tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post5530819712801013456..comments2024-03-28T00:41:13.514-07:00Comments on B/X BLACKRAZOR: WhimsyJBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-58921143500447616112021-05-18T22:36:26.849-07:002021-05-18T22:36:26.849-07:00Hahaha the "jackass with a blog" line is...Hahaha the "jackass with a blog" line is one I use frequently so its interesting to be on the receiving end for once ;)<br />PrinceofNothinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11733680486570025367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-42921992110708228892021-05-18T14:35:23.115-07:002021-05-18T14:35:23.115-07:00Don't take my "impressions" (they...Don't take my "impressions" (they're not "reviews" if I haven't played them) too hard, man. I'm just a jackass with a blog. Really.<br /><br />I beg to differ on the "point" of Elric's stories, but that is for another discussion. Suffice is to say that I have enjoyed them since I fist discovered them (circa 35 years ago) and continue to spend both coin and eyesight on Moorcock's "stuff"...in various media.<br /><br />I appreciate your dark muse. You are not the first creator I've encountered whose tastes run that way. Yours is a grand intellect with Homer and Milton as your guideposts. Sadly, I tread amongst more flimsy mortals. <br /><br />Good luck with your next two books. I will probably purchase them as well.<br />; )JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-66678560267157170972021-05-18T12:07:37.967-07:002021-05-18T12:07:37.967-07:00It is a pity that my work is not to your taste, bu...It is a pity that my work is not to your taste, but I understand your reasoning as emerging from a deeply felt personal preference, more then any perceived problem with it. Believe it or not, I also like most adventures with a healthy dose of whimsy in it. <br /><br />But this is not my muse. Whether by birth or circumstance my muse is a dark one, and what I wrote was the culmination of a singular vision, something grand, horrendous and of terrible splendour. If this is not what the buyer wants, then Palace will probably not provide.<br /><br />I am not a fan of the crap-sack fantasy aesthetic of Game of Thrones or the Witcher, but the grand psychedelic misery of Elric, We Are All Legends or Black Company is another matter. Is not the whole point of Elric that he is ultimately a pawn of The Balance, forced inexorably to some terrible doom that he must eventually face? While the Gods Laugh or the sublime Stormbringer have that pagan weight of inexorable doom, poorly understood. There is an infinetely better version of Game of Thrones, and it was called Lyonesse and written by Jack Vance.<br /><br />I might even agree that there is too much crapsack fantasy in the OSR, but with Palace I hoped to give this tiresome misery tourism the gravitas, the weight, the awful majesty that it needs. The original point of Grimdark fantasy was never that Life Suxx, it was that only by testing oneself against the worst, can heroism and human virtue shine the brightest. <br /><br />There is one exception worthy of mention. The works of R.Scott Bakker have in them a deep pessimism, transfixed against a truly momentous scale. Characters are heroic, not in a sense of positive qualities (they have few), but in the more ancient pagan sense, for sheer magnitude and force of personality. I think Bakker's work is terrific, but I also recognize that if everything would be like that it would be a joyless mess.<br /><br />So mostly on board with less grimdark, more vanilla or heroic fantasy, more whimsey. Whether I shall be able to follow, we shall see. <br /><br />But not quite yet! There are two more parts at least to write. <br /><br /> PrinceofNothinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11733680486570025367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-4034384477188095142021-05-18T04:11:50.098-07:002021-05-18T04:11:50.098-07:00Interesting post and discussion. Interesting post and discussion. Venger Satanishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04447932700800930510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-63530589980989380842021-05-17T15:14:11.132-07:002021-05-17T15:14:11.132-07:00I doubt it. I've made attempts to play more &q...I doubt it. I've made attempts to play more "serious" PA games, and they are challenging, but don't really spur the imagination the way GW does. Like you say in your addendum post, the whimsy helps to build the experience that players want. Dennis Laffeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03053699552003336733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-2846217065202935792021-05-17T09:58:23.107-07:002021-05-17T09:58:23.107-07:00I see "whimsy" and "comic relief&qu...I see "whimsy" and "comic relief" as two different things. I can think of examples where they overlap, but they definitely don't need to do so.