for books that a member of the group rated 5 stars?

Or more importantly, to find out if a book we are reading was rated 5 stars by someone in the group?

[Laura, Celestial Sphere Mod]

If you go to an A-Z thread, it should have the ratings listed next to the member’s name for anyone who commented. You can also just click on a profile, go to the person’s bookshelf and sort by stars. I wish there was an easier way!

[Joan]

This is a fun individual activity. I wish I would have more time to devote to it last week.

[Allegra]

Final update done (Msg. 55)

Thanks again to Laura for putting this together. This was fun