Nerdy? Moi?
Posted by Joshua on Apr 21, 2010
Out-RAGE-e-ous Accents
Posted by Joshua on Oct 30, 2009
Here’s a comment I left on an RPG Blog II post about Dwarves with Scottish Accents:
eh, it’s amusing and it passes the test for character accents: it’s easy enough for amateurs to produce recognizably. It matters not at all whether it’s authentic, only that the audience can recognize it. The fact that people know it’s inauthentic may actually be a feature: people who are much too self-conscious to attempt an accent where they might be judged against the real world seem to be comfortable with doing the over-the-top parody accents: och aye Scottish, oh I say English, ve haff vays German, I shall taunt you a second time French, bork-bork-bork Swedish, keel moose and squirrel Russian, arrr me hearties Pirate, fur shur rilly Valley Girl…
I know our group does a lot of silly voices, for which we mostly have Rachel and her Sister Theresa to blame. I know that in addition to the ones I mentioned above Doug sometimes does Monty Burns: eeeexcellent, complete with finger steepling gestures, and a kind of well, shoot iffen that don’t beat all Hick. What ones am I missing? There are a bunch of bad celebrity voices that I do, but I’m not sure whether they count….
Which Fantasy Writer Am I?
Posted by Joshua on May 28, 2009
Interesting. Not the writer I like best or identify with most, but not bad. I like all of Tolkien, Lovecraft and even Lewis better than I do Moorcock, and I loathe Miéville…but my fictional universes are probably a lot more like Moorcock than any of those three.
Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?…
Michael Moorcock (b. 1939)
11 High-Brow, 3 Violent, -5 Experimental and 31 Cynical!
Michael Moorcock is one of the most influential fantasy writers of all times, his impact rivalling that of Tolkien’s. Perhaps China Miéville described it best when he said: “I think we are all post-Moorcock.” Apart from being the editor of New Worlds twice in the 60s and 70s, thereby being instrumental in bringing on the so-called “new wave” of science fiction which changed all fantastic literature forever, Moorcock’s own work has been an inspiration to more recent writers. He is also known for not hiding or blunting his views on fiction which he regards as inferior, a trait which has lead him to apply harsh criticism on authors such as J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis an H P Lovecraft.
His most popular work are the Elric books. Elric was originally conceived as a sort of critical comment to or even parody of R E Howard’s Conan, but the character and his world soon grew to form a tragic and somewhat fatalistic drama. Elric’s world is, in turn, only a small part of the huge Multiverse, a set of stories from all sorts of worlds (including our own) which is forever locked in a struggle between the two powers of Law and Chaos. Whenever one of these powers is threatening to become too powerful, an incarnation of the Eternal Champion, a group of warriors possessing the same spirit, is forced to fight to maintain the delicate balance between the two. Moorcock has worked several of his heroes into this cycle of books, including Hawkmoon, Corum and, of course, Elric.
Moorcock’s stories are often stories about warriors, however reluctant they may be, and are usually explicitly violent, even if the purpose of all the hacking and slashing is to free humans and other beings from oppression and, ultimately, fear. There is little happiness, though, for those who are forced to do the fighting and all they can hope for is a short time of respite, sometimes in the town of Tanelorn, the only place in the multiverse that the eternal struggle between Law and Chaos can’t reach.
It should also be mentioned that, even though Moorcock has done quite some experimenting in his days, it can’t be ignored that a major part of his books are traditional adventure stories that become more than that by their inclusion into a grand vision. A little ironically , perhaps, for an author who has criticized the “world-building school” of fantasy, Moorcock achieves much of his popularity through building, if not a world, a world vision.
You are also a lot like China Miéville
If you want something more gentle, try Ursula K le Guin
If you’d like a challenge, try your exact opposite, Katharine Kerr
Your score
This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetic, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you’re at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn’t mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.
High-Brow vs. Low-Brow
You received 11 points, making you more High-Brow than Low-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, rather than the best-selling kind. At their best, high-brows are cultured, able to appreciate the finer nuances of literature and not content with simplifications. At their worst they are, well, snobs.
Violent vs. Peaceful
You received 3 points, making you more Violent than Peaceful. Please note that violent in this context does not mean that you, personally, are prone to violence. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you are, and you do, then you are violent as defined here. At their best, violent people are the heroes who don’t hesitate to stop the villain threatening innocents by means of a good kick. At their worst, they are the villains themselves.
Experimental vs. Traditional
You received -5 points, making you more Traditional than Experimental. Your position on this scale indicates if you’re more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, traditional people don’t change winning concepts, favouring storytelling over empty poses. At their worst, they are somewhat narrow-minded.
Cynical vs. Romantic
You received 31 points, making you more Cynical than Romantic. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you’ll find the sentence “you are also a lot like x” above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, cynical people are able to see through lies and spot crucial flaws in plans and schemes. At their worst, they are overly negative, bringing everybody else down.
