My Substack: thebasicexpert.substack.com/ Atomic Punk 2240: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/496611/atomic-punk-2240?affiliate_id=2970599 Get Wight-Box: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473031/wight-box-original-medieval-fantasy-adventure-campaigns?affiliate_id=2970599 Macuahuitl - Whitebox Roleplaying in the Aztec Empire: thebasicexpert.gumroad.com/l/macuahuitl
Appreciate the shoutout! This was definitely something I was considering including in the video at first but ultimately dropped because I wasn't entirely sure the source of this mentality change. Somewhere along the line though people completely dropped the fantastical and wholly embraced realism as a means of justifying their fantasy settings. I had thought that maybe it started with Tolkein although unintentional on his part, just due to the large amount of lore material. That people emulated and wanted that depth but missed the point of it in many ways. I like the idea that it all stems from The Enlightenment. You even see it in Sci-Fi, anytime a film comes out that does a little work to explain the science it's embraced and lauded even though the math or science is ultimately still wrong. Meanwhile a movie will come out and handwave that stuff for the sake of not getting lost in the details and people will crap all over it as if they know the real scientific explanation themselves, completely moronic. Nice vid!
I have a very low view of the Enlightenment era and what it produced. For me, it's a clear demarcation where we went from being able to learn from myths to having to explain them away and thus missing the point of them. I think Tolkien contributed but it's like the people looking at what he did could not understand what they were looking at. He embraced the myth. There is still mystery and awe and transcendence. What materialists who followed after saw was a formula for "world-building," and it's why everything is just a shadow of Tolkien. They don't respect the myth so they don't understand what the worldbuilding is even for in the first place. Thanks for your video though. It got me thinking on this. I've been meditating on it for a while.
@crimzongaming5470 if this comment doesn't apply to you then why are you responding to it? And I would believe more in your powers of imagination if you didn't use trite, rote phrases in an attempt to be funny.
This is why I love Hyperborea 3e. The setting is so bizarre, strange, dark, and brutal. The World is flat and dying. The waters forever flowing over its edge as it’s drowned in the light of a massive dying red sun. It feels very immersive because you can’t always use reason or logic for all the fantastic unknown elements of Hyperborea. It fills the world with mystery and wonder. Adventure can not exist without the element of the unknown. Dungeons should be a place where time, perception, and mental fortitude are pushed,tested, even warped. I feel sorry for people playing D&D wanting to know exact ecology of a dungeon. Where do the orcs crap? Don’t worry about it-you’ve warped through a small portal, and your deceased Cleric has come back as a horrible undead abomination, his flesh is half eaten away and his bones are glowing an eerie green as he shambles after you…
This is right. There's a great piece on Mere Orthodoxy called "The Nightmare Before Christmas Is About Disenchantment" that touches on these themes. Those stuck in the immanent frame are like Jack Skellington, drawn to Christmas without the ability to understand it.
I think the Underworld as a concept for RPGs is perfect as I've incorporated it into my own RPG I'm writing. Every 'dungeon', 'subterranean ruin' and 'cave' touches The Underworld without necessarily BEING The Underworld (which I have as 1 of the 9 Worlds inspired by Norse Myth). That means its a malevolent force that will, over time, 'reset' dungeons after a fashion (even if it takes dozens to hundreds of years). And naturally, such locations are beacons for monsters, some more 'mundane' like Bandits, Orks and so forth. Others, well, they attract more exotic and terrifying monsters to their locations.
The way I see it, trying for a purist OD&D perspective, the 3 alignments line up with the 3 types of environments: Law - Neutrality - Chaos and Polis - Wilderness - Underworld. In the Polis, order prevails except in exceptional cases. Magic may be restricted and religion and moral hierarchy hold sway. In the Underworld, Chaos prevails and there is no rule but might. Rather than holding sway, in this place men are prey and man’s logic is subverted or inverted. The Wilderness is in between, almost a battleground between Law and Chaos (you’ll find some of each), to the regret of the native creatures who would rather abstain. I think people have trouble getting to this because in the present age of mechanized wickedness, they have begun to believe that Logos comes from man’s mind, rather than from the realm of the Divine.
@@elgatochurro Moorcock didn't create the idea of Law versus Chaos. This is just another variation of Good versus Evil or Yin and Yang type dialectics. He merely popularized it in a fictional mythology. He did it well for sure though.
@@elgatochurro I'm pretty sure it comes from Mesopotamia. But even if Gary cribbed the terminology from MM directly that doesn't mean that if you play OD&D, you're playing in the Eternal Champion universe. I think that the intent is more basic and archetypal than that. Just like if you include halflings, you're not necessarily fighting Sauron.
@aaronsomerville2124 I'm saying it's heavily HEAVILY inspired by it, from vecnas hand and eye to other magical items to the metaphysical of the world (law and chaos), other planes with different properties. Tolkien wasn't the only one with halflings, Moonglum is a short fellow too
Talking of fungi, I kind of like the idea of the underworld acting like a mycelium, randomly growing new hyphae in the form of tunnels and chambers. With that in mind, I always imagined the cult of Gygax’s demon fungus goddess Zuggtmoy being a far more important thing in the underworld than the written lore has made her.
Totally stealing this. Not necessarily the mushroom part, but dungeons being these growing invasive inhuman structures born of primordial chaos itself to gnaw onto the dull orderly bedrock of the world.
Well said. Sometimes a dungeon is just a dungeon, but it’s not JUST a dungeon. It’s a dark terrible place where one slays dragons. Kobold poop is incidental at best.
One thing I loved about Planescape was its willingness to embrace mindbending logical impossibility. Sigil is a torus atop an infinitely tall spire. "How?" You aren't capable of rationalizing how. If the understanding of all existence could be so easily reduced to the scientific method, it'd be a very dull place to be.
In Ars Magica, Demons are capital E evil and its really refreshing to have bad guys who want to do bad things without always dealing with nuance. I like nuance and having bad guys who feel real is fun but having bad guys being bad guys is also fun.
Egoism is the death of culture. In RPG terms, it's the reason for the rise of the cringeworthy "self-insert" character. The 9-page backstory. The "RPG as therapy session." Safety tools. Everything that sucks enchantment out of fantasy. And yes, the enlightenment is the key. "No gods, no kings, only man?" Isn't that the quote from Bioshock? Without a lack of transcendental virtues and a mythological foundation, fantasy fails and by extension, fantasy games fail.
@@All4Tanuki I think it's out of confusion, when we take "no gods" as no spirituality or higher meaning, and "no kings" as no order nor nobility of character. In the ideology of monarchy, the king and the nobility are inherently better people than anyone else and that's why god choose them to rule. In fighting human authoritarianism, some people/ideologies throw the baby with the bath water and deny the existence of spirituality, morality, and heroism themselves. Materialism killed idealism essentially.
Great Point! I stopt doing ecology a long Time ago because it made no fun. For example, in my weekly OSE Game the players vary a bit. So the Party just adjustst within the Dungeon. If a ne chatacter need to join, they just join. Be it the party finds the chatacter in the next room, or he crawls out of the Monster just slain, be behind a wall that just crumbled or appear in a poof of smoke. I decided to stop explaining everything because we all know we are playing a Game. Sorry for the spelling, im fighting a loosing battle against german autocorrect on my Phone.
