Game Designer and Father of Lovecraftian gaming. CEO of Petersen Games. Also Doom, Age of Empires, etc. Subscribe for cool stuff 3x weekly! Sorry, no DMs.
Utah
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I hate the horror film trope of "We are the real monsters".
This has only been brought off successfully three times in all horror history - Frankenstein, Day of the Dead, and Hellraiser. Every other time the audience rolls its eyes.
If you want humans to be the "real monsters" then DON'T HAVE MONSTERS. Just have humans. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Human Centipede, and Black Christmas do terrific jobs of having humans as the monsters.
If there are actual monsters in the film, let them breathe. Don't make them compete with some human. Unless you're a genius. Spoiler - if you work in modern Hollywood, you're not.
Tell me some I've missed.
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Okay so I promised I'd discuss the nature of orc reproduction today and WHY they are in fact one of Morgoths' most lethal creations.
We know orcs breed fast. I admit this is stated by dwarfs and elves who are the slowest breeding things in the universe. (Arwen was 2800 years old before she got married.)
I'm speculating, but I think it's supported by the works. Imagine that orcs DON'T breed like humans. Instead they breed like dogs. A large dog is about about the size of an orc. They are pregnant about 80 days (same as a great dane). They give birth to a small litter of precocious children. Say 3-6 whelps, who are more or less abandoned to fend for themselves in a creche. A few guards get assigned to feed the orclings, and keep them from killing each other too much. Mom sticks around a few weeks as one of the guards, then leaves. If the orclings grow to adulthood at the rate of a dog, this means they can breed on their own in 2 years.
This isn't a weird preternatural ability. It's pretty common among mammals. A cow weighs more than 1000 lbs at 2 years of age. Mountain lions are 2 years old when they have their first litter. It's humans that are the outliers with our long gestation and growth. Why would orcs be similar? Why not be like other animals?
Morgoth's magic means orcs are born with a natural ability to learn Black Speech. If they're precocious the orcs can walk or crawl from birth. Think of lemurs - they are primates, but have motor skills early. Or goats & pigs - they can walk within a half hour of birth. This makes orcs more alien, which I think is good.
YES this also means that orcs, at age 2 and adult size, are going to be ABSOLUTELY CRAPPY warriors. Their skills will be limited. Sure they can stab you and figure out which end of a bow is the pointy bit, but most any human outfight a single orc. Don't worry. It's all part of the plan, and helps explain how the orcs get killed in such vast numbers in battles when they lose.
NOW FOR THE MATH. If orcs can breed at age 2, and each female has a litter of 3-6 orcs a year, then in the 78 years between the Battle of Five Armies and the War of the Ring, Sauron could have bred heaps of orcs. Assume the species was almost completely exterminated at Five Armies. Twenty years later there would be over 300,000 orcs.(assuming no losses). Thirty years after, almost 100 million orcs! By 78 years to the War of the Ring, there are theoretically 35 QUINTILLION orcs.
Obviously this isn't the case. They hunt, they fight, they die, they eat each other. I'm sure there are only a few million orcs by War of the Ring. But these creatures reproduce with amazing swiftness and that's what Sauron likes.
This is why Sauron doesn't care that orc warriors are inept. He can afford to lose 100 orcs for each human soldier he kills. He doesn't care when orcs kill each other at Cirith Ungol. Plenty more where THEY came from. And after all, orcs DO learn more skill in fighting over time, so eventually they're decent enough. Infighting just hones those skills.
Orcs don't need magic, super strength or anything else special to threaten Middle Earth. All they need is to be orcs. For leaders or elite troops, Sauron's got trolls, easterlings, and southrons. And a few remaining Black Numenoreans.
Why did Sauron breed Uruk-Hai? Surely they are slower to breed than orcs. I think the fact that Uruk-Hai can fight in the sunlight is a huge edge.
This means that an orc's family life is being raised in an underground warren, fighting for maggoty bread with your siblings, and being terrorized by bigger orcs. There are no orc babies in their cribs for Aragorn to massacre (sorry G. R. R. Martin). Just a terrifying unnatural species that destroys the world's natural balance. If allowed to grow unchecked, they will exterminate every other intelligent being.
You may argue that Sandy made a lot of assumptions here. And I did. But my assumptions match up with the movies and books AND more importantly make orcs a fearful force.
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Who is the greatest video game villain of ALL TIME?
These are, of course, the objectively best choices. I thought about the Cyberdemon for a while, but in the end he doesn't really have much of a personality.
So ... Pokey? GLaDOS, Kefka, or Gruntilda?
