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Taskerland

@Taskerland@dice.camp

UK-based writer, critic, and photographer. Primarily interested in #horror, #ttrpg, #OSR, #NSR

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

epidiah , to random
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    Taskerland ,
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    @epidiah Do it!

    Taskerland , to random
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    It's interesting how the dominant #OSR title seems to change every so often.

    A few years back, the default starter game was Lamentations of the Flame Princess, then it shifted to Old School Essentials, and now I get the impression that it's shifting to Dungeon Crawl Classics.

    Not really sure why this happens... Lamentations had the Zak S thing but OSE haven't messed up and I don't get the impression that DCC has suddenly started doing noticeably better work.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    This is also a problem with the RPG scene's lack of critical hinterland... It is hard to get a sense of who is putting out the best work as the pool of discussed adventures is always really shallow.

    LOTFP and OSE have famous adventures but they're all a few years old now. Are people nowadays more likely to go it alone than work with publishers? Has their output declined?

    The more recent LOTFP adventures I have read have all felt very gimmicky. Thematic focus yielding narrower texts.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    @SJohnRoss I think critical engagement tends to cut across parasocial lines in a way that people find uncomfortable at best and disruptive at worse.

    It is also an expensive hobby to adopt if you are not already in the habit of buying random modules and sourcebooks.

    It's something that everyone would benefit from if it existed but it is really hard to start and maintain.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    @vdonnut @deinol It just reminds me of garden centres.

    Taskerland , to random
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    The Bluesky feed is fascinating as it shows how many people seem to have passionate views on the OSR based upon someone else's Twitter rant and a butt load of weird projection.

    At the moment, two lads who acknowledge that Traveller is not an OSR game, are basically harassing some dude for validation because he went low-key viral with a well-phrased observation about the OSR.

    Utterly bewildering.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    The one lesson I took from philosophy is that 75% of arguments stem from people using the same words to refer to different things.

    Social Media made this worse by creating an ocean of arguments best summarised as 'I strongly feel that this word should refer to X, why does everyone else persist in using it to refer to Y'

    Taskerland OP ,
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    @SJohnRoss 100% true, but people wishing others would conform to their wildly idiosyncratic head-dictionaries won't change that 🤭

    Taskerland , to random
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    One thing that occurred to me last night is that I have never been turned on to a game by the release of a new edition.

    Conversely, I have often been turned off games by changes made with the release of new editions.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    @SJohnRoss It's interesting that it mostly works in one direction.

    I think it's because 2nd edition changes can be sufficient to undermine my vision of a game but they're never radical enough to kindle interest in a concept that didn't engage me in the first place.

    Taskerland , to random
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    Some lad on here gearing up for a gangbusters campaign. I had so much fun with that game back in the day...

    I remember playing a deranged Evangelical beat cop who would do things like hold a car full of rowdy college guys at gunpoint and force them to sing 'Onward Christian soldiers' he also locked a bunch of mobsters in a burning speakeasy and opined that 'God will reclaim his own'

    Taskerland OP ,
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    @SJohnRoss Such an eccentric game too... All the different XP-generation mechanics so everyone worked cases from different directions before coming together to bring it home!

    Da_Gut , to random
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    Mind you, my wife had never seen an episode of Columbo. She has now.

    Taskerland ,
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    @Da_Gut Thing I love about Columbo is that while Falks had a glass eye, Columbo did not. So that glass eye is literally acting. @Tim_Eagon

    Taskerland ,
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    @Da_Gut @Printdevil @Tim_Eagon Yeah... Fantasy Columbo is an entirely legit character to play.

    Those types of PCs only get funnier when the characterisation starts to slip and you wind up with the mental image of Columbo cutting off someone's head or getting into a drunken arm-wrestling contest with an orc barbarian.

    Taskerland , to random
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    I find it super weird that Raffles the Gentleman thief isn't more of a figure in the bro does burglaries purely in order to buy expensive cigarettes, nice booze, and maintain a nice address.

    It's also a series of short stories so overtly queer that when the legendary Catholic spy fiction author Graham Greene wrote a fanfic play about the main characters and made them a couple.

    Taskerland , to random
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    I think the decline of the GURPS toolkit book is tied to RPGs drifting away from fiction and back towards tabletop games.

    Someone raised on boardgames and 5e isn't going to respond well to the idea that a book (that looks like shit) for a game they don't play is going to be mire useful and inspiring than a branded plug-and-play supplement.

    Taskerland , to random
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    It is 40 years since the release of the original . As far removed from that point in time as 1944 was from 1984.

    Can you imagine a studio executive in 1984 insisting that they should invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a loose sequel to Double indemnity or the Woman in the Window?

    I mean... I wish they were making sequels to from 1944 as this list of releases is insane modern hasn't made this many great films in the last decade.

    https://m.imdb.com/list/ls042214246/

    Taskerland OP ,
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    @deinol I think that our cultural institutions have grown a lot more conservative and stagnant so rehashing stuff from 40 years ago seems more preferable to producing anything genuinely new.

    Taskerland , to random
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    I've been reading Ligotti and am now obsessed with the idea of books that radically re-wire your brain, obliterating your old personality: King in Yellow, Necronomicon, Vastarien etc

    A) Isn't this what book-banning bigots seem to be assuming all books are?

    B) Those sound awesome. Where can I buy some?

    grislyeye , to random
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    Something I've been discussing with a larper friend is how LARP never gets talked about in the scene. And LARP is big.

    Taskerland ,
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    @grislyeye Yeah... The English-speaking RPG scene looks to minis and boardgames before it looks to LARP.

    Taskerland ,
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    @grislyeye The RPG scene is small and tends to look to larger scenes for money and new players.

