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Cultural influences in roleplaying
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<blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8792919" data-attributes="member: 5142"><p>I listen to a lot of music, but I'm not sure if I could diagnose how my musical tastes have influenced my gaming. In terms of graphic novels or manga, that would also include <em>Berserk</em> and <em>Nausicaa</em>. I do enjoy superhero comics and other media, but I do not find myself looking back at them for inspiration. And at times as of late, I feel so supersaturated by superhero media that I don't really feel inspired them. Instead, it's an almost claustrophobic feeling.</p><p></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Vision of Escaflowne: </strong>Romantic Fantasy and Planetary Romance where a girl gets taken to a magical world with steampunk mechas and New Age mysticism (e.g., tarot cards, fortune/destiny/fate, crystals, alchemy, etc.).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Twelve Kingdoms:</strong> Also Romantic Fantasy with a girl who finds herself in a fantasy world inspired by China where the socio-political metaphysics of the "will of the heavens" is real, immortal nobles and bureaucrats, talking beasts/monsters, and "unicorns" who pick monarchs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Record of Lodoss War:</strong> It's <em>D&D</em> or <em>Sword</em> to be more precise. Strong Dragonlance influences here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Berserk:</strong> Dark, graphic European Medieval fantasy. More in the vein of Zweihänder and Shadow of the Demon Lord.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Princess Mononoke</strong> and <strong>Nausicaa</strong>: Studio Ghibli films. The former involves a cursed exiled prince who finds himself in the middle of a conflict between the forest gods/spirits (and the titular girl who was raised by wolves) and a human town that mines and produces steel. The latter is a post-apocalyptic world of ruined nuclear mechanized giants, poisoned forests, and gigantic bugs inspired by the art of Moebius.*</li> </ul><p></p><p>* Moebius was also a Miyazaki fan, and he even named his daughter Nausicaa.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Essentially "Order vs. Chaos." The concept refers to a motif found in a number of ancient religions and mythologies, particularly the Ancient Near East and even Indo-European cultures, that essentially involves gods representing order defeating forces of chaos, often preceding the creation or ordering of the world: e.g., Olympians defeating the Titans, Marduk defeating Tiamat, Baal defeating Yam, Horus vs. Set, etc. Chaoskampf is also an incredibly common motif in Biblical literature, where it is at times subverted (e.g., a non-violent creation and ordering of primordial chaos by the deity in Genesis 1).</p><p></p><p>The Chaoskampf motif is a massive component of the 4e World Axis framework: i.e., the Dawn War between the Gods and the Primordials. This is also exemplarly in 4e's use of alignment, which sees moral goodness as a something that promotes or leads to order in creation (i.e., Lawful Good) and moral wickedness as something that corrupts and degrades creation towards chaos (i.e., Chaotic Evil).</p><p></p><p></p><p>It might take awhile to unpack these influences. In some cases, the themes are an underlying part of my influences. In other cases, these works have drawn me towards certain RPGs or even the sort of characters I like to make. I will unpack one theme for now: Ecology and the Land.</p><p></p><p>In hindsight, there was something of an ecological motif in a lot of influential media for me, but also as a kid I also consumed A LOT of information about biology, zoology, ecology, paleontology, etc. I loved looking through illustrations that depicted how all these different prehistoric animals looked. I loved nature documentaries. So I suspect that my brain was pretty receptive to both weird, alien worlds with strange beasts (e.g., Pirates of Dark Water, Dark Crystal, Nausicaa, etc.) as well as works that had strong ecological themes.</p><p></p><p>In the <em>Pirates of Dark Water</em>, the alien world of Mer is being devoured by the Dark Water (or rather, the Dark Dweller). It was a pretty transparent narrative about pollution and global warming, but with high seas adventure.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, the land and world is out of balance in the <em>Dark Crystal</em>, and the land itself is something of a character in its own right. Tons of strange creatures and plants, the Skeksis and ur-Ru, gelflings, etc. This ecological gets picked up and expanded greatly in the recent prequel series <em>Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance</em>. The imbalance in the Dark Crystal is more Daoist, with the land manifesting signs of that cosmic imbalance, but in DC:AoR, it's more ecological and clearly about global warming. Emperor SkekSo, as we find out, is even a public denier of "the Darkening," but who secretly not only knows about it, but is directly contributing to it.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, the world is out-of-balance in Earthsea, mainly in <em>The Farthest Shore</em>. In the case of Earthsea there is also an explictly Daoist element to Ursula K. LeGuin's works. Magic is something that is meant to be in accordance with the world, but we also find out that the world is fundamentally out-of-balance because human wizards feared death so much that they literally created an artificial place to go when they die: i.e., the Dry Land.