<br /><br />Sometimes humor is just humor. A lot of grim-dark fiction and gaming has humor. On the other hand, I don't think my friend's "whimsical" adventure is meant to be humorous at all (any humor in it, I feel, is purely unintentional). Kris was never what I'd call a humorous or jokey person, and took most things very seriously...perhaps too seriously. <br /><br />Hmm. I may need to write an addendum.JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-85348532838767247552021-05-17T09:40:52.746-07:002021-05-17T09:40:52.746-07:00I think many times people simply miss the point of...I think many times people simply miss the point of whimsy. All the grim and dark and grit and awful can be great - it's thematic and evocative. However, every so often you have release the tension. That's why the trope is called "comic relief" - the whole point is to create a release valve on all this tension that the setting, or story, has created. Even <i>Vampire the Masquerade</i> has humor in it. pixledrivenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015997444412977693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-664822943631846252021-05-17T09:11:32.622-07:002021-05-17T09:11:32.622-07:00It's a fine line, and a tough one to tread. I ...It's a fine line, and a tough one to tread. I think you have to start with a base "normal" premise and then add touches of weirdness. Doing this makes the game 'magical' as opposed to 'gonzo.' JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-74584509592503576302021-05-17T09:08:20.260-07:002021-05-17T09:08:20.260-07:00I wonder if Gamma World would hold the same level ...I wonder if Gamma World would hold the same level of popularity without the silliness to balance out the PA darkness.JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-55163949271030961212021-05-17T09:07:15.807-07:002021-05-17T09:07:15.807-07:00I definitely like me some darkness...saccharine sw...I definitely like me some darkness...saccharine sweet vanilla fantasy is far more grating on my sensibilities.<br /><br />But "too dark too often?" Yeah, maybe. There's a certain niche that LotFP sought to fill and that has inspired (perhaps) too much emulation. Or maybe game designers are just a bunch of dudes that like wallowing in the darkness...<br />; )<br /><br />I'll see about converting my buddy's adventure to a PDF or something.JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-29173168484977647722021-05-17T07:08:00.492-07:002021-05-17T07:08:00.492-07:00I understand where you're coming from. That wa...I understand where you're coming from. That was always one of the things that bothered me about the later Mystara products, too much gonzo filler stuff. I like the occasional whimsy buy not extreme gonzo in my games. I like the idea of the flying city of serraine, but I dont like all the weird stuff described in the supplement, putting all of that together in the way they did just makes it read as very dull to me. Same thing with the hollow world, I like the idea, it's weird and out there and hardens back to the roots of pulp fiction, but the execution is kinda lackluster. I've always had weird whimsical things in the games I run, but they're only weird because they don't happen all the time. The stories we tell of past games aren't about killing monsters and taking their treasure, but of the weird shit we saw or did in the game.Lance Duncanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13817319325489613672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-27583816147171194912021-05-17T02:25:08.048-07:002021-05-17T02:25:08.048-07:00One of the guys in my circle of gamers keeps tryin...One of the guys in my circle of gamers keeps trying to run different variations of a "grimdark/metal" setting. And the only time it seemed to work well was when he made it a post-apoc sci-fantasy game instead of medievalish fantasy. But he also has system ADD so keeps wanting to restart a new campaign with a new OSR ruleset every few months. <br /><br />It's fine every now and then, but after a while, yet another fierce mutated beast, yet another corrupt magical sludge that will maybe do something helpful by may turn your arm into a crab claw gets tiresome without some whimsy to balance it out. Dennis Laffeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03053699552003336733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-4989398301760741512021-05-16T23:14:53.768-07:002021-05-16T23:14:53.768-07:00Maybe it is really good idea to publish this adven...Maybe it is really good idea to publish this adventure? I'm sure there are some people who would play something like this. I agree that OSR is too dark too often.Ifrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08568876894350411986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-59242843061309386732021-05-16T14:37:03.731-07:002021-05-16T14:37:03.731-07:00@ Jacob:
Oh, I didn’t mean to write a “poor me” p...@ Jacob:<br /><br />Oh, I didn’t mean to write a “poor me” post on his behalf (though I’ve done that before)...really just wanted to contrast the “new old school” with the “old old school.” And while my buddy was plenty metal, he’d probably look at something like Mork Borg and say, ‘This thing SUCKS.’<br /><br />(and, to be honest, Prince might say much the same)<br /><br />I’ve actually never run Black Rock Island, though I may well have play-tested it for Kris. I thought the flying whale was pretty awesome, and I’m not particularly into gonzo. But, then, I don’t think his adventure IS particularly “gonzo;” it’s D&D. The whale is a surprise, highly unusual, not a regular part of the setting. Same with the airship (which is un-detailed and destroyed anyway...it’s a plot device for the adventure not the “flying carpet service” found in Mentzer’s Karameikos). Fire newts and lava children are part of the AD&D world, and are fine for an adventure set on a mysterious, volcanic island of black rock. <br /><br />It’s not trolls in the marketplace or something.<br /><br />Anyway. I might publish it for him one of these days...just for fun. Helping a brother out and all that (he’s already given me his blessing in this regard).JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143435314932633148.post-15756106772391596802021-05-16T12:07:50.808-07:002021-05-16T12:07:50.808-07:00I'm sorry about your pal's circumstances I...I'm sorry about your pal's circumstances I hope that things get better for him.<br /><br />His adventure is one that I'd have liked to play in - it sounds fun and full of amazing ideas.Jacob72https://www.blogger.com/profile/17268402292420473229noreply@blogger.com