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D&D is a Horror Game
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<blockquote data-quote="Clavis" data-source="post: 4767510" data-attributes="member: 31898"><p>The definition of horror is relative to a particular culture. To modern Westerners, used to living pampered existences provided by our technology, being powerless is perhaps the ultimate horror. Pre-modern people were used to being powerless, so what horrified them was the transgression of accepted boundaries, whether of class, gender roles, religious expression, or even aesthetics. Living in more chaotic times, they needed to take comfort in the belief that somehow there was some kind of cosmic order that could be restored or imposed on earth. Therefore, the worst thing someone or something could do was to oppose that cosmic order, which could be as simple a matter as wearing the wrong clothing. A pre-modern man might easily be more horrified by the idea of a equality for women than anything so simple as being killed. Monsters in ancient stories need to be killed not just because they eat people, but also because their ugliness is an affront to the cosmic order itself.</p><p> </p><p> Keep on the Borderlands can certainly be played as a horror scenario, for example, if we take a medieval point of view. The inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos are affronts to the cosmic order, and want to tear down the fragile hope of humanity that comes from universal law. The caves must be cleansed, or else their Chaos will infect everything good and decent in the world. Orcs must be slaughtered because they are Orcs, and the very existence of Orcs is a horrible blight upon the world. In that light, the whole of early D&D does have horror elements. It's world-view, where you could know who was good because they were pleasant looking, is antithetical to that of more recent editions, where it is assumed that human society tends to accept strange-looking races without prejudice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Clavis, post: 4767510, member: 31898"] The definition of horror is relative to a particular culture. To modern Westerners, used to living pampered existences provided by our technology, being powerless is perhaps the ultimate horror. Pre-modern people were used to being powerless, so what horrified them was the transgression of accepted boundaries, whether of class, gender roles, religious expression, or even aesthetics. Living in more chaotic times, they needed to take comfort in the belief that somehow there was some kind of cosmic order that could be restored or imposed on earth. Therefore, the worst thing someone or something could do was to oppose that cosmic order, which could be as simple a matter as wearing the wrong clothing. A pre-modern man might easily be more horrified by the idea of a equality for women than anything so simple as being killed. Monsters in ancient stories need to be killed not just because they eat people, but also because their ugliness is an affront to the cosmic order itself. Keep on the Borderlands can certainly be played as a horror scenario, for example, if we take a medieval point of view. The inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos are affronts to the cosmic order, and want to tear down the fragile hope of humanity that comes from universal law. The caves must be cleansed, or else their Chaos will infect everything good and decent in the world. Orcs must be slaughtered because they are Orcs, and the very existence of Orcs is a horrible blight upon the world. In that light, the whole of early D&D does have horror elements. It's world-view, where you could know who was good because they were pleasant looking, is antithetical to that of more recent editions, where it is assumed that human society tends to accept strange-looking races without prejudice. [/QUOTE]
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