# Who are Howard and Leiber?



## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Eberron's a pretty bold statement about how unimportant it is for the game to be even remotely accessible to new blood coming into D&D fresh from seeing the LotR trilogy or having read the canons of Howard or Leiber.




Once upon a time, you could possibly make the assumption that Howard and Leiber were read widely amongst the youths who would be interested in D&D.

That time has long since passed.

I have had the distinct pleasure over the past three years of introducing a friend of mine to the wonderful world of fantasy books. She became interested through Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. From there, I introduced her to Raymond E. Feist (her favourite series of his is the Empire series), Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan (not so enamoured), and David Eddings.

She's also been reading some of the newest authors as well, including some Australian authors. (Yes, we have a thriving fantasy scene here).

Howard and Leiber? She's never even seen a book by either of them.

I look at my (extensive) book shelves, and I see names like Robin Hobb, Anne Bishop, Terry Pratchett, Jennifer Roberson, George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson and Lynn Flewelling. The range of worlds these authors have created is astonishing. This is what the people of today are reading. There are some who will go back into the past and dig up the classics of yesteryear, but [ED we can't assume that people will read the books of the past.

D&D cannot afford to ignore that.

However, one aspect of this galaxy of authors is this: readers get used to new worlds, to different types of magic. There isn't one overriding set of assumptions that must be used for a book to be labelled as "Fantasy".

Thus, the worlds created by the D&D rules are just another aspect of this tapestry. It has aspects familiar to those who have read fantasy, but it is different as well. The rules provide a consistency to the game to make it familiar to those who play it, allowing them to explore what the game holds.

If multiclassing is common, does not Richard of the Sword of Truth have the skills of a Ranger, Healer and Sorcerer? Isn't Ingold Inglorian of the Darwath Trilogy a master swordsman and wizard?

Isn't the world of Harry Potter full of magical trinkets and artefacts? Why then do we worry about the prevalance of magic items in D&D? Cannot Janelle of the Dark Jewels trilogy create her own magic rings - and Elayne do likewise in the Wheel of Time?

The works of Howard and Leiber are important, and have done much - and are doing much - for fantasy even now. However, they are not the entirity of fantasy, and it is now the time of their successors, to go to new places that they did not dream.

Cheers!


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## Mark CMG (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> The works of Howard and Leiber are important, and have done much - and are doing much - for fantasy even now. However, they are not the entirity of fantasy, and it is now the time of their successors, to go to new places that they did not dream.




Stirring up trouble, again MB?


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## Khayman (Aug 23, 2005)

I'd tend to agree --- even in my mid-thirtyish group, most have not read Howard or Leiber, and only a few of us Lovecraft or Moorcock.  

However, even if I haven't read Vance, the effects of his magic system are still reflected in the d20 ruleset.  Likewise, Conan and the Grey Mouser are archetypes that still resonate through the game, like unspoken myths.  And even if our players haven't read a single Conan novel, I'm pretty certain that's not the case among many current authors.  

So, I'd say there's some continuity, even if only at a subliminal level.


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## Khayman (Aug 23, 2005)

Now turning to the influence of Fletcher Pratt on modern science fiction and tabletop gaming... 

<squark>


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> Stirring up trouble, again MB?




Who, me? 

One of the interesting things about all of this is how D&D has itself influenced fantasy fiction. One of the biggest writers of fantasy fiction - Ray Feist - started from a D&D-inspired RPG. Then you have Stephen Brust as well - though getting his books in Ballarat is a real struggle.

D&D also has really influenced all the computer games that now have an influence back on D&D. So, the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack Vance, JRR Tolkien, Fritz Leiber and Robert Howard greatly influenced D&D, and that influence propagates further.

With the exception of Tolkien, most of those writers aren't the starting point for new people any more, however.

Here's a true story: Joseph Haydn was one of the early masters of the classical school of music. We still play his music today. The young Mozart used to play his works, and later on visited the older Haydn.

After Mozart's death, Haydn continued to compose music - but now did so influenced by the genius of Mozart. 

Cheers!


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Khayman said:
			
		

> And even if our players haven't read a single Conan novel, I'm pretty certain that's not the case among many current authors.
> 
> So, I'd say there's some continuity, even if only at a subliminal level.




Absolutely. What's that Isaac Newton quote?

"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."

We build things co-operatively.

Cheers!


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 23, 2005)

The world keeps spinnin'....

If D&D wants to remain relevant in this brave new world, it must embrace the new fantasy steroetypes, cribbed from the likes of Harry Potter and Pokemon and MMORPGs! Fie on the old guard! Fie on them! They merely stagnate what could be a vivacious and creative process! Conan is a crutch for the unimaginative!

....now THAT's how you stir up trouble! 

(tongue firmly in cheek, here, bubs)


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## Akrasia (Aug 23, 2005)

Bah, humbug!

It's all been downhill since Homer.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> Bah, humbug!
> 
> It's all been downhill since Homer.




Homer! Humbug! 

I prefer the Epic of Gilgamesh!


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Aug 23, 2005)

_The Golden Ass_ is the one true fantasy novel.

All others are but pale imitations.


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## Voadam (Aug 23, 2005)

I did a search in my county library system's database for conan in the title field. A lot of sir Arthur Conan Doyle commentary came up and one Conan novel by Jordan. 

Not one R.E. Howard conan tale. I was depressed. 

It did have one Lovecraft set on audio though that was great to hear (Dunnswich Horror and Rats in the Walls).


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 23, 2005)

"Eh? Wuzzat? Lit-richer? Takin' a stick and writin' stuff in the dirt and readin' it back? Weeee-eeell, if ya wanna take all the FUN and CREATIVITY outta tellin' a story, you go ahead and write it down, static and inflexible. Ye young whippersnappers with yer spiked armor and your anime and your tatoos and you rock and roll pikachus...oh, lookit us, we're appealin' to the kiddies 'cuz we've got *books!* Back in my day, we had our mem'ries and our mouths and we were dern happy! We'd never tell the same story twice! The world's a-changin', ye can't put it in a book and pretend it's the same!"


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## Sundragon2012 (Aug 23, 2005)

My vision as a DM of fantasy role playing stories is influenced primarily by:

Robert E. Howard
Moorcock
George R.R. Martin
Marion Zimmer Bradley (Mists of Avalon)
Weis and Hickman (Dragonlance)
Bernard Cornwell (The Warlord Chronicles)
Tolkien

One undeniable fact is that what one reads is certainly reflected in one's DMing style, especially if one does a deep story/role playing campaign.


Chris


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## Sundragon2012 (Aug 23, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The world keeps spinnin'....
> 
> If D&D wants to remain relevant in this brave new world, it must embrace the new fantasy steroetypes, cribbed from the likes of Harry Potter and Pokemon and MMORPGs! Fie on the old guard! Fie on them! They merely stagnate what could be a vivacious and creative process! Conan is a crutch for the unimaginative!
> 
> ...




Might as well toss in Full Metal Alchemist, the Power Rangers, and the Fairy Odd Parents hey there is magic in those too.    


Chris


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## MavrickWeirdo (Aug 23, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ....now THAT's how you stir up trouble!
> 
> (tongue firmly in cheek, here, bubs)




I was holding book 1 of _"Fafhrd and Gray Mouser"_ in my hand earlier today. 

Only 86 cents at Goodwill.

Not to mention _Doc Savage #18 "The Sargasso Ogre"_ that I got for free at a book swap at work.

(Actually happened)


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## Angerland (Aug 23, 2005)

I can't beleive no one has mentioned C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia.  Kamikaze, I was all set to explode or melt down then I saw you were kidding, whew!  I agree that there are some newish writers who are very talented, but I still think, personally, that Leiber and Howard, Tolkien, Lewis, Moorcock, Eddings, Brooks, hell even Piers Anthony (Xanth Series), are the authors that I can honestly saw I loved every book of theirs that I ever read.

I am glad that there are new fantasy authors to keep the genre fresh.


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

Angerland said:
			
		

> I can't beleive no one has mentioned C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia.



That's probably because C.S. Lewis and the 'Chronicles' are still in print in several different styles, they are bought, and they are read. In this sense, they are still part of today's "fantasy canon" . Other authors are not. Like Howard or Leiber.

How often did you see some criticism of "Vancian magic", culminating in the sentence "I really like to know why D&D chose such a stupid system like Vancian magic, a system that has never been used in any fantasy literature whatsoever!". Well, it's obvious that even the name isn't recognized anymore as a fantasy author, which is even more of a problem than when the books are not read anymore. I made a check: My local Borders doesn't carry any Vance books, although I found 2 titles in the Borders in Santa Barbara.

Maybe it's good then to answer Merric's call and make a shift in D&D settings and even accompanied mechanics. I cannot say that I'm such a big fan of most of today's fantasy (I hardly read any), but maybe the authors of the game versions of that fantasy manage to surprise me. If Eberron was already a step into this direction, that was a failure (in a peronal sense ). Maybe, I need another example of how this would look like.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

The funny thing about Eberron is that, in fact, it is a step *back*, to Edgar Rice Burroughs crossed with Raymond Chandler. (Pulp/Noir). At least, some of the marketing was meant to be that way - I've seen little evidence of it so far.

