D&D General Neoplatonic Influence on D&D

[LuisCarlos17f]

It is almost off-topic but I don't like the idea of the petitioners, souls sent to the outer planes losing memories by their past lives. The fate of our ancestors' spirits shouldn't be only to become golden bricks in the road toward the emerald city or another pieces of atrezzo in the celestial planes.

And I hate that stupid manicheism about a cosmic balance between good and evil, as yin and yang. It is as if you are saying a zombie apocalypse in Ravenloft has to happen because the happy ponies from the kingdom of Equestria are too good and evil has been almost eradicated.

 

[generic]

Is it possible to get a college education without reading Dante's Inferno?

Maybe if you go into STEM, like some of us.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I wasn't thinking of Christian Saints like Origen, but rather polytheistic Neoplatonic Philosophiers like Iamblichus and Proclus.

The Ophites are an early "Gnostic" sect who were detailed in Contra Celsum by Origen as revering a celestial hebdomad.

The problem is that we cannot trust the accounts given by the Early Church Fathers, because they are grinding a particular sectarian axe, and they are not depicting "Gnostic" sects faithfully. In many cases (Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Tertullian) there is evidence of extensive and purposeful mischaracterization. This is my main point.

Hippolytus wrote a - probably more faithful - account of the Ophites in a book called the Syntagma. It was "lost" in the 4th Century.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I wasn't thinking of Christian Saints like Origen, but rather polytheistic Neoplatonic Philosophiers like Iamblichus and Proclus.

I should also add that terms like Neoplatonist, Neopythagorean, Christian, Jewish, Gnostic, Pagan, Stoic and Cynic are in many cases retrojective categorizations of ancient works - often they do not fall comfortably into a single category, because certain distinctions which we now recognize had not yet arisen or been identified.

 

[gyor]

I find it’s better for it than games that try to go into philosophy, exactly because it doesn’t try to make it part of the actual game.

But I also hate actually playing so-called “narrative” games because narrative mechanics are nearly always utter useless garbage IME, that actively detract from ya focusing on narrative. So...I might be an outlier.

The Chronicles of Darkness does philosophy and ideas very well, but still has mechanics that use dice like D&D, although CoD only uses the D10. CoD is made up of a bunch of game lines which have their own themes and ideas, but they all exist in the same world/cosmology.

Like Mage: the Awakening draws heavily from Neoplatonism, Hermetism, and Gnostism, among others, whereas Changeling: The Lost draws more from Fairy Tales and mythology, but with abuse as a key theme,

Vampire: The Requiem is more political manvuevering with competing religious and secular factions,

Werewolf: The Forsaken is about the hunt, and guarding the border between the spirit world and material world.

Geist: The Sin Eater is about Underworld of ghosts, and second chances, Promeathan is primarily Humanism vs Transhumanism,

Deviant: The Renegades is a metaphor for dealing with chronic, potentially fatal illness, and those that caused it,

Beast: The Primordial is about Fear, mythic cycles, family, and being the single creepiest, sadistic, mother****ers in CoD,

Hunter: The Vigil is mostly about fighting back against the things that prey on you communities and not being able to pretend you don't see how wrong things are.

Demon: The Descent is Technognostism, with Hell as the self defined paradise the demons fight for, in their battle against the God Machine and it's Angels.

Mummy: The Cursed, whose 2nd edition is currently being kickstarted, is about being a true Immortal, the Arisen are almost impossible to permanently kill, but they are servants to some truely scary, egyptolovecraftian Gods as a price.

 

[Beleriphon]

But I also hate actually playing so-called “narrative” games because narrative mechanics are nearly always utter useless garbage IME, that actively detract from ya focusing on narrative. So...I might be an outlier.

Narrative games are usually meant for aping the narrative structure of different genres. FATE for example is good at letting you follow the narrative structure of an action-adventure story.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Narrative games are usually meant for aping the narrative structure of different genres. FATE for example is good at letting you follow the narrative structure of an action-adventure story.

I...I know what the point of these games are and how they work. Did you imagine that I disliked them sight unseen, or something?

Sorry, not sure why I called you out in particular when @gyor did the same thing.

Seriously guys, I don’t need any game explained to me. I don’t like them, and that dislike comes from a place of familiarity.

 

[Beleriphon]

I...I know what the point of these games are and how they work. Did you imagine that I disliked them sight unseen, or something?

Sorry, not sure why I called you out in particular when @gyor did the same thing.

Seriously guys, I don’t need any game explained to me. I don’t like them, and that dislike comes from a place of familiarity.

Fair enough. If you're familiar and still don't like them good on you, at least you know where you stand from a personal preference.

Edit for context: I've found that in general there's a misconception about narrative game usage; the games are focused on pushing the game to follow the tropes of certain narrative structures rather than providing tools to build a narrative in a different way than any other RPG. For example the Dresden Files RPG wants you to follow the flow and style of the Dresden Files novels, so you get knocked around a bunch then come out swinging at the end, like Harry does (although as a group). They also tend to be more collaborative than other RPGs in terms of world building, but that's not an inherent part of the way narrative games work. FATE as part of Session 0 wants the group to build the world, nothing stops you from doing that in D&D other than traditionally the DM doing so in advance.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Fair enough. If you're familiar and still don't like them good on you, at least you know where you stand from a personal preference.

Yeah, it’s just a matter of not liking mechanics that try to push the narrative. IME, playing a game with more narrative freedom, and just agreeing to play a certain type of game, works better.

What I do like are player mechanics that support a theme. Like, I can enjoy VtM because of how much of the narrative stuff is on the player side, but a lot of apocalypse games just fall flat for me, as do the narrative dice effects of Fantasy Flight games. I cannot stand the FFG Star Wars game, for this reason.

The dice don’t need to introduce new narrative elements. They are there to determine success or failure or a mix of both.

But others love that stuff, so more power to them.

 

[Beleriphon]

Yeah, it’s just a matter of not liking mechanics that try to push the narrative. IME, playing a game with more narrative freedom, and just agreeing to play a certain type of game, works better.

What I do like are player mechanics that support a theme. Like, I can enjoy VtM because of how much of the narrative stuff is on the player side, but a lot of apocalypse games just fall flat for me, as do the narrative dice effects of Fantasy Flight games. I cannot stand the FFG Star Wars game, for this reason.

The dice don’t need to introduce new narrative elements. They are there to determine success or failure or a mix of both.

But others love that stuff, so more power to them.

I get that, I don't like FFG Star Wars for a wide variety of reason as well, so I can follow that logic. As my edit above, I just find that there's a misconception in general about why the games work a certain way.

For example I'm partial for FATE largely because the game is setup from the get go to make the characters feel competent no matter what stage of their career. And the rules push towards action-adventure tropes of going for the gusto rather than playing it safe.