tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post2981884825803150871..comments2024-03-19T03:02:38.228-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: Retrospective: The Horrible Secret of Monhegan IslandJames Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-25717273958863504702009-10-11T20:38:41.058-04:002009-10-11T20:38:41.058-04:00And don't forget Moorcock!And don't forget Moorcock!Will Mistrettahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18403399118961902073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-45685677972666015462009-10-08T13:08:26.420-04:002009-10-08T13:08:26.420-04:00Sherlock Holmes meeting Indiana Jones, I'd lov...Sherlock Holmes meeting Indiana Jones, I'd love that element even in a D&D game!<br /><br />Speaking of progressive visionaries, who become architects, Ken Follett is one progressive who also happens to be a successful author. He was active in the British Labor Party and ended up marrying a Labor member of British Parliament. He was known for spy thrillers, until he wrote The Pillars Of The Earth, about building of a Cathedral in the medieval England. It was his best selling opus and even though it can claim to be a historic novel, it covers the same ground as fantasy (about a decade ahead of bernard Cornwell writing about medieval England). This style of wriing has definitely influenced my DMing style. <br /><br />With regards to the other authors of fantasy, Fritz Lieber was liberal/apolitical, his family was involved in theater and his writings in Lankhmar reflect his adventures in prohibition-era New York with his friend Harry Otto Fischer. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, and a few other more radical satires, was politically active and anti-establishment. Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusose) and Christopher Marlowe (contemporary of Shakespeare, who wrote the original Faust) were professional spies. During the 1920's and 1930's progressives were actively involved in the American Sci-Fi radio theater in the 1920-s-1950's. The female ghost writer, who penned most of the original Nancy Drew stories was a social progressive and a radical feminist, hell, based on her views, she would be considered a feminist even today. When the publisherre-wrote the Nacy Drew stories to get rid for the racist stereotypes, they also significantly toned down Nancy Drew's charater, to make her more palatable for the mainstream parents of the child readers. So, the best escapists might be conservatives, but for the sheer fire and inspiration, you might wanna read progressive fantasists.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-79382762585255377662009-10-08T08:33:32.052-04:002009-10-08T08:33:32.052-04:00crosses between Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones....<em>crosses between Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones... This approach seems to be one that's struck a chord</em><br />...and it's still working for Dan Brown. I think commercially this was a smart direction to pull CoC in, and it's not like the idea of cosmic horror isn't preserved in the rules. Arguably, everyone who was going to play a game of pessimistic heroism did so, using CoC in homebrew campaigns. As a CoC player since my mid-teens I could say of my own experience: <em>I came for the two-fisted tentacle-fighting, I stayed for the crushing existential nihilism. </em><br /><br />Re Brooze's point, I don't find anything very surprising in conservatives and reactionaries making the best fantasists: arguably the sensation of horror is "reactionary:" a recoil, while conservative visionaries are the people most in need of escape. Progressive visionaries tend to become architects, so their fantasies wind up being consumed in a different genre.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-24008871313053597882009-10-08T07:38:00.203-04:002009-10-08T07:38:00.203-04:00I think of Lovecraft as more than a pulp fiction w...I think of Lovecraft as more than a pulp fiction writer. He was actually writing about pockets of rural New England dressed up in horror. Take away the horror, and he turns into an excellent writer of a geogrphic region. I mean I traveled through rural Maine in the mid 1990's and there were pockets of small towns and wilderness that had Lovecraftian feel to it. Most of Lovecraft's characters are reflections of himself - a very conservative, backwards looking aristocratic type (Lovecraft was heavily influenced by his old fashioned mother, who may have had heavy Puritan roots), and you mustn't forget the time he lived in: It was the Roaring 1920's! The Jazz Age! Casual sex was becoming accepted! Freud was widely read and flappers (liberated women of the decade) were into psychoanalyzing their men, as well as playing golf with them, and learning to handle aircraft. The hot concepts of the time in the pop culture were liberal childrearing practices and getting to know your man by getting into the same things he did - i.e. his politics, his golf game, his stocks. And AGAINST ALL THAT, you have Lovecraft's morose ourtlook and glorified feudalism of JRR Tolkien. Nothing against high fantasy and horror, just that it starts looking odd when you look at the societal backdrop when these guys were writing...Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-55842141756676504492009-10-07T19:58:05.639-04:002009-10-07T19:58:05.639-04:00"Indeed, I think it's at its most heroic ..."Indeed, I think it's at its most heroic when it's exactly the opposite of that: ordinary people sacrificing body, mind, and soul in order to stave off oblivion for just one more day."<br /><br />Which Lovecraft stories do you have in mind for such a scenario/theme?<br /><br />As I've been making my way through his stories, I've been struck by the fact that very few of Lovecraft's stories (that I've yet read) involve anything that resembles people discovering a threat and deliberately acting to stave it off (or deal with its local manifestation). "The Dunwich Horror" is the only one I've read so far that really hits all those marks.<br /><br />Word verification - Resswole, surely a place-name of some ill portent.Eric the Half-a-Beehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18150352086337447295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-10838889081216791552009-10-07T14:46:34.079-04:002009-10-07T14:46:34.079-04:00"I suspect that it's because, even then, ..."I suspect that it's because, even then, the number of gamers who'd actually read Lovecraft was small."<br /><br />So I take it that you think this is still the case today?<br /><br />I was always under the impression that Lovecraft was the one authentic "pulp" fantasy writer that gamers did widely read.<br /><br />Maybe it's just me, but I've never encountered one who hasn't read his stuff.Will Mistrettahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18403399118961902073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-75055696146524425982009-10-07T11:58:19.562-04:002009-10-07T11:58:19.562-04:00I think that one of the DM for Dummies books write...I think that one of the DM for Dummies books writen by the WoTC guy states that the main purpose of the D&D adventuring is to fight the Evil Outsiders and to keep them outside. <br /><br />I never looked aT AD&D or AD&D combat in that way.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-47172645204455732322009-10-07T11:13:17.328-04:002009-10-07T11:13:17.328-04:00Yes, the adventures are run as: "Sherlock Hol...Yes, the adventures are run as: "Sherlock Holmes and Indian Jones, piecing together scraps of ancient texts from around the world to find the clues necessary to stop some black hatted cultist from Doing A Very Bad Thing." however the feeling that you leave with playing CoC is very different for its mechanic steers you into feeling something different. Sure there will be always the Hack & Slash type who will dynamite or bazooka everything in sight but the essence of a good CoC game is the horrible realization of horror around us unfolding.<br /><br />Many times it is the investigators who play a central role in releasing the evil which in contrast to D&D and other games it is not about containment. And, because the odds are stacked against the players surviving the encounter people play it with a different emphasis.<br /><br />Also the game mechanic having the search for clues embedded (even Trail of Cthulhu does this) it is also a sleuth game akin to Clue which never was about the accumulation of more tokens but to uncover the mystery.<br /><br />I am not saying D&D or FRPGs cannot do this but when they do try they end up copying the CoC formulae...and if the highest form of flattery is ________.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-79788827523753905022009-10-07T11:03:53.101-04:002009-10-07T11:03:53.101-04:00I think one of the reasons we don't often see ...I think one of the reasons we don't often see that kind of play in COC is the serial nature of a campaign; it's hard to sustain horror of any kind, let alone cosmic-existential horror, in a series format. You could do a fine Lovecraftian tournament or single-adventure campaign, but once you do more than one adventure it's hard to avoid the "paranormal investigators" syndrome. Another factor is the multiple players: one of the common characteristics of Lovecraft protagonists is that they are almost always utterly _alone_, which is part of what makes them doubt their sanity. If you and five of your best buds all saw the same tentacled monstrosity, though, it's pretty easy to establish that it really did exist, and then it just turns into a nasty monster to be killed/bluffed/run away from.<br /><br />Verification: Urref -- the long-forgotten original referee who inspired both Dave and GaryMatthew Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04905727799828366356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-9260478937351646302009-10-07T10:35:16.625-04:002009-10-07T10:35:16.625-04:00"Indeed, I think it's at its most heroic ..."Indeed, I think it's at its most heroic when it's exactly the opposite of that: ordinary people sacrificing body, mind, and soul in order to stave off oblivion for just one more day."<br /><br />Not related to Lovecraft directly, but this made me wonder if you've ever read Mieville's Bas-Lag books. This is pretty much exactly how I see them: the absolute best the protagonists can hope for is to maintain the (already soul-crushing) status quo, and that only temporarily, and they have to give up everything they are and everything they care about to do it. He's obviously influenced by Lovecraft, but approaching some of the same themes in a fantasy-world environment.Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12424548045152722964noreply@blogger.com