However, the background magic of the world actually shares more in common with the wizard world of Harry Potter. (There are also comparisons with Anne Bishop's "Black Jewels" trilogy - which I recommend most highly).

We talk about "Vancian" magic, but it really isn't any more - D&D has used it far more than Vance ever did. It isn't "Vancian" magic, it is "D&D" magic.

I will note that magic in novels has little relation to magic in games. Magic in novels is plot-based: whatever magic is needed is there. Magic in games is a resource that allows PCs do do interesting things and overcome challenges if they use it properly. 

It is a mistake to equate the two and assume that making one the same as the other will be successful.

Cheers!


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2005)

My vision of D&D based upon what I have read: 

Song of Ice and Fire (Martin) 
Elric & Corum (Moorcock) 
Middle-Earth (Tolkien) 
Thomas Covenant (Donaldson) 
Black Company (Cook) 
Earthsea (LeGuin) 
Conan (Howard) 
Wheel of Time (Jordan) 
Berserk (Miura)


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## Akrasia (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> .... In this sense, they are still part of today's "fantasy canon" . Other authors are not. Like Howard or Leiber.
> ....




Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: _The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, _ and_Bran Mak Morn: The Last king_ -- with more to come!).

Apparently they've been selling _extremely_ well in North America.  (I'm not sure if they're available in the U.K. and Ireland yet.)

Howard's making a comeback!


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## Mystery Man (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Howard and Leiber? She's never even seen a book by either of them.




Too bad for her, she should work on remedying that oversight. 





			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> If multiclassing is common, does not Richard of the Sword of Truth have the skills of a Ranger, Healer and Sorcerer?




Don't forget S&M Master.


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## Captain Tagon (Aug 23, 2005)

Mystery Man said:
			
		

> Too bad for her, she should work on remedying that oversight.






EDIT: Blah, edited out bitterness towards having spent money on any of Howard's work. Summary of point, not everyone likes Howard so there is no need to insist that someone is necessarily missing out by not having read him.


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## WayneLigon (Aug 23, 2005)

I don't much care what they read as long as they read _anything at all_. More than a few times in meetings at the FLGS the question has been 'What fantasy fiction have you read' and some people admitting to _never_ having read _any_. They were, universally, the worst players as well.


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> We talk about "Vancian" magic, but it really isn't any more - D&D has used it far more than Vance ever did. It isn't "Vancian" magic, it is "D&D" magic.



I did really not want to start a discussion of 'Vancian magic' here. Fact is that the wizard's magic is still very similar to the original as described in Vance's first fantasy book. It's got its roots there, and it shows. My point was actually that in this case not only his work is all but forgotten, but even Vance's name has vanished into obscurity, at least in the U.S. And I understood that you wanted your fantasy RPG based on current fantasy literature and not on some obscure, old tomes vanished with the winds of time. As I often hear this criticism of D&D and its "illogical magic system that is not based in fantasy", I think the point is valid here.

In this sense, I found your answer inconsistent. If we want D&D to emulate itself, we can forget about your topic .


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: _The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, _ and_Bran Mak Morn: The Last king_ -- with more to come!).



Ah, thanks ! As I said, I'm not really up to date as far as fantasy literature goes. It's so hard to find the good ones there .


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## Glyfair (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> One of the interesting things about all of this is how D&D has itself influenced fantasy fiction. One of the biggest writers of fantasy fiction - Ray Feist - started from a D&D-inspired RPG. Then you have Stephen Brust as well - though getting his books in Ballarat is a real struggle.




A lot of modern fantasy has a strong roleplaying background.  A lot of the shared world universes came from roleplaying sessions.  IIRC, George R. R. Martin's shared word of Wild Cards was derived from a Superworld campaign.

Honestly, a good percentage of my fantasy background came from trying to read most of the references in the AD&D DMG (and later, the Dragon's _Giant's in the Earth_).  I had been exposed to Howard, Tolkein and the major ones before D&D.  However, if it wasn't for that list, I wouldn't have found Jirel of Joiry, the Dying Earth, Morgaine or the _the Face in the Frost_.


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## Desdichado (Aug 23, 2005)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
			
		

> _The Golden Ass_ is the one true fantasy novel.
> 
> All others are but pale imitations.



Are you sure that's a _fantasy_ novel?


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## Mystery Man (Aug 23, 2005)

Captain Tagon said:
			
		

> EDIT: Blah, edited out bitterness towards having spent money on any of Howard's work. Summary of point, not everyone likes Howard so there is no need to insist that someone is necessarily missing out by not having read him.




Howard's OK, Lieber is great. Some of the yoots of today would be lost on his prose though, being dumbed down by the likes of Harry Potter and such. Yeah, I'm a snob.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Aug 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Are you sure that's a _fantasy_ novel?




Oh yeah.  Witches, polymorph potions, gods speaking in dreams - it's got all the earmarks.


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## Desdichado (Aug 23, 2005)

Sounds more like a letter to Penthouse.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> And I understood that you wanted your fantasy RPG based on current fantasy literature and not on some obscure, old tomes vanished with the winds of time.




Not true. I don't require D&D to be directly based on anything - although it should have resonances with current fiction and other creative endeavours, lest it become unapproachable.

Cheers!


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## Akrasia (Aug 23, 2005)

Mystery Man said:
			
		

> Howard's OK, Lieber is great. Some of the yoots of today would be lost on his prose though, being dumbed down by the likes of Harry Potter and such. Yeah, I'm a snob.




Oh please.  Howard's _much_ better than Leiber.  (Leiber is generally decent -- though his last novel was plain embarassing.)  Leiber's the poor man's Howard.

Still, I'll take Leiber over most contemporary crap anyday (Feist?  Ugh!).  Gemmell's stuff is pretty solid, however.  Very 'Howard-esque' IMO.

Anyway, nothing wrong with being a snob -- it's just what people who lack taste call those who have it.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Aug 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Sounds more like a letter to Penthouse.




Well, just in case you don't think I'm being serious, _The Golden Ass_, by Apuleius, is widely considered to be the oldest surviving novel.

It's also a pretty fun read.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...103-6855666-1528643?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Well, OK, it does have some ... Penthouse-ish ... parts, but, still ...


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

*This is your only warning!*

*This thread is about the influence of fantasy fiction on D&D, past, present and future, and vice versa, not about comparisons between authors. Please keep that babble elsewhere.*


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## Akrasia (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> *This is your only warning!*
> 
> *This thread is about the influence of fantasy fiction on D&D, past, present and future, and vice versa, not about comparisons between authors. Please keep that babble elsewhere.*




Okay, okay.  Calm down already.  

Howard, Tolkien and Vance should determine D&D above all else.  The current stuff is largely rubbish -- and the great current stuff (e.g. Neil Gaiman, China Mielville, et al.) is too unlike standard D&D to be of any use.


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2005)

Please don't tell me that Martin, LeGuin, and Donaldson make crap that is unsuited for D&D.


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> This is your only warning!
> 
> This thread is about the influence of fantasy fiction on D&D, past, present and future, and vice versa, not about comparisons between authors. Please keep that babble elsewhere.



Has someone spread caltrops under your bedsheet?

From your examples in the first post, I had more the feeling that you want to defend the current D&D as already reflecting the current fantasy literature. Or why did you pick out counter-examples to common criticisms of 3E?


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## Patman21967 (Aug 23, 2005)

We cannot forget the great series like Thieves World, Earthsea, Narnia, Louise Coopers Time Master Trilogy, Black Company, Geez...I could go on and on...all have contributed, and all would benefit from reading these books. 

Personally, the Pulp Fantasy aka Ebberon is not for me, or my group members who are all 35 or older, and grew up gaming together. We stick to FR, Glorantha, Pendragon, Greyhawk, Old World or Homebrews. Always have. My first gaming experience was in 1979 in a Empire of the Petal Throne game, being run at a local game store. From there it was all Judges Guild, since 2 of the guys were contributing authors to the old company. Also alot of DragonQuest, and mostly though D&D and RQII. 

Be an good friend, and for XMas, buy the newbies you know some classic fantasy. Buy them the whole Elric saga, or Corum, or Hawkmoon. Buy them Earthsea, Hyboria, John Carter, hell even Burroughs. Buy them Donaldson, Cook, Cooper...but just do yourselves a favor, and never, ever...eeeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrrr buy anyone Dennis L. McKiernan. A direct plagarism if ever I saw one. 


Pat


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 23, 2005)

> Howard, Tolkien and Vance should determine D&D above all else.



I was with you until you continued past that comma.

I think restricting D&D - or any corpus of fantasy "work" - to imitation of someone else's style is ridiculous and destructive. Would Pratchett be a better author of fantasy if he'd never written anything except satires of Tolkien/D&D/Extruded Fantasy Product/crap like his first two Discworld novels?

Hell no. He's much better off for having developed in his own direction - and so is D&D.

So are we, for that matter.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Has someone spread caltrops under your bedsheet?
> 
> From your examples in the first post, I had more the feeling that you want to defend the current D&D as already reflecting the current fantasy literature. Or why did you pick out counter-examples to common criticisms of 3E?