One thing they all share - they relentlessly taunt you which is awesome and makes you hate them. Pokey has the best final words "I'm ... well it's going to look like I'm running away." Kefka has that evil laugh. GLaDOS is hysterically funny. And Gruntilda makes rhymes about how much you suck. (Remember when she offered, "Kazooie go and dump the bear. 🎶 That little backpack then I'll wear."
Your pick?
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From the Carboniferous to nearly the end of the Triassic, Earth had only one continent - Pangaea. (From about 320m years ago to 180m., so about 160 million years). It's hard for us to imagine now just how alien that was.
In the modern world, the closest we have to a super-continent is Eurasia (that's pretty close though).
During Pangaea's heyday, the continent's interior averaged 1800-2700 miles (3000-4500km) from any coast. Today, the furthest you can get is 1600 miles (in Xinjiang/Kazakhstan). And that place is desolate.
We can't even imagine how desolate the interior of Pangaea was - huge seasonal temperature swings, vast deserts, and a megamonsoon from the colossal ocean, Panthalassa, that nonetheless could not reach the interior. Moisture literally couldn't penetrate to the inside of Pangaea, which was as dry as Mars.
We can get a hint of this by looking at the Gobi desert in the middle of Asia, but it's not nearly the same.
In addition, the animal life was basically the same all over the continent's rim. Gorgonopsids, dinocephalians, dicynodonts, pelycosaurs, huge carnivorous amphibians, and even a few reptiles. Most of these animals were what we now call "synapsids" - NOT reptiles (though looking rather similar) and were in fact in our own mammal line. In fact mammals are the only surviving synapsids. Our ancestors ruled the world.
If you traveled around the edge of Pangaea you'd encounter the same creature types again and again. It wasn't like today, where we have six or seven different continental ecozones, depending on how we count them.
Then it all went to Hell with the Great Dying at the end of the Permian, while basically killed everything. Then in the mid-Triassic, the dinosaurs appeared and our mighty synapsid line had to turn into little furry burrows and tree-dwellers to stay out of the line of fire. At least we got our own back when the meteor hit Chicxulub.
But here's the thing - one gigantic super-continent with an unlivable interior is actually a REALLY INTERESTING alien realm, and you should consider using it for your cool D&D (or other) world.
Alternatively, in the mid-Mesozoic, we had eight continents, and some big islands. For even more biological diversity.
Yes?
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Synapsids are really interesting and more ought to be known about them.
The most famous one is Dimetrodon, which is in every plastic dinosaur set.
The second most famous was Moschops which USED to be in every plastic dinosaur set. No longer. I guess it wasn't cool enough.
An even less-famous but cooler one were the Gorgons, which were horrific and large saber-toothed monstrosities that were the apex predators. We did get to see Gorgons in the first season of the British TV show Primeval which I recommend.
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A mace is by far the best anti-zombie weapon.
It doesn't get stuck, it's easy to master, and it's lethal, able to break legs and skulls. A bat or club are functionally similar. Its major drawback is it is not so useful outside combat, while an axe is so useful. If you can get a shield, then mace and shield make a dandy combo. You could substitute a crowbar for a mace, giving up some lethality for more non-combat stuff. Another advantage of a mace is if it gets "twisted" in your hand, there's no "flat" of the weapon. It's deadly any direction it points.
A war hammer can get stuck in leather or bone and yanked out of your hand. This is rife in medieval accounts.
Swords (yes even katanas) have the problem of getting stuck if you don't swing just right or slice too deep. This is why medieval soldiers always carried a backup weapon. Swords and spears and the like getting lodged and wrenched out of your grip happened all the time in medieval combat. Thrusting weapons like rapiers are even more likely for this to occur.
If I HAD to use a sword in the zombie apocalypse, I'd take a cavalry saber. They self-orient when swung, are unlikely to get stuck if you keep them dull, and are a long steel bar with a narrowish edge to split skulls and break legs. It's also really easy to find in museums and hanging on walls. Sabres are also more lightweight than most maces, less tiring to use, and have more reach.
Yes guns are even better, but I'm assuming we're gonna run out of ammo at some point. And even if we don't, YOU personally may need a melee weapon.
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Three things I am convinced of regarding orcs.
1) Orc females look like males. They're flat-chested like chimps and other apes. They're just as aggressive and cruel as males. When they're pregnant, they sequester themselves, and after giving birth they abandon the babies in a warren with other young orcs and a couple guardians. The children grow up squabbling over food and such and get tough.
2) Orcs are instinctively cruel. Heaven does not blame them for all their evil, any more than a rat is "blamed" for raiding a pantry. They are judged by their own lights. Perhaps an orc who refrains from some petty cruelty has shown more moral courage than an elf who did a noble deed. I do agree that some orcs lean into their natural evil.