I think it's essential to the philosophy of the game to have the conceit that the dungeon (the underworld) is a supernatural place. That said, verisimilitude (true dungeon ecology) shouldn't be ignored just for the sake of having a supernatural world. There's got to be a reasonable balance. The mythical elements of the underworld don't hit quite the same when verisimilitude is totally thrown out the window...You need juxtaposition
Great video. Glad somebody is speaking about this kind of thing. I don't know if I agree with you about it being difficult to synthesize a morality via materialism, but you're on the money when it comes to deriving metaphysical and abstract truths from fantasy and tabletop games.
Excellent thoughts all around. I've always been fascinated with the Enlightenment, and eventually ended up getting my Degree in Philosophy in University, and over the years I've seen how that thought space has 'infected' my game design. I actively have to fight my tendency to rationalize. It's tough, but great fun when achieved...
@@TheBasicExpert Agreed. To tell the truth, to an extent I appreciate it to an extent. I find that having to fight that tendency makes me keep in mind the need to add the fantastical element.
One thing that helps is random tables, or dice in general. Rationality and knowledge are a form of control. The players may strive for this control (and it's for the best, really - it's fair to have knowledge if they earn it), but the DM is cursed to be all-knowing (thus, all-rational). The simplest cure is introducing a third entity, so that you, as a DM, are no longer in possession of all knowledge of the world.
As someone who is a bit of a lefty one of the places where I feel like the left has failed is by completely embracing atheism and hardcore rational scientific materialism. It's why the left can't make good art anymore, they've been systematically pushing mystic minded artistic kooks like me out. Really with you here. Michael Moorcock and RE Howard rule and are huge influences on how I run my games. Sword and Sorcery demonstrates how fantasy can be a vital and poetic expression, fully engaged with the irrational nature of the human experience.
This was a great video. Really good food for thought for my own session and campaign planning. If a fantasy game or novel becomes too materialistic, it's more medieval science fiction. I LOVE science fiction, but fantasy should have a different flavor.
I think you hit the nail in the head on this one. It's not that reason is not important, but when it's taken to extreme it kills the mystery and trill. Also, this is why it was easier to enjoy both rpgs and fantasy in general as teenagers than adults. Do you find your dreams fun? Try questioning everything in it, you just waste four hours of sleep instead of enjoying your journey!
I just do what I think is cool, honestly. Sometimes a cavern or ancient ruin does lead to a wholly unnatural mythical place, sometimes it's just a cave or long abandoned structure. There's room for both in any game, I believe.
Is that Margaret of Antioch I see? I recently started reading Robert Howards Conan stories for the first time. That and Seven Voyages of Zylarthen have really inspired me to let some of the naturalism go and just embrace the Sword and Sorcery vibes.
@@TheBasicExpert @etheretherether According to wikipedia, she is the same saint. In Roman and Anglican rites, she is commemorated on July 20 and in the EO, on July 30.
Very interesting video, in my own games I like to have a basic "rational" (if that's even the right word) framework (gravity, etc) but then have a mythological layer over the top of it. Generally in my games, the closer you are to civilisation or safety the more things work like or works, and the further away you get into the wilderness or unexplored land, the more things become fantastic, mythical and dangerous.
Re : Your video - I’m of the mindset that good fantasy & sci-fi don’t explain everything. They leave room for the partaker’s imagination to fill in the gaps. It’s how myth was created to begin with. There needs to be some framework that’s grounded enough to give plausibility to the player or viewer, but enough unexplained to draw them into the world to attempt to explain the non-obvious. It’s what helps them be invested in what they’re experiencing. Having _everything_ be literal, to your point, ruins the sense of wonder. And that sense of wonder (to reiterate above) drives the players & the story. Some of my fondest game sessions, looking back, are where there was a sense of the real combined with a sense of the fantastical. What wasn’t explained & was taken for granted was the X factor; that “cool factor” that made it memorable. Because I still can’t explain it. But I could imagine.
---I agree Gygax should Not be worshiped but one gets the sense He did both. Creating Dungeons that make logical sense but early on concepts that would be dubbed the " Fun house "dungeon is present. I can see many DM's doing both depending on what the structure is meant for in the game. An Evil King's castle dungeon vs a Mythic Dungeon slowly growing larger because of its connection to an Abyssal plane of existence or something. --- Was going to ask ::: Is it possible some reason the non-evil Evil races thing became more prevalent was 1st AD&D introducing Playable Half-Orcs then 2nd D&D introducing Humanoids ( Humanoids Handbook supplement ) and later 3.0 onwards More " Monster / races that were Playable - that increase in more Options for players for character creation???
I think you are definitely on to something with this theory. I've wondered about this staunch materialist world view getting in the way of fiction for a while now as it seems like people who can only see the world as a mechanistic framework can't properly suspend their disbelief should the world not fit into that box. I think this is why the Warhammer universe breaks their brains so badly - the idea that chaos/evil is an objective force which exists and manifests as demons etc. The creatures of chaos are the embodiment of what we conceptually think of as evil. I'm not philosopher either, but it appears to me that materialists can't understand how evil could be an objective fact in a world. Objectively, are dogs better than cats? Depends on who you ask? Is killing Objectively evil? Depends who you ask. That's the blind spot with materialism, you can't make objective statements about the morality (or any personal belief). Mythology and fiction (TTRPG's, Movies, Games, Books) helps us to examine evil as something more concrete by associating it to a creature with consciousness that has a morality completely at odds with our own presupposed ideas. This gives us the opportunity to view and study it as a thing that can be known (not necessarily understood though) at takes a stance on what is good or evil. But it requires us to identify a concrete morality to judge behavior by. I think the materialist needs to believe that evil is a choice people make and not a force that drives us in weak moments to behave in terrible ways (why there has to be good Orks or Drow). If not, it means reason can't answer every question about existence for them at that maybe good and evil are prescribed elements of the reality we inhabit. Either way, really enjoy your content, It's measured and grounded in you clearly having spent time thinking about the topics. Appreciate the content!
I appreciate the comment. I usually don't read the long ones due to time, but yours is really good, and I also agree with your assessment. If the thing doesn't fit in the materialistic box, it breaks their brain or they force it to fit in some haphazard way.
Atomic Punk 2240 is very good, bought the PDF recently. Haven't run it yet, but I did steal some monsters from it for a post-apocalyptic game I'm running using BRP.
I'll put my point up here first: If you're too young or too dumb to understand that human beings need abstraction, myth, and a sense of the ineffable, you aren't going to get Ttrpgs. You can learn about those things from religion, art, music, stories and even games if they are presented well. People need to focus on the physical and material for studying and understanding many things, from the physical conditions of our lives, our cultural circumstances and systems of human organization and conflict, building and engineering, and all things animal, vegetable, and mineral. That said, we still don't understand human thought, mind, and really the origins of them. Not that we shouldn't try, but this is one reason we need art and abstraction. Additionally if you don't know how people deal with ideals, emotions, and religion, (both their own and with others), you will not succeed in any field studying humans or our activities. We need Art(and music!). We need metaphor and abstraction, we need ideals(as long as they don't hold us hostage) and we need stories. These things are necessary for human beings, regardless of their religious status.
