(no subject)

[kingtycoon]

Every Day Is Great.

There's that - worth noting, mentioning here. I have to remember to do that actually. Do you have this crisis? This time of year? Do you look at your house and feel like it's way too dirty & that you're rubbish and that you don't do enough laundry? I mean - it comes up, for all of us no? Maybe you're really together and your environment is immaculate all the time. Personally? I think it's worth it to pay someone to clean up my house for me. It's worth it. Now, finding a person to do it - that's a different matter. But that feeling, that bad feeling about your life that comes from disarray - I'm pushing it down pretty hard by realizing things. Good things - I mean, man, I do what I want - that's what I get to do. I guess it's worth considering, remembering - thinking on/of - but yeah, I do what I want to do - and that's a good life.

Right now I'm stuck, thinking about monsters. I'm writing a book now about how to be the Dungeon Master. These are the facts about this: First - I'm an above average dungeon master. I don't know from top percentiles or shit like that- competitive ability? Couldn't tell you - but I can say there are good and bad and that I'm pretty good. Second I've put in the time - experience. True facts - if you were to ask my best skill - that's probably it. I've seen that people do make a living at it - I bet I could, well, make a few bucks anyhow. I definitely made out on free beer and food. It's not the greatest running for the general public - that I've done and it's tricky - cause the public attendees, there's two stripes - people who like but aren't invested in the hobby - they're cool, businessmen & stuff who just wanna roll the dice a couple nights a month. There's another breed too - people who are way into the hobby but who are socially repellent. Creeps dig? Now - I'm down with creeps, or anyhow, I'm not instantly hateful - my move is to try and bring you up - it's not hard being cool babies, it's easy being lovable. I'll show you what I know. A lot of creeps though - they don't wanna learn a new way - they're creeps all the way down. Third thing is - I make the effort, put in the work & initiative. Dig, I'm willing to write the book - which is kind of half the war right there.

Anyhow - I got to thinking about monsters. They come up in all the books - but I find that I'm dissatisfied with the treatment a lot of the times. My thing is that the problem of monsters in contemporary systems is that they aren't ever really differentiated as monsters- they're made to be like, a different humanoid ethnicity that's defacto evil & thus deserving of culling. To use the parlance of our times - this is problematic. Ethnic cleansing simulations are kind of the grognard staple. A place full of orcs, let's kill the orcs and take their stuff - y'know, before they do it to us. I wouldn't rule these things out altogether, understand - but include them in a more measured way. Some of the monsters are monsters of evolution - there are Lions - Lions will kill and eat you - they are horrible. I was looking at this even & did you know the peculiar facts about how the word for bear is kind of lost to history? It's interesting - the names we use are like diminutive joke names because in the past they were thought of as so horrible that people couldn't be brought to say the real name - lest they give the things power. Even in Greek I think Arctos or whatever supposedly means "Destroyer" and that's just the epithet for bears that the greeks had. So evolution makes monsters - sure. But this is a game about imaginations - so there are Monsters that are non-biological, nevermind that that's the treatment they're given in all the relevant books. The Owlbear is an animal that is a cross between bear & owl. The Illithid & the Beholder- they're straight up horrifying & treated as what amounts to kinds of people with weird compulsions & ideas - they're only superficially monstrous. So I'm thinking beyond ecological monsters that are just other types of people - I want to have more Folkloric monsters - which correspond to folklore. They'll have the weirdness & unintentional hilarity & wholly intentional horror that real folklore creatures have - Hopping Vampire & Tanuki I'm looking at you guys. Weird & puzzling & devoid of ecological sense - I want those. This stuff's been overthought for a generation & now we're stuck with stuff like Skyrim where a dragon is less scary or intense to face than a Bear. Just saying.

Past that there's all the monsters that are purely legendary - like, I dunno - maybe if they just have a name, a known identity. Dracula? King-Kong? Godzilla? I guess these are the monsters of legend - may or may not be true but shit if they are, that changes the world. A lot.

What about you? Do you type or consider monsters? Don't you think it's about time that you did?

EDIT Themes.

In this example I think Kanye is a folkloric monster - a kind unbelievable combination of slapstick & deadly seriousness. Rick Ross is the ecological monster- purely an atavistic representation of the world's viciousness & Nicki Minaj is a Legendary Boss-Monster-Goddess. Jay Z is probably a villainous NPC.

Comments

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

So, one of Olivia's favorite things to do is to look at monster manuals & ask questions. It's led to her becoming the playground religion debunker-- "Angels? People that fly? That's not real, that's pretend."-- without any prompting, but that's getting aside. The point is, she has a range of categories for her understanding of monsters.

Real, includes bears.
Real but all dead, including dinosaurs.
Pretend but 'real', including dragons-- meaning, "known" monsters.
Pretend, meaning original D&D monsters.

Just an overlapping thought.