What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Blue Orange]

Good point. It would take a very careful hand to create a world where nobody is going to condemn you for whatever your sexuality or gender happens to be or how much or how little you're willing to experiment and manages to get around noble lineages and need to produce heirs and the like that medieval fantasy generally requires. It can be done, but it would be hard to do right and probably impossible to have done right back in the 80s.

I don't know about right, but:

One thing's who you're attracted to.

The other thing's who you make kids with (important in terms of passing on the kingdom). We see these as intimately connected, but earlier generations not so much.

"Yeah, the king's mostly into men, so it took the queen forever to convince him to get around to giving her some heirs so the crown doesn't go to that no-good niece of hers." Nobody ever says they married for love--marrying heirs of two noble houses was one way to end wars. Of course, with fantasy there's no reason someone couldn't create a spell to generate an heir from two women or two men. (Nobody even says chromosomes have to be real.)

And then you get into bygone prejudices, like the ancient Greeks and Romans where being gay was OK as long as you were the top.

 

[Minion X]

It didn't make him Gaelic, did it?

You're also giving the guy a little too much credit (or expecting too much) for intellectual consistency. He ignored his antisemitism long enough to marry a Jewish lady (and be a lousy husband, by all accounts). Most people aren't that tied to their convictions--they'll gladly make exceptions to their rules for people they hate or like. "Oh, but see, this one's different, see..."

I believe Lovecraft considered Jews (at least European Jews) to be white, but disliked orthodox Jewish culture, mainly because it displaced much of ancient European culture with the introduction of Christianity. His wife and his Jewish friends and correspondents were more of the modern, secular type. And I guess he didn't mind Irish and Scots as much, he just didn't want to be one.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know it's really bad form, but I can't not say that American celebrities are probably the worst example you can pick if you want a clear family tree. Professions like musician and actor really screams riff-raff.

Mod Note:

The opening to your first sentence should have clued you in that was to follow wouldn’t exactly be a good thing to post, but clearly it did not.

And the rest lived down to the prologue, and unequivocally showed your true colors. You’re done in this thread.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think Lovecraft, if he was worried about hidden ancestry would have been concerned that he might be secretly part Irish or some other non-english group. His racism was very New England, and while it included racism towards black people too (there was no shortage of anti-black racism here). It was different from southern racism as a lot of it was also about different white ethnicities and the purity of New England aristocratic bloodlines. Any number of non-English drops of blood would have polluted his identity in his mind I am sure, and probably something he would have thought easier to slip through in the family records.

TBH, he had enough valences to his bigotry to be concerned about any number of “contaminants” to his bloodline.

 

[Autumnal]

Hey, thanks for those links. I haven't heard of Ligotti but I'll check out his work.

Delighted to help! The best place to start reading is probably the Penguin omnibus of his first two short story collections, Songs Of A Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe. If you do Audible, grab the audiobook version, read by his friend, fellow horror author and voice actor Jon Padgett. Sooooo good.

Good point. It would take a very careful hand to create a world where nobody is going to condemn you for whatever your sexuality or gender happens to be or how much or how little you're willing to experiment and manages to get around noble lineages and need to produce heirs and the like that medieval fantasy generally requires. It can be done, but it would be hard to do right and probably impossible to have done right back in the 80s.

Mi amigo John Snead created Blue Rose in 2005, after a year or so of talking about it. Green Ronin picked it up, first for True20, then for their AGE System. It does exactly what you talk about here, drawing inspiration from folks like Diane Duane, Mercedes Lackey, and Tamora Pierce. I’m a fan.

 

[MGibster]

As to your arachnophobia player, I would then introduce a spider who'd sympathize with her. Upon learning of her phobia he would tell her, "Sorry, but this is what I am. What I resent is your stereotyping me, and I would appreciate your treating me as an individual."

That might make for a funny skit, but it would be extremely inconsiderate of me to pull something like that as the GM. The player was very reasonable, even going so far as to continue participating in the encounter so long as I removed any descriptions of the spiders. To deliberately bring spiders into the game when I know the player has a serious problem with them would make me a real big jerk.

 

[Blue Orange]

BTW, the new Kult has a 'Horror Contract' and a section where they talk extensively about dealing with disturbing topics. It might be worth looking that over for those of you interested in exploring darker themes in your game, and shows you can still do darker content.

 

[Kaodi]

Well that seemed like a conspicuously Oscars-lengthed break from the conversation.

 

[MGibster]

BTW, the new Kult has a 'Horror Contract' and a section where they talk extensively about dealing with disturbing topics. It might be worth looking that over for those of you interested in exploring darker themes in your game, and shows you can still do darker content.

When I run a horror game I ask the players to tell me, during session zero or privately, what I should avoid entirely and what can be mentioned but not played out. And I start out by telling them we will never role play a scene where a sexual assault takes place. Vampire 5th edition talks about making sure the players are okay with subjects and I think even Call of Cthulhu 7th edition does as well.

 

[Lanefan]

That the books that inspired Gygax in the original Appendix N aren't going to be the same things that inspire modern gamers. There are plenty of newer versions of eldritch horror that are going to be far better at inspiring people than Lovecraft was. I mean, let's face it--even if he weren't horribly racist, he wasn't that good a writer.

On the last, I agree: based on what of his I've read he was an awful writer.

He created a fascinating universe, but other people have done a better job in writing in it.

It's the creation of that universe that was the real (if perhaps even unintentional!) inspiration, both for those writers and for elements of the game.

So instead of Lovecraft's works, include things like The Magnus Archives or Uzumaki. I'm sure people here have other suggestions as well.

Not familiar with either of those. Will check into, at some point.