Continuity & Coherence
Oct. 31st, 2003 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
woodwardiocom-My colleague Bruce Baugh/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bruceb/bruce_b recently became the proud papa of the newest edition of the classic RPG Gamma World. (GW is a post-apocalyptic game that has been around in various forms for a quarter-century now.) The game's getting flak, some of it from odd quarters. Many of the prior editions -- including some of the popular ones -- are fondly remembered through a nostalgia-colored haze for not making much sense. Not everything had a rational explanation, the background was as thin as tissue, and radiation could give you laser-spewing bears. Fans of the older editions regard this as part of the game's appeal.
-The new GW, on the other hand, makes somewhat more sense. The background is more consistent, the superpowers, while still nonsense, are spread out over more technobabble, and the game can be used to play more serious, less-loopy, campaigns. Naturally, some of the hardcore fans are panning it.
-Which brings me to me. (Yes, as usual, this is all about me.) I'm currently working on a giant monster RPG. In cinema, the kaiju genre has almost zero continuity. For the Godzilla films made up through the mid-70s, the only continuity was, "Will the humans recognize this monsters?" Then, that continuity baggage got dumped, and they started fresh with a new continuity in the 80s. The 80s-90s Godzilla films were actually set in one universe, and had recurring human characters, even. Then that baggage got dumped. Et cetera. Heck, when you look at the history of King Ghidorah, you find out that he's alternately an alien monster, a genetically-engineered creation of evil Americans from the future, and one of the mystical defenders of Earth.
-But, I am largely incapable of writing a book that's deliberately incoherent, and I tend to make patterns even where there are none to be seen. This was true when I wrote my GURPS Godzilla webpage, and it's true for this project (which isn't about Godzilla, I should note, but rather similar critters). So there's a part of me which worries that this book will make too much sense to accurately recreate the feel of kaiju cinema.
(Then I look at how slapped-together the current manuscript is, and my focus of worry shifts.)
-Anyway. Not really looking for advice, just wanted to ramble. I know what kind of book this will turn out to be and, in the end, I'm more interested in trying to impress my fellow pattern-making colleagues than the general buying public. Plus, my previous attempts to impose pattern on chaotic material have been well-received. So, back to work. Ancient Greece is still a mess, and if I'm gonna make "The Loch Ness Monster vs. The Minotaur" viable, I need to hammer on it some more...
bruceb/bruce_b recently became the proud papa of the newest edition of the classic RPG Gamma World. (GW is a post-apocalyptic game that has been around in various forms for a quarter-century now.) The game's getting flak, some of it from odd quarters. Many of the prior editions -- including some of the popular ones -- are fondly remembered through a nostalgia-colored haze for not making much sense. Not everything had a rational explanation, the background was as thin as tissue, and radiation could give you laser-spewing bears. Fans of the older editions regard this as part of the game's appeal.-The new GW, on the other hand, makes somewhat more sense. The background is more consistent, the superpowers, while still nonsense, are spread out over more technobabble, and the game can be used to play more serious, less-loopy, campaigns. Naturally, some of the hardcore fans are panning it.
-Which brings me to me. (Yes, as usual, this is all about me.) I'm currently working on a giant monster RPG. In cinema, the kaiju genre has almost zero continuity. For the Godzilla films made up through the mid-70s, the only continuity was, "Will the humans recognize this monsters?" Then, that continuity baggage got dumped, and they started fresh with a new continuity in the 80s. The 80s-90s Godzilla films were actually set in one universe, and had recurring human characters, even. Then that baggage got dumped. Et cetera. Heck, when you look at the history of King Ghidorah, you find out that he's alternately an alien monster, a genetically-engineered creation of evil Americans from the future, and one of the mystical defenders of Earth.
-But, I am largely incapable of writing a book that's deliberately incoherent, and I tend to make patterns even where there are none to be seen. This was true when I wrote my GURPS Godzilla webpage, and it's true for this project (which isn't about Godzilla, I should note, but rather similar critters). So there's a part of me which worries that this book will make too much sense to accurately recreate the feel of kaiju cinema.
(Then I look at how slapped-together the current manuscript is, and my focus of worry shifts.)
-Anyway. Not really looking for advice, just wanted to ramble. I know what kind of book this will turn out to be and, in the end, I'm more interested in trying to impress my fellow pattern-making colleagues than the general buying public. Plus, my previous attempts to impose pattern on chaotic material have been well-received. So, back to work. Ancient Greece is still a mess, and if I'm gonna make "The Loch Ness Monster vs. The Minotaur" viable, I need to hammer on it some more...