    They started off in war games and drifted towards novels. The Hasbro purchase and the collapse of the D20 Bubble eroded that connection so RPGs scuttled back towards war games but as a junior partner with only a few shitty shelves at the back of the shop. Concerted efforts have been made to shuffle the scene closer to MMOs but it has never worked.

    White Wolf courted larpers successfully.

    Taskerland ,
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    @grislyeye I wish it was that way too... I'm not a larper and can't imagine trying it again but I think I have mire in common with larpers than I do Magic the Gathering people.

    Taskerland ,
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    @grislyeye Very much so... I think they organise themselves in ways that are a lot more healthy and interesting. Of course, the Nordic scene really benefits from the fact that a lot of their endeavours are supported by the government

    Taskerland ,
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    @grislyeye Scandinavian governments fund social clubs. So if you say 'I want to start an RPG club... I have 10 members lined up' they'll subsidise the club.

    UK used to do it too back in the 1970s. Money was peer-assessed so if you started an amateur opera company, other amateur opera nerds wrote the report on how you were doing

    Taskerland , to random
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    My relationship with various scenes is always that of the fellow traveller - I recognise that our destinations might be different but there's enough of a similarity that we can enjoy some time on the road together.

    I definitely get that feeling from the , the fact that I'm not that interested in dungeons and Fantasy means that we have different destinations but their light rules, heavy abstraction, and emphasis on consensual rulings rather than rules means that I can learn from them.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    Conversely, I really like the way that a lot of Itch storygames are these three-session mini-universes designed to explore specific ideas and vibes.

    I'm not there yet, I still think of campaigns as very open 10-20 session chunks and I tend to think that themes should emerge from systems of play rather than be imposed via mechanics but I can imagine a few years down the line getting into weird zine games.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    As I said when I started the blog, had there been an OSR for Call of Cthulhu or Nephilim then I'd be all over that like a rash but Neph is long dead and the CoC scene is all about buying increasingly expensive editions of the same six or seven books. There is no juice there.

    Liminal Horror is a nice bridge between the OSR and investigative horror but I am aware that the game is headed in a direction that does not excite me.

    Glastomichelle , to random
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    Another grey day in Glastonbury. I did manage to catch a few starlings flying over the tower though. Taken just after sunrise today.

    Taskerland ,
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    @Glastomichelle Love the crows flying over the Tor. Good catch.

    Taskerland , to random
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    @Glupinickname During lockdown someone in the UK set up a paid DMing 'agency' and all the DMs were 'experienced burlesque performers'.

    I still chuckle at the idea of watching that Christina Aguillera movie and going "I should open a club! I've been running Call of Cthulhu for years, how different could it be?" @LeviKornelsen

    Taskerland , to random
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    I'm going to go ahead and just say it: We do not need any more books about the creation of D&D. That market is now so fully saturated that we are passing through self-plagiarism and onto self-parody

    Taskerland OP ,
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    EVERY MORNING I OPEN PALM SLAM MY FAVOURITE STORY INTO THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY. IT'S THE CREATION OF D&D AND RIGHT THEN AND THERE I START DOING THE MOVES ALONGSIDE THE MAIN CHARACTER E. GARY GYGAX.

    I DO EVERY MOVE AND I DO EVERY MOVE HARD. MAKIN WHOOSHIN SOUNDS WHEN I BULLY PEOPLE WITH THREATS OF LEGAL ACTION OR EVEN WHEN I GET REALLY INTO COKE AND SPANKING. NOT MANY CAN SAY THEY FAILED AS AN INSURANCE UNDERWRITER AND A COBBLER. I CAN.

    Taskerland , to random
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    Some thoughts on Diegetic Advancement https://tasker.land/2024/01/30/into-the-osr-on-diegetic-advancement/

    Taskerland , to random
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    Can't believe Justin Alexander is still digging...

    I am currently amused by claim that he changed from Jaquaying to Xandering on legal grounds.

    What kind of lawyer suggests that if there is a disagreement between two ways of referring to another person's work, you should resolve the disagreement by naming the work after yourself?

    Taskerland OP ,
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    August Derleth forced out Lovecraft's chosen literary executor, appropriated control of the copyright, used the stories to enrich himself, re-wrote original stories, and threatened to sue anyone who dared to play in his sandbox without permission and ideological obeissance.

    Even he drew the line at calling that shit the Derleth Mythos.

    Taskerland , to random
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    The "Jaquaysing" VS "Xandering" thing is fascinating as it's a demonstration that language evolves.

    Alexander coined the term to refer to the practice of taking extant dungeons and re-designing them to include design features that originated in Jaquays' work.

    The scene then took the term and changed it to mean including Jaquaysian design principles in the creation of your own dungeon.

    Taskerland OP ,
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    Buying really expensive WotC hardbacks and taking hours to comprehensively re-work every aspect of them is what Alexander does. It is about 60% of his shtick.

    So I propose a compromise: "Xandering" (gerund) the practice of disassembling and reassembling things purchased at great expense when it would have been quicker, easier, and cheaper to build your own thing in the first place.

    And when a lady tells you that you have her name wrong? You change the fucking name.

    Hyades51 , to random
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    Has mastodon.social still got moderation issues? It’s really getting a bit disruptive that half the interesting conversations I want to read have massive gaps in them.

    Taskerland ,
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    @Hyades51 I've never seen any of this so-called spam either

    Taskerland , to random
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    My review of Christian Sorrell's "Tunnels in White" - a minimalist yet evocative contemporary horror adventure for that could easily form the centrepiece if a, longer campaign https://tasker.land/2024/01/18/review-tunnels-in-white-by-christian-sorrell/

    epidiah , to random
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    Taskerland ,
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    @epidiah Years ahead of its time.

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