Author image by Catriona Sparks from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Moorcock.jpg Click for license info.
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Humanoid Monsters of Nonesuch
Posted by Joshua on May 21, 2009
Here’s a sketch of the various humanoid monsters common to the Land of Nonesuch. The goal is to make them, not unique, but distinctive and recognizable…if they’re mooks, they’re not generic interchangeable mooks. On the other hand, I want to avoid the “in this world, Orcs are descended from flightless birds, and are the proud descendants of an ancient and cosmopolitan culture, more like feathery elves” that I’m sometimes prone to. I want them to be reminiscent of common fantasy and folklore, if slightly skew. Some of these have already made an appearance in the kids’ game.
- Orcs – magically evolved pigs (totally swiped from Grognardia’s Dwimmermount). Evil, comically greedy, quarrelsome, and easy to trick. The Three Stooges of humanoid monsters.
- Kobolds – magically evolved dogs. Neutral, generally traders and merchants in the dungeon economy (Rat on a Stick, anyone?), some actually live peacefully in some surface cities. Something along the lines of Nessie from Too Many Curses or the kobolds from Suikoden.
- Hobgoblins – mischievous house-sprites. I know that I just got done saying I didn’t want this to be another “well, in my world” setting, but folklore trumps Tolkien and D&D here. Good, although tricksy. Puck is a hobgoblin.
- Redcaps – these replace the D&D militaristic, organized, larger-sized goblin troopers. Evil, sadistic buggers who dye their caps in human blood. Iron boots, iron pikes, and faster than anybody can run away.
- Goblins - I’m really torn here. On the one hand, I have this vision of them as these nasty, deformed little mushroom men out of Goya that use human corpses for compost. On the other hand, I’m also attracted to the Labyrinth version of goblins (also one of the sources for the feel of this setting), with each one a unique Henson-esque critter. I could combine the two, I suppose, or have them both be true in different parts of the setting. Or I could split them into two different kinds of monsters and call one of them goblins and the other… I could call them wirry-cows, I suppose, which would be good folklore but be unintentionally silly to my players. Ooh. Bogeys would be a great name for the mushroom-type.
- Bugbears – more the creepy bear in the woods sort than a generic bogeyman. Definitely not an oversized Hobgoblin war-leader out of Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance.
- Trolls and Trollwives. These guys. The males are big and hairy, with huge noses and ears; the females are slight and beautiful. Trolls are one of the PC races in the setting, though you have to roll really well to qualify.
- Ogres and Giants – Haven’t really given a lot of thought to them yet. Probably straight out of the Book of Wierd.
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The Land of Nonesuch
Posted by Joshua on May 21, 2009
I’ve been working a bit on the setting for my game with the kids, which is also my backup game for the Bumblers, possibly a play-by-forum game in the future if I get my act together, and finally an example setting for the system (tentatively titled The Majyc System). So it needs a name, and possibly a hook. I’m a little leery of the “elevator-pitch” approach to game settings; too often they end up sounding like something out of They Fight Crime: “He’s an all-American white trash shaman haunted by an iconic dead American confidante She’s a beautiful antique-collecting femme fatale from a secret island of warrior women. They fight crime!“ On the other hand, there’s certainly something to be said for being able to succinctly state what the game is about, and give the players an expectation of the tone and kind of adventures they’ll be playing. And bog-standard dungeon bash doesn’t sound all that thrilling, even if you’re confident that playing it will be a blast.
For now, I’m calling it the Land of Nonesuch, and working on the premise that (unknown to the current crop of characters) they’re inhabiting a land described in a book of odd and somewhat macabre fairy tales called The Land of Nonesuch, by the mysterious George Jester. Both the book and the author appear both in our world, and in the land the book describes. My overall plan, if something so vague and inchoate can actually be called such, is that this setting will let me scratch several itches that I’ve had for quite a while now: running a game in a setting inspired by The Book of Weird, and by the Oz books; getting some use from various cast-off pieces of prior settings (such as the settings of the games with the Three Paladinos, and the one-shot To Rescue the Sun) and swiped from other people’s settings (like Thool, or Dwimmermount); to do some bottom-up setting design, where I haven’t worked out a whole map of the setting and a thousand years of history before I begin; and finally, putting that all together, to do some gaming where I haven’t systemetized everything and there’s not a way that magic or religion works, and I’m not pinging the players with info-dumps. Naturally, I have ideas on things I want to see in the setting, and spring on the characters, but I want to be much more encouraging of letting the players make up crazy stuff too, and just rolling with it. I want to recapture, at least for some of the time, some of the much more free-wheeling GMing I did in my youth, where a lot of stuff was decided on the basis of either “Yeah, that sounds good!” or “roll a die, high is good.”