An interesting review

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

One of role-playing's "men of letters," Andrew Rilstone, has posted a review of Little Fears http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/littlefears.htm">here.

Its points bear some discussion. I'm not quite as interested in psychologizing authors as he is, so his various speculations about Jason's mind-set don't move me. However, I consider his point about the disconnection of the Kings from actual childhood fears to be valid. (My review and our style of play, as described, pretty much removes the Kings.)

I'm curious about others' thoughts about the review, and most especially about the Kings' "fit" with the rest of the game.

Best,
Ron

[ This Message was edited by: Ron Edwards on 2001-11-14 12:37 ]

[jburneko]

Hello,

Interesting review.  VERY interesting review.  I find the most interesting comment to be that the game is not about childhood fears but rather about adult fears concerning children.  To me this actually makes the game playable.  As Ron pointed out it's hard to get into a child mindset but this slight shift in focus means you don't have to.  It means you, the adult player, can confront what YOU fear about children through a child protagonist and monsterous alagories.  

Now, I have to admit something at this point to make my self clear.  I remember being affraid of only one thing when I was a kid and it wasn't the monster under the bed or in my closet.  I was afraid of windows.  I would always sit there staring at the window expecting any minute for someone to come along and stare in at me.  I was affraid to turn my back because I knew the phantom peeping tom would choose THAT moment to stare in at me and possibily break through the window and grab me.  I remember distinctly telling my mother, "When I grow up, I want to live in a house without windows."

So MY childhood fear was exactly what the reviewer points out is not a "real" childhood fear.  I was affraid of a bad human being doing bad things to me.  I never thought the person outside my window was a monster.  Since, I was never affraid of the monster under the bed or in my closet I have trouble trying to roleplay that fear.

I agree with both the reviewer and Ron that if you want the game to be about children fighting against childhood fears that the Kings are out of place and unnecessary.  Belief magic covers it all.  If you believe in the monster under the bed, then the monster under the bed is real and can harm you.  However, I think playing the game as a way to address adult fears about their children (and themselves) losing their Innocense I think is a perfectly valid approach in which case the kings are almost vital.

Think about this way.  (I'm ashamed to admit that I, as of yet, do not actually OWN a copy of Little Fears, sigh.  But I have read parts of it and learned a lot from reviews and discussions here).  Acording to the review Fear and Innocense are inversely proportional.  The more fear you have the less Innocent you are.  I was INSTANTLY reminded of Yoda in Episode I saying, "Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, and Hate leads to the Dark Side."

And that's what the seven deadly sins are, the dark side.  The reviewer is right.  The seven deadly sins are ADULT fears.  Their things ADULTS worry and feel guilty about.  Adults look back at the children and say, "Oh look when I was innocent and didn't have to worry about these things."  What a great way to deal with that anxiety through this game.  It's a chance to protect your Innocense from the Dark Side of reality.

Okay this is a bit rambly now.  Just my thoughts.

Jesse

[GreatWolf]

Okay.  I only have time for some quick comments.  I may return to deal with this in more detail later.

So, in no particular order, here goes:

--I was annoyed that Rilstone pooh-poohed Little Fears' approach to child abuse.  The main reason that I got involved with the project in the first place is because of my deep love of children and my knowledge of the depth and pervasiveness of child abuse.  I could share stories with you about people that I know that would horrify you, let alone the news stories that have hit Erie in the last year alone.  His talk of a tabloid view of the world went over very poorly with me.

--Little Fears can be about childhood fears or about adult's fears for children.  I see the shift from Dark Faery Tale to Scary Story to True Horror to be a continuum, not necessarily three distinct story styles.  Dark Faery Tales are about childhood fears (more or less).  As we head towards the True Horror side of the spectrum, the fears become more about adult fears for children.  The running debate is (IMHO) missing the point.

--I felt that he dwelt far too long on the issue of sexual abuse.  When I first talked to Jason about LF, I challenged him on the inclusion of the Defiler.  His response was simple: it is included because it really exists.  And the point of LF, when all is said and done, is to motivate to action.  You should walk away from playing Little Fears a little more conscious of the dangers facing many children, even now, and perhaps be moved to compassion and to action.  (Incidentally, this speaks to the GNS issue.  LF isn't supposed to be Narrativist.  It's not really about crafting a joint story.  It's about the experience of being a child.)