Excellent video. Gygax did take a naturalistic approach sometimes, as did some of the module writers (things like orc wives and babies and the moral paradoxes of slaughtering them). IIRC, in Harnworld, monsters are pushed up from the underworld by an evil god. No moral paradoxes there. I tend to favor that approach. For the same reason, I keep alignment in my D&D, which runs along the law/chaos axis -- although PCs aren't "assigned" an alignment, fantastic creatures are almost always aligned with one side or another.
I will contemplate it on the tree of woe. I find it challenging to fully "sell" the concept of a mythic underworld to players, and I would love to. Any suggestions on how to help players suspend their disbelief?
I really appreciate your channel and your thoughts on this stuff. Funny to note that most of the Enlightenment thinkers were involved in the occult and supernatural experiments, a fact that the modern materialist refuses to admit.
I play my games to escape the real world and explore a new one. I don't connect them together and don't question where the goblins take a dump. The only time that will come into play if it adds to the adventure or story. I feel people are trying too hard to live in these fantasy worlds and not just visit.
Rpgs are not like writing fiction but more like a dream. It does have a theme, it does have meaning and symbolism, and it adheres to a shallow logic. But it's improvisational, artsy, intense and mysterious. Why to bother too much, only to burn out, when the details of the story will be forgotten in no time anyway? Play by candlelight, you will remember the outline and the strong emotions you felt, not the minutiae of why or how the dungeon works, but why you came there and how what happened there changed you!
Excellent video! Unfortunately, the GM needs to chose between “rational fantasy “ and “fantasy “ - there is a mythical magical underworld but I can’t climb a wall with rolling dice for failure. The DM had to be careful when to turn off and on the narrative versus the logical.
I think what you are describing is also somehow related to “canon” in comics, movies, TV series being seen as the same as “historical fact”. That somehow a particular Star Wars story or whatever can be dismissed *as a story* simply because it does not fit into the “facts” of a historical record. That somehow the sum total of all the stories adding up logically is more important than the individual story itself. I really think it’s all a symptom of the atrophy in suspension of disbelief. Which I think is tied directly to your point about materialism. Look at how people dismiss old movies because “the special effects are bad”. Or dismiss the experience of theater wholesale because of the artificiality of the environment. It’s sad.
There is a big push in modern culture to try and turn the bad guys into the heroes, and the good guys into the enemy. Picard did a great job at that, but its everywhere. As if we have to be so accommodating, so tolerant, so forgiving and empathic that the the most evil twisted character is now relatable. We saw it when 'superfans' were fawning over Sauron in the trailers for Rings of Poop. Its quite sickening, really. The moral decay so entrenched that our movies and literature is laughing at 'heroes'' and elevating the evil characters in their stead.
I agree, however I also love fantastic naturalism. Weird psuedo-naturalist plants, crystal, machines, etc that you find in the Myst games. Some peoples would call that realism, but I'm not sure.
That isn't naturalism. Naturalism doesn't mean nature-themed, it means functions as it does in nature. I.e. monsters require a coherent ecosystem to support them. Making nature mystical isn't naturalism, it is an overt rejection of naturalism by having nature behave in mystical rather than ecological ways.
Fantastic video😊 Personally I wonder if part of the reason why we struggle with evil races like orcs or demons is because, well, most people in the first world just don’t experience the things they represent anymore. Why would orcs be scary? We don’t get raided by barbariand, we don’t experience random and brutish violence on a regular basis. Why would demons be scary? We can just take pills or go to therapy to deal with the darkness inside ourselves. But then you have something like Slenderman who, when you get down to it, is just a pale guy in a suit. A man in a suit that feels nothing, is shaped like a human but exists only to obstruct and destroy. To harass you for days on end and slowly peel your life apart layer by layer until there is nothing left. Why? No reason. You don’t matter, you’re so insignificant you won’t even have the dignity of dying in a way that makes sense. You’re not a concern for it. Your suffering is incidental. It has a bigger goal, so massive and far reaching you could not even begin to comprehend it. Everything you love will die and there is nothing you can do about it and you aren’t even entitled to an answer for WHY this is happening. Nothing beyond, well, he’s Slenderman. He’s a man in a suit, with absolute power. That’s the demon of the modern world I think. If more of the old world brutalities were commonly experienced these days then yes, these classically evil fantasy races WOULD be seen as the purely evil monsters they were always meant to be. But, they aren’t, and I don’t know how the fuck you transplant slenderman or his descendants into a dnd campaign.
This is interesting. I want to preempt what i say below by stating outright that im genuinely in agreement with your points. What intrigues me however is that one could argue that even the notion of d&d and tabletop could well be considered symptoms of the enlightenment. What else is trying to simulate a fantasy world through math and rules other than an attempt at rationalizing the world? Not a criticism per se, but simply a point that occured to me. While i agree with your criticisms, it seems to me that the people embracing the mindset you speak on arent totally coming out of nowhere
Math is transcendental. It's rooted in metaphysics. So I don't see math as a problem. Math is logical and to me, shows that logic and God designed the world. So in a fantasy game where the gods are real, that's fine to me. Thanks for the comment, though. That's interesting to think about.
I have had lengthy arguments with people who kept making assertions about fantasy races and creatures regarding genetics and evolution, etc. I would say what makes you think genetics and evolution work the same or even exist? Fantasy worlds have imminent gods, who are very real, and who could have fashioned creatures in their current form, and they couldn't seem to get their heads around the idea.
Yes... that's why I like Fantasy and avoid Sci-Fi. I don't want the experience to be ONLY about the established understanding of whatever field, especially sciences. Needing to go through that as a gatekeeper for every experience makes it dry at best. I think it's basically Ego as filter of conceptualization... of imagination.
Leftists are ultimately being pushed by something which doesn't believe in any mythology.. yes, I think so. It's the exclusion of any view, any value, any morality, any culture, other than the authority. It's not all so extreme in all people, but what is pushing that force in the world and centralizing it... the politics of it I guess... is.
I think it could be pretty fairly argued that Gygax's ecologies could still be used to craft mythologies. It's been some time since I've read his rule for it, but I always got the impression that, due to his war-gamer lens, the characters were placed first, and then a mythology was what grew out of that. EX: Goblins in the same cave as a Troll The ecology could well be a big brute bullies the weak and cowardly goblins, showing a bigger picture of might making right. Or else the ecology could have the goblins having the troll enslaved, which changes the overarching dynamic of lots of small things weighing down what would otherwise be unstoppable. Granted, no, I'm not for Gygax worship either, just a thought.
@@TheBasicExpert They’re one of my favorites. You might like Adagio. French band. Very similar but less albums. (EG song - R'lyeh the Dead). Think of them like a bonus Symphony X.
