Quote from: SettembriniOver 25, and at least one kid.
Now I´m interested, what´s that to do with it?

The feeling I get from Lovecraft is the feeling I get when I start doing timelines for family, both generations going older and younger.  Now keep in mind I'm late thirties and my youngest of a number of kids is only a few month old.  Like I said, sort of melancholy.  Also the invunerability of youth is starting to ebb from me. It is/was there and it colours your view so throughly that it's really, really hard to see....until it starts fading.

Now if you are already in a very nilistic POV most of the time then it becomes harder to be moved by Lovecraft. Which is in a nutshell what RPGPundit was saying when he went off on this in a different thread.

There is the rub, you are already part way to being 'insane' in this way. AND/OR You can't imagine being abhored by the full extent of nilistic because you aren't actively trying to get your brain there.

Quote from: blakkieThere is the rub, you are already part way to being 'insane' in this way. AND/OR You can't imagine being abhored by the full extent of nilistic because you aren't actively trying to get your brain there.

But that's it.  There is no meaning to life other than that which we create for ourselves.  We know this.  Our culture is built around it.  Two best-selling comedy authors (Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett) and at least one fantastic comedy series (Red Dwarf) are all about this.  We've learnt how to deal with it.  Cuthulu is no more scary that global warming or an impending meteor and we've lived under the shadow of Azathoth ("random nuclear chaos") for a couple of generations

Now zombies - they're scary (but not as scary as other human beings)

QuoteYou can't imagine being abhored by the full extent of nilistic because you aren't actively trying to get your brain there.

I´m totally against nihilism. That´s why I am against making it the centre of playing. It´s destructive and no fun.

There´s enough nihilistic shit happening in reality, like an Earthquake. No sense, just death, because the Physics don´t care.

If you think nihilism is bad, because it takes away all meaning, then nihilism is also bad in a game. Because it makes playing pointless.

Wallowing in self pity about ones own pointlessness is a rather egoistic, adolescent navel gazing exercise, that I cannot really relate to. (I´m not suspecting blakkie of doing this. But it´s the only think I can think of that brings: "The Nihilism! You must be scared, or you aren´t really getting it! It´s terrible, let´s play it!)

I´m a positive guy, maybe too positive for "getting" Cthulhu.

Ah  yes, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. At one point Zaphod Beeblebrox is hooked up to the instrument that uses a piece of fairy cake as a detector element for showing people their importance. Zaphod becomes the first and only being to survive the experience.

Spoiler

Later we find out that the only reason for that is that the event occurs in a universe that has been created for Zaphod, and if it had occured in the real uninverse even the top governemnt figurehead of the entire universe would have lost his marbles.

Quote from: SettembriniI´m totally against nihilism.

Ummmm, just look back at your comments. The universe shrugs at you and you shrug back? That is a very nihilist, and at ease with nihilism, POV.

QuoteThat´s why I am against making it the centre of playing. It´s destructive and no fun.

It is the centre of the backdrop, that there is this big empty truth (usually nihilism is about there being no truth).  But look back through the thread again and you'll see that we are NOT talking about making it the centre of play. Because for people to get a glimps at it it must be brought to them in terms they can comprehend. Which is the tough part, and something I'm guessing your GM screwed up.

QuoteThe universe shrugs at you and you shrug back? That is a very nihilist, and at ease with nihilism, POV.

Huh?

I get the feeling atheism, agnosticism and nihilism become mixed here.
Life can be very meaningful, and full of values and beliefs without a sentient being on top of it all.

I don´t care about a distant star, the star doesn´t care about me.

But let´s not make this more personal than it already is.

Quote from: JamesVNot anymore, sure, but there was a time in the past where this idea was very disturbing. There was a time when the mostly religious people looked at a world that science was rapidly growing and a worldview that thinkers constantly challenged and were a little scared by it. If you grew up rigidly following a simple christian worldview that we are special people in a special place and someone told you and even found a way to show you how not only are we tiny ants on a tiny farm in a massive void, but instead of God there are large unfathomable beings who would as soon pull of your legs as look at you? That would be mind-bending.

I think this is why he was classified as 'horror', while he didn't himself. Because it so wigged so many people out.

It's not the elder gods who are scary, it's the implications their existence raises. You mean nothing, your existence means nothing. You shall die and be forgotten, all you have done will mean nothing when all is said and done. It shall be as if you had never existed at all.

An elf named Cutter said it best to a thief he had just slain, "Your blood shall fall upon barren ground and nourish nothing."

Quote from: SettembriniI don´t care about a distant star, the star doesn´t care about me.

There's the problem; you know, but you don't understand.

Quote from: BalbinusThat's why when people make the GOOs malevolent they fundamentally miss the point, the point is that the GOOs really don't care about us any more than we care about ants we may step on as we walk down the road.

Even HPL was not always clear on what his point was.  Many of his earlier works are sloppy monster stories.

Many Mythos writers are crap because they miss this basic point.  Trying to develop a clear mythology of the inconceivable is a wasted effort.

Part of the horror comes not from the unknown but in how others read to the unknown.  A great example of this is Jack London's short story The Red One.    It's a better example of Mythos horror than most HPL stories:

http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/RedOne/redone.html

Quoteit's the implications their existence raises. You mean nothing, your existence means nothing. You shall die and be forgotten, all you have done will mean nothing when all is said and done. It shall be as if you had never existed at all.

Huh?
Why are you meaningless only because there´s some kind of other, powerful, ununderstandable beings?

The ant is not meaningless because of humans. The ant is meaningless to me, and I´m meaningless to her.

Quote from: SettembriniHuh?
Why are you meaningless only because there´s some kind of other, powerful, ununderstandable beings?

You think you have meaning? You believe you have meaning? I think the reason you aren't getting this is that you so far have refused to entertain the possibily that you have no meaning. None. Zippo. And there is no good, and there is no evil.

So if you were shown and made to understand that you are wrong? That you lacking any meaning at all is the truth, then what?

Quote from: blakkieYou think you have meaning? You believe you have meaning? I think the reason you aren't getting this is that you so far have refused to entertain the possibily that you have no meaning. None. Zippo. And there is no good, and there is no evil.

Quote from: Hogfather, Terry PratchettDeath: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

Now the fantastic thing about this quote is that both blakkie and I can use it to support our positions

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonNow the fantastic thing about this quote is that both blakkie and I can use it to support our positions

We don't disagree. Because you went and used the 'S' word.

QuoteYou think you have meaning? You believe you have meaning? I think the reason you aren't getting this is that you so far have refused to entertain the possibily that you have no meaning. None. Zippo. And there is no good, and there is no evil.

I don´t know what the fuck you are talking about.
It has nothing to do with what I tried to say.

And I have no clue why you guys seem so bound on some outside source of meaning.
Actually, I don´t even think I understand your meaning of "meaning".