Reblogged punkitt-is-here
Reblogged punkitt-is-here
My Hater Post. Sorry
ALSO THIS
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The reason your fantasy pantheon doesn't feel authentic is because you're starting from the wrong end. Real-world polytheism is syncretic – just deities from neighbouring cultures getting smashed together at high speed and leaving it for nerds with too much time on their hands to figure out how it makes sense. You are yourself a nerd with too much time on your hands. Don't start out asking yourself what domains make sense together. Pick domains at random and work backwards to invent a theology and metaphysics whereby of course the god of war is also the god of baked goods. What kind of silly question is that?
It's also the product of a BUNCH of nerds with too much time on their hands. Explain some theology to an opinionated friend! Classify whatever they come up with as heresy! Or at least make it a recurring background argument.
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I need a “humans are space orcs” thing where all sentient species are weird like that, but in their own unique ways
And a lot of them are aware of this (like we are when we make these “humans are space orcs” stories)
Maybe one species enjoys getting bit by something equivalent to mosquitoes. Maybe one actively avoids the hospitable places on their planet because it’s boring without a challenge. You get the gist.
I want to see a bunch of aliens (+humans) sitting around a table talking about how their own species is a bunch of freaks
Everyone is space orcs
Best possible addition. This is a top-tier insight
The thing about "humans are space orcs" is it was originally conceived of as a response to science fiction tropes in which every alien species had its own special thing except humans, whose special thing was either Most Generic, Most Adaptable, or Most Je Ne Sais Quoi. Like, in a lot of science fiction, Klingons are Honorable Warriors, Vulcans are Logical Scientists, Romulans are Cunning Strategists, and humans are all of the above in a way that leaves us slightly less good than any of them at their shtick but better overall and able to triumph because of our lack of specialization and the assumption that we are, somehow, just destined to be the best. See this scene from Enterprise for what I'm talking about. There's a similar scene in Mass Effect where Mordin talks about how humans are more variable and adaptable and less predictable than all the other races in that setting, which is super annoying if you know anything about how much our species is defined by the genetic bottleneck we suffered during the Ice Age -- the generic bottleneck that has left us all so genetically similar to each other that we can do crazy things like donate blood and organs to each other, things other species can't tolerate.
@prokopetz proposed that humans ought to get something special of our own that isn't just "We are the bestest and specialist in some generic way that feels like a vague and unsettling metaphor for American superiority and manifest destiny amidst all the other cultures of the world," and settled on space orcs because "Pursuit predators with freakish endurance" was the ecological niche we occupied during our own evolutionary history up until we started doing the civilization thing. The assumption from the start was that every other sci-fi or fantasy species would each be freaks in their own way, and the point of humans are space orcs was to let us be our own sort of freak, too.
People who expanded on the humans are space orcs stories immediately turned it into a reason to write little stories where humans are the biggest freaks or the only freaks and we are, in fact, the specialest most manifest destinyest je ne sais quoi-laden metaphors for the superiority of American culture over all the other cultures of the world. I hate it I hate it I hate it.
Which is to say you've reinvented the point of humans are space orcs from first principles. That's pretty cool.
I think my mistake was failing to appreciate just how readily "humans have exceptionally high cardiovascular endurance due to our real-world evolutionary history as specialised persistence predators" could be twisted around into "humans have superior Will to Power", which is the other problematic special niche humans have historically been assigned in popular science fiction.
Tips for introducing more conflict into your Flight Rising lore (that aren't just "get a generic villain character")
- Your dragons should be wrong sometimes. It doesn't have to be all the time, but they should misunderstand things, lie (intentionally or unintentionally), lash out when they're stressed, or just flatout dislike someone for no reason. Everybody will make bad decisions, and it's an easy way to introduce conflict without needing a specific antagonist character.
- The world should be dangerous in some way. Think about your clan, and think about where your dragons would reasonably encounter some kind of danger. Is there a lot of crime in your clan? Is there a portion of your clan's territory that has a lot of hostile fauna? Is your clan currently clashing with another clan? Who knows, maybe the biggest danger is getting humiliated at the PTA bake sale, but try to think deeply on this. Once you know what places are dangerous, you can start thinking of how your clan deals with that danger.