I think you took too long. You explained each point 3-4 times over, back to back. I also liked your video, some neat ideas here. Wargaming, and its fascination with exact measurements, timetables and rules also really affects the public perception of rpg's. Would be interested to see a video on Diagetic Advancement in RPG's.
That's just my style and I don't really plan on changing it. I try to write scripts and they come off as inauthentic. So I do stream of consciousness as I said at the start. Glad you seemed to enjoy it otherwise.
I 100% agree with the video sentiment, but forgotten realms setting for example takes this to the extreme to a bad point. Nothing in forgotten realm makes sense and anything can happen. It is all mythical and it is all not mythical because everything is mythical. Myth comes from when you break the rules of the world, something unexplained that people experience. Myths typically are pretty grounded in reality when you actually read the original stories. In order to even have myth you need a logical world. Not realistic, but logical. If it's a common occurrence it is no longer mythical, it is common. If it is explainable its not mythical. I think one easy way to incorporate myth or making something mythical into an actual campaign is having players encounter things that are literally not explainable. If you want to make a mythical world, sometimes you have to literally just tell myths that players will simply never encounter. Often DM will only drop information for a use.
@@TheBasicExpert I am agreeing with you in that you can easily have myths and interact with mythical beings fit into the world. My point is that if the surrounding world does not at least feel like a real world, then things that are mythical will infact not feel mythical.
I don't think being philosophically materialistic plays the part proposed here at all. The issue is with people that cannot seperate fantasy from reality. They cannot and will not understand myths and will only interpret such things as literal or figurative truths. Inevitably, they interpret myths to be about them personally and therefore see any evils within mythology as direct attacks on their person. This isn't a quality of materialism, it's a consequence of stupidity.
@@crimzongaming5470 I think they cannot separate fantasy from reality because they are materialists. My point is that something like Orcs cannot represent a metaphysical concept because they deny those, but clearly, orcs map to something so maybe it's "people group whatever." orcs as an example here.
@TheBasicExpert i think the last part there is spot on, there's people who map a fictional monster onto real groups of people, people who, to their perspective, embody those qualities. It's not without irony that they label people that don't conform to their belief as racists. Yet materialism, philosophically, is grounded in that which is real and tangible. This doesn't mean that fantastic, arcane worlds become representative of actual worlds and people. At most, they could be interpreted as a "bougie" distraction (or pacification).
@crimzongaming5470 well I'm not a philosophy channel but materialism has deep epistemic problems with its presupps (like accounting for universals without getting circular). My point is that the universals or ideas that are abstract are ignored because those have no place in the empirical view. So that's why they map onto real people and places, then get offended.
I agree that approaching our fantasy worlds are more fun if we approach them from a more mythological perspective, but there is a good reason why people get uncomfortable with some of the typography of older fantasy. I don’t think Tolkien was himself particularly racist but he was a man of his time and the language he had to describe his orcs as monsters was fairly racialized. He referred to them mostly as “mongoloid”. I think a mature person can approach Tolkien and Howard and see both how these stories have the hang ups of their times and what else they can offer, and we can do our best to craft stories without the harmful components of those older stories.
I think another aspect is the inability to admit the existence of “evil.” Especially in one’s self. And we as fallen creatures, our own sins (evil) requires a savior.
Hmmm.... naturalistic dungeons are a good thing, where living denizens are concerned. Surely, wondering how the orcs get fresh water or where they store their food or how a cavern-dwelling owlbear hunts is not such an arduous strain on your creativity. I would say those things are further opportunities for creating interesting encounters and story arcs. But that aside, there are plenty of commonly-used devices for circumventing the need for dungeon ecology, per se. Undead and constructs can be programmed and placed to evoke any kind of wild funhouse you can imagine, and magic is, after all, tailored for the same purposes. As are the different planes of existence. Perhaps it is you who is over-thinking this. Maybe your presentation in these matters is lacking. Case in point: I've been running a modern game set in the world of Silent Hill on and off over the better part of two decades. My players love it. They don't ask for explanations on the "ecology" of what they are encountering, because Silent Hill is the world of the id. The only expectation they have, is that the form of the monsters and puzzles and tests, and the world itself, is in some way a reflection of the damaged psyche of their characters. Now, how is that relevant here (aside from the obviousness of the setting)? Well, once my regulars were immersed in that kind of fluid, sometimes counterintuitive environment, they learned both that not everything needs to immediately make practical sense, but that they would be rewarded if they were patient and inquisitive. This translated into other settings. They still might occasionally wonder about things like ecology, but the discussion is much more open and much more magically or supernaturally centered. Thus, my advice: present players with the extreme, and immerse them in it. Get them used to it. Acquaint them with the unexplainable. Make it the point - BUT - justify it with high stakes and some kind of meaning. I hate to use the word in this sense, but make it "reasonable" if only in some abstract way. Stories need logic, some kind of internal logic, whether we like that or not.
Not sure what to make of this comment. It isn't even as if J Peterson is particularly profound. He teaches Liberal Education 101 from an earlier age. It is depressing to me that people get excited by his stuff. I would suggest that people read more books.
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Appreciate the shoutout! This was definitely something I was considering including in the video at first but ultimately dropped because I wasn't entirely sure the source of this mentality change. Somewhere along the line though people completely dropped the fantastical and wholly embraced realism as a means of justifying their fantasy settings. I had thought that maybe it started with Tolkein although unintentional on his part, just due to the large amount of lore material. That people emulated and wanted that depth but missed the point of it in many ways. I like the idea that it all stems from The Enlightenment. You even see it in Sci-Fi, anytime a film comes out that does a little work to explain the science it's embraced and lauded even though the math or science is ultimately still wrong. Meanwhile a movie will come out and handwave that stuff for the sake of not getting lost in the details and people will crap all over it as if they know the real scientific explanation themselves, completely moronic.
Nice vid!
I have a very low view of the Enlightenment era and what it produced. For me, it's a clear demarcation where we went from being able to learn from myths to having to explain them away and thus missing the point of them. I think Tolkien contributed but it's like the people looking at what he did could not understand what they were looking at. He embraced the myth. There is still mystery and awe and transcendence. What materialists who followed after saw was a formula for "world-building," and it's why everything is just a shadow of Tolkien. They don't respect the myth so they don't understand what the worldbuilding is even for in the first place. Thanks for your video though. It got me thinking on this. I've been meditating on it for a while.
I agree. The modern imagination is impoverished and can't see anything other than the modern world.
The imagination is kinda like a muscle. It needs to be both exercised from being used and fed the right stuff to build it up, like good literature
It's no good at depicting modern world either. At least, anything outside a small and very sheltered worldview.
I can imagine things just fine.
Thanks for playing.
@crimzongaming5470 why do you think that the comment is about you? Thanks for wasting my time with entitled stupidity.
@crimzongaming5470 if this comment doesn't apply to you then why are you responding to it? And I would believe more in your powers of imagination if you didn't use trite, rote phrases in an attempt to be funny.
