tuxedo-fish
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Junji Ito on the other hand is also great.
DRR... DRR... DRR...
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Junji Ito on the other hand is also great.
Basically it's a Japanese horror story that made cosmic horror out of spirals and actually ended up making it terrifying.um... sure. I'll take your word for it cause I have literally no idea what that is.
That's why I specified mundane protagonists. If you don't do that, you end up with that sort of Bronze Age comic book or pulp revival feel, like you're half-way to having The Shadow, Ash Williams or The Defenders show up.Certain protags really don't work in Lovecraft stories. Not if you want it to be Lovecraftian by design and intent, vs having influences or flavors of it. If you're a hero in a Lovercraft tale, you're not a confident hotshot who is tough as nails, smart as a whip, and is ready to rise above, impress, win over, and save the day...that's not what Lovecraft did, and what he did was highly specific, bordering on the repetitive. It's not that he always did the same things, but he had an approach to characters in story telling that defines them all. They are not heroes. They aren't born to succeed, nor do they usually have a great deal of control over or power in their circumstance. Lovecraftian characters are tools, pawns to be used up and destroyed by the grinding gears of cosmic horror. When a Lovecraftian character doesn't go insane, we are all a little disappointed inside.
So to say you can use any old protag in a Loveccraft story, I strongly disagree, if we're talking "Lovecraftian" vs "Has Lovecraftian elements".
That's why I specified mundane protagonists.
Basically it's a Japanese horror story that made cosmic horror out of spirals and actually ended up making it terrifying.
If you're not into the anime or manga thing but you're into Japanese horror, I'd check out Junji Ito's work. It might change your views on the mediums.The Japanese actually have some interesting horror. The stuff made out of their folklore and urban legends are interesting too.
If you're not into the anime or manga thing but you're into Japanese horror, I'd check out Junji Ito's work. It might change your views on the mediums.
Lovecraft is a strange strange man.Or give you longstanding, horrible fears about mundane-seeming things.
...just like Lovecraft, really. :V
I wouldn't say I'm into it, but I appreciate a fresh breath away from the re-run that is American cinema.If you're not into the anime or manga thing but you're into Japanese horror, I'd check out Junji Ito's work. It might change your views on the mediums.
you could say it's.... mind-bending?I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. Writing good cosmic horror is already hard enough in the first place. Finding other people who can also do it and having them conveniently in one place to collaboratively write a story is an impossible task.
It's the kind of thing impacted the modern day popularity of a lot of influential pulp authors.Maybe this is a random take, but a lot of people have moved away from Lovecraft in modern age due to his...very racist view-points. It has come more to light, I personally know a lot of people who like work of a similar genre but aren't comfortable in particular with his work as they feel his morals have bled into the writing as metaphors.
Junji Ito on the other hand is also great.
And Lovecraft was less "I hate those racial minorities! I'm going to make the Confederates the heroes of my stories!" and more "THEY'RE DIFFERENT! I'M SCARED! I MUST HIDE FROM THEM!" Which neither is good at all.It's the kind of thing impacted the modern day popularity of a lot of influential pulp authors.
Maybe that's why I like the tabletop crowd for this stuff better 'cause from what I hear they mostly do everything to get their sanity melted just because it's fun. lolI think there's kind of an issue with ... even if you wrote great depictions of sanity-melting elder gods... people wanting their characters to actually have their sanity melted. It would be like this:
GM: Sanity-melting elder god manifests.
Player: My character is so brave that they are completely unaffected and instead challenge the elder god to a duel.
I think there's kind of an issue with ... even if you wrote great depictions of sanity-melting elder gods... people wanting their characters to actually have their sanity melted. It would be like this:
GM: Sanity-melting elder god manifests.
Player: My character is so brave that they are completely unaffected and instead challenge the elder god to a duel.
I don't really think it's because of the players' inability to grasp the genre, or because of some inherent need for their character to be the biggest badass to ever badass. Like, I keep hearing these horror stories about Mary Sues and power plays and what have you and that hasn't been my experience at all. I just think that it's one of those things that is cool to read about, but not really fun to roleplay out? Writing about the characters' slow descent into madness for 100+ posts would be draining, I believe. I've tried it in the past, but it got boring very fast.
I think there's kind of an issue with ... even if you wrote great depictions of sanity-melting elder gods... people wanting their characters to actually have their sanity melted. It would be like this:
GM: Sanity-melting elder god manifests.
Player: My character is so brave that they are completely unaffected and instead challenge the elder god to a duel.
For several reasons, true Lovecraftian styles are a tall ask in RP. Most people wouldn't know how to, or be comfortable playing a Lovecraftian character. The sense of powerlessness, the vulnerability and frailty of mind, never really knowing exactly what is going on, never having the answers you really need, never really being able to say you fixed whatever was wrong, I mean do I have to go on?
A true Lovecraftian character would rub most players the wrong way, in every way. They would be miserable playing it and probably ghost out. But furthermore, I don't think the majority would even understand cosmic horror enough to play a true Lovecraftian OC.
There's actually a chart to see how they go mad in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, so you can play out your new, weird irrational fear.Or alternatively “My character is driven mad and spends every waking moment praying for a death that will never come.”
Not much more to RP once they meet the elder god.
Ok that might work!There's actually a chart to see how they go mad in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, so you can play out your new, weird irrational fear.