- A 100% approval rating government doesn't exist. The larger your clan, the more likely that there's dragons who disagree in some way, shape, or form with how the clan's being run. Maybe you've got an Anarcho-Capitalist Lightning clan with a small sect of Eco-Socialists that dislike the current rulers. Maybe you've got a tight-knit family unit but there's a dragon who doesn't agree with how chores are being divvied up. Maybe you've got a monarchy but, oops, you've got one dragon who REALLY disagrees with the concept of a monarchy!
- Quick conflict is easy, prolonged plot is interesting. A conflict that can be resolved in 2 hours has a lot less narrative weight (typically) compared to a plot that takes 2 weeks to resolve. Err on the side of letting things fester and intensify if you want the juiciest conflict.
- Your dragons should have wants just like anyone else, and those wants should conflict. A highly ambitious dragon joining a clan with well-established authorities is going to feel stifled by their inability to rise through the ranks. What happens when multiple dragons are courting the same dragon? What happens when multiple dragons want the same den location? Two dragons with deeply opposed desires can be the cornerstone of a lot of great lore.
- Sometimes bad things happen for no reason. Natural disasters, plagues, sudden global conflicts (ex: Luminax), all of these things can be introduced quickly to churn up some conflict. Be careful to rely too heavily on this though, as it can erode away at your dragons narrative agency and make things feel grimdark (unless that's what you're going for)
- Sometimes dragons are just jerks. People in real life are occasionally just mean, and there's no reason to say that your dragons can't just be a bit mean too. Schoolyard bullies, prissy Karens, workplace lunch-thieves, people who cut in line, etc. Don't be afraid to make some of your dragons just a bit mean, or annoying, or frustrating! In fact, I'd argue most dragons should have at least one trait that could potentially drive another dragon up the wall.
While I was plundering the fantasy world for the next cliché to pull a few laughs from, I found one which is so deeply ingrained that you hardly notice it is there at all. In fact it struck me so vividly that I actually began to look at it seriously. That’s the generally very clear division between magic done by women and magic done by men. Let’s talk about wizards and witches. There is a tendency to talk of them in one breath, as though they were simply different sexual labels for the same job. It isn’t true. In the fantasy world there is no such thing as a male witch. Warlocks, I hear you cry, but it’s true. Oh, I’ll accept you can postulate them for a particular story, but I’m talking here about the general tendency. There certainly isn’t such a thing as a female wizard. Sorceress? Just a better class of witch. Enchantress? Just a witch with good legs. The fantasy world, in fact, is overdue for a visit from the Equal Opportunities people because, in the fantasy world, magic done by women is usually of poor quality, third-rate, negative stuff, while the wizards are usually cerebral, clever, powerful and wise.
-- Terry Pratchett - A Slip Of The Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction
It isn't just from "A Slip of the Keyboard" - it is quite notably from the essay "Why Gandalf Never Married" (1985) which in many ways was the actual "prototype" or "first step" Pratchett took towards writing "Equal Rites" - down to the opening of "Equal Rites" referencing this essay.
While I was plundering the fantasy world for the next cliché to pull a few laughs from, I found one which is so deeply ingrained that you hardly notice it is there at all. In fact it struck me so vividly that I actually began to look at it seriously. That’s the generally very clear division between magic done by women and magic done by men. Let’s talk about wizards and witches. There is a tendency to talk of them in one breath, as though they were simply different sexual labels for the same job. It isn’t true. In the fantasy world there is no such thing as a male witch. Warlocks, I hear you cry, but it’s true. Oh, I’ll accept you can postulate them for a particular story, but I’m talking here about the general tendency. There certainly isn’t such a thing as a female wizard. Sorceress? Just a better class of witch. Enchantress? Just a witch with good legs. The fantasy world, in fact, is overdue for a visit from the Equal Opportunities people because, in the fantasy world, magic done by women is usually of poor quality, third-rate, negative stuff, while the wizards are usually cerebral, clever, powerful and wise.
-- Terry Pratchett - A Slip Of The Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction
It isn't just from "A Slip of the Keyboard" - it is quite notably from the essay "Why Gandalf Never Married" (1985) which in many ways was the actual "prototype" or "first step" Pratchett took towards writing "Equal Rites" - down to the opening of "Equal Rites" referencing this essay.
tumblr user walking into a forest that got cut down and then replanted like 50 years ago: omg... the fae... the old gods...
tumblr user from North America who has read books based on European fairytales but has no idea who are the native people of their region walking into a forest: ...I wonder if I'll meet the Seelie and Unseelie court...