This is why I love Hyperborea 3e. The setting is so bizarre, strange, dark, and brutal. The World is flat and dying. The waters forever flowing over its edge as it’s drowned in the light of a massive dying red sun. It feels very immersive because you can’t always use reason or logic for all the fantastic unknown elements of Hyperborea. It fills the world with mystery and wonder. Adventure can not exist without the element of the unknown. Dungeons should be a place where time, perception, and mental fortitude are pushed,tested, even warped.
I feel sorry for people playing D&D wanting to know exact ecology of a dungeon. Where do the orcs crap? Don’t worry about it-you’ve warped through a small portal, and your deceased Cleric has come back as a horrible undead abomination, his flesh is half eaten away and his bones are glowing an eerie green as he shambles after you…
Hyperborea is awesome.
I do sort of miss the old name. It was really long but sounded great to say outloud
This is right. There's a great piece on Mere Orthodoxy called "The Nightmare Before Christmas Is About Disenchantment" that touches on these themes. Those stuck in the immanent frame are like Jack Skellington, drawn to Christmas without the ability to understand it.
I think this is spot on.
I think the Underworld as a concept for RPGs is perfect as I've incorporated it into my own RPG I'm writing. Every 'dungeon', 'subterranean ruin' and 'cave' touches The Underworld without necessarily BEING The Underworld (which I have as 1 of the 9 Worlds inspired by Norse Myth). That means its a malevolent force that will, over time, 'reset' dungeons after a fashion (even if it takes dozens to hundreds of years). And naturally, such locations are beacons for monsters, some more 'mundane' like Bandits, Orks and so forth. Others, well, they attract more exotic and terrifying monsters to their locations.
Orcs aren't people, they are monsters.
Maybe we should replace them with xenomorphs, those are somehow not considered a political statement.
@nikolaybelousov1070 xeno means other, don't it? Gasp!
@@nikolaybelousov1070...yet
The way I see it, trying for a purist OD&D perspective, the 3 alignments line up with the 3 types of environments: Law - Neutrality - Chaos and Polis - Wilderness - Underworld. In the Polis, order prevails except in exceptional cases. Magic may be restricted and religion and moral hierarchy hold sway.
In the Underworld, Chaos prevails and there is no rule but might. Rather than holding sway, in this place men are prey and man’s logic is subverted or inverted. The Wilderness is in between, almost a battleground between Law and Chaos (you’ll find some of each), to the regret of the native creatures who would rather abstain.
I think people have trouble getting to this because in the present age of mechanized wickedness, they have begun to believe that Logos comes from man’s mind, rather than from the realm of the Divine.
Law and chaos come from Moorcocks multiverse. Everything else simple doesn't understand the forces they represent
@@elgatochurro Moorcock didn't create the idea of Law versus Chaos. This is just another variation of Good versus Evil or Yin and Yang type dialectics. He merely popularized it in a fictional mythology. He did it well for sure though.
@@elgatochurro I'm pretty sure it comes from Mesopotamia. But even if Gary cribbed the terminology from MM directly that doesn't mean that if you play OD&D, you're playing in the Eternal Champion universe. I think that the intent is more basic and archetypal than that. Just like if you include halflings, you're not necessarily fighting Sauron.
@aaronsomerville2124 I'm saying it's heavily HEAVILY inspired by it, from vecnas hand and eye to other magical items to the metaphysical of the world (law and chaos), other planes with different properties.
Tolkien wasn't the only one with halflings, Moonglum is a short fellow too
@elgatochurro That's fair. I'm a fan if his Elric series. I will say for strictly Elric or Elric style stories I prefer the old Stormbringer game.
Talking of fungi, I kind of like the idea of the underworld acting like a mycelium, randomly growing new hyphae in the form of tunnels and chambers. With that in mind, I always imagined the cult of Gygax’s demon fungus goddess Zuggtmoy being a far more important thing in the underworld than the written lore has made her.
Totally stealing this. Not necessarily the mushroom part, but dungeons being these growing invasive inhuman structures born of primordial chaos itself to gnaw onto the dull orderly bedrock of the world.
Killing not just our games, but society and culture
Well said. Sometimes a dungeon is just a dungeon, but it’s not JUST a dungeon. It’s a dark terrible place where one slays dragons. Kobold poop is incidental at best.
One thing I loved about Planescape was its willingness to embrace mindbending logical impossibility.
Sigil is a torus atop an infinitely tall spire. "How?" You aren't capable of rationalizing how. If the understanding of all existence could be so easily reduced to the scientific method, it'd be a very dull place to be.
In Ars Magica, Demons are capital E evil and its really refreshing to have bad guys who want to do bad things without always dealing with nuance. I like nuance and having bad guys who feel real is fun but having bad guys being bad guys is also fun.
Jacob frank
Egoism is the death of culture. In RPG terms, it's the reason for the rise of the cringeworthy "self-insert" character. The 9-page backstory. The "RPG as therapy session." Safety tools. Everything that sucks enchantment out of fantasy. And yes, the enlightenment is the key. "No gods, no kings, only man?" Isn't that the quote from Bioshock? Without a lack of transcendental virtues and a mythological foundation, fantasy fails and by extension, fantasy games fail.
Out of curiosity, how does Andrew Ryan's anti-authoritarian maxim apply to this?
@@All4Tanuki I think it's out of confusion, when we take "no gods" as no spirituality or higher meaning, and "no kings" as no order nor nobility of character. In the ideology of monarchy, the king and the nobility are inherently better people than anyone else and that's why god choose them to rule. In fighting human authoritarianism, some people/ideologies throw the baby with the bath water and deny the existence of spirituality, morality, and heroism themselves. Materialism killed idealism essentially.
Great Point!
I stopt doing ecology a long Time ago because it made no fun.
For example, in my weekly OSE Game the players vary a bit. So the Party just adjustst within the Dungeon.
If a ne chatacter need to join, they just join. Be it the party finds the chatacter in the next room, or he crawls out of the Monster just slain, be behind a wall that just crumbled or appear in a poof of smoke.
I decided to stop explaining everything because we all know we are playing a Game.
Sorry for the spelling, im fighting a loosing battle against german autocorrect on my Phone.
I think it's essential to the philosophy of the game to have the conceit that the dungeon (the underworld) is a supernatural place. That said, verisimilitude (true dungeon ecology) shouldn't be ignored just for the sake of having a supernatural world.
There's got to be a reasonable balance. The mythical elements of the underworld don't hit quite the same when verisimilitude is totally thrown out the window...You need juxtaposition
Excellent points and despite being delivered more "stream-of-consciousness" it was very coherent and structured.
Good and Evil are a strong part of what makes Sword & Sorcery TTRPGs so alluring. The difference between Good and Evil could not be more stark!
Great vid man. There is so much that needs to be said on this topic still. Fantasy is not a genre that embraces materialism, sci-fi is.
Great video. Glad somebody is speaking about this kind of thing.
I don't know if I agree with you about it being difficult to synthesize a morality via materialism, but you're on the money when it comes to deriving metaphysical and abstract truths from fantasy and tabletop games.
Man this video is awesome really like your take on this!