I am not interested in posts that say "Howard is crap." or "Feist is crap."

I am interested in posts that say "Howard has a strong influence on the adventuring/quest aspect of D&D and the structure of adventures" or the like.


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## Darrin Drader (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> There are some who will go back into the past and dig up the classics of yesteryear, but the world is moving on.




Wow Merric, thanks for making me feel old. Care to go pick out a coffin and a nice quiet plot for me while you're at it? :\


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## Captain Tagon (Aug 23, 2005)

On topic, I actually enjoy Eberron quite a bit because it does get away from most of the fantasy fiction that I don't enjoy. Of the "classic" big names of fantasy fiction the only one whose world that would be even remotely entertaining to my group and I is Tolkein, but there isn't much you can do in Middle Earth. Of course you could play that same high fantasy feel in other settings, but I'm also glad settings like Eberron are branching out into something different.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

*Harry Potter and Eberron*

Here's an interesting thought: Harry Potter is a higher-magic world than Eberron. 

This is not strictly true. I've never really seen anything in Harry Potter that really compares to the destructive power of a fireball. (Most of the Killing Curses are against one foe only).

Why I initially made that comparison is because there's a lot of low-level magic in Eberron, accessible to everyone. This is also true in Harry Potter (amongst the Wizard community only, of course). I know that Harry Potter is in a "modern" society, and there are plenty of other differences between the two, but there's a familiarity to it that is quite a contrast to the low-magic tales of someone like Howard.

We can also see resonances in Piers Anthony's Xanth books (everyone has a magical talent, normally minor), and likewise in the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop (the witches can do a lot of household chores with magic, in additional to the more serious uses).

That this is occurring in fantasy literature may be a reflection on modern society, where the tools we have available to us are much more advanced and pervasive than even 50 years before. (Consider the computer... or rather, don't. We don't have the time. )

One common tradition in fantasy books is to severely limit the use of magic. It's there, but only a couple of things can be done with it. That style of magic has never really been the style of D&D. One reason for that may be that D&D requires a variety of challenges to remain interesting, and magic is the tool that is easiest to use to give variety.

Another thing that comes to mind when comparing books and D&D is that most D&D games don't have much of a clue of how to do intrigue. Well, sure; it's meant to be there, but the execution of it is often something that the DM knows about afterwards, which isn't very rewarding for the players.

(The Eberron adventures I've seen so far suffer from this greatly, IMO).

Writers like Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Howard are very important for the form of the traditional D&D adventure: crawling through pits facing challenges. I'm not sure how many of the current fantasy novels really promote that style of adventure.

This may not be a problem, but it does bring up a question: The world of D&D has changed over the years. Has the stories we tell in it changed as well?

Cheers!


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Whisperfoot said:
			
		

> Wow Merric, thanks for making me feel old. Care to go pick out a coffin and a nice quiet plot for me while you're at it? :\




I'll be there beside you, I think.  Earlier this year I read the Iliad again!

I phrased that badly. What I meant to say that there will be those who exclusively go back to the early books, without acknowledging that other people are reading the new ones. Or something like that.

Cheers!


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

oops - almost started a comparison of authors post. Not the real purpose of this thread. (Some is ok, but most is OT).

Cheers!


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> I am interested in posts that say "Howard has a strong influence on the adventuring/quest aspect of D&D and the structure of adventures" or the like.



Ah! So why did you dismiss the Vancian magic then? The 3E spell preparation of wizards is an exact fit for the system in the original stories (the fit is now much clearer than before). Also, the idea of spell slots according to "level" comes from there. We have quite a few powerful magic items, and everyone who matters wears at least one. We have gods that deal directly with the mortals. We have the usual rabble of devils and half-intelligent monsters, cities of undead and, not to forget, powerful witches. Just the image of the sword-swinging mage, like my namesake, didn't really make it into D&D, although he might have been a fighter/mage. I find many of those stories pretty D&D-like in their whole atmosphere, despite the sci-fi elements in some of them.

And yes, I've read Harry Potter. At least the first 4 ones (I stopped because I found the 4th book boring and partly illogical).


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## Akrasia (Aug 23, 2005)

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> I was with you until you continued past that comma.
> 
> I think restricting D&D - or any corpus of fantasy "work" - to imitation of someone else's style is ridiculous and destructive. Would Pratchett be a better author of fantasy if he'd never written anything except satires of Tolkien/D&D/Extruded Fantasy Product/crap like his first two Discworld novels?
> 
> ...




I don't think D&D should be 'restricted' to any set of authors.

My point was that as a _'baseline'_ or 'default', the classics are best (Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc.).

The newer stuff shouldn't be built into the core of D&D.  For one thing, there is too much disagreement about its quality (I think Feist is mediocre, apparently MerricB does not).  For another thing, it should be up to different groups -- and supplements, and campaign settings -- to diverge from the default D&D assumptions.

Default D&D should stick to its original sources -- those are what made it what it is.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 23, 2005)

Kids will always be telling their parents and elders that they're behind the times. Then they'll grow up and have kids tell them the same thing, and wonder why the kids don't get how their stuff is much better. Then those kids will grow up and repeat the cycle again. This is nothing new. D&D cannot stay tied to Howard and Leiber. The target audience is too young for that. If D&D doesn't keep up, its out. 

It doesn't reflect on the actual quality of the old guard, its all oppinion and what people are into at the time. It is kind of sad that the classics are being ignored by so many people nowadays, but I'd feel old if I got upset about it, and I'm only 25, so I refuse! I refuse, I say!


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> One common tradition in fantasy books is to severely limit the use of magic. It's there, but only a couple of things can be done with it. That style of magic has never really been the style of D&D. One reason for that may be that D&D requires a variety of challenges to remain interesting, and magic is the tool that is easiest to use to give variety.



Another reason might be that the stories D&D magic builds upon are not really limited in their use of magic either. The two magic duels that come immediately to my mind resemble pretty much some common D&D fight. Not surprising, as the spells made it into D&D.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Ah! So why did you dismiss the Vancian magic then?




Because I was thinking of something else at the time? 

Actually, the reason I dismissed it was more to do with the people who enter D&D having not first read Vance, not because the contribution isn't important. To someone like that, it isn't the "Vancian" magic system, it's the "D&D" magic system.

(Incidentally, as I've rarely found any Vance to read, how many books does he use the system in? I've read his Lyonesse series, and the magic seems to have a different tone there).

In fact, the adaptation of the Vancian magic system to a game is inspired - and the changes to it in 3e likewise. There's also an example here in how parts of different fantasy (and mythological) sources come together to form D&D.

Cheers!


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> D&D cannot stay tied to Howard and Leiber. The target audience is too young for that. If D&D doesn't keep up, its out.



Maybe surprisingly, here I want to use Merric's idea of D&D forming its own stereotypes. Merric meant that the D&D game, unlike the current fantasy literature, lacks intrigue. Most young players I met didn't like intrigue. They wanted fights, monsters and magic items. Anyway, I don't believe that they had any fantasy authors as role model, but they knew quite a lot of computer games, be it CRPGs or shooters. For them, the fascination was with the same old style that we always saw. They didn't need any Howard for that.

And if you really want intrigue, have a look at "Dynasties & Demagogues" .


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2005)

While D&D may trace its magical origins to Vancian Magic, it should be no means confine itself to Vancian Magic for the simple sake of tradition. It is simple really. If there is a better way of doing magic that is more familiar to people, than that is perhaps the route that D&D's magic system should take. I wish Wizards of the Coast would fire and forget the "fire and forget magic system" and update the system to be more encompassing of magic. Elements of Magic, Arcana Evolved, Black Company, and Iron Heroes (although it is far from perfect) provides more adaptability for magic than Vancian. I would prefer a more universal magic and not one that is divided into divine (holy and nature) and arcane.


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> (Incidentally, as I've rarely found any Vance to read, how many books does he use the system in? I've read his Lyonesse series, and the magic seems to have a different tone there).



Actually, the later Vance stories changed a bit as far as his view of magic is concerned. D&D's magic system is directly built on the stories that have been in the 1950 compilation "The Dying Earth" and to a much lesser extent from the later parts in todays compilation (The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, Rhialto the Marvellous). You should at least read the stories "Turjan of Miir" and "Mazirian the Magician" from the original "Dying Earth". It's D&D before anyone knew of it .

Edit: Actually, "Mazirian the Magician" is sufficient. It's the clearest representation of the system, and the story is only about 15 pages long.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 23, 2005)

D&D will always be about killing things and taking their stuff. I don't see that chaning soon. 

EDIT: 'Tis the method that changes.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Maybe surprisingly, here I want to use Merric's idea of D&D forming its own stereotypes.




It's not just intrigue, mind you. When you read Louise Cooper, you don't get mad that the magic system isn't that of Piers Anthony. Nor should you get mad when D&D Magic isn't the same as Terry Pratchett's!

D&D, from the very start, has not been limited to the imagination of the authors who most influenced it, being something different: a synthesis of elements, old and new, that made a very good game.

