How flaky and precious can you get? TBP seems to be in a race with itself to answer that question.

I write horror novels.

I think anyone who asks that is trying to describe the shape of the circle from inside it.

Which defeats the purpose.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1065404I write horror novels.

I think anyone who asks that is trying to describe the shape of the circle from inside it.

Which defeats the purpose.

I'm sorry for being dense, but asks what exactly?

Quote from: CarlD.;1065405I'm sorry for being dense, but asks what exactly?

What the nature of horror and empathy is.

I'd probably take it more seriously if it didn't feel like "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" was the purpose of all human activity for many of the people discussing it.

The writer of that post sounds insufferable. It's like every lefty cliche we can think of in written form. I always think TBP has reached peak stupid but they always keep surprising me.

That wasn't so bad. Horror enthusiasts often philosophise about the meaning of why they like to get scared. Post seems pretty harmless and nonplus to me. Also, the story of the girl in the apartment. That was awesome scary. Big dogs for the win!

I've been involved with horror media for a long time. The wanky vocab of NPC.net is pathetic, but the concepts about horror and empathy and what makes horror scary and why it is a beloved genre have been conversations for a long time. The "healing power of horror" is a thing people in the genre (fans, authors, directors, etc) have talked about since forever with effectively zero agreement, and its common for those discussions to get bogged down in all sorts of philosophical wank.

I'm cool with giving the wankers a pass on this one.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1065406What the nature of horror and empathy is.

Thanks, again I apologize; for some reason I thought you were referring to my OP not the thread in question.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1065442I've been involved with horror media for a long time. The wanky vocab of NPC.net is pathetic, but the concepts about horror and empathy and what makes horror scary and why it is a beloved genre have been conversations for a long time. The "healing power of horror" is a thing people in the genre (fans, authors, directors, etc) have talked about since forever with effectively zero agreement, and its common for those discussions to get bogged down in all sorts of philosophical wank.

I'm cool with giving the wankers a pass on this one.

NPC.net?

Quote from: trechriron;1065424That wasn't so bad. Horror enthusiasts often philosophize about the meaning of why they like to get scared. Post seems pretty harmless and nonplus to me. Also, the story of the girl in the apartment. That was awesome scary. Big dogs for the win!

Like its fairly common to say on rpg.net: The thread is not completely terrible compared to X...in tthis case "This is not the Superfriend essay" in the Aberrant Player's guide as far as Your doing it wrong. (which at least was written by the game's creators) but it is chockful of that site's arrogance (if you don't do things like we like, you're doing it wrong and just might be a bad person) and almost Church Lady superior strutting and finger wagging. Nothing unique to rpg.net but their particular brand grates on me since it seems to argue that anything with the potential offend or upset anyone is (except certain groups) is Bad on multiple levels. And more hunting for persecution that the site seems to fetishsize.

It was less irritating than eye roll inducing, particularly is spun off from another thread where the Mod that started it banned a poster for day for being "condescending" (or it seems more like for presenting a few of horror she didn't agree with in a reasoned fashion https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/white-wolf-to-no-longer-develop-books-internally-camarilla-book-to-be-edited.837179/page-3 and interrupting a Hate-On thread with discussion, again not unique to rpg.net but still pathetic)

At least they finally admitted that things like rape and child abuse are valid themes as long as they comfort the afflicted.

Now if only they could clearly determine who's comfortable and who's afflicted, especially when ultimately that's none of their business.

Quote from: CarlD.;1065399How flaky and precious can you get? TBP seems to be in a race with itself to answer that question.

I've read through the post on TBP three times. The first two times I thought the writer was high and producing a stream of gibberish, then I read it the third time and convinced myself I was right. I vaguely get the idea that you need empathy to write horror which makes sense, you have to understand what scares people to get inside someone's head and give it a twist.

What I don't like is using games as therapeutic things outside of an actual therapist doing it. If anyone uses my games for therapy they're on a hiding to nihilism, if they get traumatized from it it's their own damn fault for bring a non-functioning psyche to me.

To some extent this strikes me as another in the long tradition of explanations for How Can You Like This Horrible Stuff?, a question which any horror fan, whether audience or creator, inevitably has to answer.  On that level it's nothing unusual, and I sympathize with any fan who's fed up with having to do it too often. However, the proclamation that horror is (or "at its best should be") about "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted" strikes me as shooting just a bit high for the Innate Significance mark.

Firstly because that particular phrase has become an all-too-overused justification for what's ultimately a leisure/entertainment activity -- any such activity -- that consumes more time and produces less social value than we want to acknowledge.  Just admit you like the thrills, guys.  If you're feeling guilty about how much time you spend chasing them, that's your problem.

Secondly, because the mere fact of depicting a situation in which a protagonist's fears are valid does not constitute evidence that your fears are in fact valid -- even if what the protagonist's being scared by was deliberately constructed as a metaphorical or literal depiction of the sort of thing you are scared of.  Mob violence and hostile, disenfranchising politics exist; that does not mean the people you're afraid of are actually likely to be sources of them.  (My wife, who is both a fan and writer of horror, describes the catharsis of horror stories as "rehearsal for death"; that I buy because death is universal. She also, however, likes the Purge movies, but because I love her I don't tell her how stupid it is to find them scary in the "oh my God this could actually happen" way, which she does.)

Thirdly, because if you're tailoring who suffers in your stories on any kind of political basis ("Using horror to inflict fear on people because we don't respect them or because it makes us feel daring is as wrong as inflicting fear on them in any other way."), you've stopped creating art and started creating propaganda. Again, entirely your own prerogative, but own it if so; the real betrayal of an artist's power and skill is to lie about what you're doing if asked.

And fourthly and finally, because if you're assuming that "inflicting fear on someone", politically targeted or not, is wrong, then you shouldn't be writing horror in the first place.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1065516To some extent this strikes me as another in the long tradition of explanations for How Can You Like This Horrible Stuff?, a question which any horror fan, whether audience or creator, inevitably has to answer.  On that level it's nothing unusual, and I sympathize with any fan who's fed up with having to do it too often. However, the proclamation that horror is (or "at its best should be") about "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted" strikes me as shooting just a bit high for the Innate Significance mark.[/i]

Once upon a time, I can understand someone asking that question. Nowadays, stuff like this is commonplace. Tons of horror movies and books (and video games) have been produced and consumed. Horror authors like Stephen King have pontificated at length about the human fascination with horror.
Dunno, maybe it's the circles I move in. I made a D&D joke at the doctor's office, and the nurse asked me "What's a bugbear?" I didn't even consider that someone might not know that.