So I started my campaign with the following statement and for some reason it made my players very pissed off...

Serpent was put there for a reason, dawg. Chilrens gotta grow up someday.

That's because we aren't in enough despair to realize how deep in despair we truly are.

Either envy or a typo for greed.

'cause it's pretentious bullshit

Then why was God so a n g e r y when they inevitably fell for the snek's lies?

Dunno why it pissed off your players, but it pisses me off because it seems to be pretentious wank with no particular message or connotations.

Like, remove the last bit about elves, and replace it with "also the elves died." What changes? What's missing? What don't your players know about or understand that they really should? I'm guessing jack all, because I'm guessing this is flowery bullshit that doesn't actually explain anything about the world beyond "humanity exists, elves used to but now don't."

Creation myths are supposed to be allegories, user. If they don't explain the current shape of the world, then they're historical trivia at best and self indulgent faffing about at worst. This smells like the latter.

Gotta give us more information man.

Ignorance is bliss, but that doesn't mean I want to be ignorant.

Because he was a controlling cunt. Remember how he cast his favorite child out for defying him?

What exactly did the players say? Why dont you ask them why they got angry instead of coming here to bitch.

Previous to this point, the dwarves had never experienced the color green. Only black and very dark grey (since they lived in caves). However, once they discovered green and came out into the sunlight, they all died of cancer and radiation poisoning, thus leading to their ruin.

>Creation myths are supposed to be allegories, user. If they don't explain the current shape of the world, then they're historical trivia at best and self indulgent faffing about at worst. This smells like the latter.

You mean like a game about a bunch of primarily human adventurers going around and digging through the abandoned ruins of once vast elven empires?

Or it could have been a typo for Greed, you goofs

He obviously means pot. The bit about being worked to the bone was ironic. They really just sat around talking about the awesome steam-powered hooka they once constructed.

I'm going with the typo hypothesis. It's what I immediately assumed.

Your pic reminds me why religions with reincarnation, like Hinduism or Buddhism, are so appealing to me, because I don't want to fuck up my one and only life, I want to fuck up all of them!

>Dunno why it pissed off your players, but it pisses me off because it seems to be pretentious wank with no particular message or connotations

Trippy Dubs speak the truth. Plus the OP sort of implies he started the campaign by narrating this crap. I'm all for getting invested in the campaign but I'd lose my patience real fast if the GM spent ten straight minutes orating some fartsniffing creation myth.

An opening prologue can work but fucking keep it short. The Star Wars title crawls are like five sentences long.

It's a short, interesting backstory. I don't see what the problem is.

>Like, remove the last bit about elves, and replace it with "also the elves died." What changes?
Well, you wouldn't know that their demise was related to regret, and all likelihood, people would say something like: "Wait. They just died? How? Did they all just lie down and die one day? Was it a plague or something?" And by the time you give them even a brief, cryptic answer, you've wasted more time than if you had included that one sentence in your history.

>I'm all for getting invested in the campaign but I'd lose my patience real fast if the GM spent ten straight minutes orating some fartsniffing creation myth.
I just read it aloud, slowly and deliberately, and it took me a minute and fifteen seconds. If you can't pay attention for that long, I really don't want to game with you. I seriously don't understand what people's problem with OP is.

rate my creation myth, senpai?
It's for a civilization of dwarves who live at the foot of a sacred volcano. I tried to make it iconic, but not too generic
>creation began with the first Eruption of the volcano goddess (A)
>the god of justice and knowledge (B) was formed of wind and fire, the god of artifice and magic (C) was formed of smoke, the dwarves were formed of mud
>B and C, being like fluids, were wise and could think, but the dwarves, because they were solid, could not grow or learn
>mother goddess asked B and C to invent time
>B set the predictable sun in the sky. C's light, the moon, waxes and wanes and rises at odd hours (which is why magic is connected to the phases of the moon)
>the moving lights softened the mud of the dwarves and in time they developed the capability to move, think, and learn
>B was delighted with the new dwarves until they began to grow old, at which point they became brittle and pained
>B asked C, the cunning brother, for a magical solution. Reluctantly, C forged the Knife
>C instructed B to strike the first father of dwarves with the Knife, but not to blame him for the results. Then C retreated to his remote forge.
>when B struck the first dwarf with the Knife, the smoke of Death was released into the dwarves. The stabbed dwarf died, and all dwarves became mortal.
>B mourned the accidental murder, but because of his immortal essence could not sacrifice himself (suicide becomes a heinous insult and a capital sin)
>He put out his own eyes for his lack of foresight instead, and taught the dwarves the Runes, so that while individual dwarves would die their knowledge would not
Until they came into contact with the men of the southern sea, the dwarves here had no conception of an afterlife, and their theological establishment still considers such belief heresy against the dread god C. The Cult of Cedar, named for their forest refuge in the southwest, maintains that the souls of dwarves live on via the Runes they carve in life

>Elf
>Oldest and most perfect.
Kys

>Dwarf not being born of stone
Kys
>Dwarf not being the perfect race with their still standing kindom reining over the elven fallen kindom.
Kys

>Humans not being made by the one true god.
Kys/Deus Vult.

