Quote from: Cole;423171Interesting. I haven't ready any of those - by that author, only Singularity Sky.

For me half the fun would be the disgustingness.

I've only read the Atrocity Archives and Jennifer Morgue. I'll probably pick up the Fullerton Memorandum with post-Christmas giftcards. They're OK - there's about a half-dozen good ideas on tech + Cthulhu in each book, spackled together by a lot of inane overly trendy, techno-babble and improbable plot developments (so much so that Jennifer Morgue has a McGuffin that is actually magically causing the improbable plot developments).

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423181I've only read the Atrocity Archives and Jennifer Morgue. I'll probably pick up the Fullerton Memorandum with post-Christmas giftcards. They're OK - there's about a half-dozen good ideas on tech + Cthulhu in each book, spackled together by a lot of inane overly trendy, techno-babble and improbable plot developments (so much so that Jennifer Morgue has a McGuffin that is actually magically causing the improbable plot developments).

That doesn't sound much to my liking That last point is close to a deal-killer - just sounds unacceptably corny.

Singularity Sky was a "less than the sum of its parts" book, which I feel is pretty typical of modern high concept SF.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423177I'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.

Interesting. I consider myself a left leaning person, but I do find that my campaigns often end up with a heavy focus on ambitious and willful NPCs and even more ambitious and willful NPCs.

Quote from: Cole;423185That doesn't sound much to my liking That last point is close to a deal-killer - just sounds unacceptably corny.

Singularity Sky was a "less than the sum of its parts" book, which I feel is pretty typical of modern high concept SF.

Of the two Laundry Files books I've read, Atrocity Archives is by far the better one. It's really a collection of short stories or episodes with recurring characters rather than a single progressive narrative.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423177Glad 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.

Totally. I agree!

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;423177For 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.

I do think that we all view the world in a certain way. Our political leanings are in many ways an expression of this inherent bias coming from who we are, where we come from, what our life experiences were, etc etc. So it's not so much that I see many GMs actively injecting political ideas in their campaigns, rather than the natural bias that expresses itself in a different way through the fantasy, whatever its particular details may be.

I like to consider myself open-minded. In France, I label myself as squarely Gaullian, which probably most people would understand as right-wing, in most instances, at least. In the US, I'd probably be considered as either a moderate Republican in some instances (mostly economically speaking), or a moderate Democrat in others (on morality issues, for instance, like a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body, the separation of Church and State, those kinds of things). While running games, I'm not thinking consciously "oh there I got to make a conservative counter-point to that progressive idea!" But there is no doubt in my mind that my personal bias do show up through the game, in one fashion or another, because I am who I am, and inspiration is rooted in who you are, how you perceive things and get inspired by them. The creative act of running a game, whether it's role playing an entire world in motion, or a particular player character, is an act rooted in bias and subjectivity, as it should, IMO. Pretending that whatever fantasies you and I would come up with on the spot would be in any way shape or form "objective" would be really fooling ourselves, that's pretty obvious, to me.

Quote from: Akrasia;423135Yeah, that's what I meant.  Sorry for not being clearer.  Stormbringer is barely tolerable, and the stuff written after it rather tiresome.  (Although it's been years since I've read any Elric tale, so perhaps my recollection is a bit foggy.)

Neon Genesis Evangelion is better Stormbringer than Stormbringer. I mean it. And even the whiny protagonist is more of a man than Elric. :hatsoff:

Being a bona-fide Battletech fan, I never could relate to any anime-style Mecha. The stories themselves, that is. The only Mecha-Anime I could sit through was Patlabor. Neon Genesis Evangelion...after 15 minutes I switched it off. Just. Could. Not. Stand.