[[So you, as a Gorey fan, can't tell whether the artwork on your game rips off Gorey?]]

Perhaps you didn't read through to the end of my post, Graham.

"Obviously Gorey is a strong influence on the art, and that makes sense, because it fits with the flavor of the game... (but) the lines of Goody Zarr don't seem to fit his style at all, and the entire Circus family has a very different feel. Todd Remick's work in Unwelcome Guests has a completely different flavor; if anything, I think it's more like Gahan Wilson than Edward Gorey. So I can't speak for the artists, but sure, I think it's only logical to assume that Gorey was an inspiration for them... but not the only one, as shown by the variety of styles throughout the work."

I've said that it's *obvious* Gorey is an inspiration on the game. The main reason it didn't occur to be to mention it somewhere is because I couldn't imagine that anyone familiar with Gorey's work couldn't see it... and I've always assumed most of the audience would be familiar with Gorey. But he's not the only inspiration. And the vast amount of art draws inspiration from something - As Kieran says in post 6, hundreds of artists are inspired by Dali, and you can see it in their work; but they rarely print that at the bottom of a painting, and you don't see cards in Magic: the Gathering pointing out the inspiration of the Hildebrants or WAR.

For me, the key is that I always assumed the audience of the game would SEE the inspirations and recognize them without them being spelled out. The recent discussions have made me realize that this isn't the case - and that even the people who recognize Gorey as an inspiration often overlook or are unfamiliar with the others. My LJ post was an effort to correct that, because all of these authors and artists are influences, and I think anyone who enjoys the game will enjoy all of them; so that acknowledgement is a logical thing to squeeze into the rules in the future.

For me, the key to the storytelling is drawing the connections between the modifier you wish to play and what's gone before. For example, "was put into prison" is fairly straightforward. But WHY was he put into prison? At that point, it makes a big difference whether he was previously married magnificently (did he poison the pastor?), disgraced at a dance (less "Cinderella", more "Carrie"), or praised in the papers (as it turns out, what they were praising was his serial killing technique). So the modifier itself suggests a basic situation - married, blessed, imprisoned, slandered, and so on. But there's a lot of different ways "clever at cards" can play out, based on what's come before. "Mauled by a manatee" is trickier, I'll admit, because it is so specific. But I enjoy the challenge. How do you even run into a manatee in prison, or when you're disgraced at a dance? Is it an ice sculpture that fell on you? Was it hiding in the punchbowl? Was that manatee doing hard time? From a purely mechanical perspective, it makes no difference, but it's what makes each game different, and what I enjoy. So where post #18 is suggesting that you combine two pieces for the story - "pursued by" and "poodles", I'm just saying that as it is, you are combining two things - the current modifier and the one that precedes it.

Of course, if you're just fresh out of ideas for ways to bring a manatee into the story, I can respect that! Frankly, when I play, I don't use all the cards from all the expansions; if we've seen enough of manatees we swap it out, just as I change the cards in Apples to Apples every once in a while.

Hey! I'm the creator of the game in question, and as a matter of fact I addressed the question of Edward Gorey's influence on Gloom on my livejournal a week ago - you can find the entry at http://gloomforge.livejournal.com/2008/02/12/ I would hope it would be obvious to anyone who gives the game a try that I am a huge fan of Gorey's work - however, as Lunadude points out, there are other influences on the game, and if people don't know any of them, they should.

Regarding the methods used to make the characters look "gloomy" (and bear in mind that I'm not one of the games' artists) I'll note that the characters themselves aren't all inherently supposed to look miserable; the character mentioned is the "lurking butler", and I see him more as happily scheming in the corner than anything else. In Gloom, it's your job to bring your characters to a tragic end - but your opponents will do their best to keep you happy and healthy. So Butterfield may in fact be about to be married magnificently; the question is whether you can arrange for him to be widowed at his wedding. As the original post says, what I enjoy most about the game is creating the story that goes along with the card, because that's what makes each game different. Perhaps this is the third time Butterfield has been widowed - but based on the other things that have happened to him this game, an entirely different story may suggest itself.