Mostly because it's boring, unimaginative, and gives only the barest context for the game world. Orcs are dumb and violent, dwarves stout and greedy, elves smart and perfect, and humans a mix of everything. Fucking got it. But since those are the most basic racial cliches in fantasy there's zero reason to bog the players down with some pointless pseudo-Biblical creation story.

How long it actually takes to read is such a small part of it. You can power read it in thirty seconds if you want to but it still sucks.

This.
It's boring lame and I learn nothing I didn't know cept the other races are dead.

Could have just said they all died for X reason and they got ruins left.

How do you know OP's dwarves weren't born of stone?

It is extremely pretentious and grating in several refined ways. You have a real talent at writing stories that are so bad they are infuriating.

What did you do wrong? Here we go:
>beautiful yet flawed
They aren't beautiful if they murdered every single other races of the setting. They aren't beautiful if they are so full of hate, greed, and regrets entire races are killed off by it.

>beneath the weight of their imperfections they did not buckle.
They did not buckle, but killed every other races. Which means humanity was the only race able to handle things like hate, regret, or greed. HFY as its worst.

>First they went to the next youngest child, tall and strong, orc, and were taught aggression. A powerful tool to defend themselves. So too did they teach hatred, and thus did the orcs devour themselves.
Humanity didn't know aggression, but know enough hatred to make the orcs devour themselves? It makes no sense, makes the orcs seem like morons, and the humans like bitches.

>Next the middle child, stout and sturdy, the dwarf. From the dwarves humanity learned perserverence, which they would need in the days to come. From the Humans the dwarves discovered green, and thus marked the dwarve’s demise, worked to the bone.
>Lastly humanity ventured to the eldest and most perfect of its siblings, the elf. From the elves humanity was gifted forethought, so that they may plan far beyond their short lives. From human the eldest brother found regret, and with a broken heart the once great empires of the world blew away as dust in the wind.
Those two are almost fine, almost, if you reword all the sentences.

Random user here. What dose HFY mean

>These two are almost fine if you reword every sentence.
If you didn't suck you would be good!

Humanity, fuck yeah!

"Humans,orcs and dwarves have no record of how the elves died"

Done

Yazidianon, that you?

>But since those are the most basic racial cliches in fantasy there's zero reason to bog the players down with some pointless pseudo-Biblical creation story.
And if he had just written down shit in a matter-of-fact manner that started with "I'm going with the standard stereotypes here" and listed details under each race that totaled out to the same length, I don't think anybody here would have a problem with it. I really feel like everybody who is complaining just doesn't like the creation myth style, which seems ridiculous to me. Maybe people expect it to be high art or something, as if there's nothing between a matter-of-fact statement and [insert famous poet of your choice here]. It seems anti-intellectual to dismiss anything that's mood setting and not just a list of facts that impact your characters.

>It seems anti-intellectual to dismiss anything that's mood setting

That's the thing though, it's not mood-setting. Mostly because it's poorly-written. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it if the creation myth was clever and well-written. But it's not. It's a bland, generic "origin story" for the world written in the most recycled manner possible. You talk about how it's better than a textbook-style list but it's exactly that. Just with purple prose. It irritates people because it's the same old same old but with fake depth.

In my book, you don't get points for creativity unless you actually did something creative.

They are pissed because it is very, very, very poorly written.

Oh dear god that comic hit a little too close to home. Fucking hell I need to go see a shrink.

>You talk about how it's better than a textbook-style list but it's exactly that.
A textbook style list is okay too. I'm just saying that the same information relayed in that manner wouldn't piss people off.

>It irritates people because it's the same old same old but with fake depth.
Again, I feel like this is being held to much higher standards than the usual, matter-of-fact tellings. It doesn't need to be the most beautiful thing you've ever read. In fact, most creation stories are pretty far from that. To me, it conveys the mythical/religious understanding of people in the world instead of taking a more reductionist, modern historical approach, which is frankly anachronistic. It's like, if somebody has a sketch of their character, it's not worthless if it falls short of Da Vinci, or even a mediocre professional artist. I don't think OP's intro is *trying* to be high art. It's just taking a less literalist, more fanciful approach to the world, which is right in keeping with pre-scientific belief, mythology, and ancient metaphysics.

This thread so far.
OP: why do I suck.
Anons: because you suck.
OP: -an heros-

Try not sucking more.

>It's just taking a less literalist, more fanciful approach to the world
And failing at it. You're the only one comparing his shit to the work of masters. OP's little myth is a swing and a miss no matter what you compare it to. And I don't have to automatically appreciate the swing.

The only reason people would prefer a reductionist bullet-point list is because that at least you can't fuck up. A creation myth you can, and he did.

It's fucking orcs, elves, dwarves and humans doing exactly what they do in 99% of the settings they're in.

>it's not worthless if it falls short of davinci
it is when you're blatantly ripping off a davinci painting and drawing it in crayon.

>It's fucking orcs, elves, dwarves and humans doing exactly what they do in 99% of the settings they're in.
Which is the way most people run their games, and nobody bitches about that.

I have no idea who that is, but I'm hardly surprised that I'm not alone. Looking at the Abrahamic mythos as having a malevolent, jealous cunt of a diety makes the stories begin to make more sense.