M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?

[dragoner]

Returning to the original subject, here's a pretty sensible blog post from Jeff Grub.

Lovecraft and Barker are different, it seems that people bringing up HPL are going out of their way to try to defend Barker. While HPL was wrong in a lot of what he thought, it is also important to remember that he could have been mentally ill, and psychology papers have been written on such. HPL suffered under delusions, as well as in homelessness, indigence, and after being bedridden, death. Some think he actually believed Cthulhu to be real. His delusional racism, was also punishing, to be forced to live in paranoid fear of other people. Mental health officials will say that some issues of persecution of a religious, or racial issues are not uncommon. Ultimately as far as we can despise his feelings, we also simply don't know their origin, and it is wrong to demonize the mentally ill.

Barker is completely different, he chose to be a nazi, in the full grasp of his faculties.

 

[Staffan]

Lovecraft and Barker are different, it seems that people bringing up HPL are going out of their way to try to defend Barker. While HPL was wrong in a lot of what he thought, it is also important to remember that he could have been mentally ill, and psychology papers have been written on such. HPL suffered under delusions, as well as in homelessness, indigence, and after being bedridden, death. Some think he actually believed Cthulhu to be real. His delusional racism, was also punishing, to be forced to live in paranoid fear of other people. Mental health officials will say that some issues of persecution of a religious, or racial issues are not uncommon. Ultimately as far as we can despise his feelings, we also simply don't know their origin, and it is wrong to demonize the mentally ill.

Barker is completely different, he chose to be a nazi, in the full grasp of his faculties.

Another important point is that for better or worse, Lovecraft casts a long shadow over popular culture in general and gaming in particular. Some of the earliest D&D supplements had stats for Lovecraft stuff, and there's been numerous RPGs either based on the Cthulhu Mythos or incorporating aspects of it. Given how deeply embedded the Mythos is in gaming, there's a pretty good case for figuring out a way to use the good parts while leaving out the bad.

But Tekumel? While Empire of the Petal Throne is certainly of historic interest as one of the first RPG settings, the particulars of it have hardly been a big influence. There are almost certainly more people exposed to it by way of Midkemia/Kelewan novels than the actual Petal Throne material. There's basically nothing lost by leaving the Empire of the Petal Throne as a footnote in gaming history. Plus, unlike the Mythos, the Empire of the Petal Throne is still under copyright so even if one wanted to do something with it, one would need permission from whomever holds the rights and that's not something I'd be comfortable with.

 

[dragoner]

Another important point is that for better or worse, Lovecraft casts a long shadow over popular culture in general and gaming in particular. Some of the earliest D&D supplements had stats for Lovecraft stuff, and there's been numerous RPGs either based on the Cthulhu Mythos or incorporating aspects of it. Given how deeply embedded the Mythos is in gaming, there's a pretty good case for figuring out a way to use the good parts while leaving out the bad.

But Tekumel? While Empire of the Petal Throne is certainly of historic interest as one of the first RPG settings, the particulars of it have hardly been a big influence. There are almost certainly more people exposed to it by way of Midkemia/Kelewan novels than the actual Petal Throne material. There's basically nothing lost by leaving the Empire of the Petal Throne as a footnote in gaming history. Plus, unlike the Mythos, the Empire of the Petal Throne is still under copyright so even if one wanted to do something with it, one would need permission from whomever holds the rights and that's not something I'd be comfortable with.

Personally I am not as big of a fan of cthulhu after all these years precisely because it casts such a long shadow, cthulhu everything becomes tiring. EPT I did like, until one points out the nastier elements, that become more self evident after knowing the creator's leanings. Sadly enough, what has been seen, now can't be unseen. I do think it will become a footnote, not undeservedly, though it was already headed in that direction anyways, and this just seals its fate.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, the "public domain" versus "owned by people who knew the author, and covered up his being a Nazi" is a pretty significant difference. Nobody doubts where Lovecraft stood on anything, and no estate benefits from cribing and modifying his fiction.

 

[MGibster]

Moreover, how many GMs actually have the deep understanding of history and geopolitics to reasonably model other systems? Most of us have what, high-school social studies level of understanding?

I don't believe a GM needs a deep understanding of history or geopolitics to reasonably model other systems for a game. i.e. You don't have to be an expert on life in Stalin's Soviet Union to use it as inspiration to create a setting where the PCs live under a totalitarian regime. In my experience, the more a setting is built with the expectations that player characters view the world in a radically different manner from what they're used to it's a lot more difficult to get player buy in. (And just to be clear, that's fine. People are free to put in as much or as little effort into doing something they enjoy.) I happen to think one of the things that makes D&D so popular is that people don't have to put in a lot of effort to live out their adolescent power fantasies.

And, beyond that - D&D is still basically an action-adventure game, not a socio-politics game. There's not much call to specify a ton of socio-politics that the characters aren't going to interact with. So government, much like economy, by and large is simplified with a sketch, and left mostly in the background in a way that allows the heroes to gallivant around facing off with monsters.

Bingo. Which is why I don't really mind that most D&D settings resemble theme parks.

 

[darjr]

The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.

 

[Parmandur]

The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.

Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.

That was, unfortunately, inevitable.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There are almost certainly more people exposed to it by way of Midkemia/Kelewan novels than the actual Petal Throne material.

Never heard of those books, either.

 

[Parmandur]

Never heard of those books, either.

Riftwar, by Raymond Feist? Or the Krondor games?