Quote from: misterguignol;449672Does she know the secrets of Tesla's free energy system?

Q.E.D.

Any more questions, One Horse Town?

Quote from: Peregrin;449640One, they may not want your pity.

Then they can keep quiet and not blog about it. Weren't you saying something similar just a few posts ago in this thread?

Quote from: Peregrin;449640...he's analyzing why things changed and whether or not there was any rational rhyme or reason behind it all.

Spouting off a bunch of nonsense about the lack of boobies being the death of creativity in the hobby, et al., isn't analysis.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;449677Then they can keep quiet and not blog about it. Weren't you saying something similar just a few posts ago in this thread?

I didn't say you couldn't give it, I said they may not want it.  I just think it's a waste of pity if they really don't enjoy their gaming.

QuoteSpouting off a bunch of nonsense about the lack of boobies being the death of creativity in the hobby, et al., isn't analysis.

Seanchai

I don't think he said anywhere it was the death of creativity in-and-of-itself -- otherwise his own comments about Over the Edge and other weird games being "innovative" would be extremely inconsistent with his own views.  I do think he is getting at how a certain pop-moral outlook in society has bounded that creativity and experimentation, kinda like comparing the experimentation of American cartoons in the 90s to the relatively tame media we air on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network nowadays.

But if that's all you got out of it, then I dunno, man.  *shrug*

Quote from: Peregrin;449679But if that's all you got out of it, then I dunno, man.  *shrug*

Of course that's all he got out of it.  Older versions of D&D were the product of that earlier fantasy era, 4e is a product of the Post-80s culture with another 20 years of corporate and computer influence.  If there is anything at all to what Ron is saying, then it's a criticism of 4e by extension.

He's 4venging by proxy.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;449684Of course that's all he got out of it.  Older versions of D&D were the product of that earlier fantasy era, 4e is a product of the Post-80s culture with another 20 years of corporate and computer influence.  If there is anything at all to what Ron is saying, then it's a criticism of 4e by extension.

He's 4venging by proxy.  

You realize that you talk about 4e more than the people who actually play it, right?

Fuck.  And we're only on page 7.

Quote from: Seanchai;449677Then they can keep quiet and not blog about it.

It looked like a new product intro article to me.

Sheesh, no one can take a joke.  

Seriously though, I do think Ron is on to something other then reminiscing through rose-colored glasses.  I think it's more a larger cultural and technological shift though then just a lack of creativity in fantasy.  I think many forms of modern culture have become self-referential, not just fantasy.

As for the nudity, well in the early days we had tits, bush and the occasional frank & beans, but it was realistic.  Conan slave girls - tits and silk loincloths.  Succubi - tits and bush.  Nudity wasn't fan service, it was placed where it would have been.

Now we have the Photoshopped fantasy cheesecake, and the infamous Exalted Cameltoe.

Of course Ron is probably the only one besides Baker himself who would claim that Poison'd and Apocalypse World are anything other then the latter.

Quote from: J Arcane;449661It happens in video games as well.  Sure a handful of critics will praise the hell out of a game like Shadow of the Colossus or Psychonauts, but does it actually sell? Fuck no.

Oh, man, I loved 'Shadow of the Colossus'! One of my favorite games to just run around in.

Here's the final conclusion of Ron's article:

Quote from: RonEdwardsI hope the OSR can take that content more seriously. I'm not only talking about pictures. I'm talking about the cracking-open of "the normal," into the hallucinatory, gory, gleeful, sexy realm of fantasy before it became Reagan-era teenfic, Hollywood's PG-rated bitch, and canonical fantasy-RPG motifs. The visuals matter too. Let's see monsters in motion, fully present, engaging the viewer rather than merely posing for them. Let's see bodies as they are, the whole form in its positions at rest and in action, with titties by all means, but especially pussy, and cock and balls.

Quote from: Peregrin;449679I do think he is getting at how a certain pop-moral outlook in society has bounded that creativity and experimentation, kinda like comparing the experimentation of American cartoons in the 90s to the relatively tame media we air on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network nowadays.

But if that's all you got out of it, then I dunno, man.  *shrug*

I think it is easy to read in one's own preferences for earlier decades into the essay.  Indeed, that seems to be the point of the essay - to link up broad nostalgia and anti-political-correctness with the sexuality of his games like S/Lay W/Me.  

Personally, these days my games have a lot less focus on titties than when I was a teenager in the early 80s.  That has nothing to do with political correctness, and more to do with my having had a lot of real relationships and 12 years of marriage since then.  My games also have a lot more relationships in them than in my teenage days.  I have zero interest in S/Lay W/Me, and roughly as much interest in modern fantasy as 1970s fantasy (much more if we're talking about movies and television rather than books).  

While he may have scattered in a few points that I agree with - like dislike for actual censorship - I don't agree at all with the main thrust of the article.  It's not like sex in 1970s fantasy pulp was all about artistic freedom.  Many pulp authors had stories rejected and were told to spice their story up with more kink.  That's no better or worse than editors who ask to tone out the sexuality.

I think that the mainstream crap, the noise to the signal is more important than people realize.  All that generic, category fitting stuff is more like a foundation or perhaps an aether the good stuff does not exist in a vacuum nor does it find its audience quickly.

Most of the great works take time to find their place among the great works and all the better because if the creator succeeds too soon or too cheaply we get retreads and sequels instead of more powerful and original work by the poor schmuk who's still trying to reach for success.

There's a reason artists only become great when they die.  The true work of the poet is suffering not words.

Quote from: jhkim;449703I think it is easy to read in one's own preferences for earlier decades into the essay.  Indeed, that seems to be the point of the essay - to link up broad nostalgia and anti-political-correctness with the sexuality of his games like S/Lay W/Me.

Of course he has a motive.  You don't waste your time writing for an indie mag full of people who aren't already interested in your work without having a reason.  

However, I still sympathize with him on a broader level when it comes to the whole conservative/liberal cycle that societies get caught up in, even though I really dislike the type of weird S&S fantasy he's referencing, much like how I appreciated the fact that cartoons were so weird in the 90s, even though a lot of them weren't my thing.

Personally, I hated Ren & Stimpy, and my favorite fantasy books are the Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit (with LotR trailing close behind) -- pretty conservative fantasy.

Quote from: Seanchai;449677Spouting off a bunch of nonsense about the lack of boobies being the death of creativity in the hobby, et al., isn't analysis.

Seanchai

Seanchai gets it.

So?

Ron Edwards misses his poorly-drawn porn hidden in fantasy RPG books and apparently really wants to see cock & balls as well as tits & pussy. Why should we care that he has nostalgia for his bi-sexual leanings?

 Damn.
 He sould stop writing essays for the internet and go out on a date - then good 'ol Ronnie Edwards can get laid with or stare at the gender of his choice.

- Ed C.

Question for non-Americans and citizens of the world: Is the Reagan-era flinch - the segregation of fantasy art (along with everything else) into family friendly and adults only just something the United States is hung up on, and affects y'all only to the extent that our exports are so ubiquitous?