Initial thoughts on the Call of Cthulhu
May. 17th, 2024 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillilahFirst, I can see why the Call of Cthulhu makes a good roleplaying game. I especially like the "you see a newspaper article that gives you a clue" plot device. It is okay in a story, but I think it is better in a roleplaying game.
Second, it is so interesting to look at the state of the world when Lovecraft wrote the story and see the influence on the text. I took a ton of notes that I'd like to better organize. There are, of course, a bunch of other stories and books that I'd like to read, but I may have to add in another. Erick Fromm, a philosopher who I think was a bit of an ass, wrote a book called "Escape from Freedom" about the challenges some people face when confronted with freedom and why they might choose to support some asshole instead of thinking for themselves. It took me quite a while to read a different book of his that was fairly short, so I expect to struggle with "Escape from Freedom", which is twice as long, but I think it might be useful for me to read it. There is also something Umberto Eco wrote about fascism (turns out it is a fairly short essay called Ur-Fascism), which might be useful too, since I think that at least some of the ideas in the book might related in some way to fascism.
Second, it is so interesting to look at the state of the world when Lovecraft wrote the story and see the influence on the text. I took a ton of notes that I'd like to better organize. There are, of course, a bunch of other stories and books that I'd like to read, but I may have to add in another. Erick Fromm, a philosopher who I think was a bit of an ass, wrote a book called "Escape from Freedom" about the challenges some people face when confronted with freedom and why they might choose to support some asshole instead of thinking for themselves. It took me quite a while to read a different book of his that was fairly short, so I expect to struggle with "Escape from Freedom", which is twice as long, but I think it might be useful for me to read it. There is also something Umberto Eco wrote about fascism (turns out it is a fairly short essay called Ur-Fascism), which might be useful too, since I think that at least some of the ideas in the book might related in some way to fascism.
