How Much Do You Care About Novelty?

[billd91]

Also romanticisation. “Nothing like as bad as the other guys” doesn’t make you good. In particular, Churchill’s success was founded on being an utter ruthless bstd (whilst complaining of only two bottles of champagne per day). And unity? A myth.

But those are the narratives people romanticize. And there's a significant element of truth to them - that's the benefit of having such monstrous opponents dominating the timeframe, other ills and even a bit of divisiveness pale by comparison. I can see why it's attractive for romanticizing, particularly when compared to almost everything else.

 

[dragoner]

One reason I like sci-fi, to posit a better future.

 

[Ramhorn]

Trying to do something new or original is great, but I also really like when something wears it's influences on it's sleeves loud and proud. Homage and pastiche of something well known and loved can be a great way to get people into any hobby.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

a significant element of truth to them

No. It’s lies. There was no freedom of speech at that time, so you are looking back and seeing the propaganda.

Churchill was a very skilled romanticiser of history himself.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Also romanticisation. “Nothing like as bad as the other guys” doesn’t make you good. In particular, Churchill’s success was founded on being an utter ruthless bstd (whilst complaining of only two bottles of champagne per day). And unity? A myth.

And "nothing like as bad" really starts to fall apart when you look at the Bengal famine, honestly. It's more like "nowhere near as vile and devoted to day-to-day evil" as Nazi and Imperial Japanese forces, but causing 2-3 million deaths because Churchill was an incredible racist against Indians specifically and no-one was willing/able to stop him until journalists blew this wide open is beyond words. It's perhaps fair to say people were going to go hungry somewhere in British territories in WW2 at that time, but there's a difference between hunger and huge mass death via starvation, and Churchill chose the latter for Bengal, and did literally nothing (except make a couple of disgusting racist jokes) when the British Imperial leadership there made plea after plea after plea.

 

[dragoner]

I read a period news article about Yalta and the reporter described it as a withered, small brown man meeting a giant in a wheelchair. History, the past is ... yeah. Not good.

For India today, one thing they point to is no more famines since decolonization.

 

[Simon Miles]

Hard skew toward weird. There's very little actually new after 50 years of gaming and nostalgia won't carry me more than a handful of sessions in most cases.

Seen this... Www.dunrominuniversitypress.co.uk

 

[Simon Miles]

The majority here seem to be fans of the Tropes and I would tend to agree. There is always space for something different though. I think a good setting needs to have some loose ends, some gaps where something odd could manifest itself.

 

[Simon Miles]

I want weird and crazy and over the top. I want new and innovative and cutting edge. I want to be wowed and amazed and surprised.

At the same time I know I wont be able to place these games because they usually run on the presumption that everyone, players as well as GMs, have read both settings and rules.

Surely the DM needs to know the setting but the players have to discover it? Although I suppose the characters would know something of their setting. Something for session zero I suppose..

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I like new when it helps the game better scratch an itch I have, curseborne falls into this category for me lately-- it's a decidedly novel spin on the WOD formula that favors crossover games, and the lore about everything being 'curses' fits everything together into a universal magic system without actually infringing too much on lore origins, and what's nice about that is that it provides the pretext to unify the power system in a way that I'm really digging, at least reading the draft. Onyx Path strongly indicated in a panel that at higher 'entanglement' (read: power level) than the core book, everyone is going to get access to freeform for their 'splat's' designated practices (and beyond?), which will let everyone get in on the Mage: The Awakening style fun, and the power parity is nice too.