D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Mercurius]

@Mercurius

I don't think we need to know JRRT's biography to work out that he's an anti-industrial Romantic. The work - especially LotR - reveals that pretty clearly!

"Need," no. But it certainly adds a layer of depth, if you're so interested.

 

[MockingBird]

Critical Role started playing 4E and I don't think it hurt them. The reason they got big wasn't the edition they were playing, it was the cultural zeitgeist.

I dont know, in my opinion i feel like 4e would have bogged them down way too much. Pathfinder could have worked but they would probably have to house rule it to streamline it. 5e was just the perfect rule set for what they wanted to do.

 

[Mordhau]

I dont know, in my opinion i feel like 4e would have bogged them down way too much. Pathfinder could have worked but they would probably have to house rule it to streamline it. 5e was just the perfect rule set for what they wanted to do.

I'm pretty sure that Matt Mercer actually made a comment along those lines.

 

[Hussar]

I have never been in a library that carved out "young adult" into a separate section. I have had 8 different primary libraries in my life and I am a freuent user of the libraries in all the states I have lived in.

There is a "teen hangout" section in my current library that has the videogames, a subset of the graphic novels, and the manga.

Maybe it’s a Canadian thing. Could be.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There's 'Young adult' and teen sections in every library I've been to in Ohio.

 

[MGibster]

I can confirm there's a young readers section in Central Arkansas. I don't think you'll find anything by Lovecraft there though.

 

[Mordhau]

I can definitely say as a teenager it was the fantasy and science fiction section I would head for. Not the young adult.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sure. But it also means there are a wide range of how people do or don't want to do that, and that creates conflict that is partly or entirely outside the question of Lovecraft's dubious racial attitudes.

I mean, its kind of a trite thing, but there's a phrase people really aren't in as much agreement about as some suggest, and its the source of a lot of conflict here: "Its okay to like problematic things." Its abundantly clear that, over and above questions about whether something is problematic, people don't even agree on the "okay" part.

Okay. I don’t agree that the above is “abundantly clear” at all, but that’s tangential to anything I was discussing.

I replied to a post asking why there is so much vitriol against Lovecraft.

Also, someone claimed he was largely unparalleled in evoking otherworldliness, and I greatly disagree. King and Gaiman are both much better at it, and frankly, most well reviewed works inspired by Lovecraft are far and away better written in nearly every way than Lovecraft’s actual work.

The “Mythos” is cool, but it’s gotten cooler over the decades since other writers started playing around in it.

 

[MGibster]

Okay. I don’t agree that the above is “abundantly clear” at all, but that’s tangential to anything I was discussing.

A few years ago the common refrain was that it was okay to like problematic things just so long as we recognized they were problematic. There were few voices that were calling for anyone to stop mentioning specific authors, or, more disturbingly, suggesting that some of these works shouldn't be in the open stacks of a public library but should instead be shunted off to the closed stacks. Thankfully, I think those voices are still a minority but I hope they don't become the majority.

Also, someone claimed he was largely unparalleled in evoking otherworldliness, and I greatly disagree. King and Gaiman are both much better at it, and frankly, most well reviewed works inspired by Lovecraft are far and away better written in nearly every way than Lovecraft’s actual work.

For some reason I don't particularly care for Gaiman's work. I've read a few of his books and many of his short stories, but they've all failed to resonate with me for some reason. As I read American Gods, I thought to myself, "He's a good writer but I'm just not into this." I very much enjoy King's work, and by number of stories I've read penned by him, he's got to be my favorite author. Pratchett is probably third. I think all three of them are better writers than Lovecraft. And you're right, most of the well reviewed works inspired by Lovecraft are better than Lovecraft's actual work. Lovecraft is not the Alpha and the Omega of otherworldly fantasy/sci-fi/horror as there are people who continue to publish work along those lines.

 

[Mordhau]

For some reason I don't particularly care for Gaiman's work. I've read a few of his books and many of his short stories, but they've all failed to resonate with me for some reason. As I read American Gods, I thought to myself, "He's a good writer but I'm just not into this." I very much enjoy King's work, and by number of stories I've read penned by him, he's got to be my favorite author. Pratchett is probably third. I think all three of them are better writers than Lovecraft. And you're right, most of the well reviewed works inspired by Lovecraft are better than Lovecraft's actual work. Lovecraft is not the Alpha and the Omega of otherworldly fantasy/sci-fi/horror as there are people who continue to publish work along those lines.

It's always puzzled me why it's American Gods which gets the Rep. I remember when it came out and thinking it was such a let down after his run on Sandman (which I think is by far his best work - for some reason in almost everything else by him I've read he's basically reworking the Hero's journey in a fairly obvious way - plus I think he's just a better comic scripter then he is a prose writer).