Now that I think of it, the Sword of the Dawn, the artefact itself, is like Excalibur in Arthurian legends. My, my, the parallels are really hitting me right now. I never really thought of the Hawkmoon cycles that way before. It was always in the corner of my mind, but it's like I just put the finger on it, now.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423152As far as "cliche leftist-anarchist intellectual" writers go, I much prefer LeGuin to Moorcock. I found Elric pretty dreary, and never bothered with anything else he did.

I'm just not a fan of the anarcho-leftist intellectual frame of mind myself.

Quote from: Cole;423153While I haven't read everything LeGuin wrote, I've never read anything by her that I didn't enjoy.

I found her Hainish cycle stuff to be incredibly inspiring for world-building. Same with Mieville, actually. One great thing about left-wing sci-fi is an emphasis on investigating and critiquing systems of power in society and the relationship of those same systems of power to individual lives and agency.

In turn, when I design a setting, some of the first questions I ask myself are "Who has power over other people, and why?" I've always found this particularly productive.

Has anyone ever run a fantasy campaign in which something similar to "Deep One" hybrid was available as a player character type?

Quote from: Benoist;423155I'm just not a fan of the anarcho-leftist intellectual frame of mind myself.

The jokes on you then: My Moragne setting is my filthy commie take on feudal society!

Quote from: Cole;423157Has anyone ever run a fantasy campaign in which something similar to "Deep One" hybrid was available as a player character type?

Yes. In my Laelith/D&D game. Though no PCs ever came in contact with them, so they weren't aware the choice existed.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423156I found her Hainish cycle stuff to be incredibly inspiring for world-building. Same with Mieville, actually. One great thing about left-wing sci-fi is an emphasis on investigating and critiquing systems of power in society and the relationship of those same systems of power to individual lives and agency.

In turn, when I design a setting, some of the first questions I ask myself are "Who has power over other people, and why?" I've always found this particularly productive.

I agree here - independent of its ethical or practical value, having an idea of the way power is set up in a setting is good value for the design effort in that it often gives the PCs a lot of situations to interact with.

Quote from: Cole;423157Has anyone ever run a fantasy campaign in which something similar to "Deep One" hybrid was available as a player character type?

The Laundry Files RPG will probably allow it, since there was a character in Jennifer Morgue who was one. Deep One aren't quite as disgusting in that though, and they can use their inhuman magic to cast glamours that make them look like humans.

Quote from: Benoist;423162Yes. In my Laelith/D&D game. Though no PCs ever came in contact with them, so they weren't aware the choice existed.

What were they like in the game world, and how would they be implemented as PCs?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423159The jokes on you then: My Moragne setting is my filthy commie take on feudal society!

I did notice.

But just because I wouldn't treat the subject (and as a matter of fact do not) in the same fashion in my own games doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy playing at your game table tremendously nonetheless! Maybe it would make me appreciate it even more if I was playing on it, like coming up with some characters that would engage those precise thematics in the game!

Quote from: Cole;423165What were they like in the game world, and how would they be implemented as PCs?

Survivors of the ancient city that existed before the metropolis. They knew the secret relationship there was between the city's founding, the stars, and the cults that developed around their worship. They were depicted as hybrids, pretty much in the same particular fashion HPL used for Innsmouth, but with a malediction related to their knowledge of the truth, and their struggle against the evil poisoning their line, rather than an inherent submission to it by birth.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423164The Laundry Files RPG will probably allow it, since there was a character in Jennifer Morgue who was one. Deep One aren't quite as disgusting in that though, and they can use their inhuman magic to cast glamours that make them look like humans.

Interesting. I haven't ready any of those - by that author, only Singularity Sky.

For me half the fun would be the disgustingness.

Quote from: Benoist;423170Survivors of the ancient city that existed before the metropolis. They knew the secret relationship there was between the city's founding, the stars, and the cults that developed around their worship. They were depicted as hybrids, pretty much in the same particular fashion HPL used for Innsmouth, but with a malediction related to their knowledge of the truth, and their struggle against the evil poisoning their line, rather than an inherent submission to it by birth.

Sounds promising!

Quote from: Cole;423172Sounds promising!

That's reassuring.

Quote from: Benoist;423168I did notice.

But just because I wouldn't treat the subject (and as a matter of fact do not) in the same fashion in my own games doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy playing at your game table tremendously nonetheless! Maybe it would make me appreciate it even more if I was playing on it, like coming up with some characters that would engage those precise thematics in the game!

Glad to hear it!

I've played with people of a number of different political beliefs over the years, and I'm surprised at how it influences the campaigns they run. It's rarely a dominant influence, but you can tell here and there.

For example, I game offline with a guy who believes in the Strong Man theory of history & who is arguably a cryptofascist (though not a neo-Nazi, thankfully).

His strength as a DM comes from how he comes up with campaign ideas: The first thing he does when he creates a game is come up with strong, powerful, dynamic characters and details their interaction with one another. This leads to really dynamic, memorable NPCs who drive the story forward by their actions and decisions, rather than preplanned events.

On the other hand, his weakness is that he doesn't really care about the rest of the world. He once described his attitude towards it as "stage setting", and I thought that was pretty accurate. People who aren't these dynamic, powerful NPCs tend to be either tools and pawns of them, or fundamentally irrelevant. The world exists mainly as a place for the NPCs and PCs to interact with one another in various challenges and tests until the stronger ones triumph.

I'm pretty much the opposite, as a left-wing type. It makes for an interesting dynamic at the table, to say the least. I've seen similar, though less extreme versions of this kind of ideological framing in almost every game I've run where I've been aware of the socio-political attitudes of the GM.