Excellent thoughts all around. I've always been fascinated with the Enlightenment, and eventually ended up getting my Degree in Philosophy in University, and over the years I've seen how that thought space has 'infected' my game design. I actively have to fight my tendency to rationalize. It's tough, but great fun when achieved...
It's hard. It's presuppositions are in all of us now.
@@TheBasicExpert Agreed. To tell the truth, to an extent I appreciate it to an extent. I find that having to fight that tendency makes me keep in mind the need to add the fantastical element.
One thing that helps is random tables, or dice in general. Rationality and knowledge are a form of control. The players may strive for this control (and it's for the best, really - it's fair to have knowledge if they earn it), but the DM is cursed to be all-knowing (thus, all-rational). The simplest cure is introducing a third entity, so that you, as a DM, are no longer in possession of all knowledge of the world.
You are dead right. This was a wonderful discussion - subscribed!
As someone who is a bit of a lefty one of the places where I feel like the left has failed is by completely embracing atheism and hardcore rational scientific materialism. It's why the left can't make good art anymore, they've been systematically pushing mystic minded artistic kooks like me out.
Really with you here. Michael Moorcock and RE Howard rule and are huge influences on how I run my games. Sword and Sorcery demonstrates how fantasy can be a vital and poetic expression, fully engaged with the irrational nature of the human experience.
Not all atheists are lefty. But I generally agree with your point.
@@NinjaRunningWild yea it's not a monopoly by any means
This was a great video. Really good food for thought for my own session and campaign planning. If a fantasy game or novel becomes too materialistic, it's more medieval science fiction. I LOVE science fiction, but fantasy should have a different flavor.
I think you hit the nail in the head on this one. It's not that reason is not important, but when it's taken to extreme it kills the mystery and trill. Also, this is why it was easier to enjoy both rpgs and fantasy in general as teenagers than adults. Do you find your dreams fun? Try questioning everything in it, you just waste four hours of sleep instead of enjoying your journey!
This discussion just got you a subscriber.
I just do what I think is cool, honestly. Sometimes a cavern or ancient ruin does lead to a wholly unnatural mythical place, sometimes it's just a cave or long abandoned structure. There's room for both in any game, I believe.
I'm not saying it always has to be mythical. I've had people lately tell me that it is always bad to make it mythical though.
Well said and correct.
Is that Margaret of Antioch I see?
I recently started reading Robert Howards Conan stories for the first time. That and Seven Voyages of Zylarthen have really inspired me to let some of the naturalism go and just embrace the Sword and Sorcery vibes.
The icon is St. Marina the Demon Slayer.
And yeah, embrace those bizarre vibes of pulp, myth, sword and sorcery.
@@TheBasicExpert @etheretherether According to wikipedia, she is the same saint. In Roman and Anglican rites, she is commemorated on July 20 and in the EO, on July 30.
You are correct; I forgot she is called Margaret, too.
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands cycle of stories are a good source of those weird myth vibes as well.
Very interesting video, in my own games I like to have a basic "rational" (if that's even the right word) framework (gravity, etc) but then have a mythological layer over the top of it. Generally in my games, the closer you are to civilisation or safety the more things work like or works, and the further away you get into the wilderness or unexplored land, the more things become fantastic, mythical and dangerous.
Re : Your video - I’m of the mindset that good fantasy & sci-fi don’t explain everything. They leave room for the partaker’s imagination to fill in the gaps. It’s how myth was created to begin with. There needs to be some framework that’s grounded enough to give plausibility to the player or viewer, but enough unexplained to draw them into the world to attempt to explain the non-obvious. It’s what helps them be invested in what they’re experiencing.
Having _everything_ be literal, to your point, ruins the sense of wonder. And that sense of wonder (to reiterate above) drives the players & the story. Some of my fondest game sessions, looking back, are where there was a sense of the real combined with a sense of the fantastical. What wasn’t explained & was taken for granted was the X factor; that “cool factor” that made it memorable. Because I still can’t explain it. But I could imagine.
---I agree Gygax should Not be worshiped but one gets the sense He did both. Creating Dungeons that make logical sense but early on concepts that would be dubbed the " Fun house "dungeon is present. I can see many DM's doing both depending on what the structure is meant for in the game. An Evil King's castle dungeon vs a Mythic Dungeon slowly growing larger because of its connection to an Abyssal plane of existence or something.
--- Was going to ask ::: Is it possible some reason the non-evil Evil races thing became more prevalent was 1st AD&D introducing Playable Half-Orcs then 2nd D&D introducing Humanoids ( Humanoids Handbook supplement ) and later 3.0 onwards More " Monster / races that were Playable - that increase in more Options for players for character creation???
I think you are definitely on to something with this theory. I've wondered about this staunch materialist world view getting in the way of fiction for a while now as it seems like people who can only see the world as a mechanistic framework can't properly suspend their disbelief should the world not fit into that box.
I think this is why the Warhammer universe breaks their brains so badly - the idea that chaos/evil is an objective force which exists and manifests as demons etc. The creatures of chaos are the embodiment of what we conceptually think of as evil.
I'm not philosopher either, but it appears to me that materialists can't understand how evil could be an objective fact in a world. Objectively, are dogs better than cats? Depends on who you ask? Is killing Objectively evil? Depends who you ask. That's the blind spot with materialism, you can't make objective statements about the morality (or any personal belief).
Mythology and fiction (TTRPG's, Movies, Games, Books) helps us to examine evil as something more concrete by associating it to a creature with consciousness that has a morality completely at odds with our own presupposed ideas. This gives us the opportunity to view and study it as a thing that can be known (not necessarily understood though) at takes a stance on what is good or evil.
But it requires us to identify a concrete morality to judge behavior by.
I think the materialist needs to believe that evil is a choice people make and not a force that drives us in weak moments to behave in terrible ways (why there has to be good Orks or Drow). If not, it means reason can't answer every question about existence for them at that maybe good and evil are prescribed elements of the reality we inhabit.
Either way, really enjoy your content, It's measured and grounded in you clearly having spent time thinking about the topics. Appreciate the content!
I appreciate the comment. I usually don't read the long ones due to time, but yours is really good, and I also agree with your assessment. If the thing doesn't fit in the materialistic box, it breaks their brain or they force it to fit in some haphazard way.
Atomic Punk 2240 is very good, bought the PDF recently. Haven't run it yet, but I did steal some monsters from it for a post-apocalyptic game I'm running using BRP.
When you excise religion and myth from your life, you have only the material to fill the void left by their absence.
False dichotomy. Imagination isn't from religion. Religion is _from imagination._ And myth is just dead religion.
Oh yeah? Where did your imagination come from?
The Enlightenment was the true dark ages. And we’re still in it!
pull me under pull me under pull me under I'm not afraid
I'll put my point up here first:
If you're too young or too dumb to understand that human beings need abstraction, myth, and a sense of the ineffable, you aren't going to get Ttrpgs.
You can learn about those things from religion, art, music, stories and even games if they are presented well.
People need to focus on the physical and material for studying and understanding many things, from the physical conditions of our lives, our cultural circumstances and systems of human organization and conflict, building and engineering, and all things animal, vegetable, and mineral.
