Thought-provoking piece by Ron Edwards here:

http://adept-press.com/ideas-and-discourse/other-essays/naked-went-the-gamer/

Sums up a lot of my feeling about what is lacking in modern fantasy gaming. Instead of the very free-flowing mix found in the 1970s, we have a rather hide-bound and apologetic PG rated version (and the correction of the OSR has been partial at best). Edwards really got the point about how the nudity in the art of the early games was not transgressive but emblematic of quite a different psychological environment, the polar opposite to the monthly 50-page drag-downs on "cheesecake" art found on TBP.

In b4:

I think people tend to be nostalgic for the period they were introduced to gaming. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so my first gaming experience was probably around 1985 or 1986. Basically played as a player with 1E and GM'd using 2E. I loved a lot of the material coming out during the 2E era and still have fond memories of it.

Just in general, I think the 80s was a great time to be around if you were into fantasy. D&D was pretty popular, and (in the early 80s at least) there were a ton of fantasy films coming out (many of them quite gritty).

Heh, well, there's always Otherworld miniatures.

On the other hand, my feelings are mixed.  Does this mean FATAL and The Book of Erotic Fantasy are healthier aspects of the hobby?  I think not.

I'm pretty conservative and my general preference is for modesty.  My games will not be featuring balls, cocks, vaginas or even uncovered titties.  That doesn't mean I don't think there's no place for them in the works of others.

I've said for years that the best thing that could happen to D&D is for it to become subversive again.  Yes, visually nudity is part of it.  But I think the glossy, professional groomed look in general is a weakness and a sign of the wider malease far more than a few stray tities.

Quote from: David Johansen;449581On the other hand, my feelings are mixed.  Does this mean FATAL and The Book of Erotic Fantasy are healthier aspects of the hobby?  I think not.

I don't think Edwards thinks that, either, and he makes clear the divide between porn and genre appropriate art in the article.

Both FATAL and TBoEF fall into the "porn" category because they don't serve any other purpose other than the tickle the fucked up fancies of their creators.

I sympathize with a great deal of what Edwards is talking about, but I think he's confusing a number of different cultural shifts.  The "Protect the Children" movement of the eighties that remains with us today (and is seen most strangely in the useless attempts to protect anyone under the age of 18 from ever seeing a nipple or hearing the word fuck) is everywhere.  Everything with a visual or audible component has been seperated into "All Ages" and "Adults Only", to the detriment of the culture.  Novels are the only exception, grandfathered into public libraries through the credentials of Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut and a reflexive repulsion towards book burning that somehow endured through the hysteria of the last thirty years.

The other, completely unrelated thing that has happened is that RPGs have become increasingly profit driven without becoming any more mainstream.  Edwards expresses contempt for game designers that capitulate to save themselves, but these decisions have been made for business reasons, and no one should expect anything different.

When he dismisses White Wolf as "so compromised by branding and target marketing as to nullify any actual underground content or importance", though, I have no idea what he's talking about.  Anyone?

I never thought I'd say this about something RE had written, but the dude's right.  So right.  I've seen it for years, been guilty of it myself.  Gamers are shit scared of gaming becoming scary again, and the amount of reflexive self-censorship and shouting down of anything that dares break that self-imposed moral flinch is as predictable as clockwork.

And it ties right into what I've been saying about the death of an un-self-censored creativity in gaming.  People have forgotten what it was even like to just do some shit because it sounds cool, they're all too busy ironically parroting geek cliches and don't even understand or fathom how to actually create.  

The very fact that someone thought an "old school primer" was needed is emblematic of the failure of imagination endemic to the hobby.  That someone felt they needed to be told "how" to imagine again, it's mind-boggling.  

Geek culture, not just here but everywhere, but especially here, has been basically creatively dead for a while.  Just pick a genre, check off the list of tropes, and if you're feeling really "creative" that day, tack on some totally unrelated element like Cthulhu or Zombies or Steampunk, and call it a day.  

It's the Changeling: the Dreaming model of creativity.

Yeah, it's a broader cultural shift than just RPGs.

QuoteWhen he dismisses White Wolf as "so compromised by branding and target marketing as to nullify any actual underground content or importance", though, I have no idea what he's talking about. Anyone?

