7. In a media landscape increasingly shaped by risk-aversion and corporate IP management, where do small, transgressive publishers like Lamentations of the Flame Princess fit in? Is there still a place for the truly weird?
I said something a little earlier that's not as true as it used to be. While it is mostly true that people
look at the censorship of the past and think it was ridiculous, there's a creeping attitude rising up
that looks at some stuff from the 1970s on, wondering how they got away with doing what they did.
Like somehow it is wrong these things exist.
The '70s were wild for movies. I was too young to see anything in those days (well, I remember
Star Wars) but going back ... Blazing Saddles and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Salò and Pink
Flamingos and I Spit on Your Grave and Wizard of Gore and Ilsa: She Wolf of
the SS and Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now and Exorcist and Death Wish
and Last Tango in Paris and and and and and and ... you could just make the most outrageous stuff and somehow there was a way to get it done and get it to audiences. And not just on the lowest
independent level, either, there are some major films in just that list there. 
There's a reason I called the second game box, the one after I realized I could do this full time, the
“Grindhouse Edition.” This is the feel we're after. Anything can happen, and whether any particular
work falls within someone's parameters of good taste is not our concern.
Whether there is room for that today is entirely up to the public and their willingness to dig a little
bit to find it. It might not be on the most convenient platforms. You might even have to order direct
from the publisher. That's what allows this stuff to still exist now and into the future in a cultural
climate that seems to demand you conform to Group A or Group B's standards in order to have an
audience.
8. Do you think roleplaying games have a unique potential to explore uncomfortable or
disturbing subject matter, more so than, say, literature or film? If so, why?
I think they have less potential. RPGs are all location and situation and setup, and then it's through
play that things actually happen. The “emergent story” format of RPGs means that whatever comes
out at the end is something of an accident, or the result of a succession of coincidences.
Literature and film and any medium where someone has complete control over the flow of the
entire story means they can take uncomfortable subjects and do different things with them
deliberately and drive the point home through narrative and thematic context.
If the typical RPG group comes across the goings-on in, say, Salò, there's going to be an exploration
of a very different kind of violence than the film invites us to explore, I dare say.
9. Finally, if Lovecraft were alive today, do you think he’d approve of Lamentations of
the Flame Princess? Or would he recoil in horror?
Can you imagine Lovecraft stepping through a time portal from the mid-1930s, with all the attitudes from then intact, seeing what's become of his work, and deciding to try to get writing jobs from the publishers selling books based on his work? That would be much more amusing.
As for what Lovecraft would think of LotFP? Oh he'd hate it. He's from a wealthy family that fell on hard times, and apparently carried himself with a sort of upper class manner, thought of himself as a gentleman, and for the first forty years of his life he was deeply conservative, and I'm this racial mongrel (Italians and Poles were two immigrant groups he didn't much care for) kid from the projects who is a fan of and influenced by and I guess producing the lowest of the arts.
And one of those influences is the old pulp author H.P. Lovecraft. I love you, man.
I would argue that in some sense that the early years of D&D did reflect the cynical and horrific experimentation of the time. Look at the art in the AD&D rulebooks, look at the types of monsters people faced (things specifically designed to nullify their strengths and sense of stability), look at fun house dungeons (which in game terms, are every bit as baffling and terrifying as, say, the house in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In the 80s, you were stepping into a weird world where you had no choice but to face terrifying, horrible things--and just to get cash, no less (how cynical is that?). It wasn't full of sex and gore, but it was scary and enticing at the same time. In some sense, the sex and gore of LOTFP can be off putting, whether it represents a blow for free expression or not. AD&D is 70s culture filtered through the sensibilities of wargame nerds and guys who read outdated genre fiction. And we got magic.
ReplyDeleteThat’s an interesting take on things. I like it!
DeletePart 1 of the interview was the best, where Raggi was still talking about Lovecraft's work. Very insightful.
ReplyDeleteThe rest devolves into a list of grievances, chief among them that there is a conspiracy of censors trying to keep his work from a public who would love it. But here in the 21st century, anyone can sell anything themselves. No one is inhibiting Raggi's sales except for Raggi. He's simply overestimated the market demand for his sort of work, and is blaming it on others.
Anyway, I can't wait to see the second half of The Shadow Over August! So far, so indescribably good.
I don’t know Raggi and I’ve only lightly perused a fraction of the LotFP stuff. I feel like he’s taken a bit of heat in the comments, but I appreciated reading his take on not just Lovecraft, but the ttrpg scene.
ReplyDeleteThe whole argument over censorship is one that’s being played out on a larger scale than our little niche hobby, right now in the “real world”:
Do private platforms have some onus to avoid censorship, separate and apart from government interference? Specifically the internet/social media.
We, as a society, are treading into unknown waters and trying to figure this issue out. Like pretty much everything, it’s not nearly as black and white as some posters here would like it to be.
To say, “Facebook and Instagram and Twitter (X) are private entities, so they can arbitrarily ban anyone they like while promoting those they do like”, do to political/ideological beliefs, just doesn’t really cut the mustard anymore.
This is a question the courts are attempting to sort out, and everyone (I’m sure) has an opinion.
Anyway, I found the interview to be interesting.
Hi Erick. Do you think the courts will require private companies like Fox News to give equal time to liberals? How about socialists? It seems unlikely to me. They're a business; responsible to shareholders and need to maximize profits.
DeleteEver since the Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987, private entities can feature who they like. If the public doesn't like it, they can choose to not buy/use that entity's goods and services.
DriveThruRPG carries all the LotFP stuff. And even if they didn't, Raggi can sell anything he likes on his own site. He's nostalgically tilting at windmills that existed in the 1970's, but not today.
Raggi is going the way of his hero, Howard Stern. Both badboy shockjocks are obsolete in a world where X -rated material is readily available to anyone who wants it. They both need a new unique selling point.