Well, I have to run.  I should also note that this review was discussed on RPGnet at this url:

http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=61&i=17761&t=17761

I particularly appreciated Brand Robins' comments, although I don't think that I ended up agreeing with all of them.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. Some really good points made over at RPGnet. I'd like to reiterate one. It's about the whole adult/child horror thing.

Jason never says in the book that all fears were created by children. His Universe has its own cosmology and it happens to be different than ours. Obviously. Belief magic don't work in RL. It does in LF. In LF there are beings of evil called Kings who have very adult desires. But the game is still about children encountering these bad guys. The children may not even be able to pronounce the names of the Kings, much less comprehend what the Kings are like thouroughly. But I bet a kid would be afraid of one, despite that. Certainly afraid of what a King would do in a game.

The game is not just about what kids are afraid of in RL. It is about that and what they are afraid of in Mr. Blair's universe. Which includes the Kings as well as things that go bump in the night. Could you play without them? Sure. But I don't see any particular problem with them being in the game either. And I can see them being quite a source of inspiration.

The argument against the Kings is something akin to saying that you could play in Middle Earth without Sauron. Sure. But why miss out on an potentially excellent villain.

Mike

[Dav]

Hey Mike (et al);

I see your point regarding the inclusion of the Kings, however, I feel that these villians, crafty though they be, seem too "template" in some ways.  Certainly, a creature encompassing the petty jealousies of childhood (and boy are those there) deserves some sort of embodiment.  However, I feel that including someone as THE embodiment of this is not truly conducive to the overall point (or, at least, my point).

Little Fears relies upon the "things that go bump in the night", not the King that goes bump in the night.  Keeping these creatures essentially formless (not Lovecraftian formless, but undefined) until confronted or given form by the fears of the first child to interact with them gives the game more "umph" (not a technical term).  

When Donald (in my game), started fearing hyenas, the croaking, growling laughter of striped dog-wolves began to flood the neighborhood.  THAT is fear.  Not only does Donald now have to reconcile this fear, but his guilt over having (wittingly or unwittingly) released these fears.  Similarly, using belief magic along with the fears of a kid made things more interesting when a girl throwing a temper tantrum tosses some kid underneath the porch.  She fears dark places and holes.  Perfect.  Inadvertently, she tossed the poor lad into Closetland.  Guilt+Fear=Fun.  (In role-playing, not as a life goal, mind you)

I think personalizing the horror, and thereby specifically not having Kings within the game, creates a terror beyond that of "creepy man with all-powerful smile".


Dav

ps: I have it on good authority that hyena are neither related to dogs nor wolves.  But, that is fossil record, and I am talking looks here.  Besides, aside from "Lion King", I don't know that I have seen a hyena.

[ This Message was edited by: Dav on 2001-11-15 02:04 ]

[Bankuei]

  I think that games should be reviewed in the context of what they are trying to acheive.  Little Fears provided that range of childhood fears of monsters and beasts to the adult fears of human monsters and beasts very well.  It was not designed to be solely fantasy, nor a grim sojourn into the daily paper.

 I recall being deadly afraid of the toilet when I was a child.  I remember having nightmares that it was a malevolent entity trying to swallow me whole.  Irrational, yes.  The types of fears children have, yes.

 Unfortunately, we live in a world where the fears of children aren't the irrational ones anymore.  The very real adult fears are the ones children are forced to face now.  I was fortunate enough to be just on the edge of the generation when it started to change.  Children do worry about gangs, rape, and violence.  Children do worry about that creepy guy who exposes himself, or just stands there watching everyday.

 My biggest real world fear was the bully.  But by the time I was 12 it was getting shanked by gang of bullies and their need to prove their manhood.  I don't believe the tabloid view of things, but I also think that a lot of the problems in this world have gone unreported and are glossed over in our search for entertainment.  I don't know a single woman my age who hasn't been molested, or had a narrow escape at a young age.