Furthermore, there are four new magic (sub-)systems for D&D coming out in the next few months. (Magic of Incarnum; Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow and True Name Magic). We already have the psionics system.

It is quite possible to replace regular clerics and wizards with only the psionic systems at the moment - there will be more choices soon!

This does not detract from the necessity of having a base system, which for many reasons, partly due to tradition, but partly because it works, I think should remain the Vancian one we have today (although it has been relaxed for classes like the Sorcerer).

Cheers!


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2005)

> This does not detract from the necessity of having a base system, which for many reasons, partly due to tradition, but partly because it works, I think should remain the Vancian one we have today (although it has been relaxed for classes like the Sorcerer).



But why not a base system more like Arcana Evolved? It is a pick the spells you want to cast the day, but the character may spontaneously cast any of those system. The AE system makes it so that spellcasters are not defined by so much by their type of magic, but by additional flavor: one that prefers runes (runethane), one that is magically focused (magister), one that uses innate manifestations with different bloodlines (witch), one that is nature focused (greenbond), and a fighter-mage hybrid (mage blade).


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

Aldarc said:
			
		

> While D&D may trace its magical origins to Vancian Magic, it should be no means confine itself to Vancian Magic for the simple sake of tradition.



As Merric already said, D&D 3E has already a few magic subsytems that have departed from the old Vancian ideal. However, I like the system in Arcana Evolved quite a lot myself .


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

That might work, Aldarc.

Just a note: when choosing a magic system for D&D, the designers are likely to want one that is easy to learn and use. That's one reason why the Sorcerer is the default magic-user in the 3.5e Basic Set. (fewer decision points).

Cheers!


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2005)

That is a good point about the ease of use for beginning players.


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## FireLance (Aug 23, 2005)

This is just a random thought about the influence of technology on perceptions of magic in literature and gaming. Not very well thought through, so tear it apart if you will.

It seems to me that there has been a shift in literature from the protagonist as an observer of wonders, to the protagonist as the performer of wonders. Early protagonists may have had certain special talents or abilities, but they were usually within the limit of what was humanly possible. This is most obvious from fairy tales, where the magic almost always comes from an external agency - a sword of sharpness, seven league boots, a flying carpet, a magical animal, the blessings or curses of elves, fairies or witches, and so on. Even Frodo in the Lord of the Rings did nothing that was truly out of the ordinary.

In relatively recent years, protagonists themselves are becoming the wonderworkers. Harry Potter is only the most recent and the most popular. Offhand, I can think of several other examples: Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea, Belgarion from the Belgariad, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, various characters from the Xanth novels, superheroes from the comics, etc. Magic is no longer something alien or separate from the protagonist, but an accepted and integral part of his identity.

I think this is the result of two trends in technology - its complexity and its pervasiveness. In the past, technology was not complex. Most of us could understand the basic principles behind the tools we used. Truly complicated technology was rare and often viewed with distrust - the province of mad scientists and secret government organizations. There was thus a clear distinction between the known, reliable and trusted ("technology"), and the unknown, esoteric and unfamiliar ("magic").

In recent years, however, technology has become more complex at the same time that it has become more pervasive. As a result of which, most of us think nothing of using and relying on gadgets without understanding how they work. I'm thinking of cell phones and computers in particular, but I'm sure there are other examples. The line between the known and the unknown is thus blurred.

So, what I'm thinking is: the pervasiveness of poorly understood but reliable technology makes many people accept or even want magic to function like technology in their books and games. The pervasiveness of technology means that many people are no longer content to just see wonders. They want to work wonders as well, and thus accept or even want protagonists who do things that ordinary people cannot in their books, and want to play such characters in their games.

What do you think?


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

FireLance said:
			
		

> What do you think?




I think you raise a very interesting point. I'm trying to think of counterexamples from older fiction or mythology.

Certainly, John Carter (of ERB's Barsoom books) has superior physical and fighting abilities, but they're a different thing from actually having magical abilities.

I'm just trying to think of examples from Celtic mythology where the magic-worker is the central point of the tale, rather than someone being aided by magic; c.f. Arthur and Merlin.

Cheers!


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## The Shaman (Aug 23, 2005)

I seem to have read something about this elsewhere - ah, here it is...







			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> The language and iconography of fantasy has changed, and the game has attempted to keep up with the fanbase.
> 
> I don't think that's a bad thing - genres should grow and change. It does mean that I've lost interest in the fantasy tropes of D&D...



I agree that D&D is informed by a new generation of fantasists, a generation that has taken a more self-aware view of fantasy, and that the fantastic genre has been influenced by _anime_ and _wuxia_ as readily as _Bullfinche's Mythology_ or _The Golden Bough_.

Doesn't mean I have to like it.







			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> The works of Howard and Leiber are important, and have done much - and are doing much - for fantasy even now. However, they are not the entirity of fantasy, and it is now the time of their successors, to go to new places that they did not dream.



The game can, and will, and I believe should reflect the current state of the sub-culture to reach its audience - however, what is popular now isn't to my taste much of the time, so it also means that a game like D&D which attempts to capture that contemporary state of fantasy loses its appeal for someone like me. Feats that bring wire-fu stunt action into the game, _manga_-influenced art styles, the all-encompassing (and to my mind bland and unfocused) generic blending of fantasy tropes - for these reasons I've moved on to other game systems.

It really has nothing to do with 3e D&D in a sense - I can (and I have) created a Tolkeinesque 3.0 campaign, by tweaking the ruleset to meet my needs. The larger problem as I see it, and one that I have experienced as a player, is that the population of gamers out there has an expectation about core D&D that I as a GM have no intention of meeting. IMX most gamers expect prestige classes and item creation feats and harmless technological magic and monster races, because that's what the current iteration of the game offers them. Simply put, they're not buying what I'm selling: magic as rare and dangerous, few monsters (and no monster PCs), limits on access to prestige classes, _&c_.

On the other hand, if I use a game like _Castles and Crusades_ to bring my fantasy vision to life, I'm more likely to attract players with a like mindset, because the tropes of the game are geared to a different style of play, a different expectation of magic and classes, than a player expecting core D&D. In this way I can play the game I want to play with like-minded gamers. In the final analysis, what D&D has become is irrelevant to me.

So I ignore Eddings and Feist and Jordan and Lackey and dig deep into Leiber and Howard and Tolkien and LeGuin for my fantasy tropes. I plan my Modern Africa game around Burroughs and Haggard and Cutliffe Hyne and Wren, not Michael Crichton's _Congo_ or _Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life_. About the only genre that finds me siding with more contemporary artists is superheroes: if I run a supers game again, it will be heavily influenced by Kurt Busiek's _Astro City_.

Does this limit me? Perhaps. Does it put me behind the times? Probably. Do I care? No, not deeply. This is all for fun, and I like what I like.


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## MerricB (Aug 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Does this limit me?




Only in the sense that you're not trying to do everything at once. 

Limits are important for creativity. They provide focus, and - when everything is said - just playing in a fantasy world is a limiting experience (compared to the entirity of literature!)

Incidentally, you brought up "Bullfinch's Mythology." Do you know what the purpose of that was? To remind the readers of its day of the mythological stories that underpinned many allusions in poetry and literature.

I have a feeling that today the creative mythology is more alive than it has ever been, and the retellings of older mythologies (by Moorcook, MZB, Dan Simmons and others) keeps them relevant to the new generation.

Cheers!


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## Mishihari Lord (Aug 23, 2005)

I appreciate Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, etc because they aren't based on current popular culture.  As much as I enjoy current authors like Jordan, Feist, Eddings, and even Rawlings, the stories they tell aren't anything that I couldn't think up on my own.  Magic, as mentioned in the very inciteful post above, resembles technology and most of the characters act either like 20th century Americans or stereotypes held by 20C Americans.  The "classic" authors, in contrast, open my eyes to stories characters, and cultures that I would never imagine on my own.  As an example, I would never come up with anything like the Elric saga left to my own devices.

MB has a legitimate point that D&D is is most accesible if it is based on the fantasy fiction of the last few years.  Basing it on Final Fantasy would probably work even better.  However in the interest of providing a gaming experience far different than modern life, which is my preference, I would like to see games more grounded in "classic" fantasy.


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## Steel_Wind (Aug 23, 2005)

While they may not have read Howard - they are probably familiar with Conan as a character from film and TV and to a lesser extent, comics. Conan long ago moved into mainstream popular culture. They'll get by on what they know of him.  The feel of Conan the Destroyer comes pretty close to iconic D&D. 

I think Vance can be ignored and one's appreciation of D&D will not actually suffer in the slightest.

Lieber, however... that strikes pretty close to the heart. Especially with respect to thieves and the entire concept of a thieves guild and a city adventure in D&D.  Lieber in some ways is as close to "gaming fiction" as we had before TSR decided it needed to commission it 

We all need to sing the praises of Ill Met in Lankhmar more.  (Though  - do remember, Lieber has what may be perceived to be a somewhat sexist approach to his tales when read by a female audience).

With respect to Harry Potter - the obvious solution to this is to license and market a Harry Potter RPG. It is an obvious "in" on the market.  The fact that we have not seen a Harry Potter RPG or CCG suggests to me that JK Rowling is not a fan of the genre and has said "no".  (Alternatively - the price for her saying "yes" is deemed to be too high)

A Harry Potter RPG using basic D&D mechanics would be the obvious "in" with an entire generation of players...


