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countering my last post
Dec. 18th, 2008 09:15 amAbout how Gmail makes me see way more gaming in the world than there is, I found myself rather perturbed by a recent Newseek article on the evolution of Vampire portrayals in modern culture (culminating with Edward the vamp who is so chaste and good that he even insists his virginal human girlfriend wear buckle up her seat belt - no 1970's LeStat hedonist he!). While it had some interesting points it managed to completely skip the entire 1990's Vampire the Masquerade Goth-Punk scene, the existence of which surely had an impact on the current Vamp portrayals. Apparently gaming is still way too under the radar (or history is easily forgotten, take your pick).
On a similar note, we've been having a few discussion threads in A&E regarding genre tropes, specifically around Horror, and how games need to break away from the cliches now in order to engage the players - Dead Man Stop, the C0C5E sample adventure is apparently a yawner because it's just a run of the mill, Nyarlythotep backed animated dead horror. When exactly did that become run of the mill (not that I doubt that it is)? And is it still run of the mill in the larger culture? Would people who never played an RPG or COC before have the same response it it, or is it because gamers have gotten bored with the "same old thing". (As a counter, Dig To Victory, a COC scenario set in the trenches of WWI, is apparently creepy as all hell, likely because it's not the sort of thing you see every day.)
On a similar note, we've been having a few discussion threads in A&E regarding genre tropes, specifically around Horror, and how games need to break away from the cliches now in order to engage the players - Dead Man Stop, the C0C5E sample adventure is apparently a yawner because it's just a run of the mill, Nyarlythotep backed animated dead horror. When exactly did that become run of the mill (not that I doubt that it is)? And is it still run of the mill in the larger culture? Would people who never played an RPG or COC before have the same response it it, or is it because gamers have gotten bored with the "same old thing". (As a counter, Dig To Victory, a COC scenario set in the trenches of WWI, is apparently creepy as all hell, likely because it's not the sort of thing you see every day.)