That said, we still don't understand human thought, mind, and really the origins of them. Not that we shouldn't try, but this is one reason we need art and abstraction.
Additionally if you don't know how people deal with ideals, emotions, and religion, (both their own and with others), you will not succeed in any field studying humans or our activities.
We need Art(and music!). We need metaphor and abstraction, we need ideals(as long as they don't hold us hostage) and we need stories. These things are necessary for human beings, regardless of their religious status.
Nice!
Excellent video. Gygax did take a naturalistic approach sometimes, as did some of the module writers (things like orc wives and babies and the moral paradoxes of slaughtering them). IIRC, in Harnworld, monsters are pushed up from the underworld by an evil god. No moral paradoxes there. I tend to favor that approach. For the same reason, I keep alignment in my D&D, which runs along the law/chaos axis -- although PCs aren't "assigned" an alignment, fantastic creatures are almost always aligned with one side or another.
I will contemplate it on the tree of woe. I find it challenging to fully "sell" the concept of a mythic underworld to players, and I would love to. Any suggestions on how to help players suspend their disbelief?
Read appendix N and throw your players into it. Put weird stuff in the dungeon. A strange ritual room. An odd statue, etc..
I really appreciate your channel and your thoughts on this stuff.
Funny to note that most of the Enlightenment thinkers were involved in the occult and supernatural experiments, a fact that the modern materialist refuses to admit.
This is also true. I forgot about that actually myself!
I play my games to escape the real world and explore a new one. I don't connect them together and don't question where the goblins take a dump. The only time that will come into play if it adds to the adventure or story. I feel people are trying too hard to live in these fantasy worlds and not just visit.
I am honestly struggling with this myself. I can't nail down a magic system because I keep trying to explain it.
You have to just put some questions aside and let it be I think.
Rpgs are not like writing fiction but more like a dream. It does have a theme, it does have meaning and symbolism, and it adheres to a shallow logic. But it's improvisational, artsy, intense and mysterious. Why to bother too much, only to burn out, when the details of the story will be forgotten in no time anyway? Play by candlelight, you will remember the outline and the strong emotions you felt, not the minutiae of why or how the dungeon works, but why you came there and how what happened there changed you!
What do the orcs in the dungeon eat? Mostly first level adventurers.
Excellent video! Unfortunately, the GM needs to chose between “rational fantasy “ and “fantasy “ - there is a mythical magical underworld but I can’t climb a wall with rolling dice for failure. The DM had to be careful when to turn off and on the narrative versus the logical.
I don't run my games that way. But I run a lot of 0e where there is no thief. Regardless, I roll in public so there is no room to fudge.
I think what you are describing is also somehow related to “canon” in comics, movies, TV series being seen as the same as “historical fact”.
That somehow a particular Star Wars story or whatever can be dismissed *as a story* simply because it does not fit into the “facts” of a historical record. That somehow the sum total of all the stories adding up logically is more important than the individual story itself.
I really think it’s all a symptom of the atrophy in suspension of disbelief. Which I think is tied directly to your point about materialism.
Look at how people dismiss old movies because “the special effects are bad”. Or dismiss the experience of theater wholesale because of the artificiality of the environment.
It’s sad.
@@douglashorton1368 yeah those are valid points I think.
There is a big push in modern culture to try and turn the bad guys into the heroes, and the good guys into the enemy. Picard did a great job at that, but its everywhere. As if we have to be so accommodating, so tolerant, so forgiving and empathic that the the most evil twisted character is now relatable. We saw it when 'superfans' were fawning over Sauron in the trailers for Rings of Poop. Its quite sickening, really. The moral decay so entrenched that our movies and literature is laughing at 'heroes'' and elevating the evil characters in their stead.
Yeah personally I'm tired of sympathetic villains. Make villains evil again. Bring back heroic stories and adventure.
I agree, however I also love fantastic naturalism. Weird psuedo-naturalist plants, crystal, machines, etc that you find in the Myst games. Some peoples would call that realism, but I'm not sure.
That isn't naturalism. Naturalism doesn't mean nature-themed, it means functions as it does in nature. I.e. monsters require a coherent ecosystem to support them. Making nature mystical isn't naturalism, it is an overt rejection of naturalism by having nature behave in mystical rather than ecological ways.
Fantastic video😊
Personally I wonder if part of the reason why we struggle with evil races like orcs or demons is because, well, most people in the first world just don’t experience the things they represent anymore. Why would orcs be scary? We don’t get raided by barbariand, we don’t experience random and brutish violence on a regular basis. Why would demons be scary? We can just take pills or go to therapy to deal with the darkness inside ourselves.
But then you have something like Slenderman who, when you get down to it, is just a pale guy in a suit. A man in a suit that feels nothing, is shaped like a human but exists only to obstruct and destroy. To harass you for days on end and slowly peel your life apart layer by layer until there is nothing left. Why? No reason. You don’t matter, you’re so insignificant you won’t even have the dignity of dying in a way that makes sense. You’re not a concern for it. Your suffering is incidental. It has a bigger goal, so massive and far reaching you could not even begin to comprehend it. Everything you love will die and there is nothing you can do about it and you aren’t even entitled to an answer for WHY this is happening. Nothing beyond, well, he’s Slenderman. He’s a man in a suit, with absolute power.
That’s the demon of the modern world I think. If more of the old world brutalities were commonly experienced these days then yes, these classically evil fantasy races WOULD be seen as the purely evil monsters they were always meant to be. But, they aren’t, and I don’t know how the fuck you transplant slenderman or his descendants into a dnd campaign.
This is interesting. I want to preempt what i say below by stating outright that im genuinely in agreement with your points. What intrigues me however is that one could argue that even the notion of d&d and tabletop could well be considered symptoms of the enlightenment. What else is trying to simulate a fantasy world through math and rules other than an attempt at rationalizing the world? Not a criticism per se, but simply a point that occured to me. While i agree with your criticisms, it seems to me that the people embracing the mindset you speak on arent totally coming out of nowhere
Math is transcendental. It's rooted in metaphysics. So I don't see math as a problem. Math is logical and to me, shows that logic and God designed the world. So in a fantasy game where the gods are real, that's fine to me. Thanks for the comment, though. That's interesting to think about.
I have had lengthy arguments with people who kept making assertions about fantasy races and creatures regarding genetics and evolution, etc. I would say what makes you think genetics and evolution work the same or even exist? Fantasy worlds have imminent gods, who are very real, and who could have fashioned creatures in their current form, and they couldn't seem to get their heads around the idea.
Why do the same people who say the game rules are arbitrary also demand rational coherence in their fantasy worlds?
Definitely agree but it is useful if occasionally you have an exception that proves the rule for evil races. Like St. Christopher.
And it's okay that no one is there to reset all of the traps through the generations....
@@Grambo58 oh wow you got me. My whole position is undone. I had not considered this!
