Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Originally Posted by AsenRG

He is - that was the tipping point when I decided to only support "offensive products".

Oh dear. Well I would hesitate to endorse an artist simply because they were deemed "offensive." I have no interest in that. But damn. He was the Michelangelo of genre painting. You can think what you like about the Church and other patrons that commissioned Michelangelo. You can think what you like about the genre publishers that commissioned Frazetta. But in both cases the artists delivered more and better than their patrons ever required. And much more than their peers. Power, sensuality, atmosphere. I like to think, and I hope I'm not wrong, that Frazetta's work, like Michelangelo's, will withstand momentary moral finger-waving and will withstand the test of time.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Well, it was your campaign, and I strongly suspect you remember the setup better than I do, so please, be my guest.

Well, all right, then. Fasten your seat belts, folks; no smoking until after we get to cruising altitude, please.

So it's sometime in late '79, as I recall, and young Mr. Raymond (as he was then) has started showing up at Coffman for CSA meetings; he's a ok player, but he's got this kind of smarmy attitude that he's a better gamer then all of the rest of us are. Why, I don't know, but his just being out of high school may have something to do with it. We, on the other hand, were all grizzled veterans of multiple campaigns with guys like Dave and Gary, and we're also all suave and debonair college men just brimming with the knowledge we're being stuffed with. (We were even on a first-name basis with real, live female humans!!!) I had mentioned that I was interested in running a space campaign, using Gronan's "Planetfall" rules, and our young man announced that he was going to run a space campaign, using the "Traveller" three-black-book set. I signed on, and rolled up a nice little planetary government. Nothing special, but nice and tidy.

First night of gaming in the campaign, he rolls in with a vast space armada of hugely tech-superior warships, and I get a space radiophone call to "Instantly Surrender Or Die!!!", which sounded just a little too much like the fourteen-year-old who'd managed to kill Dave Arneson in a game at a recent Gen Con and bragged about it the rest of the weekend; different person, same attitude of "I'ma gonna git you old guys!" Okay, cool, a little too obvious, but I'll play along 'cause I'm a nice guy. (Sometimes. Ask Gronan.)

So, being a guy interested in astronomy, I check for the local planetary time, and it's the middle of the night. The space invaders are getting insistant, so I answer the space phone, hear their demands and - put them on hold. It's very obvious from the GM's attitude at the table that he's out for a TPK on a planetary scale, so I have literally nothing to lose by teaching him a thing or two about campaign balance and in how to run a campaign.

I then give them the bureaucratic run-around so familiar to anyone who's tried to talk to anyone in any government, shunting him from department to department. He's getting more and more red in the face, as he's caught on to my catching on to his gambit, and I'm not giving him an inch. Gronan, who happens to be sitting at the same table, is watching this all go down with mounting hilarity, and other regular players are pausing their games to drift over and watch the fun - Chirine is on a roll, and Victor is even breaking a sweat as he tries to assert his dominance at the table. I am in control of the table as I often am - as previous opponents will testify - and just as I sense he's at his limit I ratchet up the game by forwarding the call to Gronan, who leaps into the fun with both feet as he's wont to do when handed a golden opportunity for some laughs. This opportunity was being delivered on a platter, and off we went, playing all the night shift people you find in any large organization, and giving the invaders the massive run-around. We really got him going, and a good half-hour of hilarity was had by the both of us and the delighted spectators, as he'd been getting on everybody's nerves with his smarmy attitude towards everyone else in the club.

Finally, when he was literally beet-red and pouring sweat, I unlimbered my penultimate weapon. I passed him to the night shift janitor in the Ministry of Celestial Affairs, and he finally and utterly lost it. He used a planet-buster on my little home world, and that was that. His stentorian announcement of this was greeted with gales of laughter by everyone, and he could not figure out why everyone was laughing their heads off. Finally, one of the spectators, the level-headed Mr. Thornley (who had figured out what we'd been up to in the first thirty seconds) calmed down enough to ask Mr. Smarmy what the objective of the invading fleet was. "Why, to invade and occupy the planet, of course!" was the reply, followed by "That's going to be a little difficult, considering that you just blew it up." We laughed even harder; we'd made lemons out of lemonade - there was no hope of doing anything but balking the invaders, so we goaded him into the only option we had left.

Mr. Smarmy Know-It-All had never heard of Masada. We had. Sometimes it is better to nail your colors to the mast and go down fighting. So, we did, and with all the usual style and panache we could bring to bear.

Thank you for your patience; you may now unfasten your safety belts; the no smoking lamp is now off. Enjoy your flight with Chirine and Gronan's Flying Carpet Airways!

