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Lovecraft, Buddha, and Me: On the Relevance of H. P. Lovecraft’s Vision
(The source of the image. Those statues are all sold out.)
Lovecraftian horror is a staple of horror roleplaying, but it has its detractors as well. They don’t see anything frightening about Cthulhu and some also try to argue intellectually that no one else should either. I raise some questions about it, offer some answers — including one that says that questions are the answer — and venture into a territory I’ve not seen dealt with before: what happens to a Buddhist who meets a Lovecraftian monstrosity? Continue reading
A Lesson in Drafting (A Chaos Draft)
Yesterday, I went to draft Dragons-Dragons-Fate. However, the judge asked us whether we’d be interested in a Chaos Draft instead. I wasn’t that into the idea, but I went along… and here’s what happened.
Dragons of Tarkir Brews, pt. 9 – Purphoros’s Last Stand
Okay, once again a more casual list, but I think there’s a seed of something here.
Five Campaigns I’d Like to Run But Never Will
Why not? Time constraints, problems with selling these ideas to potential players, lack of systems and so forth. Not important, actually. These are just ideas I’d like to do, but feel that I will never be able to.
Ropecon 2014: Trail of Cthulhu, or How I Stopped Avoiding Fear and Immensely Dug Kenneth Hite’s Way of Playing Cthulhu
An essay on the session of Trail of Cthulhu I played at Ropecon, being a rather lengthy treatise on what made it work and on the merits of the rules and the GM, and on the responsibilities of the players in horror roleplaying games, and by extension, in other sorts of roleplaying games that try to engage the participants’ emotions.
I’ve loved Trail of Cthulhu ever since I read it. The art is perfect for a Cthulhu book, Kenneth Hite—the author—really knows his Lovecraft, and the system is trimmed down to the essentials and really suits my playstyle. There are some bits that I don’t like, but are really easy to hack; overall, it’s very versatile beginning from the system right down to the Mythos monsters, so that every Keeper can make it their own. One year at Ropecon, I ran my ass off of Trail—25 hours within 48 hours—but now was my first opportunity to play it. Bonus: it was run by a woman, which I don’t get too often. This was also my first opportunity to play Cthulhu (and horror) after reading Kenneth Hite’s Nightmares of Mine (which has been updated to GURPS Horror) and his terrific essay on Cthulhu in his Dubious Shards. Continue reading
Khans of Tarkir and Morph
Since I always stay within BUG-colors in EDH, I’m apparently of the clan Sultai.
Since WotC announced Morph is going to be back, and each clan is going to have its own mechanic, I’m pretty sure Morph is going to be my mechanic. I think it would fit this color combination the best, although I could see it as the Jeskai-mechanic (RUW, who apparently admire the cunning of dragons). Although it was not tied to blue in any way during its stay back in the day, it feels very blue to me and these are the two clans that have blue in them.
New Year’s Resolutions, Second Quarterly Report
A Look at Alignments
I have a book called Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy lying around somewhere. Haven’t read it, but I’ll probably try in the near future. In the meantime, I thought I’d share my thoughts on alignments based on what I know about ethics from back in the day in my gymnasium (roughly high school for those who live in the large part of the world with no idea what the word actually means) philosophy course.
(And yes, I’m finally writing something RPG-related again.)
Journey Into Nyx Brews, pt. 6 – More Theros Block
Now that the set is finally on Gatherer and MagicCards.info (which I prefer due to more flexibility in search terms), doing some brewing is much easier. Its nice to be able to search for cards with certain characteristics.