3) We know orcs can breed with humans. We also know that there is no indication from the stories that they WANT to breed with humans. I think orcs are naturally far less interested in sex than are humans. We know that dwarfs and elves have pretty weak sex drives. I think this goes to orcs. But orcs are forced into sex by their cruel masters to make more of their numbers. This is doubtless another reason that orcs dwindled fast in the Fourth Age after their masters were wiped out.
I offer these as ideas you can jeer at or use or adapt.
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I agree that part of the reason that Orcs (and humans and elves for that matter) aren't interested in sex is because they were written up by a middle-aged British academic.
Heck, Lovecraft's monsters ARE interested in sex but Lovecraft goes into zero detail for which I am extremely grateful.
Elsewhere I've analyzed Orc breeding and reached the conclusion that it's really incredibly fast. I should probably do the math and publish it again.
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After Doom succeeded, John Carmack decreed that our next game also needed to have a one word title. Thus it got named Quake, despite the title have literally nothing to do with the game in any way.
There's no one named Quake. There's no Quake Hammer that hits the floor and makes a crack. Both of these were in the original plan, but both got dropped. You can see a tiny remnant of the Quake Hammer in the Lightning Bolt, which uses roughly the same animation, except in the air. And glowing.
No I don't have any suggestions for a different name. Quake works for me.
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Original plan was the hero would have an object (probably a cube) orbiting him. When attacks hit the cube, you’d be safe. Also when the cube “orbited” into an enemy, the enemy would be injured or killed.
I vaguely remember plans for things that would upgrade the cube.
Anyway it never saw the light of day.
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No one wants to think they're evil in real life. The concept of a person who is "evil for evil's sake" is a complete fiction.
We all justify our evil by either thinking we had no choice, or by claiming that anyone in our position would make that same choice. Even evil-doers as different as Stalin & Son of Sam did that. Or of course, they "justify" it by simply not thinking about it. They just do whatever actions seem good in their eyes.
This is why villains in media so often say to the hero, "You and I are the same." Because the villain actually believes if their positions were reversed, they WOULD be the same. Of course, the creator needs to ensure that the audience can see through this sophistry. And let's be clear - an imperfect hero is NOT the same as a villain.
Some modern writers think a desirable end justifies any means, which is why their heroes are villains. I feel a really good take on this was in The Dark Knight, in which the Joker is stunned when he realizes that there are actually good people who are not like him when the ferries don't explode. But most authors aren't as good as that.
Share your favorite examples.
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One of mine is how Walter White becomes more and more a villain in Breaking Bad, while Jesse becomes more and more a good guy (though flawed and manipulated).
The icing on top, for me, is that White was told he had less than two years, and with all the stuff he did, he lived those two years. Plus his former partners clearly would have taken care of his family.
So it was literally all for nothing. All the deaths, the lives ruined.
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For those interested, Javier Milei made a speech at the UN today. A summary:
1) He called the UN “useless” and said it “only serves to feed a caste of parasites.” He said its original purpose of defending sovereignty and resolving conflicts peacefully has been broken.
2) He naturally discussed the Falklands. He said the UN “looked the other way” on the dispute, that resolutions have no consequences, and that Argentina won’t wait for the UN. He asked the UK to resume negotiations, including about natural resources. He rejected self-determination for the islanders.
3) He aligned Argentina unambiguously with the West, specifically naming the USA and Israel.
4) He called out the UN remaining silent on Islamic terrorism and genocides of Christians in Africa.
5) He said the UN’s COVID lockdown recommendations were an “experiment in social control disguised as science” and said it “generated a genocide.”
6) He wants unrestricted AI development and said Argentina wishes to be at the forefront of that revolution and NOT subject to heavy international regulation.
If you like or dislike what he said, that's on Mr. Milei, not me. I'm just reporting.
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Many people don't know about Moxie, except as a word meaning courage and grit. But it's also the World's Worst Soft Drink.
Moxie is from New England. The further north you go, the easier it is to find. It is the favored drink of bigger middle-aged men who are fishing. (Source: middle aged Maine men I've spoken with). I have in fact drunk Moxie more than once.
When you're actually drinking it, and it's in your mouth, it's almost palatable. Almost. The aftertaste is the real gift though. You're certain to enjoy it if you like the smell of burning rubber tires.
If you offered me a Moxie right now, I would still drink it, because it's quite an experience. You can get it delivered via Walmart or Amazon for about two six-packs for $30. Surprise your friends!
I don't feel bad dissing Moxie, because my New England friends are proud of its flavor profile, such as it is. Also I really really REALLY like the logo of the guy pointing accusingly at you, as if to ask you "Are you man enough?"
If you're a Moxie drinker, this is your chance to show off.
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