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 23, 2005)

Rowling, I believe, has turned down making a Potter RPG because she doesn't want anyone taking the roles of her characters. And, they've offered lots of money. Whether you agree with her decision (just how many LJ HP RPGs are there now?) is for you to decide.


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## MonsterMash (Aug 23, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: _The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, _ and_Bran Mak Morn: The Last king_ -- with more to come!).
> 
> Apparently they've been selling _extremely_ well in North America.  (I'm not sure if they're available in the U.K. and Ireland yet.)
> 
> Howard's making a comeback!



We've had the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks editions of the Howard Conan stories out for a number of years now. This series also has the Lankhmar novels, the Dying Earth and Moorcock's Elric stories, not sure about availability in Eire though.


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## S'mon (Aug 23, 2005)

Mystery Man said:
			
		

> Howard's OK, Lieber is great. Some of the yoots of today would be lost on his prose though, being dumbed down by the likes of Harry Potter and such. Yeah, I'm a snob.




Well IMO Leiber is for teenagers & up, whereas Harry Potter is for chidren.  I wouldn't expect an 8 year old to enjoy Leiber much; I guess if an 18 year old prefers Potter & can't understand Leiber maybe their reading skill isn't great.  Although personally I recall reading Donaldson's "White Gold Wielder" age ca 10 & loving it & its incredibly convoluted prose, and I recently (age 32) read Pullman's His Dark Materials children's fantasy series & enjoying it too.


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## S'mon (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Edit: Actually, "Mazirian the Magician" is sufficient. It's the clearest representation of the system, and the story is only about 15 pages long.




That's really the only Vance story that describes a D&D-like magic system.  In Rhialto the Marvellous the mages seem to have vast and almost unlimited powers and the feel is very different.  I guess maybe Mazirian is 6th level & Rhilato 18th...


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## Hand of Evil (Aug 23, 2005)

Where is the love for Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter, Carson Napier, etc), Ken Robeson (Doc Savage), and those others that helped push pulp/fantasy to readers but also to the mass market.


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 23, 2005)

He sounds like me.

One of the problems with Howard and other authors whose books are old, is that they periodically go out of print. How many people have read Jirel of Jorel by C. L. Moore for example or the Worms of Onribus? Fantasy certainly did not start with J R. R. Tolkeen as Clark Ashton Smith and others like Robert E. Howard proved, but he did put it into the main stream mind so to speak.

And as I've noted before, with the wide library of books that WoTC produces itself, D&D is it's own genre. Heck, there are many best sellers in the FR and DL brands alone. It'll be interesting to see how Keith grows as a writer and if they ever give him a hardcover deal, just to see how that fares in the market.


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## Henry (Aug 23, 2005)

Back when I read Felon's quote in the other thread, I was having siimilar thoughts to Merric's, but no real time to comment in-depth. Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Tolkien, while good to fantastic authors, and having defined the presence of D&D up until recently, have little to no bearing on the newer generations of fantasy consumers today. It's happy, sad, or apathetic, as you please, but it's truth, most importantly. Unless enough people were to somehow shift the trend back to those earlier authors (good luck on that!) then it's something to be dealt with more than railed against.


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## Akrasia (Aug 23, 2005)

MonsterMash said:
			
		

> We've had the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks editions of the Howard Conan stories out for a number of years now. This series also has the Lankhmar novels, the Dying Earth and Moorcock's Elric stories, not sure about availability in Eire though.




I have the Gollancz books for Leiber's Nehwon storie and Vance's Lyonesse series.  I'll have to kep my eyes open for the others.  Thanks.


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## ephemeron (Aug 23, 2005)

*Apuleian D&D*



			
				Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Are you sure that's a _fantasy_ novel?



I think I could make a case that _The Golden Ass_ is the progenitor of magical realism -- unlike the Greek novels that had evil Egyptian wizards chasing people off the map and even to the moon, Apuleius kept things in real places, and the events that aren't impossible are described realistically.

But that aside -- though I haven't done anything with it myself, _The Golden Ass_ has lots of bits that could be worked into a game (I'm thinking especially of the stories about witchcraft, early in the book), and Apuleius himself would make a fun NPC or model for a PC.  He was sort of an itinerant professor of Neo-Platonic philosophy, who eventually married a rich widow in North Africa and settled down.  Then his in-laws, unhappy that he'd redirected their inheritances, brought him into court on charges that he'd used magic to win her affections.  His defense speech, which is the only work of his other than _The Golden Ass_ that survives, is a lot of fun; he mocks his accusers as ignorant provincials who can't tell the difference between evil magic and high-minded study of the natural world, but never quite denies that he was up to something weird.  Probably a bard who put a lot of points into Perform (Oratory) and Knowledge (Arcana).


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 23, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> I don't think D&D should be 'restricted' to any set of authors.
> 
> My point was that as a _'baseline'_ or 'default', the classics are best (Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc.).
> 
> ...




But even looking at the original sources, we see a huge amount of material that's not captured by the game system. Elric and Conan do not stand side by side. Heck, Hawkmoon uses high-tech and Elric summons gods. That does not stand side by side. If D&D were being built only for people who were 35+ years old who grew up on those books, I'd say yeah, it should have some 'default assumptions' but it's built for today's potential audience.


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## Tinner (Aug 23, 2005)

Steel_Wind said:
			
		

> We all need to sing the praises of Ill Met in Lankhmar more.  (Though  - do remember, Lieber has what may be perceived to be a somewhat sexist approach to his tales when read by a female audience).




*Somewhat* sexist?!?!?!?    

Have you read Lieber?!?!?!?
From the conniving women of Fafhrd's tribe, to the slave girls in the bazar, and even in the way the heros sweetheatrs are killed off and used to motivate Fafhrd and the Mouser. Lieber treats women as objects.
I'm not saying his stories aren't great. They are, and II love them.
But I'd no sooner reccomend them to a sensitive reader than I would the Gor books.

As for using them as inspiration for gaming ... I think modern publishers would be wise to be a little more friendly with both halves of humanity.


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## WayneLigon (Aug 23, 2005)

FireLance said:
			
		

> In relatively recent years, protagonists themselves are becoming the wonderworkers. Harry Potter is only the most recent and the most popular. Offhand, I can think of several other examples: Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea, Belgarion from the Belgariad, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, various characters from the Xanth novels, superheroes from the comics, etc. Magic is no longer something alien or separate from the protagonist, but an accepted and integral part of his identity.




I think that would be a very interesting comparison. Early fantasy literature had two choices for the magic-user: become evil or go insane. Very, very few witches were good ones and the ones who were good always seemed to shun using their powers for fear of becoming corrupted by it. Glinda the Good might be the only one I can think of.

After the new wave of fantasy started to hit, we started seeing more and more wizard protagonists. Before, they were always enemies or, at best, sidekicks. We also see them use more and more magic for themselves and for others. Gandalf hoarded his power, rightly fearful of tipping a delicate balance. Harry spends his like water, rigfhtly expecting something in return for effort and time expended.


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## WayneLigon (Aug 23, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> But I'd no sooner reccomend them to a sensitive reader than I would the Gor books. As for using them as inspiration for gaming ... I think modern publishers would be wise to be a little more friendly with both halves of humanity.




Much as I'm an advocate of having some sensitivity there, that's just nuts. There's such a thing as being too thin-skinned and comparing Leiber to Gor is it.


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## painandgreed (Aug 23, 2005)

Let's not forget Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson as there are many things in D&D directly out of there IIRC. The description of the troll for example down to the carrot like nose.


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## diaglo (Aug 23, 2005)

for a different spin on Arthurian Legend:

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

or Mark Twain's version.


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> *Somewhat* sexist?!?!?!?
> 
> Have you read Lieber?!?!?!?
> From the conniving women of Fafhrd's tribe, to the slave girls in the bazar, and even in the way the heros sweetheatrs are killed off and used to motivate Fafhrd and the Mouser. Lieber treats women as objects.
> ...



This is actually a good post that illustrates how you can easily date science fiction or fantasy stories: today's works are most of the time incredibly "pc". The old works mirror the spirit of their time: women are either someone to adore or objectified, but hardly ever level with the male protagonists. This may also be one of the reasons why Leiber's or Vance's writings mostly vanished from the American book shelves: no bookseller wants his customers come back and complain like above . I wonder if that also happens to Hemingway's books .


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## radferth (Aug 23, 2005)

I'd like to offend Merric by making the claim that all the authors I like are great, and all the ones I dislike are crap.  

More seriously, just want to jump in with Paul Anderson: _Three Hearts and Three Lions_.  This thing reads like an old D&D adventure, and serves as the direct source for many D&D conventions. (Paladins, trolls, gnomes, saving throws).  Its one of the real finds I got from tracking down books mentions in Giants in the Earth from old issues of Dragon (the other being Shakespeare's _The Tempest_).

Edit: Looks like I scored second on the THTL thing.