 The situations of adult fears for children are very real, and very dangerous, and most of them go unreported, because NO ONE LISTENS TO KIDS.  No one listened when someone said they were getting bullied, until Colombine.  No one listened when that boy ran naked to the cops from Dahmer, no one listened when a little girl said her brother was going to kill her...

 Honestly, the book is designed to dig deep.  You should feel outraged that children should have to worry about more than the closet monster.  I wish the Tabloids were the only source of these stories.  I also wish more people were aware of what is really going on out there.  Little Fears is a book about childhood fear and terror, it's just that children have different fears and terrors then what we'd like to think.

Sorry for the rant...It's very close to me

Bankuei

[Ron Edwards]

Bankuei,

I appreciate all of your points about real issues very closely.

However, I don't see how they apply to Little Fears, or to the points raised about the Kings.

Explicitly, the game is about childhood terrors, which I think has been articulated very clearly by Jason and (I hope) by me in my review. That means that the toilet, the windows, etc, are the topic, as well as things like fear of disapproval.

Implicitly, the game produces adult horror, as I wrote in the review. You, me, and Jason are all on the same page about this - JUST childhood terror would not mean very much, and in fact would be irresponsible. Children face real danger.

Where you and I diverge concerns whether the Kings actually HELP or HINDER the issue. I think they hinder it, because they do not correspond either to the terror or to the horror.
1) No one seems to disagree that the Kings do not correspond to the terror. The very idea of "sins" as written presents them as adult issues, for instance.
2) We apparently disagree regarding how they correspond to the horror. I suggest that their externality (being cosmic, Sandman-style, autonomous beings) DIMINISHES their impact. The passage I criticize in the review reinforces the point.

It goes back to the Sixth Sense example, too. There did not need to be any King behind the evil committed by the mother character. If there were, I would have found that part of the film both un-horrific and frankly dishonest. (I also appreciated the way that simple human pain and dysfunction could also be a source of suffering, as well as human evil. The principal character's grandmother would be a good example.)

Dav, I, and the other members of the group played in such a way that the Terrors took in-game shape strictly from the kids' fears, and that the Horror arose as WE recognized the actual, very human sources of the real dangers the kids faced but never clearly understood (ranging from a borderline-abusive but well-meaning parent, to an out-and-out pervert/killer). We did this BECAUSE it relied on acknowledging how irreversibly fragile a child is, and how childhood is often merely survived.

You are, of course, free to disagree. However, because we disagree about this does NOT mean that one of us cares about kids being abused in the real world and one of us doesn't.

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

Hiya, just a  comment hear about some of the UK public debate which, from my reading, probably informed Rilstones position.  Recently there has been much frothing in the tabloid press over paedophiles, with what amount to lynch mobs attacking people, burning houses and calling for any child sex offender to be shot and or mutilated as the only legitimate form of justice.  The crack he made about driving peadiatricians out of town was not hyperbole, we have already had such incidents.

In counterpoint to this hysteria, many commentators have made comparative analyses of the real risks posed to children, and frankly being abducted by a sex-killer is a real but not very frequent risk; children are much more likely to be killed by traffic or at the hands of their own guardians (eg Climbie).  I think part of Rilstones point is that although LF is aimed at the dnagers, mythical or factual, to which children are exposed, it appears to do so (in his analysis) by moving it out of the realm of the human and into an abstracted Other.

Anyway, I say this as someone who has not read LF, but as I say, I think the debate as it exists in the UK media is heavily influencing his view.  Just FYI.

[contracycle]

Nasty critters, hyenas.  Sneaky too.  I can easily see them as good nightmare-fodder.  Heres a little gallery of hyenas doing what hyenas do:

http://www.lastrefuge.co.uk/images/html/hyena/preview_html/hyena1.html

[Mike Holmes]

Wow, lots of good points. First, let me say that I agree that the media finds it very profitable to exaggerate the relative frequency of abuse on children. Most people find it hard to believe, but violent crime in America is down in recent years. Also, the Columbine event was a blip in the trend towards less violence in schools. If you say, yes, but the violence is much worse when it occurs now, I'd point you to a story about two high schoolers who killed (by poison IIRC) a large number of their classmates in the ninteen-twenties (again IIRC). My point is that these things are not getting worse, they are getting better. Do the research if you don't believe me.

