The Butcher
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2017
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Take your favourite game, movie setting, novel, TV series or comic - or even just something within that medium. What was so cool about it? What resonated with you? What was the je ne sais quoi that really made it?
Put a bit differently, What made it stand out? What was the lightning that the author captured in the bottle?
I see a lot of role playing game material that's just flat and sterile. Compare Palladium's Beyond The Supernatural with Call of Cthulhu, for example, or Runequest's Glorantha with the zillion other fantasy 'verses that just fall flat. Glorantha was an interesting setting that had its own atmosphere and way of doing things. It worked where a legion of heartbreakers failed.
Take a setting or some other property that spoke to you - what was it that did it for you, why do you think it caught on?
It's not really je ne sais quoi (literally, "I don't know what") if you know what's cool about it, is it?
But let's not allow language to stand in the way of gushing enthusiasm. God knows we need it these days.
The D&D Rules Cyclopedia was the book that kicked the doors off the dungeon and showed me that there was a whole world beyond, with urban and wilderness adventures, strongholds and domains (something of an obsession of mine to this day), and even Immortality. And of course a slew of badass monsters.
Rifts first came to my attention with the Dragon Magazine bullet-point ads (which later I'd also find in comics). There were monsters, and magic, and lasers, and giant frickin' robots, and bad guys with skull helmets; everything a 14-year-old might ask for in a game. I haven't played in decades, perhaps in fear of crashing that perfect youthful enthusiasm against a system and a setting that don't make a lot of sense. Growing old is a bitch.
The Classic World of Darkness loomed large in my late teens and early twenties. We played until late and then spent more time debating the finer points of canon and whether one's favorite NPC would beat up another's favorite NPC. More than a game, it felt like a fully realized fandom. Good times.
Tékumel I had heard about, also by way of Dragon, but it was chancing upon tekumel.com that really opened the curtains of this fascinating world for me. Exotic yet familiar in the right measure, and so thoroughly realized without feeling overwrought. Genuine worldbuilding gold.
That's just off the top of my head. I've got to go now and I am certain to do another post.