[Trollbabe] Keep on Rockin' in the Troll World
Callan S.:
Hi Paul,
Quote from: Paul T on March 07, 2009, 06:19:19 PM
However, I meant exactly what I said. I had a great time, really enjoyed the game.
What I didn't like is exactly what is being discussed, here and in Judd's Dogs thread: there was a point where it seemed like success was so difficult that we all ended up softballing a little. James felt he had to pull his punches, and Dave and I (or maybe just me--I shouldn't put words in his mouth) weren't sure how to push our characters' agendas. It wasn't disastrous or unpleasant, but it felt a little like walking on thin ice. Like we were tiptoeing a bit in order to avoid a potentially seriously unfun situation.
For myself, if I had walked on thin ice and skirted a seriously unfun situation, I couldn't call it a great time or that I really enjoyed the game. That's me, obviously, but close shaves with seriously unfun situations doesn't reduce your overall rating of an activity?
James_Nostack:
Wow.
I started this thread hoping to discuss our little threesome's experience playing Trollbabe, both to highlight certain issues with a particular set of rules, and to critique a certain design feature common across a broad swath of Indie Games. But if the process of sharing our experiences with y'all means, when a participant says "I felt X", somebody else says or implies "No, you really felt Not-X" not once but twice, it really saps my desire to share, y'know?
I don't want to speak for Paul or Dave. But I'm not here for therapy. I'm here to provide field test data. I still wanna do it, but that requires a certain baseline level of trust.
Eero Tuovinen:
I like your literary analysis of Trollbabe, James. It gives me more strands for my own understanding - I'd sort of come to the same conclusion you do here, except the literary antecedents are somewhat different for me here in a different country and a different decade. Although I'm considerably too young for a firsthand experience of the cultural wave you describe, this stuff is very familiar to me second-hand, and not the least because what you call "daydreamer fantasy" is a much larger part of the fantasy culture landscape here in the Nordic countries than it seems to be in modern USA.
I'll obviously need to check out this Wizards, though - everybody seems to reference it in this context, and the only Bakshi film that's remotely known in these parts is Lord of the Rings. Should clearly get to know his work better.
Nothing substantial to add on the actual topic, though. Carry on.
James_Nostack:
Quote
this stuff is very familiar to me second-hand, and not the least because what you call "daydreamer fantasy" is a much larger part of the fantasy culture landscape here in the Nordic countries than it seems to be in modern USA.
Eero, that's interesting: it kind of matches my (uninformed) cultural stereotype about European fantasy stuff. I'm curious: what's the bookstore situation look like in your country? In the United States, we've got a "Science-Fiction" section and a "Fantasy" section. About half the shelf-space for each, is devoted to franchised novels (Star Trek, Dragonlance, etc.). The rest of the "Fantasy" section is largely full of Tolkien-clones. Is that the case where you live?
Wizards is . . . well, it was very eye-opening for me, because it's a pretty pure expression of this school of Fantasy, and it re-arranged a lot of things in my mind to help me recognize where Trollbabe is coming from. It's fun, light-weight stuff. I especially like the voice of the Avatar character.
Anyway: back to the Trollbabe session:
Shallow Prep
I came up with the scenario 18 months ago, when my girlfriend and I were living through the End of the World. In 2006-2007, my girlfriend and I were living through the End of the World. You know the emotional tenor of Cormac McCarthy's The Road? Such were our lives.
The basic set-up was like this: you've got this troll who despises himself, and the more he despises himself, the more monstrous he becomes (due to a curse). Figuring out how to help him is non-trivial, because the more you help him, the more indebted and miserable he feels, and therefore sinks deeper into the curse. This is Gantwood.
The Stakes are: what happens to Gantwood? and the Consequences are: Gantwood overcomes the curse and re-joins the troll community, or, Gantwood becomes a ravenous slaughter-beast who kills humans (and possibly other trolls).
The curse was inflicted by Wirresprocket, a fiendish elf-type of guy, who wants to have his way with Gantwood's puppy-love girlfriend. So via magic, Wirresprocket burns down a human's barn and plants evidence that Gantwood was responsible. Gantwood, chased by humans, comes to Wirresprocket for help... and Wirresprocket works a debt-curse upon him.
Gantwood's love-interest is Mollywort, who wants to help him but doesn't know how. Wirresprocket is making the moves on her and wants to get married.
The only guy who knows the score is Klaus, a human huntsman who chased after Gantwood and saw Wirresprocket put the curse on him. Unfortunately, Wirresprocket captured Klaus and put a spell on him that forbids him to reveal the secret.
There were a few other details too--some cute NPC's and an idea about Wirresprocket's wedding ring--but that's the gist of it.
Eero Tuovinen:
Quote from: James_Nostack on March 09, 2009, 05:17:37 AM
Eero, that's interesting: it kind of matches my (uninformed) cultural stereotype about European fantasy stuff. I'm curious: what's the bookstore situation look like in your country? In the United States, we've got a "Science-Fiction" section and a "Fantasy" section. About half the shelf-space for each, is devoted to franchised novels (Star Trek, Dragonlance, etc.). The rest of the "Fantasy" section is largely full of Tolkien-clones. Is that the case where you live?
The situation in this regard is sort of interesting here because the concept of genre literature itself is a very American phenomenon. In the bookstore this means that the "fantasy" section tends to include first and foremost translated American literature which is explicitly recognized as belonging to the genre of fantasy. (80% Tolkien-clones here and less franchises, incidentally.) And then we have the local stuff which might or might not go into the fantasy shelf, not depending on whether it's fantasy literature but on whether it is marketed as such with American fantasy iconography. Thus a Finnish sword & sorcery novel will get categorized into fantasy while a love story between a troll and human well might not, even when written by an established genre author. It's sort of like every writer here is Doris Lessing and nobody knows what to do with them.
...actually, that's probably not so different from the American situation. I imagine that writers get shunted into weird genres there as well depending on how the publisher decides to market a given book. It's just that we have such a small market area that most published authors are not genre literature, which makes the actual fantasy section very translation-dependent.
That viewpoint might also explain the perceived disappearance of "daydreamer fantasy" - could it be simply that it's a genre of fantasy that's not routinely categorized on the right shelf in the mindspace? As described above, any fantasy literature that isn't a Howard or Tolkien pastiche will play the odds in the bookstore as to where it ends up. Considering the Finnish fantasy literature, which tends to be more "high literature" than recent American stuff, it's often presented in the mainstream shelves where it tends to get lost as a "genre" in its own right.
But, this is seriously drifting. Appropriate topic of the Adept Press forum, I imagine.
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