Re: Atrocity

Trotsky said:
>Again, this is a large part of the point I'm trying to make. Naturally,
>nobody plays a game with the intent of getting angry or upset, but
>different people have different levels of tolerance. Atrocities are the
>sort of thing that could ruin my enjoyment of a game, so I minimise them
>- and I like to have an in-world reason *why* they're not occurring much
>in my games, rather than just making it blind GM fiat. YGWV, indeed.

        It's also possible, I think, to let the players know that atrocities are happening but not dwell on the details. The Chinese film _The Emperor and the Assassin_, about the first emperor of China, is told largely from the view of a noblewoman who believes in the Emperor's benevolence but slowly realizes that the conquest, started for "good" reasons has become an end in itself. There is a scene where she sees the aftermath of a particularly viscious battle. While we can see a few of the bodies she encounters, the camera mostly focuses on her face and her experience of disillusionment and shock.

        "You arrive at another stead -- what you thought was welcoming cooking smoke comes from the smoldering remains of the main hall. Bodies are scattered around, mostly the old and very young. They did not die easily. The Black Leopard Mandate reached this stead, too." That should be enough to let the players get a good hate on for the BLM or other villain withought grossing out players or Narrator. _Orlanth Is Dead_ does a pretty good job of presenting the awfulness of the Bad Winter without dwelling too much on the grisly details.

Peter Larsen

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End of Glorantha Digest Received on Mon Sep 9 08:15:17 2002