thread: 2005-07-05 : Setting and Source Material
On 2005-07-12, Ninja Monkey J wrote:
"Critical" as in "Critique". That's how I read it before.Your example of Tolkein - "I love Middle Earth, but I want to play a female character because I think Eowyn is cool." - is one of my favorite examples along these lines. Or "Maybe the Southrons or Easterlings weren't always evil, and their fall was tragic and heroic." These all seem like fun things to do, and stuff I've seen people confront in Middle-Earth based games. It's a little wussy as criticism, though, because the players don't realize they're doing it often. But look, Tolkein was racist and sexist. It didn't make him less of an author, but it does mean that, if you're going to make your game fly with your (possibly geekily underdeveloped) moral sense, you have to take a stand.
And the moment you take that stand, that's when you make Middle Earth your own. Aragorn becomes a footnote in history, and you write your own. Then you're creating your own stuff, but you've all agreed to use Middle Earth stuff as backdrop. That's all it is, though. All the action's your own creation.
