Quote from: David RWell of course with the former's gay character and all....:eek:

Regards,
David R

Have you ever actually watched it?  They live in a half-buried spaceship, and have a maintenance robot onboard the ship.  They almost put the engine on overload once, but were too oblivious to notice.  In one episode an evil mirror appeared from "somewhere far away" and made them  start fighting to possess it.

Compared to most kids shows, there's a lot of pretty cool stuff in the background.

Quote from: StuartCompared to most kids shows, there's a lot of pretty cool stuff in the background.

If you say so man, I don't think I'll be watching it any time soon. All the kids in my family want to do is play some sort of fighting video game...or watch the old Stingray action series from my DVD collection...

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RSure but I don't think I implied design choice anywhere...in fact I assumed folks would understand where I was coming from when I said earlier, gamers have been exploring "mature" themes - in case I was not clear -  whatever the game/system.

Regards,
David R

I wasn't trying to imply that, David! I was introducing the designer level bit myself, as it's a concern of mine. As a GM, I'm happy to take a game in any direction the players want to go, and I have been since I started in 1977. I was already an adult when I started, so that option was always on the table.

-clash

Quote from: David RIf you say so man, I don't think I'll be watching it any time soon. All the kids in my family want to do is play some sort of fighting video game...or watch the old Stingray action series from my DVD collection...

Regards,
David R

Stingray rocked! Of course when I watched it it was cutting edge tech... :O

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceI wasn't trying to imply that, David! I was introducing the designer level bit myself, as it's a concern of mine. As a GM, I'm happy to take a game in any direction the players want to go, and I have been since I started in 1977. I was already an adult when I started, so that option was always on the table.

Sorry clash, my mistake. I blame the vodka...

Regards,
David R

Quote from: James MaliszewskiYes, he did say so on my blog; I was curious if it'd come up elsewhere, since I didn't realize anyone read my blog except a handful of friends.

We're monitoring it vigilantly.

Quote from: King of Old School(I don't think he was serious about the Nyarlathotep part, or at least I hope not...)

Hard to say. That was a very H.P.Lovecraft thing to do as Lovecraft would tack on things a little like that to the end of his letters. But then Lovecraft's bolts weren't all tightened either. :keke:

Quote from: StuartI'm not an HP Lovecraft scholar, and haven't even read all of his stories... but from what I've read I wouldn't use words like "shocking, lurid, and/or grotesque" to describe it.

Because they were written nearly a century ago?  Yet they are, if you really tune up your imagination, "shocking, lurid, and/or grotesque". Especially to the characters in the story that start out sane. They are, more often than not, completely revolted by what they witness. To the point of losing their friggin minds.

It's hard to paint/draw an actual visual of the thing itself. If it didn't appear shocking, lurid, and/or grotesque to someone viewing the picture it would have failed to capture the spirit, no?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThat's right, it's hyperbolic but it's a perfectly coherent argument.

However, IMO it doesn't address what looks like the real divide among people who unlike the plush doll faction still take the game seriously: Is CoC pulp or is it personal psychologizing horror? Is it Masks of N, or is it Ken Hite?

So, in that sense, the rant is a bit beside the point, I think.

I don't think he cares about that aspect of the games. That's just a completely different point. He's coming at this from the POV of his [main] trade, that being the pictures and imagines.

Quote from: blakkieIt's hard to paint/draw an actual visual of the thing itself. If it didn't appear shocking, lurid, and/or grotesque to someone viewing the picture it would have failed to capture the spirit, no?

The point is that that the unknown and the unknowable is more horrifying than any shit the guy quoted in the OP (or Lovecraft himself, for that matter) can put to paper. Lovecraft is creepy because he alludes to creepy shit, and shows us the reaction of normal people to the creepy shit. Our imaginations do the rest. Graphically depicting tentacle-rape and so on misses the point entirely.

But then, some people don't have the imagination to be horrified by things that are only alluded to - they need to see everything in technicolor, gore-porn detail in order to feel anything. That makes them juvenile and crude, not sophisticated and mature.

Man what the fuck is this shit?

I'm all trying to be positive and talk about ways to revive the feel of cthonic horror and now people are babbling about 4e and game choice and a lot of other unrelated bollocks.  

also, Stuart, Chris Crawford's a pretensious douchebag who's basically become one of vidgaming's equivalents to the Forge or Ron Edwards.  Right down to making his own "story game".

QuoteGraphically depicting tentacle-rape and so on misses the point entirely.

Is that what that was on the back cover? I thought it was more like this. (as a very rough example of something crawling/growing through human remains) Some sort of vine coming out/in. Because that head didn't look human anymore, instead converted to a plant or something. *shrug*

Quote from: HaffrungThe point is that that the unknown and the unknowable is more horrifying than any shit the guy quoted in the OP (or Lovecraft himself, for that matter) can put to paper. Lovecraft is creepy because he alludes to creepy shit, and shows us the reaction of normal people to the creepy shit. Our imaginations do the rest.

I personally thought that front cover was really appropriate. Read through the CoC, the story not the game, and see the 'fatness' of Cthulhu. The grotesqueness of the creature.  Overly fat and overly thin are naturally unsettling, that there is something very wrong at work. An illness or worse. Toss down some ritual instruments, and this much larger humanoid (grotesque avatar that the human has distorted themselves to look like?) and it gives a very creepy feel.  If you don't want f*#$ed up creepy? *shrug* He's not far off in suggesting that you don't want pictures that evoke the spirit of the Mythos.

BTW Lovecraft isn't really Horror more than it is Dark Fantasy. Existential Horror is more tragety than horror.

Quote from: J Arcanealso, Stuart, Chris Crawford's a pretensious douchebag who's basically become one of vidgaming's equivalents to the Forge or Ron Edwards.  Right down to making his own "story game".

Interesting.  

I don't play a lot of videogames right now, and the wikipedia entry is about the sum total of what I'm citing from Chris and agreeing with.  I can't really comment on his other writing or his "story game"... because I haven't read much of it.

Basically my comment boils down to this:
What meaningful choices are the players making in the game, what is the challenge involved in those choices, and how does it affect winning the game?

If there are no meaningful choices, no challenge involved in those choices, or they have no bearing on whether or not you "win" / "lose" / "have more fun" / "have less fun" / "succeed" / "fail" then it's not really a "game" in the way I'm talking about.

Many choices players make in RPGs are Hollow, Obvious, Uninformed, or otherwise Inconsequential to reaching any sort of "Win" conditions for the game.  

(Most RPGs side-step the "how you win" part of the game, or offload it to the players "make up your own games!"  Confusion about how you "win" can in turn leads to all sorts of dysfunction if players think the goal is something different from the other people at the table.)

Stuart.
Non-zero-sum-game.

Nuff said.

Quote from: SettembriniStuart.
Non-zero-sum-game.

Nuff said.

Heh.  That's a good place to start. But that doesn't absolve most RPGs.