Juvenilia

So, this question was recently posed at the end of a Ten Foot Pole review for Gamma Turquoise: Santa Fe Starport...

"What's the point of all the penis imagery/juvenile themes? Not a complaint. Just curious and interested in why you think your work needs that?"

Rather than reply to this comment with something short like "Because I can," which isn't very illuminating, I thought, why not do a blog post about it?

The simplest answer is that I like comedy, I like things that are funny, I like being funny.  I think humor is one of the strongest qualities of both man and art - it reveals, deflects, digs deep, allows us to remain on the surface, and keeps us from taking things too seriously.

The vast majority of RPG content is serious, almost nobody writes for laughs.  Maybe that's because if what they write is taken seriously that means they'll be taken seriously?  I don't know.  But the exclusivity of humor in RPGs is one of the things that attracts me to it.  If most people are doing one thing, I like to go the other way.  That's just who I am.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, RPGs are a great medium for shared storytelling and cooperative imagination. But they also have a stumbling block or two. Without audio and visuals (besides the GM's voice and a few illustrations and possibly miniatures with terrain), RPGs lack the visceral punch of movies, TV, comic books, music, and novels (which is a different story entirely - campaigns are not novels, though we should take cues from them).

In fact, music is a good analogy - before the music video, you had the album cover art and maybe a few pictures of the musicians on the back.  Otherwise, you had to go see the concert and then it was just a bunch of people on a stage playing their instruments.  Even after MTV's heyday, a lot of today's music is consumed visually. 

So, what's my point?  That RPGs need a helping hand.  More than passing around a picture of a dragon or ginger-bearded tavern keeper, our gaming sessions are better if they incorporate strong imagery based on classic tropes, material the players have experienced in the movies, TV, and novels. I ask you, how many characters would have ever used a whip if not for Indiana Jones?

The familiarity of humor is also an "in." It's an imagination boost!  Laughter is universal, even though not everybody thinks the same things are funny.  My comedy can be weird and dark; it's occasionally juvenile and often rooted in sexual themes.  Plus, there's the whole sleazy angle which I love for entirely different reasons and is a blog post for another time...

In conclusion, my answer to why I think my work needs such things is this - comedy is gold!

VS

p.s.  There are still quite a few Kort'thalis Publishing books that aren't full of penile juvenilia.  Such as... Dead God Excavation, Blood Dark Thirst, The S'rulyan Vault I and II, and anything with "Like A Fucking Boss" in the title should have a minimum of frothing vaginal tentacles (uncircumcised).  That's the Venger Satanis guarantee!

PDF Sale at DriveThruRPG

There are a lot of titles on sale over at DriveThruRPG right now.  The sale's going on until March 11th. 

Apparently, many of my own PDFs are 33% off and burning a sleazy, eldritch, gonzo hole in the internet's back pocket!!!

Thanks for supporting Kort'thalis Publishing, guys!

VS

p.s. Endzeitgeist just reviewed Gamma Turquoise here and Save Yourself From Hell over here.

Gamma Turquoise PDF live!

I've said it a dozen times already, but will say it again to those awesome folks who backed the Gamma Turquoise: Santa Fe Starport Kickstarter - Thank you!!!

So, what's it all about?  Earth barely survived nuclear bombardment decades ago.  The southwest is one of the few areas that wasn't totally decimated, but it's still a weird and dangerous place.  There's trouble at the Santa Fe Starport... and this trouble is a many-headed beast!

Well, the scenario with a side-order of campaign setting turned out much longer and even more gorgeous than I originally intended.  +MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal) had everything to do with the latter.  Regarding the former, so much went into this fucker that I'm 111 shades of exhausted.  Wanted to get it out there before my birthday on November 25th.  So, now I can rest for a few days before starting new stuff.

The PDF is right over here. 

Enjoy and have a turquoise turkey day from all of us at Kort'thalis Publishing,

VS

Sexual Misconduct Jumped the Shark

FYI, this is a personal rant, as well as, an open letter to Leeann Tweeden and Al Franken.

While I think it's productive, even healing, to get all the sexual misconduct allegations out into the internet aether, there comes a point where "me too" degenerates into "might as well pile on because... not trending."

That low point sadly came today when Leeann Tweeden alleged that Senator Al Franken forcibly kissed her and groped her breasts.  The following are random thoughts I had about this news story...

• Tweeden mentioned that seeing the picture of her and Franken (just after it was taken, presumably) brought up new feelings of shame.  I wonder how she feels now that potentially millions of new people (like myself) are seeing it for the first time?
• You can clearly see space between Franken's hands and her breasts.  He's obviously pretending to touch her boobs - and the face he's making, looking back at the person taking the photo - is the obvious giveaway.  Plus, actually groping her would have woken her up.  And she admitted to not realizing what had happened until she saw the photo after the fact.
  
• A colleague kissing you (or attempting to kiss you) is not assault, and I'm not even sure it falls into misconduct territory.  The way she describes it, "forcing his tongue in my mouth" makes it seem scandalously sinister... as opposed to letting his tongue just lie there and waiting for the grace of Dread Cthulhu to move it around for him?  Human beings take action.  We do things.  Force is exerted so we can walk and talk.  That's how the universe works.
• If you don't like something, say so at the time.  I realize that people freeze up, get confused, or don't know how to react in the moment.  Then make your thoughts known the next day or the day after that.  Waiting 11 years to publicly denounce a fellow entertainer for hitting on you and taking a humorous photo is petty, attention whore, butt hurt, weak sauce.  Yes, it's at your expense - you're a human who fell asleep not in your bed and someone took a picture that playfully ridiculed you - get over it.  No one is above being made fun of.
• Obviously, our fellow human beings should be treated with respect.  Yet, everyone has to acknowledge that those same human beings are also potential sex partners.  We all have naked bodies, genitals, boobs, butts, etc. underneath our work attire.  I guarantee you that if men suddenly regarded the women around them as purely non-sexual beings, women would complain even more than they do now (if that's even possible).  Not to mention that the human race would eventually die out from lack of boning.  
• Leeann, your non-story actually detracts from the real stories of men and women who are coming forward with serious allegations.  What's next?  Some guy on the other side of the TV leered at your breasts while you were hosting Poker After Dark?  Yes, that was me.  And millions of other men.  But today... today, I don't want to see your beasts in a revealing outfit.  Today, I don't want to even think about your breasts.  Today, I don't want to imagine Al Franken almost doing something that I've thought about doing a thousand times in my 42 years on this planet (squeeze your breasts).  Today, I just want to finish writing this stupid blog post and forget about the day that sexual misconduct jumped the shark.
  
• I remember two or three weeks of muted outrage just before the 2016 Presidential election with women coming out alleging sexual misconduct by Donald Trump, but WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL THIS OUTRAGE BACK WHEN WE REALLY FUCKING NEEDED IT?!?  Because every day that Trump is still in office, America is only half the country it should be.
• Satirical versions of both Leeann Tweeden and Al Franken will appear in my upcoming location-based, post-apocalyptic RPG adventure Gamma Turquoise: Santa Fe Starport (available sometime next week).  Besides blogging, writing social commentary science-fiction is a way for me to work through all the bullshit and injustice in this world.

Thanks for listening.  If you'd like to add to the discussion, please feel free to do so here.

VS

p.s.  Just a few seconds ago, I read that Leeann Tweeden is a Republican who once said in the men's magazine FHM that she wants to make Democrats pay.  Hmm...