Quote from: Ian Absentia;364622Please.  Stormbringer deals with themes of sincere angst and true gloom, not all of this pretentious wankery about the doomed condition of the undead with supor-1337-powerz.  It's totally different, and inherently superior.

Dude. Elric agonizes over his physical dependency on a magic sword that eats people's souls, with extreme prejudice. His closest associates and loved ones get killed all the time. It's precisely the same tension White Wolf aims for with Vampire (i.e. you harm other people to remain alive, and that also gives you supa dupa 1337 k3w1 p0wrz).

The Elric Saga and Vampire (old and new) both channel the precise same sort of wangst. You just respond better to (and identify easier with) Elric, possibly because Elric is, you know, an actual literary character, with a decent writer behind him. As opposed to your local Vampire LARP community, which probably informs your stereotypes.

But yes, Stormbringer/Elric games tend to focus more on Moorcock's grim fantasy setting, and less on the existential aspects of his saga. That's because, unlike Moorcock, we're just sitting down with some friends, grabbing a beer and rolling some dice.

And also because no right-thinking GM would give Stormbringer or Mournblade to a PC. That'd be like giving the One Ring to a Lord of the Rings PC.

Quote from: Simlasa;364654I've never played Vampire... do the rules actually somehow encourage the emotional vectors... or does it have more to do with the sorts of players attracted to the game?

Not really. There's the whole Humanity mechanic, which is... not entirely effective as an "emotional vector". It's more of a moral counterpart to the CoC Sanity mechanic. You fuck up, you roll some dice; if you fail, you lose a dot. If you hit zero, the Beast (a vampiric Id with the sense of morals of a crack junkie going cold turkey... with superpowers) takes over and you become a NPC.

So yeah, angst optional. Mostly it had to do with the target audience.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;364622Please.  Stormbringer deals with themes of sincere angst and true gloom, not all of this pretentious wankery about the doomed condition of the undead with supor-1337-powerz.  It's totally different, and inherently superior.

Besides, this is why I introduced Dawnlight to my game -- a good sword that can bring anyone back to life and has 1 HP more than Stormbringer.

Quite the truth!

Nonetheless, it must also be added that Neon Genesis Evangelion is the superior Stormbringer story, and the EVAs do the drug analogy much better too.

Clearly, as a discerning man, you must agree with this.

Quote from: The ButcherAnd also because no right-thinking GM would give Stormbringer or Mournblade to a PC. That'd be like giving the One Ring to a Lord of the Rings PC.

*Vreeg shudders.*
  Yeah.  The doom of many a campaign is giving too powerful magic...and those who do it in spades.

Quote from: The Butcher;364666And also because no right-thinking GM would give Stormbringer or Mournblade to a PC. That'd be like giving the One Ring to a Lord of the Rings PC.

Mournblade should totally have an "e" in it:  Mourneblade.  Besides, I refer you to Bloodlust, and Blue Öyster Cult's "Black Blade".  A whole group of characters running around with Stormbringers would rawk!

!i!

Quote from: Windjammer;364628Well, Moorcock said from the beginning that he created Elric as an antithesis to the then dominant image of the male fantasy hero... the bare chested, testerone high Fafhrd.

I think you mean Conan knock-offs. Fafhrd wasn't one of them. Moorcock was reacting against all the REH-wannabes at the time.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;364690Moorcock was reacting against all the REH-wannabes at the time.

Which is ironic in that Elric came about after Moorcock mistakenly thought he was being asked to write a Conan story.

Quote from: Simlasa;364654I've never played Vampire... do the rules actually somehow encourage the emotional vectors... or does it have more to do with the sorts of players attracted to the game?

Basically? The latter. For all its harping on about how its a "storytelling game" and such nonsense, Vampire is actually a completely traditional RPG. The whole thing is just about hype and image.

QuoteIt seems to me that Stormbringer could easily be played that way if it's what the players really wanted... less action, more thespianship.

Yes, I'm sure it could be. But the thing is; I've read all the Elric novels, and I don't recall the novels being that way.  Sure, Elric was one manically-depressed fucker, but he was all up in the action as far as I remember.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;364791Basically? The latter. For all its harping on about how its a "storytelling game" and such nonsense, Vampire is actually a completely traditional RPG. The whole thing is just about hype and image.

On account of holding the precise same opinion of Vampire, I posit that RPGPundit and Ron Edwards are the same person.

Quote from: RPGPundit;364791Yes, I'm sure it could be. But the thing is; I've read all the Elric novels, and I don't recall the novels being that way.  Sure, Elric was one manically-depressed fucker, but he was all up in the action as far as I remember.