I think he's referring to Black Dog Press.  WW had a tendency to ghettoize the really outre books and concepts to it's secondary label where they were sold out of reach in shrink-wrapped plastic, though the corebooks toed the line at times.

It's also important to remember that Edwards does hold a bit of a grudge against Vampire (it was the target of the infamous "brain damage" and "child molestation" remarks).

Quote from: J Arcane;449587Geek culture, not just here but everywhere, but especially here, has been basically creatively dead for a while.  Just pick a genre, check off the list of tropes, and if you're feeling really "creative" that day, tack on some totally unrelated element like Cthulhu or Zombies or Steampunk, and call it a day.

Is there a possibility the "well has run dry" for new ideas, which are not just a "thinly disguised" recycling of generic tropes and cliches?

Quality of the title aside, I wonder if the whole "Dragon Age 2 isn't made for straight-male gamers" bs is somehow an extension of this type of conservatism into modern video-game culture?  Although it's probably just the dude getting taken out of his comfort-zone.

Quote from: ggroy;449591Is there a possibility the "well has run dry" for new ideas, which are not just a "thinly disguised" recycling of generic tropes and cliches?

Somewhere, some writer (whose name escapes me) said that nothing is original.  Everyone knows that line.  But he also said that when you do steal, you need to steal lovingly and honestly.  Only steal what speaks to you personally. Because if you do that, then your own vision of those elements will create something worthwhile.  

The problem is when certain tropes or genre elements are just taken because they're subcultural memes rather than the designer or author considering how they want those elements to interact, and what about it speaks to them on a personal level.  They're used because they're popular and familiar, not because the elements used moved the creator in some way.

Quote from: J Arcane;449587Geek culture, not just here but everywhere, but especially here, has been basically creatively dead for a while.  Just pick a genre, check off the list of tropes, and if you're feeling really "creative" that day, tack on some totally unrelated element like Cthulhu or Zombies or Steampunk, and call it a day.  

The question has become "What will sell?" not "What would be awesome?"  But we need to move forward.  This is how I stalled out on Dark Passages (which needs a better name since there's also Dark Dungeons out there) I want to create my own stuff not regurgitate someone elses.  It's not as much a reaction to D&D's mechanics (which I've never been overly fond of) as much as the thought of transposing dozens more spells and monsters that already exist in dozens of other games.  Realizing this is actually getting me back in the mode of doing some support for it (maybe I'll call it Passage Punk)  

For me rpgs have always been about the creative exercise which is why board games do nothing for me.  I love miniatures games not because I win but because I get to paint figures and build scenery.  I wonder if that might not be a better angle for packaging a starter set.

Not modular plastic figures (which I can't afford to produce) but unpainted metal ones.  Possibly with separate heads and weapons.  Not printed cardstock scenery but discussions of creating scenery and plans.  Huh...I think that's coming together in my head pretty well.

A starter game as a box full of possibilities and ideas not heartless, effortless toys.  Games Workshop is smarter than I thought.

Quote from: J Arcane;449587Geek culture, not just here but everywhere, but especially here, has been basically creatively dead for a while.  Just pick a genre, check off the list of tropes, and if you're feeling really "creative" that day, tack on some totally unrelated element like Cthulhu or Zombies or Steampunk, and call it a day.  

It's the Changeling: the Dreaming model of creativity.

I call bullshit.  Geek culture during the time we're talking about has included Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Joss Whedon, Neal Stephenson, Edgar Wright, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Pixar, Mike Mignola, Jeff Smith, Matt Groening, Dave Sim, Philip Pullman, Guillermo del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Genndy Tartakovsky... cross off anyone you think is garbage and I'm sure you can put five more names in its place.  

Creative, imaginative geek culture is alive and well, even if inventing new genres is not happening at the rate it seemed to be in the early seventies.  If originality is the standard, Shakespeare is a third rate hack and literature has been stagnant since Verne and Wells.  Quality is better than newness, and good, thought-provoking, subversive fantasy has been doing just fine even with all the silly titty restrictions.

I feel bad for people who aren't enjoying their gaming.

Seanchai