Quote from: Ian Warner;465617I have this theory where a genre or sub genre only really begins existence when it is labeled as such.

Literary history proves that this is the case.  First, you get innovators.  Their work will be labeled after the fact.  Then you get people who either

1) imitate the conventions of the "label" or "genre" slavishly

or

2) take the work of the innovator and add their own twist on it, furthering the innovation.  Get enough people putting a similar spin on the same conventions and you end up with another label or perhaps a sub-genre.

So, to clarify the definition for myself, would China Mieville's stories (in particular his short stories) be considered Weird Fantasy?

Quote from: jeff37923;465622So, to clarify the definition for myself, would China Mieville's stories (in particular his short stories) be considered Weird Fantasy?

I consider them so, though I'd point mainly to Bas-Lag and the City and the City as weird fantasy.

Mieville was taken up by the 'New Weird' folks as one of their own. I don't know what he labels himself as.

I get the idea that literary types are always making up new genres... tossing them at the wall to see if they stick. Stuff like 'Slipstream' and 'Bizarro' and 'New Weird'.
People who write about music seem to do the same... creating a bottomless quagmire of genres that only a handful of people claim to be able to tell apart.
Everyone building little mind-boxes to place things in.

Quote from: RPGPundit;465616What I mean is that instead of essays and descriptions, he should have had more random tables, items, encounters,  monsters, etc.  "Implied Setting": THAT is how you "show" a style/genre in an RPG, not fucking game fiction.

Would have been nice, yeah.

Damn right. Almost criminal that this didn't happen, especially given that Vornheim, by the exact same publisher, does precisely that, and very well too.

RPGPundit

Quote from: two_fishes;465587Maybe Clarke Ashton Smith is the best representative?[/url]

Yes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;465579Does Weird Fantasy even really exist?

RPGPundit

Let me tell you something, mate: fantasy, science-fiction, dark fantasy, heroic fantasy, fantasy this and fantasy that? It's all made up categories as well. The whole lot of it. Ironically, what it does mostly is to allow people who can't grasp something without sticking some trappings to it and calling it a name to talk about them (to criticize, quantify, compare... all these things that people who do not "do" talk about), while the people who actually dream all these things don't give a flying fuck about neat little boxes and the stickers on them, or really shouldn't, in any case.

Michael Shea's work (Nift the Lean, In Yana: the Touch of Undying) comes to mind.

planet algol is weird fantasy. with its cactus men and pleasure slaves, android vaults and flaming telepaths, planet algol is best described as original dnd dosed with liberal quantities of blue oyster cult and b-movie bizarre.

If you're taking a cactus man as a pleasure slave, you're a braver man than I.

I suspect weird fantasy, as relates to stuff like Ashton Smith written a while back, is probably better described to us as science fantasy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;465662Damn right. Almost criminal that this didn't happen, especially given that Vornheim, by the exact same publisher, does precisely that, and very well too.

thanks

since I wrote Vorheim, I can tell you a little about what I think The Weird is:

The weird as a mood:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/06/mood-and-morality.html

the weird as an era in the history of lit and the ideas I think are behind it:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/01/philosophical-implications-of-weird.html

Quote from: Zak S;465741thanks

since I wrote Vorheim, I can tell you a little about what I think The Weird is:

The weird as a mood:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/06/mood-and-morality.html

the weird as an era in the history of lit and the ideas I think are behind it:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/01/philosophical-implications-of-weird.html

Both good articles.

Do you see a distinction between the broader weird sensibility and the "weird fantasy" that James Raggi proposes as the assumed setting of the LOTFP game? Vornheim feels, at least to me, weird in a way very distinct from that James's Raggi's weird fantasy; of course given two independent authors they're not going to be entirely the same. The weird fantasy of LOTFP proper seems to eschew for example the pervasive trippy orientalism of a Pegana or Dreamlands or a Zothique style. (Maybe this speaks to your Weird vs "Noirish" question.)

I think there is a recognizable thing LOTFP is going for but even if the rule system is strong, out of the box it is lacking in stuff to help the DM get it into play, less than original D&D offered to help the DM get Gygax's take on fantasy into play for example.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;465735I suspect weird fantasy, as relates to stuff like Ashton Smith written a while back, is probably better described to us as science fantasy.

Have you read much of CAS's fiction?

Quote from: Cole;465752I think there is a recognizable thing LOTFP is going for but even if the rule system is strong, out of the box it is lacking in stuff to help the DM get it into play, less than original D&D offered to help the DM get Gygax's take on fantasy into play for example.

I think rather vague core rules are best. The rules should be a toolbox. I needed rules that you could hang on such differently atmosphered works (ugly expression, I know) like Carcosa, Vornheim, Isle of the Unknown (based on 13th century France), my adventures, and other peoples' adventures without them conflicting with core game.

So the fluff and art does point to how my home game goes, but I tried to keep my campaign out of the hardcoded rules stuff in the game. That sort of focused gaming experience is what adventures and supplements (like Vornheim, which takes you inside Zak's game) are for.

(yeah, I reposted some of that from my response off Pundit's blog)

(and hell, if I were making this game right now I'd get the rights to reprint some of those campaign descriptions from the "Weird Fantasy Atmosphere" thread and put them in the Referee book, picking only the ones that had the least in common with the others to give an idea of how widely applied the game could be)