Outside of James Raggi's pretentions, that is?
I just finished reviewing LotFP (grindhouse edition), you can find that over in the reviews forum or on my blog. In short, it was a spectacular iteration of the D&D mechanic, brilliant. Like I said in the review, it was "OD&D's answer to WFRP".
I loved it.
But what I didn't love about it was the whole "weird fantasy" idea. Raggi tried to explain something he considers weird fantasy, which he seems to be pretty explicit doesn't just mean cthulhuesque shit (though it includes plenty of that), or just pulp adventure (though it includes plenty of that), or just suspense (though it includes some of that too), or gore/violent horror (though it has plenty of that too) or grotesquerie for its own sake (though again, tons of that shit, especially in the illustrations).
So what the fuck does it mean then, if not just "James Raggi's personal favorite combination of all of the above, with a bunch of pretentious essay writing to justify it"?
Seriously, this is one case where he shouldn't have fucking told me, he should have SHOWN me.
And ultimately, I'm still left feeling like even if he had, it would not actually "be" anything that you can't already incorporate into the broad umbrella category of "Cthulhu Mythos-esque", and I'm quite certain that the stylistic concept is in no way an essential element of the LotFP game itself, as in the mechanics.
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Well, I think there are antecedents to that "weird fantasy" subgenre, or at least to the impression I get of it. Solomon Kane, Averoigne, Jirel of Joiry, maybe campbell's Ryre stories seem to tie into a similar conceptual thread that's not really new; the main divergence from Raggi seems to be how explicit he is about gore.
Also, though I don't really know if there is much to it, 3/4 of the writers that came to mind are from the US half of anglophone fantasy. If there are commonalities between the WF "style" and the WH style maybe it's what you get if you excise the Tolkien and Moorcock and knit together the gristle.
Yes, Weird Fantasy is a thing outside of Cthulhu pastiche. Lord Dunsany's fiction, for example. Or Clive Baker's Weaveworld, for a more modern example.
Quote from: misterguignol;465584Yes, Weird Fantasy is a thing outside of Cthulhu pastiche. Lord Dunsany's fiction, for example. Or Clive Baker's Weaveworld, for a more modern example.
Well, both are weird, but I don't think either are weird in the sense that LOTFP is trying to convey. Stuff like Time and the Gods seems pretty at odds with that flame princes sensibility to me.
Maybe Clarke Ashton Smith is the best representative?
I haven't read his Averoigne stuff, but I have read some of the Zothique stories, which are not really Cthulhu-esque. They're more like Conan with more more horror, more sex, and more grotesquerie.
Try this:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/15/the-black-abbot-of-puthuum
Or for something truly repulsive (at least to me):
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/76/the-garden-of-adompha
Quote from: Cole;465586Well, both are weird, but I don't think either are weird in the sense that LOTFP is trying to convey. Stuff like Time and the Gods seems pretty at odds with that flame princes sensibility to me.
That is quite possibly true, but the literary definition of "Weird Fantasy" is a pretty broad umbrella.
Quote from: two_fishes;465587Maybe Clarke Ashton Smith is the best representative?
I haven't read his Averoigne stuff, but I have read some of the Zothique stories, which are not really Cthulhu-esque. They're more like Conan with more more horror, more sex, and more grotesquerie.
Try this:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/15/the-black-abbot-of-puthuum
Or for something truly repulsive (at least to me):
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/76/the-garden-of-adompha
The Averoigne stories are pretty great. They're set in this sort of gothic symbolist medieval france. But the Zothique series are my favorite; that is a great, wondeful/awful example. Trivia - Greyhawk's Tharizdun is a homage to the Thasaidon mentioned there.
Quote from: misterguignol;465588That is quite possibly true, but the literary definition of "Weird Fantasy" is a pretty broad umbrella.
I don't mean to argue that, I agree with you. I'm just talking about weird fantasy in the sense JR seems to be using it, since that's what I took pundit to be talking about in this context.
Edit: That is, I took Pundit's question to be "is the kind of world Raggi depicting something that was ever actually out there in fantasy, or is it just a bizarre custom blend that's not recognizable elsewhere."
Quote from: Cole;465591I don't mean to argue that, I agree with you. I'm just talking about weird fantasy in the sense JR seems to be using it, since that's what I took pundit to be talking about in this context.
Edit: That is, I took Pundit's question to be "is the kind of world Raggi depicting something that was ever actually out there in fantasy, or is it just a bizarre custom blend that's not recognizable elsewhere."
Yeah, I think we're in agreement here. The thing is that Weird Fantasy has always been a product of "disparate things the author thinks is cool, each with that crucial balance between the mundane and the weird"; in that sense, I think Raggi's vision of Weird Fantasy is right in line with the literary tradition that values synthesis over clear definition.
I don't think he meant LotFP to stand as the definitive statement about Weird Fantasy...it's his version of it via old-school D&D. In my own thread on this site I give my own spins on what Weird Fantasy could entail by merging what Raggi wrote and my own literary and cultural interests. It's a big sandbox to play in, which is good for gaming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_theorem
I suspect it's Raggi's personal blend of a lot of stuff. I don't begrudge him that.