Which just goes to show that, contraty to stereotypes, wangst and ass-kicking are not mutually exclusive.

Quote from: RPGPundit;364791Basically? The latter. For all its harping on about how its a "storytelling game" and such nonsense, Vampire is actually a completely traditional RPG. The whole thing is just about hype and image.

Definitely. Mechanically, it's completely trad.

QuoteYes, I'm sure it could be. But the thing is; I've read all the Elric novels, and I don't recall the novels being that way.  Sure, Elric was one manically-depressed fucker, but he was all up in the action as far as I remember.

RPGPundit

Agreed here too. Elric is angsty as hell, but he is always feeding that sword.

-clash

Quote from: RPGPundit;364791Sure, Elric was one manically-depressed fucker, but he was all up in the action as far as I remember.

And for all the harping about story-telling, that differs from every Vampire game I've ever seen...how? Well, they generally weren't mired in angst, just all up in action.  To my recollection, the angst never made it past character generation, which is a problem that an "emo" Stormbringer game would face -- keeping that mood in play.

!i!

Ah, yes...1st edition Stormbringer was a box (literally) of dark delights.

PCs - good kick arse PCs mind you - dropping like flies and more unpronouncable names than a Hungarian street map. If your PC managed to survive to the second session, he or she was probably sporting some disability or disfigurement thanks to the major wound table.

We played it stoned out of our minds and tried to find a gate to Middle Earth so we could kill all the hobbits.

Happy days...

Quote from: The Butcher;364801On account of holding the precise same opinion of Vampire, I posit that RPGPundit and Ron Edwards are the same person.

Just because Ron Edwards occasionally says something factual doesn't make him anything like me.

For example, he looked at the above fact and said "we need to MAKE a system that tells lame stories!"
I looked at the above fact and said "we have to laugh at games that spout pretentious bullshit and just run games how they're supposed to be run".

QuoteWhich just goes to show that, contraty to stereotypes, wangst and ass-kicking are not mutually exclusive.

Its still two very different beasties.  Its like saying that Led Zeppelin, generally awesome and considered one of the first heavy-metal bands, is the same as modern death metal.  Often, the original innovators (and Stormbringer was an innovation for fantasy at the time) create something totally brilliant, and then they spawn a thousand pale reflections, most of which are utter crap.

If the "Emo" definition includes the term "FALSE/pointless angst with no redeeming literary quality", then Stormbringer would not be Emo.  On the other hand, if your definition of Emo makes no such judgments, then you could say, I guess, that Stormbringer is emo, but that  would neither end up damning Stormbringer nor praising the rest of the Emo universe out there.  It wouldn't make Elric any less brilliant, and it wouldn't make all the rest of the Emo shit any less pretentious or crappy.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ian Absentia;364810And for all the harping about story-telling, that differs from every Vampire game I've ever seen...how? Well, they generally weren't mired in angst, just all up in action.  To my recollection, the angst never made it past character generation, which is a problem that an "emo" Stormbringer game would face -- keeping that mood in play.

!i!

I wasn't addressing the question of Vampire there. I was addressing the question of Emo overall... you know, the OP question? Whether Elric is Emo or not?
If you really want to talk about the differences between Vampire and Stormbringer, I'd suggest you start a new thread, rather than try to goad me into derailing this one.

RPGPundit

Oh, for crying out loud, Pundy.
[list=a]

• I wasn't attempting to goad you at all. I referred directly to your post because it helped underscore an inherent problem in creating an angst-filled game -- that, for all their good intentions, mechanics really can't enforce mood.
• Scroll up a little in the post that I quoted, and you'll see that you referred to Vampire yourself.  Perhaps not in direct relation to the Elric stories, but within the context of the thread as a whole.  It's a cogent comparison if one is contemplating how to make an "emo" game work.
  
• As to, you know, the OP, Vampire was cited from the outset, so, again, it's not off-topic at all.

Nice try, but no, my post really was on-topic, and really had nothing to do with you, aside from raising the issue of intended vs. effective mood in a game.  Now that is really the point of the OP.

!i!

Point of clarification:

So, Ian, you're saying that Vampire games are all supereroes-with-fangs, thus subverting the game's hype and the designer's (apparent) intent? And that Stormbringer follows the same pattern?

I haven't played either game but from what I've read, Vampire groups are split between hack & thesp play (to use Kyle's terms), while Stormbringer groups overall seem to be overwhelmingly hack. And also, that didn't really subvert the SB's hype and the designer's intent, although it may have undermined the theme of the original stories to some extent.