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I hate goblins, and dwarfs, and orcs. These are some of the stupidest
constructs in the gaming industry, and should be removed from all games.
RPG, Board, Video, cards...
Let's add Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies to the list.
So BORING!
Cracked used to be a great, edgy site. Hipsters took over quite a while back, though, moreso with the writing of articles than in site attendance. If you don't like cursing, then cracked isn't going to be the site for you.
Yeah, but it began as a second-rate ripoff of MAD Magazine with only about a quarter of the subscription rate and nowhere near the same artistic quality.
I mean, I liked it well enough. As a kid. In the early 'eighties. And I sometimes like the online stuff.
But mostly, I just keep thinking it as "the other satire mag." Uh... 'zine. Site.
Whatever.
New Spin on Zombies
NICE!
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Btw, hipster or not, I think this is some of the truest shiznit ever written by a filthy pinkskin:
"[Y]ou need to give your goblins more depth than David Bowie gave his. It was cool that they assisted him in jam sessions, you don't get that from a lot of mythical beasts, but maybe your goblins can be the victims of racism instead of just the result of it. (I'm completely sticking to this theory, by the way, sorry if you don't agree. Also sorry your heart is so black.) So maybe your goblins were as noble and benevolent as elves once, but the damn Aryan elves just repressed and oppressed the hell out of the ugly little farts until their whole race grew embittered and sour. And they're not inherently or pointlessly evil, because no one is; they've just grown up in a society that has, for eons, been under the callous heel of elves who felt themselves better, who used goblins as slave labor in generations past, and who put no value on their lives at all. So f&*& yeah, the goblins want to kill you, you're running around with your effeminate archer friend whose great-grandfather used to hang goblins from trees and throw apples at them while they gasped their way to the great beyond."
F$%~in' a right.
(I like cursing because I am a[n aging ex-] hipster.)
OR GOBBO's who just feel that way and have been used by the Evil in the world.... My plans come to fruition!!
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Lazar, that sounds cool. Have links? A good site to look them up on?
It began as Living Arcanis, a third edition D&D game kinda like PFS is. I really miss it. Never got into the new system, not sure if the living campaign is still going. Still have all of the 3E books and always think about making a home game out of it
Cracked used to be a great, edgy site. Hipsters took over quite a while back, though, moreso with the writing of articles than in site attendance. If you don't like cursing, then cracked isn't going to be the site for you.
This is not aimed at you as much as everyone else in this thread.
Stop using the term hipster as an insult, because no two of you can probably agree on what one is, it's just a generic old-man grumble for "people I don't like" and "young whipper-snappers" within the explicit context of "get off my lawn!"
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I re-wrote gnomes in a homebrew campaign.
They were infatuated with techo-necromantic combinations.
They were also compulsively polite.
LE as a whole, with a few LN.
I also rewrote gnomes in my homebrew!
By which I mean I banned them.F!*# gnomes.
I don't mind what passes for the general definition of Hipster. Some are pretentious clowns, but then I could point to any subset of the community and make the same observation. At least Hipsters don't generally hurt anyone.
What I'm saying, though, is that pretty much everyone can be reasonably accused of hipsterism. What's that? You prefer music that isn't top 40? Goddamn hipster. Oh, you play D&D now? Hipster. You like food other than burgers, fries, and the occasional steak? Hipster. You wear flanel? Hipster. Have facial hair? Hipster. Breathe oxygen? Hipster.
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Has nothing new been invented?I hate goblins, and dwarfs, and orcs. These are some of the stupidest
constructs in the gaming industry, and should be removed from all games.
RPG, Board, Video, cards..
Lets talk husk. A parasitic race who can wear any life as a skin. Thus if you look like dying, just swap over to the injured orc you are fighting...
To YOU. Everyone agrees hipsterism has very specific qualities. No two agree what they are. To wit, I listed the things I did because I was accused of hipsterism for each of them by a different person. Except flannel, cuz eew.
I wore Chuck Taylors before they were cool.
I was uncool, before it was cool.
Also, you were wearing chucks in the 30s?
No before they were in the cool cycle again in the 90s.