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## diaglo (Aug 23, 2005)

ANdre Norton's Quag Keep reads like many convention games...


also Rose Este's reads like....


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## Ralif Redhammer (Aug 23, 2005)

There's a lot of food for thought in this thread.

I agree that D&D and its players should pay attention to the new works of fantasy as well as the classics. Blue Rose is a direct response to the works of Lackey and Pierce. Dragon magazine has printed articles on the Farseer and Spiderwick series, amongst others.

But are Leiber, Howard, Vance, and their ilk redundant? Not at all. I would argue that there's a certain purity to them, for having existed before D&D. I wonder, is it even possible for a fantasy writer to avoid being even slightly influenced by D&D these days?

But there is also the question, do most new players still define D&D by literary standards? The Eberron core sourcebook had a list of recommended films, not books. With LotR, Harry Potter, and even the revived popularity of Wuxia films, people can get their dose of fantasy without ever cracking open a book.


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## Mark CMG (Aug 23, 2005)

radferth said:
			
		

> More seriously, just want to jump in with Paul Anderson: _Three Hearts and Three Lions_.





While on the topic of good fantasy from Poul Anderson, add in _The Broken Sword_, _Hrolf Kraki's Saga_, and his "The Last Viking" series _The Golden Horn_, _The Road of the Sea Horse_, and _The Sign of the Raven_.


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## Quasqueton (Aug 23, 2005)

Should the D&D3 PHB and/or DMG have a bibliography or "suggested reading" list like the AD&D1 and BD&D rule books had? If so, what should be in that list? Should some of the original items be removed from the list?

Of course, the list could well turn out to be just a list of D&D novels. That would be disappointing.

Quasqueton


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## Reynard (Aug 23, 2005)

One point that I think has been missed is that today's D&D -- neither its fans nor its creators -- are especially influenced by fantasy literature, at least no more than film, television, comics and (mostly) games of other media.  Not to mention previous versions of D&D.  While it is all well and good to want to see more influence of Martin (we need a vassal subsystem!) or Hobb (stat me out a Liveship!), the fact is that World of Warcraft and Jacksn's LotR trilogy (which has a very different tone and style than the books) have a much greater impact on how people think about D&D.  I don't know if this qualifies as a good or bad thing, but one would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise.

For my part, I really enjoy Howard's work and would love to be able to emulate it in game.  However, Howard's work is almost exclusively about a singular protagonist and D&D -- or any rpg, really -- is about a group of protagonists.  More modern fiction has the benefit of using larger casts generally, which means that it is 'better' from the perspective of trying to run a game using a group.  Of Martin's work, for example, those cast members are almost never togather, and when they are they are suually trying to find a good moment to slip a knife between each others' ribs.

You know what EN World needs?  A book discussion club with a dedicated forum for it.


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## Desdichado (Aug 23, 2005)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Much as I'm an advocate of having some sensitivity there, that's just nuts. There's such a thing as being too thin-skinned and comparing Leiber to Gor is it.



Quite right.  That post was ridiculous, IMO.  Leiber's women had spunk and character.  They were nothing like, say, Howard's women.  Not that some of them didn't have spunk too.  I despise forced and unnatural political correctness for its own sake.


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 23, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Should the D&D3 PHB and/or DMG have a bibliography or "suggested reading" list like the AD&D1 and BD&D rule books had? If so, what should be in that list? Should some of the original items be removed from the list?
> 
> Of course, the list could well turn out to be just a list of D&D novels. That would be disappointing.
> 
> Quasqueton




For the D&D for Dummies books, they do have a list of "suggested reading" and yes, it is all D&D novels, but thankfully, they have another list of "influenential" books including Moorcock, Howard, Brooks, and others.


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## Desdichado (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> *This is your only warning!*
> 
> *This thread is about the influence of fantasy fiction on D&D, past, present and future, and vice versa, not about comparisons between authors. Please keep that babble elsewhere.*



No offense, MerricB, but what do you mean by warning?  Are you a mod?  Are you going to report posts just because you don't want to talk about spin-off (yet clearly related) asides in your thread?  

Where are you going with this?


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## Desdichado (Aug 23, 2005)

Reynard said:
			
		

> You know what EN World needs?  A book discussion club with a dedicated forum for it.



We've already got one.  Except that we also discuss "genre" TV and movies there too.


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## Tinner (Aug 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Quite right.  That post was ridiculous, IMO.  Leiber's women had spunk and character.  They were nothing like, say, Howard's women.  Not that some of them didn't have spunk too.  I despise forced and unnatural political correctness for its own sake.




Despise it all you like, but as long as publishers insist on PC, you really can't ignore it.  

As for Lieber's women having spunk - sure, some did.
But did the girls dangling in the cages in the "Bazar of the Bizarre" really show all that much spunk? Or were they just there "for dessert" as Lieber actually wrote?


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## Turjan (Aug 23, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> Despise it all you like, but as long as publishers insist on PC, you really can't ignore it.
> 
> As for Lieber's women having spunk - sure, some did.
> But did the girls dangling in the cages in the "Bazar of the Bizarre" really show all that much spunk? Or were they just there "for dessert" as Lieber actually wrote?



Did you ever look at the publication dates of the classics? When did the USA abolish racial segregation (I don't want to discuss this, I just want to put things into context)? Believe it or not, even those works that look terribly non-pc to today's readers have often emancipatory elements. At least the authors saw their female heroes as such. But please, don't apply today's mindset to authors that wrote half a century or more ago.


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## Hjorimir (Aug 23, 2005)

If you wait long enough, the old becomes new and vice-versa. That’s where I am now. I’m sick of magic as a commodity settings (ala Forgotten Realms, Eberron) and have been revisiting the works that made me love the game so much in the first place. Truth be told, I haven’t read most of these authors – in fact, I’ve only really read Tolkien and a little of ERB’s John Carter books – and only came to know them vicariously through the games of those who had or by a movie (in the case of Conan).

I’ve been playing D&D for over twenty years and am re-discovering the game as I am currently reading Vance and Lovecraft. Soon, I will be reading Howard, Lieber, and Moorcock. 

For me, magic has become bland, unimaginative and completely predictable in D&D as it is presented. I yawn with every fireball cast. Likewise, there is nothing rare or special in magic items anymore where characters work to min/max their bonuses while conforming to their paper-doll limitations.

Am I bitter about what D&D has become? Not at all. To each their own, I say. I’m just exercising that same mentality with myself; I cannot wait for my Grim Tales/Black Company game. Gritty. Dark. Heroic.


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## painandgreed (Aug 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> No offense, MerricB, but what do you mean by warning?  Are you a mod?  Are you going to report posts just because you don't want to talk about spin-off (yet clearly related) asides in your thread?
> 
> Where are you going with this?




Netiquette in most of civilized netspace holds that posters should at least pay token repect to the thread creator within the thread they created. They, after all, are the authority on what the thread is about. If off topic subjects warrent it, then a new separate thread can always be created so as to not be seen as a troll.


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## Zander (Aug 23, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> How many people have read... the Worms of Onribus?



Funny you should say that. I bought a new copy of Worm of Ouroboros last Saturday and am planning on starting it as soon as I can find the time. I've been thinking of reading it for some years. It's still published as part of the MasterWork series by Gollanz previously mentioned in this thread by MonsterMash.

Broadly speaking, older works of fantasy that maintain a certain level of popularity have influenced the genre more. So even if I may not have read a particular work, when I do, I find elements that are familiar. Like most people, I like things with which I am at least partly familiar.


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## Desdichado (Aug 23, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> Despise it all you like, but as long as publishers insist on PC, you really can't ignore it.



Who says?  What publishers are insisting on PC?  WotC?  Those novels are easy to ignore--I haven't read one in years.  Certainly most of the other fantasy I read isn't PC.  Or, at least, it isn't necessarily so.  It isn't blatantly being PC for it's own sake.


			
				Tinner said:
			
		

> But did the girls dangling in the cages in the "Bazar of the Bizarre" really show all that much spunk? Or were they just there "for dessert" as Lieber actually wrote?



There have been girls dancing in cages in all kinds of recent movies.  Are they now as sexist as John Norman?  Sorry, your post is extremist and reactionary.  It's nonsensical.  Leiber wasn't particularly sexist, even for his time when society itself was.  He was a _leader_ in the genre for not portraying women as simply sex objects.


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## Tinner (Aug 23, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Did you ever look at the publication dates of the classics? When did the USA abolish racial segregation (I don't want to discuss this, I just want to put things into context)? Believe it or not, even those works that look terribly non-pc to today's readers have often emancipatory elements. At least the authors saw their female heroes as such. But please, don't apply today's mindset to authors that wrote half a century or more ago.




I think I'm being misunderstood.
I am in NO way implying that Leiber is a bad author. I have all the books. I read them regularly. I've got the old Lanhkmar boxed sets and everything.
I am also NOT saying that Leiber was a bad person who treated women badly. I don't really know much about the author's politics and personal life.