What we have these days is better reporting. We often now find things that we would have missed before. But that does not change the fact of the number of occurences.

OTOH, the fact that these problems are decreasing does not mean that the few crimes committes are any less horrific. Possibly even moreso. We would be wrong if we were to say that even one incident against children was OK.


Ron has what I consider to be the only salient point against the Kings. I would say that LF is about adult (player) sympathy/empathy with the fears of children (characters). By embodying forms of evil you may actually reduce the personal nature of those evils or actually make them less scary. And given that you can replace them with things that you may feel are more appropriate, then, yes, you should feel free to omit them.

However, I can see using the Kings to great effect. I see them simply as the progenitors of fears (each in their particular realm) that are in excess to what the children would otherwise feel. That is, in addition to the normal fears that children have, in the universe of LF they are plagued even further by stuff created by the Demogogue and his henchmen. This explains to me why the characters are constantly encountering fears (or how you could have it so). A normal RL child is only frightened occasionally. But in LF they can be terrorized more frequently, and reasonably so. Capitalizing on childrens fear (or loss of innocence) allows the Kings to make more of the children's fears appear than might otherwise.

Also, the Kings being autonomous means that you can expose children to dangers (and attendant fears) that do not exist in RL. Though a child might not know what an ogre is, but in LF he might encounter one.

I understand that for some the game works better as an attempt to try to recapture what fears they felt when they were children in RL. But this is the version of the game that least appeals to me. I like it more as a fantasy, much like Cthulhu is a fantasy. The reason is below.


Warning: Personal commentary follows:
I've come to realize one of the reasons why I don't want to play a realistic and personal game of childhood horror (terror, whatever). Before I get further into this I am going to define a term and a specific usage of a term so that people understand what it is that I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to be controversial, but I'm afraid that I will be. Hence the need for care.

The term is exploitation. Here I'm defining that term in the sense NOT that there are any children actually being exploited per se by LF. But rather that I would be capitalizing on something tragic. It is somewhat akin to writing a book about the Holocaust without ever having been there, and profiting from it. I had a very happy, well-adjusted childhood. I was never abused by anyone in any way (possible exception of other children, mentally; this seems universal). Nothing that caused me any particular fears, anyhow. For me to play such a game would be to get something out of the fact that some children are abused, and the idea just grates on me.

I suppose that one could say that playing LF will help me then understand the realities of childhood fear better than I do now. But that would be akin to me saying that I could learn more about the living conditions of African-Americans by playing a game that looked at the horrors of living in a ghetto. Not likely. And, anyhow, I know enough to know that the only reasonable reaction to things that cause childhood terror is to help stop them in any way possible. What else do I need to know?

But this is all just my problem. I'm sure that it'll be artistic or cathartic or whatever to others; something that justifies the play in some way. I'm just not into it.

Mike

[jburneko]

After reading all of this I think the apropriateness of the Kings really depends on how much "Otherworldness" you want there to be in the game.  For me, "Otherworldness" is a comfort zone.  First of all it removes to from reality.  You know that it isn't real just a element in game.  Second of all it gives the source of the worlds problems a tangible form.  And if it has a tangible form then it can be defeated wholely and completely.

However, if you go with the "I think, therefore they are" source of the evil then it makes this that much more personal.  Not only must you face unspeakable evil but it is unspeakable evil that you yourself have wrought.  Not exactly an ewy gooy pleasent feeling but much more powerful.

By the way this discussion once again makes me recommend Stephen Kings, It, to everyone who plays this game.  In my opinion the book sort of walks a fine line between the two extremes.

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-11-15 16:47, jburneko wrote:
In my opinion the book sort of walks a fine line between the two extremes.

Excellent. Yes, that's where I could see the game being at it's best. Make it very existential. Are the Kings created by fear, or do they create fear. Its a feedback loop, so the question becomes where did it start? The proverbially mentioned first scream? But the Kings are different than childhood fears. There would seem to have been some other agent at some point to warp the childrens fears into the adult demons that are the Kings.

