_{Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.}

Evil.

It's ubiquitous. It's poorly-defined. It's sexy. And, depending on who you talk to, it's a common ingredient in most video games.

From Shadow of the Colossus to the (admittedly out of context) snippet of Modern Warfare 2 we saw a couple weeks ago, modern games are showing a greater willingness to force the player into compromising situations, and either ask, allow, or encourage them to do that which two decades of heroic plumbers and one-dimensional villains have implicitly taught us never to do: to commit evil acts.

Sometimes, games ask us to do evil out of necessity (Far Cry 2); sometimes, out of love (Shadow of the Colossus); and sometimes, because it's just plain goddamn funny (Dungeon Keeper). This month's musing topic is meant to make you consider how the concept of doing the "wrong" thing has infiltrated modern gameplay, and the subsequent implications.

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme.

Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.

Another month, another opportunity for you -- yes, you -- to have your thoughts promoted to Destructoid.com's front page, merely by responding to our Monthly Musing theme.

I stole an idea from Michael Todd for this week's Rev Rant, and I'm going to rob him even further by essentially rephrasing a question he proposed to me a week ago.

Certain ideas or gameplay mechanics define the genres to which they belong. For whatever reason, particular design concepts are considered "standard" for certain genres, to the point where both designers and gamers either refuse to break away from them, or have become so accustomed to their presence that the thought of branching off and trying something entirely new never even crosses their mind.

They are sacred cows. And they must be slaughtered.

What mechanics have become so standard, so generally accepted as representing "good" game design, that you just want to throw them out the window entirely? In your opinion, which current gameplay conceits represent artistic dead ends?

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme, and instructions for posting.

Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.

Our "Games Time Forgot" series strove to highlight old and unappreciated games, but you'll be seeing a lot less of it in the future. I'd always envisioned it as a collaborative series, where editors from various backgrounds would bring attention to games the rest of us had never heard of. And that's what this month's topic is about.

What forgotten, underrated, underappreciated, or just plain weird games do you think the rest of the community deserves to hear about? Why were these games forgotten, and what did they do that makes them worth remembering, in your eyes? What games would you like to forget? You have, as always, some wiggle room within the theme.

Hit the jump for further instructions.

Our Musings topics give Destructoid community members the chance to have their voices heard on the front page.

Seeing as Destructoid is hosting a PAX panel next week entitled, "how to make online gaming communities suck less," we thought it'd be downright irresponsible not to involve you, the actual residents of this hear Dtoid gaming community, in on the discussion.

It goes without saying that most gaming communities are something approaching horrendous: full of trolls, flaming, and attitudes of bullsh*t entitlement and superiority, it's no surprise that the vast majority of people who visit your average gaming blog never bother to set up accounts and post their opinions.

But how do we fix it? How do we make online gaming communities more welcoming, interesting, intelligent places to be? For this special weekly musing, we'll be reading aloud some of the best suggestions at our PAX panel (Friday, Unicorn theatre, 2:30).

Feel free to hit the jump for further instructions.

Each month's Musings theme provides readers and community bloggers with the opportunity to have their thoughts posted on the front page.

I am horrendous at RTS games. Absolutely horrendous. Some part of my brain is simply not wired for balancing resources and unit movement against military tactics. There is a whole genre of gaming, a whole host of experiences, that I will probably never gain access to while others understand them perfectly.

That's what this month's musing topic is about.

None of us are great at every genre of videogaming, or even any of them. What does that mean for how we perceive those things we suck at? How do we feel, knowing that certain emotions are essentially alien to us due to a lack of skill? Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? How do we deal with sucking at games?

I'll admit that this is one of the most vague monthly musing topics in history, so hit the jump for a few possible angles one could take it in.

Each month's Musings theme provides readers and community bloggers with the opportunity to have their thoughts posted on the front page.

Thanks to Clint Hocking's blog, I've been thinking a lot about narrative and its place in videogames. Though a fair number of past Monthly Musing themes have revolved around the merits of linear, scripted game narratives, we haven't talked very much about the sorts of narratives that designers like Hocking consider infinitely superior to the pre-baked stuff we're all used to -- namely, the stories you create yourself. 

Boatmurdered. Alice & Kev. That One Time You Jumped a Car Off a Ramp in GTA3 and Totally Landed on a Grandma. These are stories that can only be told in the medium of videogames, and they arise entirely out of a mixture of player activity and exploitable mechanics. 

Do you have any stories like these to tell? What do you think about the merits of these unique, player-created narratives versus prewritten stuff like Metal Gear Solid? Which games provide the best toolset with which to create your own narratives? 

As per usual, make sure to tag your cblog with the Monthly Musings theme, and make sure your blog is titled, "I, the Author: blah blah blah." If you've got any questions, ask 'em below. Otherwise, get to the cblogs and start a-writin'.

If you're not too busy lapping up all the news coming from E3, why not write an article on June's Monthly Musing theme? If your article is good enough, or inspires good discussion, you may have a chance to get it featured on the front page.

With every passing year, we see more and more what games are capable of. We've seen games evolve as an artistic, technological, and narrative medium thanks to benchmark games like Passage, Portal, or Metal Gear Solid.

But for every moment that makes us gasp, or cheer, or shout "f*ck yeah" at the top of our lungs, there must be other things that inspire the opposite reaction. Things about videogames that piss us off, or disappoint us, or make us yearn for something more. That's the main idea behind this month's Musing theme, "Untapped Potential."

What should games be doing, but aren't? What trends in current game design irritate you? What is holding games back from what they could eventually become -- and for that matter, what could they eventually become?

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme, and instructions on how your writing can be featured on the Dtoid front page.

This is typically where you'd find the assigned community Musing topic for this month, but don't panic -- even though the topic and time period have changed, you've still got a chance to discuss videogames, and you've still got a chance to get your work published on the Dtoid front page. This week, you just happen to also have a chance at winning a bunch of E3 swag.

The theme this week is simple: talk about E3. What does it represent these days? What do you feel about the announcements? What purpose does E3 serve? How would you improve it? Any and all discussion topics regarding E3 are allowable.

That's it, really. Hit the jump for instructions on how to get your stuff posted.

Every month, members of the Destructoid community are given the opportunity to have their writings posted on the front page thanks to our Monthly Musings theme.

Good job with last month's theme, etcetera, etcetera. Your ability to pull worthwhile articles out of crappy guidance is as impressive as it is typical at this point.

This month, the topic is "Other Worlds Than These" -- extra points if you catch the reference -- focusing on those games that attempt to create believable, immersive, interesting worlds. By "world," I don't just mean huge sandboxes where every sidewalk tile is rendered down to the microscopic level, but any game that tries to create a believable backstory and context for the events in the game. 

Yeah, Grand Theft Auto counts, but so does Metal Gear Solid, with all its interconnected, decade-spanning plot lines. BioShock counts thanks to Rapture's believability, but so does something like Snatcher, which is pretty much unbelievable at every turn.

What videogame worlds mean the most to you? What is their importance to you? Do you want to live in these places, do you find them terrifying in comparison to the real world, or are they somewhere in between? What place does immersion serve in videogaming, if any? What makes a game world immersive?

All these topics are at your disposal. Hit the jump for a further clarification of the topic, and instructions on how you can get your ideas posted on the front page.