My points were and are these: 
By today's standards Leiber's writing does contain some "politically incorrect" material.
Modern publishers are less likely to publish "politically incorrect" material.
Modern readers are less tolerant of "politically incorrect" material. Especially casual readers, and members of those races/genders that are being portrayed "insensitively."
It is highly unlikely that a large corporation like Hasbro would choose to use such material as "source material" for new products and settings, as it is a) potentially "offensive" and b) not widely accessible to the mass market.

I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I'm merely pointing out one possible reason whey Leiber has been overlooked recently as source material by both readers and publishers.

That said, I find myself in the mood for a litle light reading, "Swords & Deviltry" anyone?


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## Hand of Evil (Aug 23, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> I think I'm being misunderstood. (snip)
> ...
> My points were and are these:
> By today's standards Leiber's writing does contain some "politically incorrect" material.
> ...



That is why you have orcs.


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## Reynard (Aug 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> We've already got one.  Except that we also discuss "genre" TV and movies there too.




I should have put the emphasis on the word 'club' -- implying some sort of organized structure, and then a forum to support it.  I am well aware of the Other Media-esque forum here, but I was thinking more the (specifically) EN World Book Club Forum.

But, I'm getting off topic. *ducks out before MerricB sees him*


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## diaglo (Aug 23, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> That is why you have orcs.



Grunts by Mary Gentle


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## rogueattorney (Aug 23, 2005)

I've always thought that those playing O(A)D&D without a pretty good grounding in the "Suggested Reading List" were akin to those attempting to play a Start Trek rpg without ever having seen an episode.  You saw the problems that arose in all the "but this isn't how it was in LotR" letters to Dragon that began from the beginnings of the game.

This changed in the late 1e years, essentialy beginning with Dragonlance and has continued right on to the present day.  What happened is as someone earlier said, D&D became its own genre.  From about 1977 to the mid-80's, the Shannara books and Star Wars really changed the popular view of what fantasy was about.  First, they hard-wired "the story" into the genre, ("The story" = young boy who's really someone important is taken from his home by whacky old dude who's really a wizard and they and their stock group of companions conquer the evil overlord) making the genre far more conventional.  Second, fantasy became a lot more mainstream.  Book publishers realized simply printing Tolkien rehashes would sell.  Hollywood started making fantasy movies (Conan, Ladyhawke, Beastmaster, etc., etc.)  Third, partially as a result of the first and second, and partially on its own merits, Dungeons & Dragons became very popular.  This lead to innumerable books being based on D&D, D&D putting out it's own books, and then D&D products based on these books.  The whole genre became very self-referential.  The D&D of today is based upon the D&D of the past as much as anything else.

Is that a good or bad thing?  I'm really not sure.  I suppose it depends on what you want.  As for a suggested readings list, I don't know that the D&D of today could put out a suggested reading list that fairly portrayed the world without using D&D books.  (I think this is partially true because in our more lititious society of today, an author or his estate might object...  "If your game is supposed to portray my works, I'd appreciate a few royalty checks...")

R.A.


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## Odhanan (Aug 23, 2005)

I am one of the ultimate fans of fantasies of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, and I think above all, J.R.R. Tolkien, even if I think Middle-earth is probably the most inappropriate setting from these authors to be used as a RPG. It is clear to me that the original assumptions of Merric hold some truth. 

D&D cannot afford to assume people read these authors. 

That does not mean, however, that they can't be discovered or made accessible through D&D and RPGs in general. I think that's one of the great things games can do for fantasy literature: open the door to worlds of imagination in writing, in fantasm, whatever. This is one of the great functions of literature too: to think outside the box, to show "out there" what is imagined "in here". Tabletop RPGs are vibrant tools to help in sharing imagination (not only in terms of advertisement, but because of their nature also - sharing an imagined setting around the table and make stories out of this "now" that could not be). 

There are good authors in today's fantasy literature. Pratchett and Martin come to my mind. But there is SO much chaff also. My usual Chapters store has three shelves of fantasy books. It's sometimes hard to know what's good or not. And when I see readers satisfied by easy plots, stereotype characters and "simplified" writing, I get a bit worried. When I see the standards in the fantasy literature publishing industry, I get angry: basically, you have, as an author, to "think low to sell high". Dumbing yourself down to make yourself understandable of poor, illeterate and unintelligent readers. This makes me want to throw up (sorry for the language).


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## diaglo (Aug 23, 2005)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Dumbing yourself down to make yourself understandable of poor, illeterate and unintelligent readers. This makes me want to throw up (sorry for the language).



rogue vs rouge

just read a few of them on the internet... innumerable times.


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## Hand of Evil (Aug 23, 2005)

If you are interested in some of the old stuff, see www.blackmask.com


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## Odhanan (Aug 23, 2005)

> rogue vs rouge
> 
> just read a few of them on the internet... innumerable times.




I don't know how to take your statement, diaglo. I've seen "rouge" for rogue numerous times as well. But that's not because we see people misspelling words that we have to give up on them. I read Tolkien when I was twelve. I read Moorcock around the same age. Both authors made me interested in words and learning, or at least intensified that thirst. I don't want to write novels for people and think "_hey, anyway they don't know what I'm talking about so I could make it easier by just not talking about it_." That's a loser's point of view, isn't it?

There's in my mind a huge difference between accessibility and condescendence. Accessibility can make a particular literary work better. It elevates the reader instead of weakening the works.


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## Mark CMG (Aug 23, 2005)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> That's a looser's point of view, isn't it?





"Loser"


No offense.


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## Odhanan (Aug 23, 2005)

No, no offense at all, since English is not my natural language!


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## The Shaman (Aug 23, 2005)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> No, no offense at all, since English is not my natural language!



Well...in that case, it's "chaff," not "chaft."


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 23, 2005)

This thread is good for thinking. 

I do agree that D&D does have it's own feel. In designing a table-top game based on a video game (check the sig!), I've had to drop a lot of the D&D feel and embrace a more "video game-ish" feel to get the kind of game I wanted. D&D wasn't video game enough. It was too grounded in realism, in minis, in the minutiae of equipment and the simplicity of the dungeon crawl. It was too complex to be like a video game.

That complexity is born of its source material. Were it not for the near-starvation that occured in the LotR trilogy, would we bother accounting rations for the first few levels? Would our druids oppose much of human civilization if there wasn't an ecology kick in the last half of the 20th century? 

Any product reflects its own times. Any old-school C&C game is just as much a product of pop psychology as the most abstracted FFZ game. It's becuase products are created for the audience, and the audience changes.


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## Glyfair (Aug 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> (Incidentally, as I've rarely found any Vance to read, how many books does he use the system in? I've read his Lyonesse series, and the magic seems to have a different tone there).




When AD&D was released there were only two books, "The Dying Earth" and "Eyes of the Overworld."  Two later ones were released.

The "The Dying Earth" and "Eyes of the Overworld" are clearly direct influences on D&D.  Besides the magic system, many specific spells came from the series (Prismatic Spray, Imprisonment).  The ability for Rogues to use scrolls with  mishap chance is from "Eyes of the Overworld" (Cugel the clever tries to cast a spell that will have his enemy carried away, and it backfires and has him carried away).


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2005)

> Any product reflects its own times. Any old-school C&C game is just as much a product of pop psychology as the most abstracted FFZ game. It's becuase products are created for the audience, and the audience changes.



This has been quoted for emphasis.


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## kenobi65 (Aug 23, 2005)

radferth said:
			
		

> More seriously, just want to jump in with Paul Anderson: _Three Hearts and Three Lions_.  This thing reads like an old D&D adventure, and serves as the direct source for many D&D conventions. (Paladins, trolls, gnomes, saving throws).  Its one of the real finds I got from tracking down books mentions in Giants in the Earth from old issues of Dragon (the other being Shakespeare's _The Tempest_).




"Giants in the Earth," as well as the bibliography in the back of the 1st Edition DMG, influenced my reading materials for several years, back when I first started playing D&D in the early 1980s.

I can't believe I wound up not reading "Three Hearts and Three Lions" until 2 years ago...it's a very nice little book, and surely has a tremendous "D&D Feel" to it.


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## Shemeska (Aug 23, 2005)

Khayman said:
			
		

> I'd tend to agree --- even in my mid-thirtyish group, most have not read Howard or Leiber, and only a few of us Lovecraft or Moorcock.




I'd all but put money that Lovecraft is much, -much- more well known by name than Howard or Leiber, especially Leiber. With Howard however, I think that his name is much less known than his creations might be known by the general public. People know about Conan, or have at least heard the name, but to hell if they known who Robert E Howard is. *chuckle*

I've read a decent amount of Howard's work, but I've never read anything by Fritz Leiber.


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 24, 2005)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> I can't believe I wound up not reading "Three Hearts and Three Lions" until 2 years ago...it's a vry nice little book, and surely has a tremendous "D&D Feel" to it.



The irony being, of course, that one of the three PCs in that group is a swanmay. I don't ever want to hear old-schoolers tell me weird PC races are out of the question again. 

Hell, I'd rather play a game based on _Three Hearts and Three Lions_, even with all its eccentricities, than on Tolkien.