What is that agent? Original sin? The adults create sin and the children pay for it by being corrupted by the evil one, losing Innocence and eventually becoming adults in a world of sin themselves? Powerul allegories here; strong similarities to the story of the Garden of Eden. The end of Humanity's childhood and Innocence. The beginnings of Society? Of rational thought? Hmmm....

Reminds me of Altered States.

Mike

[GreatWolf]

And therein lies the strength of Little Fears.  In the end, what is Little Fears about?

Children fighting monsters.

That's it.

However, the content of each word can vary for each group (or even each iteration of play).

For example:

For Ron, this word equals "potential adults".  Therefore his playing of Little Fears focuses on the ultimate outcome of the lives of these children.  (BTW, I did think that the future story concept was nifty, given your goals.)

For me, this word equals "the defenseless innocent".  I'm not caring as much about the repercussions of these events on the adult life of the person.  I care about the fact that this child should be defended by someone else but instead is forced to defend himself.

For others, this word might equal "the imaginative and inquisitive warrior".  This is running Call of Cthulhu with Little Fears, which I usually do.  (My wife is very sensitive to the abuse issue because of her background.)

There are many other possible answers.  Which is right?  They're all the right answer.

That's why I think that the Kings are a strength, being well-balanced to serve all possible playing styles.  They do exist, which means that the "CoC" players of Little Fears have big mean bad guys to fight against.  Their existence is remote, which means that they can be pushed into the background, if necessary, for the players who want an immediate threat.  They can be customized to fit the needs of the play group.  I happen to know of fan sites that are creating more cosmology for Little Fears.  One person has created the Dukes, which personify weaker forces (e.g. the Duke of Sharp Pointed Objects).  Obviously this element of the game has struck a chord with some folks.

Do I personally use the Kings in my running of Little Fears?  Not much.  Primarily this is because I'm running the game in Cthulhu mode, and I never really did like facing investigators off against the big baddies of the Mythos.  However, I love the idea of Closetland and make heavy use of it.

(Although, now that I think about it, my first Little Fears game ended with the characters facing the Boogeyman....)

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-11-16 12:49, GreatWolf wrote:
Do I personally use the Kings in my running of Little Fears?  Not much.  Primarily this is because I'm running the game in Cthulhu mode, and I never really did like facing investigators off against the big baddies of the Mythos.  However, I love the idea of Closetland and make heavy use of it.

Good analogy. Rare is the actual CoC encounter with Azathoth. Why? Well, obvioulsy because nobody survives an encounter with Azathoth. Even the encounters with Nyarlathotep that I've seen written up state that what the characters are encountering is just a manifestation of him, and a monor portion of his being at that (same with Azathoth, really, but that minor portion is still always lethal). The point is not that the creatures exist to be eliminated, or even faced directly, but that they exist as a source of the horror.

Same with LF. The children may never encounter the Kings. But that doesn't mean that they can't feel the effect of the Kings. That doesn't mean that they can't learn of the Kings from the minions of the Kings.

And I don't see the Kings as being "killable" as some have implied. Any such change to the game would be a change in cosmology. I suggest leaving that for some sort of apocalyptic version of the game.

(Could be neat. The characters figure out how to destroy the Kings one by one, only to find them resurected in the final fight with the Demagogue. Lesson, fear itself is the real enemy. Particular things from which fear manifests itself are just facts. Fear is the killer of the soul. The Children destroy fear and the world returns to Eden once again. Or something along those lines. "From the mouths of Babes..." Children as saviors.)

Mike

[Jason L Blair]

And I don't see the Kings as being "killable" as some have implied.

In the history of Closetland, only one King has been killed (not exactly the best term to use, since The Defiler's still around, but it fits. And that was by another King. The thing to keep in mind (excuse the topic drift) is that Kings were not created by children. But ascended to Kinghood by the Demagogue.

A special note about the unnamed Kings: The Bogeyman is a station, a position. "He who controls the Bogeys." The same with the Defiler. "He who defiles." In other words, were Lamashtu to die, there would be not "Lamashtu" seat to fill but the throne of Wrath would be vacant. Unlike the Bogeyman.... but I'll get into this more later.