I'd say that for me, Weird Fantasy is grand guignol and estrangement with fantasy trappings.
"Seriously, this is one case where he shouldn't have fucking told me, he should have SHOWN me."
Show instead of tell in this case would mean writing some original fiction, right? Can't we all agree that the less of that in an RPG, the better?
I think it's another of those 'know it when I see it' things... hard to pin down and maybe easier to describe by pointing out what it is not... but it's not something Raggi made up.
It's less concerned with being 'fantasy' vs. 'science fiction' vs. 'horror'... so wallows happily wherever it likes.
The best representatives of "weird fantasy" IMO are Dunsany's Gods of Pegana, Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Smith's story cycles (Averoigne and Hyperborea are the most action-heavy, and hence game-relevant) and Catherine L. Moore's Jirel/Northwest stories. All of these subgenres merge together to an extent, so there are no exact boundaries to separate weird fantasy from sword and sorcery from sword and planet. Hell, one story could be all of them simultaneously.
Is the LotFP RPG "weird fantasy"? I don't own it and don't intend to, so I can't tell for sure. The modules, which I like, have some of the elements, but as it has been said, their approach is more visceral, more physical - weird fantasy as I wrote about it above tends to be a bit detached.
Quote from: Esgaldil;465594"Seriously, this is one case where he shouldn't have fucking told me, he should have SHOWN me."
Show instead of tell in this case would mean writing some original fiction, right? Can't we all agree that the less of that in an RPG, the better?
Fiction?! Fuck NO.
What 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.
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I have this theory where a genre or sub genre only really begins existence when it is labeled as such.
Those that existed before the label were something else that defied catagorisation.
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.
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Quote from: two_fishes;465587Maybe Clarke Ashton Smith is the best representative?[/url]
Yes.
Quote from: RPGPundit;465579Does Weird Fantasy even really exist?
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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 (http://planetalgol.blogspot.com/2010/04/master-index-of-freely-available-planet.html) 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 (http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-complicated-answer-to-question-of.html").)
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)
Quote from: JimLotFP;465755(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)
Heh, let me know if you want 'em for the next edition of the game (if there is a next edition, of course).
Quote from: Cole;465752Both 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 (http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-complicated-answer-to-question-of.html").)
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.
The simplest "setting" idea embedded in James' rules is: the characters are weak (and defined by actions not stats), the world is strong (and mysterious).
This is a very horror-movie idea but also an idea derived from classic "tales of adventure" and the rules kinda support that playstyle even without anyone telling you that;s what they're going for.
Having done like 20 rpg pdcast interviews with him at this point, I think James' had an understandable conflict between competing incentives with LOTFP:WFRPG. On one hand:
-he wanted monsters and setting to be mysterious and GM-designed
-he wanted the "setting" to be open so the audience would realize the rules could be be used for any D&D-type game (audiences are hard to communicate with & it's easier to keep shit simple--there are people out there who think that because Vornheim is PUBLISHED by LOTFP that it's FOR James' game, when it's actually system-agnostic.)
-he felt that the real setting-type action in what LOTFP does is the adventures and supplements like "Random Esoteric Creature Generator" and "Death Frost Doom" which--like Vornheim--are not specific to any certain version of D&D
on the other hand....
-LOTFRP is a book that people will buy perhaps without any of that other stuff and the more full of goodies it is the more useful it, as a product, is.
So whatever you think of how it came out, that's where his head was.
My job was way simpler:
Write down everything I used when running a city in my campaign plus all the information I knew for sure about it that might be useful to anyone else.
So, yeah, Vornheim is a very specific instance of a very specific "weird fantasy" sensibility--that was my remit. I would argue that James'
modules (not his game) are likewise specific. The actual game had a much larger and more pretzel-shaped row to hoe.
As for our sensibilites: yeah, they're different in a lot of little ways. He prefers a horrorish one-overwhelming-threat-per-story feeling whereas I prefer a more Moorcock/MJ Harrison the-world-is-dense-with-weirdness approach.
Which, obviously, is why it's much easier for me to design a weird city supplement full of weird options whereas he's more comfortable designing individual adventures built around individual threats.
Welcome, Zak. :)
I don't really see the characters as "weak", not moreso than in any other edition of D&D, anyways.
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Of course weird fantasy exists.
most fantasy is weird.
you're weird.
shutup.
Quote from: misterguignol;465618Literary 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.
The classic example is LOTR, which is an important ancestor to modern swords-and-sorcery, modern epic high fantasy, AND modern Anglophile low fantasy, which are all competing and fairly distinct genres.
I think the thing I would say that sets apart "weird fantasy" is the peculier juncton of both the dreamlike and the ironic. It is surreal, and wild, but not freewheeling or impressionistic.