</p><p></p><p>There is also a strong ecological component to both Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa. And in the <em>Chronicles of Thomas Covenant</em>, fantasy world of "the Land" is a basically one giant metaphor for a living body dealing with cancer, with magic being a natural part of the Land.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aldarc, post: 8792919, member: 5142"] I listen to a lot of music, but I'm not sure if I could diagnose how my musical tastes have influenced my gaming. In terms of graphic novels or manga, that would also include [I]Berserk[/I] and [I]Nausicaa[/I]. I do enjoy superhero comics and other media, but I do not find myself looking back at them for inspiration. And at times as of late, I feel so supersaturated by superhero media that I don't really feel inspired them. Instead, it's an almost claustrophobic feeling. [LIST] [*][B]Vision of Escaflowne: [/B]Romantic Fantasy and Planetary Romance where a girl gets taken to a magical world with steampunk mechas and New Age mysticism (e.g., tarot cards, fortune/destiny/fate, crystals, alchemy, etc.). [*][B]Twelve Kingdoms:[/B] Also Romantic Fantasy with a girl who finds herself in a fantasy world inspired by China where the socio-political metaphysics of the "will of the heavens" is real, immortal nobles and bureaucrats, talking beasts/monsters, and "unicorns" who pick monarchs. [*][B]Record of Lodoss War:[/B] It's [I]D&D[/I] or [I]Sword[/I] to be more precise. Strong Dragonlance influences here. [*][B]Berserk:[/B] Dark, graphic European Medieval fantasy. More in the vein of Zweihänder and Shadow of the Demon Lord. [*][B]Princess Mononoke[/B] and [B]Nausicaa[/B]: Studio Ghibli films. The former involves a cursed exiled prince who finds himself in the middle of a conflict between the forest gods/spirits (and the titular girl who was raised by wolves) and a human town that mines and produces steel. The latter is a post-apocalyptic world of ruined nuclear mechanized giants, poisoned forests, and gigantic bugs inspired by the art of Moebius.* [/LIST] * Moebius was also a Miyazaki fan, and he even named his daughter Nausicaa. Essentially "Order vs. Chaos." The concept refers to a motif found in a number of ancient religions and mythologies, particularly the Ancient Near East and even Indo-European cultures, that essentially involves gods representing order defeating forces of chaos, often preceding the creation or ordering of the world: e.g., Olympians defeating the Titans, Marduk defeating Tiamat, Baal defeating Yam, Horus vs. Set, etc. Chaoskampf is also an incredibly common motif in Biblical literature, where it is at times subverted (e.g., a non-violent creation and ordering of primordial chaos by the deity in Genesis 1). The Chaoskampf motif is a massive component of the 4e World Axis framework: i.e., the Dawn War between the Gods and the Primordials. This is also exemplarly in 4e's use of alignment, which sees moral goodness as a something that promotes or leads to order in creation (i.e., Lawful Good) and moral wickedness as something that corrupts and degrades creation towards chaos (i.e., Chaotic Evil). It might take awhile to unpack these influences. In some cases, the themes are an underlying part of my influences. In other cases, these works have drawn me towards certain RPGs or even the sort of characters I like to make. I will unpack one theme for now: Ecology and the Land. In hindsight, there was something of an ecological motif in a lot of influential media for me, but also as a kid I also consumed A LOT of information about biology, zoology, ecology, paleontology, etc. I loved looking through illustrations that depicted how all these different prehistoric animals looked. I loved nature documentaries. So I suspect that my brain was pretty receptive to both weird, alien worlds with strange beasts (e.g., Pirates of Dark Water, Dark Crystal, Nausicaa, etc.) as well as works that had strong ecological themes. In the [I]Pirates of Dark Water[/I], the alien world of Mer is being devoured by the Dark Water (or rather, the Dark Dweller). It was a pretty transparent narrative about pollution and global warming, but with high seas adventure. Likewise, the land and world is out of balance in the [I]Dark Crystal[/I], and the land itself is something of a character in its own right. Tons of strange creatures and plants, the Skeksis and ur-Ru, gelflings, etc. This ecological gets picked up and expanded greatly in the recent prequel series [I]Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance[/I]. The imbalance in the Dark Crystal is more Daoist, with the land manifesting signs of that cosmic imbalance, but in DC:AoR, it's more ecological and clearly about global warming. Emperor SkekSo, as we find out, is even a public denier of "the Darkening," but who secretly not only knows about it, but is directly contributing to it. Likewise, the world is out-of-balance in Earthsea, mainly in [I]The Farthest Shore[/I]. In the case of Earthsea there is also an explictly Daoist element to Ursula K. LeGuin's works. Magic is something that is meant to be in accordance with the world, but we also find out that the world is fundamentally out-of-balance because human wizards feared death so much that they literally created an artificial place to go when they die: i.e., the Dry Land. There is also a strong ecological component to both Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa. And in the [I]Chronicles of Thomas Covenant[/I], fantasy world of "the Land" is a basically one giant metaphor for a living body dealing with cancer, with magic being a natural part of the Land. [/QUOTE]
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