Originally Posted by Zirunel

Oh dear. Well I would hesitate to endorse an artist simply because they were deemed "offensive." I have no interest in that. But damn. He was the Michelangelo of genre painting. You can think what you like about the Church and other patrons that commissioned Michelangelo. You can think what you like about the genre publishers that commissioned Frazetta. But in both cases the artists delivered more and better than their patrons ever required. And much more than their peers. Power, sensuality, atmosphere. I like to think, and I hope I'm not wrong, that Frazetta's work, like Michelangelo's, will withstand momentary moral finger-waving and will withstand the test of time.

I'd agree with you on all this - they put diapers on the Sistine Chapel, and then later took them off again, so I think there's hope for the future.

Frazetta defined a generation, and how that generation looked at fantasy and imagination. Had a girlfriend, back in those days, who really liked his work as she felt that it - to use a modern term - "empowered" her; he brought to life the powerful and commanding women like Belit for her, and made her feel comfortable with herself ad a person and as a fan of F/SF literature and work. And that, I think, is something he'd be happy with and proud of.

Originally Posted by Zirunel

Oh dear. Well I would hesitate to endorse an artist simply because they were deemed "offensive."

I never said "because". There's a large number of RPGs I like, though, and when I make my decisions which ones to support and which ones to save from, that's likely to be an important criterion.

But damn. He was the Michelangelo of genre painting. You can think what you like about the Church and other patrons that commissioned Michelangelo. You can think what you like about the genre publishers that commissioned Frazetta. But in both cases the artists delivered more and better than their patrons ever required. And much more than their peers. Power, sensuality, atmosphere. I like to think, and I hope I'm not wrong, that Frazetta's work, like Michelangelo's, will withstand momentary moral finger-waving and will withstand the test of time.

And here, we're of the same opinion.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I'd agree with you on all this - they put diapers on the Sistine Chapel, and then later took them off again, so I think there's hope for the future.

Frazetta defined a generation, and how that generation looked at fantasy and imagination. Had a girlfriend, back in those days, who really liked his work as she felt that it - to use a modern term - "empowered" her; he brought to life the powerful and commanding women like Belit for her, and made her feel comfortable with herself ad a person and as a fan of F/SF literature and work. And that, I think, is something he'd be happy with and proud of.

Yes, that's how I see things, as well.

On the other hand, the artwork of Exalted 3, which seems to be deemed very progressive (or at least "making a honest effort"), resulted in our GM starting to reconsider buying any books of the new edition. As she puts it, playing ugly people, like the suggested signature characters, doesn't feel empowering to her, which Exalted is supposed to be!

Originally Posted by altfritz

Exhalted is supposed to be empowering? Do RPGs do that nowadays?

As much as Frasetta artwork, at least.
Or it might be an issue with my translation, I guess. In Bulgarian, it' harder to distinguish between "empowering" and "high-power", and Exalted definitely should be the latter!

I'm not sure of which bit I'm most proud of...

when I picked up the "phone" and said "Hola? Yo soy Jose Jimenez."

or

"Yeah, I'd like two large sausage and mushroom, and one small anchovy special, and an order of garlic toast."

Here's a question for Chirine or Gronan (or both).

So in EPT we are treated to an "example of play" that features an implied TPK at the hands of the demon Kurritlakal and his 1,000 progeny. From a marketing point of view, odd to use something that smacks of TPK as your example of play, but anyway.....

Is that encounter in any way based on an actual in-play incident in the Professor's campaign?

Originally Posted by Zirunel

Ha! Great story, thanks

You're welcome. This episode was an example of the kind of 'power gaming' that we saw entirely too much of in the Twin Cities, back in the day, especially at the Fifth Precinct gaming club - which is mentioned in Fine's book as the 'Golden Brigade'. Lots of 'I-have-to-win-you-have-to-loose' gaming, which is where he picked up his zero-sum philosophy of game theory. We, in our group at the University, played a very different game based on long-term strategies. In this particular case, it was screamingly obvious what the GM's pre-programmed outcome was, for the over-arching game he was playing. We, on the other hand, looked at what the objective of the GM's proxies / invading hordes were, and negated it through sheer gamesmanship. We achieved our objective, and negated the attempt at a zero-sum game.

Over the decades, people have repeatedly forgotten that I am a very serious student of game theory - and not the GNS one. This particular incident was a very good example of an asymmetric conflict, something that requires a very quick bit of thinking outside the box. I did, and Gronan - also being in the same mode as I was (and still am) - fought our little fight with weapons that our opponent had no experience of and was totally unprepared for.

I play for very, very different objectives and goals then most people do, and it's astonished me that over the years very few people have ever asked me what's my real game and what I'm after. They tend to project their hopes, dreams, and fears onto me, assuming that I am striving for the same things that they are. It's cost a lot of people a lot of games, and still does.