Quote from: RPGPundit;465579Seriously, this is one case where he shouldn't have fucking told me, he should have SHOWN me.
This was my impression as well.
LotFP feels very constrained by the D&Disms with moments of real brilliance and cool bits that don't add up to a useful whole. I'd love to see what Raggi would create if he allowed himself to create outside of D&D.
That said, I have not run the game. Perhaps it shines in actual play, but the cool bits are much more in the fluff than in the crunch.
Planescape.
Mainly as depicted in the PC game Torment - youre a amnesiac dead man who befriends a necrophile flying skull, visits a brothel of intelectual lust, have a gestalt of rats for a foe, living in a city the shape of a donut in the void between planes of existance, where belief shapes reality. Oh, and you look like this (http://blog.gameshadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/planescape1.jpg).
If this aint weird, I dont know what is.
Any work of fiction or game setting worth a damn is one that can't be easily pigeonholed.
Quote from: Spinachcat;466193LotFP feels very constrained by the D&Disms with moments of real brilliance and cool bits that don't add up to a useful whole. I'd love to see what Raggi would create if he allowed himself to create outside of D&D.
You'll note that this is not what I was suggesting at all; quite the opposite, I suggest that Raggi should not have been so scared of including things that are pretty standard in a D&D game: monster lists, magic items, random encounter tables, etc.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;466233You'll note that this is not what I was suggesting at all; quite the opposite, I suggest that Raggi should not have been so scared of including things that are pretty standard in a D&D game: monster lists, magic items, random encounter tables, etc.
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I don't know that it's a matter of being "scared" so much as (a) not liking the standard-issue stuff and (b) knowing full well that 99.999999% of the people who would buy his game already have access to that sort of thing from other games if they wish to include it.
I'm sympathetic to Raggi's idea of monsters being unique... created to suit rather than coming from a shopping list. It helps add to the mystery. I like bits of mystery in my fantasy.
I must say, I still don't really get LotFP and what it actually is. Especially in regard to weird fantasy.
After reading the review and looking at the pictures, I would say the "weird-" here means B-MOVIES GORE.
Quote from: Elfdart;466237I don't know that it's a matter of being "scared" so much as (a) not liking the standard-issue stuff and (b) knowing full well that 99.999999% of the people who would buy his game already have access to that sort of thing from other games if they wish to include it.
No, I'm pretty sure he was fucking scared; that if he included a list of monsters in his book it would keep people from making their own. Which is fucking stupid, because had he made a little "Monster compendium" in the game, it would have served as inspiration for people to make their own versions; whereas without anything except vague instructions saying "just make up your own thing" people are far more likely to go rely on those existing monster lists from other versions of D&D.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;466290whereas without anything except vague instructions saying "just make up your own thing" people are far more likely to go rely on those existing monster lists from other versions of D&D.
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That's actually a good point that I hadn't considered. Honestly, I think a cut-down version of the Esoteric Creature Generator would have been the best way to preserve the "mystery."
One way to get mileage out of whatever old-school Monster Manual-type stuff you have is to keep the stats, but change the description of the monster and never name what it is.
Quote from: RPGPundit;466290No, I'm pretty sure he was fucking scared; that if he included a list of monsters in his book it would keep people from making their own. Which is fucking stupid, because had he made a little "Monster compendium" in the game, it would have served as inspiration for people to make their own versions; whereas without anything except vague instructions saying "just make up your own thing" people are far more likely to go rely on those existing monster lists from other versions of D&D.
I can understand not including a monster compendium but if there's at least not material for how to develop creatures, it's counterproductive and, I agree, you're more likely to just see the D&D usual suspects from veterans and new DMs are just rudderless. I can see where he got the idea but I think it's counterproductive.
Quote from: misterguignol;466297That's actually a good point that I hadn't considered. Honestly, I think a cut-down version of the Esoteric Creature Generator would have been the best way to preserve the "mystery."
That would have been a good inclusion, I think.
Quote from: Cole;466323I can understand not including a monster compendium but if there's at least not material for how to develop creatures, it's counterproductive and, I agree, you're more likely to just see the D&D usual suspects from veterans and new DMs are just rudderless. I can see where he got the idea but I think it's counterproductive.
Well, it depends what you call "ideas"; there's some vague guidelines, including things like for types of monsters (like "if you want to make a slime" or "if you want an undead", etc), but what there isn't is any kind of monsters compendium or even a random monster generator, or tables of any kinds.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;466357Well, it depends what you call "ideas"; there's some vague guidelines, including things like for types of monsters (like "if you want to make a slime" or "if you want an undead", etc), but what there isn't is any kind of monsters compendium or even a random monster generator, or tables of any kinds.
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Yeah, I am thinking more like "concrete procedures" or some kind of tutorial.
Quote from: Cole;466373Yeah, I am thinking more like "concrete procedures" or some kind of tutorial.
I wouldn't call what was there a full-blown tutorial; I just don't want to give the (false) impression that there were no guidelines whatsoever. There were, I just don't think they amounted to much.
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