D&D (2024) (+) New Edition Changes for Inclusivity (discuss possibilities)

[Cadence]

But the notion of applying that to a cosmic scale is wholly absurd, to me. I can’t do it. The cosmos at large is an infinite landscape that has nothing at all to do with me.

If someone had previously thought that mankind was the pinnacle of creation, on the one world that really mattered, with an immortal soul that would march on forever if they kept faith... is there anything worse for them than to have their faith shattered by being shown they are less than a mote compared to the gaping universal emptiness around them?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Does it depend on having believed, or at least thought, there was something more first?

The last four pages of Watchmen issue 6 feels like they get at it some. "It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or desinty that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us." And how that plays out for two different characters.

Well, I guess the whole series deals with the big questions. "Come... dry your eyes... and let's go home."

I grew up in church. Wanted to be a pastor for quite a while. I am currently a neopagan.

I really think it’s just something I’ll never understand because it requires an internal foundation that is different in me than in folks who experience that fear. I’ve come across such things before.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think there's a cultural context to it that you just don't share: Finding out the universe (God, really) doesn't care about you is only scary if you already thought it (He) did. If you didn't start from that point of view, the whole "horrifying realization" thing falls apart.

Put another way - if you're Jewish, finding out Santa isn't real doesn't hurt as much.

It’s possible that on some level I never actually believed what I thought I believed, but that seems less likely than the idea that some fears just don’t work in some people’s heads.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If someone had previously thought that mankind was the pinnacle of creation, on the one world that really mattered, with an immortal soul that would march on forever if they kept faith... is there anything worse for them than to have their faith shattered by being shown they are less than a mote compared to the gaping universal emptiness around you?

I guess. I guess I just don’t see how the vastness of space even diminishes that human spirit? I mean, the current consensus that we will never achieve warp drives or any other tech that gets around the light speed limitiation of space travel is a pretty hefty gut punch, but scientific consensus ends up wrong all the time.

I am pretty odd, though. Let’s not spend too much time on my odd little tangent. I’m a nihilistic* optimist who believes that gods are real but doesn’t derive meaning from them. It’s prolly just that I’m weird.

*strictly in the sense of so-called greater meaning. Meaning is very real in a direct human context, but only in that context.

 

[Wishbone]

I think there's a cultural context to it that you just don't share: Finding out the universe (God, really) doesn't care about you is only scary if you already thought it (He) did. If you didn't start from that point of view, the whole "horrifying realization" thing falls apart.

Put another way - if you're Jewish, finding out Santa isn't real doesn't hurt as much.

As someone who once inadvertently revealed Santa wasn't real to a few Christian friends in elementary school I appreciate this analogy.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Lovecraft's cosmic horror goes further than the notion of an uncaring universe. It is alien and unknowable. Engaging in the futile effort to understand it "stuns the brain" or drives us insane.

The Colour Out of Space:

This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.​

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Following the ways of this universe means giving up our "laws and morals".

The Call of Cthulhu:

Mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.​

 

[Oofta]

As someone who once inadvertently revealed Santa wasn't real to a few Christian friends in elementary school I appreciate this analogy.

People really should use spoiler alerts on stuff like this. My dream has been crushed!

The next thing I know you'll be telling me that the Easter Bunny isn't real either!

 

[MGibster]

My issue, primarily, is that the writer, not his work, but the writer himself, is being enshrined in the list of "Inspirational Reading" in the PHB. Not sure, really, that Lovecraft's works are all that inspirational. Note, there are tons of derivative works, lacking the rabid racism and bigotry, that deal with the Mythos, whose writers COULD be added to the list of things to read to inspire your D&D game.

I understand your problem is with the man rather than his work, but it's rather odd that you doubt his work was inspirational given that you immediately call attention to all the derivative works by other authors that we could use instead of Lovecraft's. Given that these derivative works wouldn't exist without Lovecraft, it seems self-evident that his work was and continues to be inspirational.

 

[MGibster]

But the notion of applying that to a cosmic scale is wholly absurd, to me. I can’t do it. The cosmos at large is an infinite landscape that has nothing at all to do with me.

It's rather absurd to me as well. But sometimes it's fun to play a game where the universe works in an absurd way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When one has a genuine moral or faith based objection to something that is not bigotry or phobia.

A bigotry wrapped in the cloth of faith is still bigotry. Phobias in religious raiment are still phobias.

Part of the reason why slavery and white supremacy have the particular character and longevity that they do in the USA is tied up in certain strands of Christian “theology” that are mostly rejected in modern religious scholarship.

Faith/morality-based bigotry is a huge chunk of why we had to have the Loving case to allow mixed-race marriage. It’s why inhabitants of US territories and protectorates are considered natural US citizens BUT don't have the full suite of rights as those born in the US itself...or abroad. (Weird, that kids born on German, Japanese or other sovereign nations’ soil have more rights than Puerto Ricans or the inhabitants of the US Virgin Islands, Guam or American Samoa.)

Hell...we’re even exporting it:

Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push (Published 2010)

Human rights advocates say that three U.S. evangelicals helped set the stage for a bill to execute homosexuals.

www.nytimes.com

And Christianity isn’t unique in this- distortions of the teachings of other faiths have been used to justify all kinds of evil, up to and including genocide.