Quote from: Abyssal MawTotally off topic:

I both own, and play, a theremin. Actually I have three theremins. My favorite is a Moog Etherwave.

Edit: Four theremins! If you count the Alesis Airsynth! It doesn't use an inductive antenna, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0B1sipLBI

This guy's insanely good.

Quote from: Timhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0B1sipLBI

This guy's insanely good.

He's *really* good. The best living thereminist (in my opinion, anyhow) is a guy named Peter Pringle. He's on Youtube too.

QuoteThe pragmatic dimension is irrelevant to the conceptual problem.

Okay, so let's see if I understand your conceptual problem. (Goes back and glosses original post.)

1. You wonder if there's something wrong with you because you can't use stuff (on some dimension--thus pace digressions about creativity in portraying NPCs) that's created by others.

2. You wonder if it's an emotional problem.

Quick answer here: it's not entirely an emotional problem, as in egoism. It could be a pragmatic issue of being less able to use that stuff, one way or another, because you don't "know" it the way that you need to, in order to use it. But that that could in turn come from a different kind of "emotional problem", which is reverence for the source material. I.e., you like/admire it so much that you can't bring yourself to deconstruct it and then turn it into something that you own & know the way that you know the stuff you originally created.

In short, maybe it's egoism, or maybe it's a lack of willingness to declare yourself the authority over that material when you use it.

I certainly feel a twinge of the latter when it comes to packaged settings, e.g., Talislanta or Harn. I.e., worry that if I were to make a snap judgment at some point, it'd turn out to be wrong because it contradicts or doesn't fit with some part of the setting that I'd overlooked.

Incidentally this is why I'm a fan of the accoutrements concept: give the GM/group a bunch of "objects", then let them figure out how they fit together. The theory is that the logic of the fitting-together is going to make more sense to GM/players than trying to accommodate a seamless canonical narrative. Isn't this pretty much how LBB Traveller works?

For better or worse I feel the same way and always have.  When D&D edition 1 first came out I never used it other than as a base for creating my own rules.   Greyhawk?  Nope.  Modules?  Not one.   My impulse has always been... Why would I want to use someone else's creativity when I have a mind of my own, and ideas of my own?  Oh sure, I often read myths, fairytales, legends, epics, romances, and classical literature mining for source materials, but that's not quite the same thing as buying a Module and playing it out.   One of my rationals has been this:  If I can buy the source book, then so can the Players.   And there's a fair chance that they will have.  And when they have, well, where's the surprise in that?   To me that totally eliminates one of the great aspects of the game for the Players themselves... surprise and mystery.   My other rational is:  If these guys can create cool worlds, well so can I.   And I do.   Now of course sometimes I feel less creative than others, but I just wait until that feeling goes away (usually with a good night's sleep), and then keep on rolling.

- Mark

Quote from: Elliot WilenIncidentally this is why I'm a fan of the accoutrements concept: give the GM/group a bunch of "objects", then let them figure out how they fit together. The theory is that the logic of the fitting-together is going to make more sense to GM/players than trying to accommodate a seamless canonical narrative. Isn't this pretty much how LBB Traveller works?

So why aren't you playing the Accoutrements Game?

-clash

Would like to...am distracted by other stuff and very tired to boot. But I'll bump this one so maybe others will come by over there. It's good stuff. (Hint: the iconic/romantic/valence split is defined on Mcrow's blog, not in the thread itself.)