Yeah...
Mind you, while I am VERY critical of Tumblr users, it is not ALL Tumblr users. (Especially as one would be surprised at how many Europeans there are on Tumblr, every time I throw a virtual stone I end up hitting one)
But this is still very accurate to SOME Tumblr users...
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Protect The Child
Monsters cannot raise human young. This is known. Monsters are too strange, too dangerous, too alien. They cannot possibly know anything about parenthood.
You are creatures of fur, scales and fangs. You have claws that can rend flesh, faces that can crack mirrors, howls that can cause ears to bleed.
You have a human baby. And your charge wants a blankie.
Protect the Child is a Forged-in-the-Dark game about monster babysitters, caring for a supernatural child. Create your own setting and your own unique monsters, watch your child reach special milestones and learn how to be parents when the world is telling you that you can’t.
This game is free while it is in alpha playtest!
Mod Note: This game looks very creative, its a bit niche but im sure someone has wanted to play an Aah! real monsters ttrpg or whatever
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From You Will Die in this Place, one of my favorite reads in recent days
Reblogged prokopetz
petplay over the internet is so funny you're texting a dog
#critiquing your kink scenario's ludonarrative dissonance
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Reverse fantasy heartbreaker whose metatextual conceit is that it's somebody trying to invent Dungeons & Dragons from first principles in an alternative universe where the dominant mode of tabletop roleplaying is diceless storygames about gay catgirls talking about feelings.
(Bonus points if the text takes great care to emphasise that you can play characters of any gender, but has a faintly-yet-inescapably weird vibe to how it talks about male PCs.)
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Have you played DALLAS : The Television Rolepalying Game
By James Dunnigan
Playing through scenarios, mostly as a character from Dallas. Seduction is an actual stat (along with Coersion, Persuasion, and Investigation, as well as Power and Luck)
This dumb thing has always been a personal favourite of mine. It was the second tabletop roleplaying game ever to be based on a popular media license (the first, of course, being Star Trek), and features a number of notable game-mechanical innovations for its era, including the earliest known example of a formal "social combat" framework, as well as a rudimentary form of troupe play, in which each player takes on the roles of multiple characters drawn from a common pool.
(Unfortunately, the Venn diagram of prime-time soap opera fans and tabletop RPG players in 1980 had effectively zero overlap. Eighty thousand copies of the game were produced, of which only a few hundred were ever sold; the publisher subsequently went bankrupt.)
Weird part is, given the popularity of social combat games now, this would probably do numbers. Maybe not the biggest numbers, but it wouldn't do bad.
It would probably require considerable adjustment to appeal to modern social RPG fans; the existing rules are both explicitly heteronormative (Seduction rolls only affect characters of the "opposite sex") and sexist (female characters almost universally have lower stat totals than male characters). Still, it definitely has some ideas worth examining.
(These foibles do have their own amusing quirks, though. For example, organisations – which can be taken on as secondary player characters via the aforementioned troupe play rules – lack Seduction-related stats and don't interact with the Seduction mechanics, except for the Senate Investigative Committee, which inexplicably has a Seduction Resist score. How this interacts with the gender restrictions on Seduction targeting is not addressed.)
The advice for playing characters is fascinating.
Yeah, that's a big part of why adjusting the game's baked-in gender politics is more challenging than it might initially appear. Male characters, who tend to have higher stat totals, also tend to be assigned episode-specific victory conditions which require them to attack other men, while female characters, who tend to have lower stat totals, also tend to be assigned episode-specific victory conditions which are more compatible with good alliance-building. It's actually a really interesting and effective game balance mechanism, but the moment you start fucking with it even a little bit you basically end up having to rejig every single published scenario.
Easy. Replace every instance of 'male' with 'alpha', every instance of 'female' with 'omega'.
no other changes needed.
I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.
cea-tide
Time to drop some links again.
– https://searchmysite.net/ Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.
– https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.
– https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)
– https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines A list of academic databases and search engines.
– https://tineye.com/ Reverse image search alternative to Google’s. Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)