@@TheBasicExpert I'm agreeing with you!😀
Yes... that's why I like Fantasy and avoid Sci-Fi. I don't want the experience to be ONLY about the established understanding of whatever field, especially sciences. Needing to go through that as a gatekeeper for every experience makes it dry at best. I think it's basically Ego as filter of conceptualization... of imagination.
Leftists are ultimately being pushed by something which doesn't believe in any mythology.. yes, I think so. It's the exclusion of any view, any value, any morality, any culture, other than the authority. It's not all so extreme in all people, but what is pushing that force in the world and centralizing it... the politics of it I guess... is.
I think it could be pretty fairly argued that Gygax's ecologies could still be used to craft mythologies. It's been some time since I've read his rule for it, but I always got the impression that, due to his war-gamer lens, the characters were placed first, and then a mythology was what grew out of that.
EX: Goblins in the same cave as a Troll The ecology could well be a big brute bullies the weak and cowardly goblins, showing a bigger picture of might making right. Or else the ecology could have the goblins having the troll enslaved, which changes the overarching dynamic of lots of small things weighing down what would otherwise be unstoppable.
Granted, no, I'm not for Gygax worship either, just a thought.
@@r.downgrade5836 Gary didn't go as far as many do now for sure. I think it was a bit of a slippery slope though.
@@TheBasicExpert Fair enough.
Dream Theater! 🤘 Do you like Symphony X?
Symphony X is great!
@@TheBasicExpert They’re one of my favorites. You might like Adagio. French band. Very similar but less albums. (EG song - R'lyeh the Dead). Think of them like a bonus Symphony X.
I think you took too long. You explained each point 3-4 times over, back to back.
I also liked your video, some neat ideas here.
Wargaming, and its fascination with exact measurements, timetables and rules also really affects the public perception of rpg's.
Would be interested to see a video on Diagetic Advancement in RPG's.
That's just my style and I don't really plan on changing it. I try to write scripts and they come off as inauthentic. So I do stream of consciousness as I said at the start. Glad you seemed to enjoy it otherwise.
@TheBasicExpert Fair Play
And Merry Christmas!
I 100% agree with the video sentiment, but forgotten realms setting for example takes this to the extreme to a bad point. Nothing in forgotten realm makes sense and anything can happen. It is all mythical and it is all not mythical because everything is mythical.
Myth comes from when you break the rules of the world, something unexplained that people experience. Myths typically are pretty grounded in reality when you actually read the original stories. In order to even have myth you need a logical world. Not realistic, but logical. If it's a common occurrence it is no longer mythical, it is common. If it is explainable its not mythical.
I think one easy way to incorporate myth or making something mythical into an actual campaign is having players encounter things that are literally not explainable. If you want to make a mythical world, sometimes you have to literally just tell myths that players will simply never encounter. Often DM will only drop information for a use.
I think just because it's done poorly doesn't mean the concept on a general level won't work. I'm not an FR fan myself.
@@TheBasicExpert I am agreeing with you in that you can easily have myths and interact with mythical beings fit into the world. My point is that if the surrounding world does not at least feel like a real world, then things that are mythical will infact not feel mythical.
You sound very Catholic in philosophy just like Tolkien 😊
@@reznet2 we have been attending an eastern orthodox church for a while.
I don't think being philosophically materialistic plays the part proposed here at all.
The issue is with people that cannot seperate fantasy from reality. They cannot and will not understand myths and will only interpret such things as literal or figurative truths. Inevitably, they interpret myths to be about them personally and therefore see any evils within mythology as direct attacks on their person.
This isn't a quality of materialism, it's a consequence of stupidity.
@@crimzongaming5470 I think they cannot separate fantasy from reality because they are materialists. My point is that something like Orcs cannot represent a metaphysical concept because they deny those, but clearly, orcs map to something so maybe it's "people group whatever." orcs as an example here.
@TheBasicExpert i think the last part there is spot on, there's people who map a fictional monster onto real groups of people, people who, to their perspective, embody those qualities.
It's not without irony that they label people that don't conform to their belief as racists.
Yet materialism, philosophically, is grounded in that which is real and tangible. This doesn't mean that fantastic, arcane worlds become representative of actual worlds and people. At most, they could be interpreted as a "bougie" distraction (or pacification).
@crimzongaming5470 well I'm not a philosophy channel but materialism has deep epistemic problems with its presupps (like accounting for universals without getting circular).
My point is that the universals or ideas that are abstract are ignored because those have no place in the empirical view. So that's why they map onto real people and places, then get offended.
I agree that approaching our fantasy worlds are more fun if we approach them from a more mythological perspective, but there is a good reason why people get uncomfortable with some of the typography of older fantasy. I don’t think Tolkien was himself particularly racist but he was a man of his time and the language he had to describe his orcs as monsters was fairly racialized. He referred to them mostly as “mongoloid”. I think a mature person can approach Tolkien and Howard and see both how these stories have the hang ups of their times and what else they can offer, and we can do our best to craft stories without the harmful components of those older stories.
I think another aspect is the inability to admit the existence of “evil.” Especially in one’s self. And we as fallen creatures, our own sins (evil) requires a savior.
Hmmm.... naturalistic dungeons are a good thing, where living denizens are concerned. Surely, wondering how the orcs get fresh water or where they store their food or how a cavern-dwelling owlbear hunts is not such an arduous strain on your creativity. I would say those things are further opportunities for creating interesting encounters and story arcs. But that aside, there are plenty of commonly-used devices for circumventing the need for dungeon ecology, per se. Undead and constructs can be programmed and placed to evoke any kind of wild funhouse you can imagine, and magic is, after all, tailored for the same purposes. As are the different planes of existence. Perhaps it is you who is over-thinking this. Maybe your presentation in these matters is lacking.
Case in point: I've been running a modern game set in the world of Silent Hill on and off over the better part of two decades. My players love it. They don't ask for explanations on the "ecology" of what they are encountering, because Silent Hill is the world of the id. The only expectation they have, is that the form of the monsters and puzzles and tests, and the world itself, is in some way a reflection of the damaged psyche of their characters. Now, how is that relevant here (aside from the obviousness of the setting)? Well, once my regulars were immersed in that kind of fluid, sometimes counterintuitive environment, they learned both that not everything needs to immediately make practical sense, but that they would be rewarded if they were patient and inquisitive. This translated into other settings. They still might occasionally wonder about things like ecology, but the discussion is much more open and much more magically or supernaturally centered.
Thus, my advice: present players with the extreme, and immerse them in it. Get them used to it. Acquaint them with the unexplainable. Make it the point - BUT - justify it with high stakes and some kind of meaning. I hate to use the word in this sense, but make it "reasonable" if only in some abstract way. Stories need logic, some kind of internal logic, whether we like that or not.
This is some J Peterson stuff man. Hard pass.
Ok. Have you considered cleaning your room?
@garretpatrick6884
Wash your penis
Do you even like fantasy?
@@TheBasicExpert 🤣 Hail lobster?
Not sure what to make of this comment. It isn't even as if J Peterson is particularly profound. He teaches Liberal Education 101 from an earlier age. It is depressing to me that people get excited by his stuff. I would suggest that people read more books.