tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-153783074694767002.post1008805116243895283..comments2024-01-08T07:05:24.641-08:00Comments on The Elder Sküll: A New Genealogy of the Gods, Part Onehuthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16502682297320819595noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-153783074694767002.post-80400449488768619812013-02-14T14:38:48.839-08:002013-02-14T14:38:48.839-08:00This is interesting to hear - how much do you rati...<i>This is interesting to hear - how much do you rationalize or explain the cosmology (just for yourself) versus the obfuscation laid down by the unreliable narrators?</i><br /><br />I don't know. I kind of like the kitchen-sinkness of the mythos game material, you know? That said, I think the source material that Lovecraft draws from ends up informing other kitchen-sink cosmologies (Theosophy to New Age) or fiction (Kneale's SF ghost stories) that you can steal <i>explanations</i> from plenty of places too. <br /><br /><i>I'm always torn between the need to classify and fit things together versus making the mythology as much of an unknown for myself as it is for the players.</i><br /><br />The need to fit things together, I think, reflects the fact that as a GM you need to actually decide how a thing is going to interact with other parts of your game. To use <i>Trail</i> as an example, it justifies (almost) statless gods and titans by comparing them to an artillery barrage—but if you're actually running a game where an artillery barrage happens, you're going to need to at least decide what the players roll to try and avoid it. <br /><br />Given the pitfalls of systemization, though, the first question I like to ask, when it comes to mythos entities, is "how is the narrator applying anthropomorphic biology or psychology (or ontology?) to this thing?" and then try to think of something that's, if not totally opposite that assumption, at least in another part of the spectrum from it. huthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16502682297320819595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-153783074694767002.post-35818828078131528042013-02-14T14:22:34.496-08:002013-02-14T14:22:34.496-08:00This is interesting to hear - how much do you rati...This is interesting to hear - how much do you rationalize or explain the cosmology (just for yourself) versus the obfuscation laid down by the unreliable narrators?<br /><br />I'm always torn between the need to classify and fit things together versus making the mythology as much of an unknown for myself as it is for the players.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18031181424520125213noreply@blogger.com