games

Honestly not thrilled with the gradual reduction of all fantasy critters to hot sexy girls.

I got in an argument once with a dm who was like "yeah my succubi aren't physical incarnations of transgressive sex manifested by the real metaphysical force of evil to oppress mortals" and i was like "but bro succubi are entirely tied to the idea of a physical incarnation of transgressive sex manifested by the real metaphysical force of evil to oppress mortals. That's their whole thing. That's... like that is the text, and the subtext. Without that you're just being horny for red girls with wings." And he was all "well that's boring and cliched and no one likes alignment anyway and that's why they're just red girls with wings in my game and i am horny for them."

I genuinely don't get the drive to make every monster, including the really alien ones, just another guy (or, specifically, a sexy lady who wants to do you.) Like yeah, whatever, mythology is fucked up, dnd is fucked up, but instead of doing anything interesting to adress that a lot of people are stripping all the weirdness and the alienness out of myths and superstitions. Instead of weird goblins that poison the ore (kobolds == cobalt) you've got sexy lizard shawties who want to do you. Instead of a bizarre other who lives in the dark and dangerous parts of the world and haunts the periphery of civilized life you've got short green hotties who want to do you. Instead of a massive, alien intelligence of unfathomable age and wisdom, maybe with quasi-divine origins, dragons are just big lizards who want to do you. Instead of manifestations of evil and the harm people do to each other, supernaturally given form and intelligence and thrown up from hell to reflect humanity's violence and terror back on itself demons are just hot people with horns who want to do you.

If all the monsters have moral agency and complex inner worlds and are basically just guys living their lives then they're not monsters. Which is fine if you want to do some kind of urban fantasy thing, I guess, but where is the fantasy part of making everyone in your world someone just like you, except maybe they have blue skin or horns?

One of the neat storytelling beats with magic and gods and supernatural stuff is you can have critters that are extremely alien and weird. Like that just have goals and needs that are at complete right angles to reality. I much prefer New Weird stuff like Peridido Street Station or the background to Dishonored or even Tolkien where once you wipe the dust off the glass you realize that whatever is on the other side is fundamentally not like your world. Meanwhile there's tons of stories floating around where elves are hot girls who want to do you, and goblins are hot girls who want to do you, and werewolves blah blah blah.

Werewolves are another one that bugs me. Why have a bizarre and uncanny monster that embodies the fear agriculturalists and pastoralists have of both wolves and of strangers, that mixes in the fear of infection and contagion, that haunts the night and the moors that are inhospitable to people, in your story? That's all boring, i want hot wolf people who want to do me!

It's a whole ass thing. The last time i did a campaign i worked really hard to avert it. The hot winged demon ladies had personalities and goals and interests and friends and all that stuff that makes for an interesting and rounded character, but that was still all rooted in and constrained by their being supernatural, magical predators very literally made out of evil and fear.