Are they cool again or uncool again though? Can't keep up. I blame the kids.
I find them incredibly uncomfortable. Give me blisters.
Though I have no problems with new versions of the classical races, I still enjoy them just the way they are.
Me too :) I think there's room for the old and new alike. No problem with those who want just one or the other though.
I like to put interesting twists on classic races.
My Archmage setting has orcs... as predatory catlike humanoids that build their society around lion-like pack and hunting behaviours. And dwarves with a bigger reputation as mad genetic engineers than as gruff miners. And non-evil but still kinda creepy dark elves whose descent into darkness has largely been due to systematic persecution by the surface elves.
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I re-wrote gnomes in a homebrew campaign.
They were infatuated with techo-necromantic combinations.
They were also compulsively polite.
LE as a whole, with a few LN.I also rewrote gnomes in my homebrew!
By which I mean I banned them.F~$! gnomes.
F~$! Gnomes?! Well sir, feel grateful that gnomes are far too kind hearted to respond to that in kind.
I have gnomes in my world! Except that they are kitties. Skittish, overly curious, slightly mad kitties. With thumbs.
Doesnt look like he's advocating a reboot in any fashion, he's advocating for a story about the "rejects" of every race, which is not the same thing as creating fantasy races with the main characters as examples.
In other words he's trying to write your story for you.
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On the more general topic of the thread:
Fantasy-Adventure as a genre is (or at least comes off as, in some cases) less innovative because it is by it's very nature about looking back at a romanticized past, as opposed to looking forward at a hypothetical future (science fiction).
In either case, no writing exists in a vacuum. Denying, hiding, or shunning your influences is going to make your work at best inauthentic and at worst way to bizarre for most people to get invested in.
Instead of focusing on what hasn't been done before (because let's face it, it has), focus on spinning what has been done—what is familiar to the audience—in your own way. Capitalize on what is familiar and give the audience a reason to believe this story could be better than all the rest, or at least stand out from them in some way. That's why genres exist as a construct.
I have gnomes in my world! Except that they are kitties. Skittish, overly curious, slightly mad kitties. With thumbs.
"Time for me to redefine the genre! How about I make everything sound pathetic and unheroic?"
Now, I'm all for imperfect heroes, but there is very little concerted effort here. It isn't even rebooting the races, instead it just gives some half-assed character concepts.
Those could all be already done within the system: elven farmer, dwarven pedophile, human loser...
No, it's too much.
Hows about this:
elves are gnomes
gnomes are dwarves
halflings are half-gnomes
Humans are the same.
... I did it?
There are [established] races which I enjoy playing, and others I wouldn't play with someone else's dice. Likewise, tinkering with the cultural "norms" of said races can produce either intriguing or repulsive results.
But I'm failing to see the problem, especially now that the ARG is out; if you can't stand standard races, spend a half an hour statting out a new race and then a day or two cobbling a history and culture together (or skip that if you're in an RP-lite campaign).
Eh.
Simple twists on old stuff can be fun:
Elves are fascist bastards who think being the last people to have had face-to-face conversations with the gods makes them inherently-better-suited to run the world than everyone else, and should let them tell everyone what magic they can and cannot use.
Dwarves are still in the midst of a race-wide migration, nomads, thanks to an elven intervention that sank their homeland beneath the sea. Still gruff, bitter -- like standard dwarf stereotypes -- but now they actually have a good reason to be that way.
Gnomes and halflings are subspecies of each other, essentially. Best entertainment ever, watching a gnome and a halfling try to one-up each other in any field. They will band together to deal with threats from the Tall Folk when needful, but generally try to avoid having to deal with each other, while convincing the other races that THEIR branch of the family is best, and the others' is full of inbred halfwits.
...and so on.
I tend to nix the half-breeds. Though Orcs are a perfectly acceptible race, so the Orcish genome is still available. (REPRESENT!)
And humans, well... it's all a matter of cultures, since they're kinda the baseline by which other races get measured. And that's fine, imo.
kinda cool.
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Generally I think people put too much of an emphasis on being "fresh" and not enough on being "good".