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Whimsy in your game?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6691892" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>My major influences are JRR Tolkien, the Grimm's Fairy Tales (and similar sources of ancient folk belief), and HP Lovecraft. It's a world where the fear/horror/madness rules of Ravenloft are in effect.</p><p></p><p>It doesn't leave a lot of room for whimsy. There are many things that are comic, I suppose, from a certain point of view - one of the PC's retainers is a goblin chef often played for humor, even when he's talking about the delightful dishes that he can make of man meat and would the PC's like to indulge. And there are self-absorbed highly pretentious talking cats, and fairies that argue during combat over which of them will get to eat which of the PC's and why that PC's is the tastier. And there are characters that are presented as characters - eccentric, comical, over the top stereotypes, with goofy Southern or Irish or Cockney accents or what passes for such as I can manage them. And their are Jesters that mock the PC's that go around blessing people with the Holy Parsnip - which ironically or not, really is Holy. In one famous scene in the game, a police officer tried to give a parking ticket to a PC's illegally parked bear. In another scene, the party was an attacked by an angry animated armoire that tried to swallow the PCs (and at times succeeded). And of course, the players themselves are filled with comic whimsy and silliness and often as not slapstick stupidity that they inflict upon their own characters.</p><p></p><p>But whimsy itself I associate with Chaotic Good and especially Chaotic Neutral and not Chaotic Evil. Of course, Chaotic Evil would like to present itself in an attractive, quaint, appealing, fanciful, and childish manner because it wants to down play how horrific it is. But I'm not sure I'm on board with it being actually whimsical or presented as being in its basic nature whimsical. </p><p></p><p>But even more than I'm not onboard CE = 'whimsy', I'm really not into going beyond inspiration into the things that are derivative. I don't know anything about the work under discussion, but I'll be much more forgiving of elements of the work that are inspired by the style of Alice and Wonderland than I will be anything that appears to be content directly lifted from it. Often as not I find making derivative works is a sign of lack of respect for the original, and equally lack of ability to or trust in your own creative resources. </p><p></p><p>I can remember when the height of my own creativity was that every closet in every dungeon had skeletons in it, because "they have skeletons in the closet" - har har har. I guess my biggest fear regarding an 'Alice in Wonderland' inspired work, is that it will remind me of my own work as a 12 year old.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6691892, member: 4937"] My major influences are JRR Tolkien, the Grimm's Fairy Tales (and similar sources of ancient folk belief), and HP Lovecraft. It's a world where the fear/horror/madness rules of Ravenloft are in effect. It doesn't leave a lot of room for whimsy. There are many things that are comic, I suppose, from a certain point of view - one of the PC's retainers is a goblin chef often played for humor, even when he's talking about the delightful dishes that he can make of man meat and would the PC's like to indulge. And there are self-absorbed highly pretentious talking cats, and fairies that argue during combat over which of them will get to eat which of the PC's and why that PC's is the tastier. And there are characters that are presented as characters - eccentric, comical, over the top stereotypes, with goofy Southern or Irish or Cockney accents or what passes for such as I can manage them. And their are Jesters that mock the PC's that go around blessing people with the Holy Parsnip - which ironically or not, really is Holy. In one famous scene in the game, a police officer tried to give a parking ticket to a PC's illegally parked bear. In another scene, the party was an attacked by an angry animated armoire that tried to swallow the PCs (and at times succeeded). And of course, the players themselves are filled with comic whimsy and silliness and often as not slapstick stupidity that they inflict upon their own characters. But whimsy itself I associate with Chaotic Good and especially Chaotic Neutral and not Chaotic Evil. Of course, Chaotic Evil would like to present itself in an attractive, quaint, appealing, fanciful, and childish manner because it wants to down play how horrific it is. But I'm not sure I'm on board with it being actually whimsical or presented as being in its basic nature whimsical. But even more than I'm not onboard CE = 'whimsy', I'm really not into going beyond inspiration into the things that are derivative. I don't know anything about the work under discussion, but I'll be much more forgiving of elements of the work that are inspired by the style of Alice and Wonderland than I will be anything that appears to be content directly lifted from it. Often as not I find making derivative works is a sign of lack of respect for the original, and equally lack of ability to or trust in your own creative resources. I can remember when the height of my own creativity was that every closet in every dungeon had skeletons in it, because "they have skeletons in the closet" - har har har. I guess my biggest fear regarding an 'Alice in Wonderland' inspired work, is that it will remind me of my own work as a 12 year old. [/QUOTE]
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