I'd like to wade into this debate a bit: the trouble with Sandy's
portrayal of trolls as simply unchecked human ids is not that it's too
different from humans, but that it is too much the same! It just
makes trolls into a variation of humans! If you want races that are
really different in psychology, let me suggest the Ruml from Gordon
Dickson's The Alien Way, who act in ways that are horrifying to humans,
but are the result of a totally different psychology (no unchecked id!).
Another example of an alien way would be the Kafer from GDW's 2300 game.
Both of these are truly alien races, even though they seem psychotic
to humans) and I hope that trolls are going to be more interesting than
appetite checked by fear, which is all that Sandy is making them out
to be! Jim Chapin
Powered by hypermail