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## T. Foster (Aug 24, 2005)

I'm still getting a great deal of enjoyment out of the inspirational reading list in the back of the 1E DMG, having just recently read Philip Jose Farmer's "World of Tiers" series, Fred Saberhagen's "Changeling Earth," Margaret St. Clair's "Shadow People" and "Sign of the Labrys" and several others, so I have no interest in any of the 'modern' fantasy fiction that clogs the shelves at Barnes & Noble. If it's got more than ~200pp, doesn't have cover art by someone like Jeffrey Jones or Frank Frazetta, and I can't get it at my friendly local used book store for ~$1.50 I'm not interested. So I suppose it's really no surprise that my favorite versions of the game are still the ones that emulate that style of fiction, and not the later stuff.

P.S. Note to everybody: if you haven't read the fiction of A. Merritt, drop what you're doing _right now_ and go find some. He's the missing link in the D&D inspiration chain, every bit as influential upon the style and feel of the original game as Howard, Leiber, and Vance. _The Moon Pool_, his first novel, is probably the best place to start.


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## The Shaman (Aug 24, 2005)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> P.S. Note to everybody: if you haven't read the fiction of A. Merritt, drop what you're doing _right now_ and go find some. He's the missing link in the D&D inspiration train, every bit as influential upon the style and feel of the original game as Howard, Leiber, and Vance.



I'm re-reading _The Moon Pool_ at the moment - good stuff!


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## wingsandsword (Aug 24, 2005)

My little anecdote about the relative obscurity of certain Fantasy authors. . .

Circa 1992, I'm first getting interested in D&D.  I'm loaned a pile of D&D manuals by a friend, and start voraciously reading them.

I'm also first getting into Fantasy, with Tolkien being my first step, the first "real" fantasy literature I read started at the Hobbit and went into LotR.  I found Howard's Conan books on our bookstore shelf and read a few (recognizing the name mostly from the movies, and realizing they were based on these books).  If not for the Conan movies, I would have doubtless overlooked the books.  Lovecraft I knew only from a few obscure references, it was many years before I knew what the deal was with him.

My mother is a very prolific reader, a die-hard bibliophile (our house at the time had a garage filled with boxes of books she'd read).  

In Legends and Lore, among the other religions and mythologies, it had the works of Lieber.  I thought it seemeed interesting, and my mother was keeping abreast of what I was reading in these D&D books (my dad didn't want me reading them at all, but my mom was cool with it as long as she kept an eye on what was in them).  This big chapter references the works of Fritz Lieber and the whole set of mythology and history of his world, and it was the first literary reference she'd never heard of.

My mom, avid reader and devout bibliophile, had never heard of Lieber.  She read Tolkien back in the 60's, Lovecraft long ago, and some of Howard too.  A few books by other authors, but she seemed pretty well read in Fantasy literature.  When she'd never heard of these books that Legends and Lore was talking about, I dismissed those books as some obscure D&D tie-in I'd missed out on.

I can't honestly recall ever seeing Lieber's works on a bookstore shelf, and this discussion was really one of the very, very few times I've ever heard him come up after that early brush with Legends & Lore well more than a decade ago.  Therefore, I'm sorry to say that from my point of view, he's highly obscure.

By the same token, I only ever hear Jack Vance come up in discussion of D&D magic, and since people tend to react like D&D magic is completely unlike fantasy literature, Vance's works aren't exactly standing up to the test of time.


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## Turjan (Aug 24, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> By the same token, I only ever hear Jack Vance come up in discussion of D&D magic, and since people tend to react like D&D magic is completely unlike fantasy literature, Vance's works aren't exactly standing up to the test of time.



I have the feeling that he has always been much more popular in Europe, where he is generally well known. I was a bit surprised not to find him on the book shelves here . That said, he definitely shows several weaknesses. His characters are mostly bland (indistinguishably so), his plots are often weak and the endings are even weaker to non-existent. His strengths are the flavorful and fantastic worlds he creates and his colourful language. I think he's the only writer where even brutish monsters engage in sophisticated debate before they try to eat you .

Btw, he has written much more SF than fantasy, although I heard he's writing some sequel to the 'Dying Earth' series at the moment.


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## Akrasia (Aug 24, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> ... His characters are mostly bland (indistinguishably so), his plots are often weak and the endings are even weaker to non-existent. ...




I thought that many of the characters in the _Lyonesse_ series were quite colourful, especially the villains.  I also thought that the plots for the first two books in that series were rather strong.  The conclusion to the entire series was rather satisfying as well, IMO.



			
				Turjan said:
			
		

> ...I think he's the only writer where even brutish monsters engage in sophisticated debate before they try to eat you . ...




That's true -- everyone from ogres to young children are astonishingly witty in Vance's stuff. 

But I would recommend the _Lyonesse_ trilogy to anyone who loves D&D -- and fantasy more generally.  They are really great, IMO.

Also, they've recently been republished by Gollancz, and so should be available in the U.K. (and specialty shops elsewhere, or online).


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## FireLance (Aug 24, 2005)

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> The irony being, of course, that one of the three PCs in that group is a swanmay. I don't ever want to hear old-schoolers tell me weird PC races are out of the question again.



Not a strong argument, I'm afraid. The Swanmay is a PrC in the Book of Exalted Deeds. However, if they're real old-schoolers, they wouldn't be using the 3.5e rules, anyway.


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## T. Foster (Aug 24, 2005)

Jack Vance's sf books are also very good, especially the "Demon Princes" series, which was arguably as influential on the Traveller rpg as the Dying Earth series was on D&D (heck, you can find "Smade's Planet" right there in the Solomani Rim sector!)


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 24, 2005)

FireLance said:
			
		

> Not a strong argument, I'm afraid. The Swanmay is a PrC in the Book of Exalted Deeds. However, if they're real old-schoolers, they wouldn't be using the 3.5e rules, anyway.



Well, having owned many Second Edition books, I know that swanmays were originally a creature. I'm not at all convinced that a prestige class is a good way of reproducing them - what's next? A selkie prestige class? 

More to the point, the swanmay in Anderson's novel is clearly not some random chick who happens to have learned to be a swanmay.

(I'm sure swanmays appeared in First Edition; my point is that I know the Third Edition incarnation is a break with the past.)


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## Prince of Happiness (Aug 24, 2005)

Well, about Howard, et. al. being an influence on younger readers, I remember when I was a teenager in the 90s I went all out to track down Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Lovecraft. I mean, heck, Leiber was reprinted by White Wolf's imprint not too long ago. I had to work at tracking down original Howard stories though, and at the time, it was all mixed with De Camp stories. At any rate, this stuff still has a much more profound influence on me and my D&D gaming than Tolkien or any modern writer has (though I love Guy Gavriel Kay's and Patricia McKillip's stories).

The point is, to make a blanket assumption that young gamers are going to lose these influences or not seek out these influences is bull. If the stuff is out there, and the word is out there, young people _will_ seek these stories out. I did. Lots of my gaming friends did. To just throw up your hands and say "Well! Kids don't read this stuff! There's no point to referencing these stories at all!" just makes sure that these fundamental influences are flat-out lost. Talk. Young people do listen. Give them at least _some_ credit. Sheesh.


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## Patman21967 (Aug 24, 2005)

Howabout some love for David Gemmell. I know it is bubblegum reading, but I really love a day at the beach, with a book whose characters I really like and root for, and can finish in a few hours.


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 24, 2005)

I recently acquired the two volumes of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories that Gollancz published in its Fantasy Masterworks line, myself, and I got the first of their Conan volumes and their first volume of _The Book of the New Sun_ by Gene Wolfe some time ago.

Those lines are a fantastic resource for the classics, and inexpensive (since they're paperbacks).


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## Turjan (Aug 24, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> I thought that many of the characters in the _Lyonesse_ series were quite colourful, especially the villains.  I also thought that the plots for the first two books in that series were rather strong.  The conclusion to the entire series was rather satisfying as well, IMO.



There are a few exceptions. He has two or three other fleshed out characters. But in most books, the only distinguishing quality of the character is the name; everything else is pretty predictable if you know one of his other characters.

As far as conclusions go, they often come as some kind of afterthought. The book has to end somehow, and he writes one or two sentences to accomplish that. No big deal, though. I just wanted to add some small criticism to my general appreciation .


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 24, 2005)

Lotta good authors mentioned on this thread are in my collection- Tolkein, Moorcock, Lieber, Howard, Lewis, LeGuin, Donaldson, Vance- as are many more.

But personally, I got my intro to fantasy in the same place as many of the authors themselves: the various mythologies of the world and the epic poems and stories they produced.  The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, The Kalevala, The Faerie Queene, Arthurian legends (like Sir Gawain & the Green Knight), The Song of Roland, Beowulf, Grimm's & even the Bible...they were the door that opened my mind to fantasy, and IMHO, are the REAL bedrock upon which our hobby rests.

I'm not saying that the fantasy novelists haven't added to the lexicon.  Moorcock gave us one of the first antiheroic protagonists (Elric), Vance gave us the basic structure of D&D magic and many items (IOUN Stones, anyone?), and of course, Tolkein's reworking of European folktales into his epic LoTR was so masterful that its has become a benchmark in fantasy liturature...but without the legends of gods and demons dating back from the dawn of the written word, the modern writers would have had to do a LOT more work.


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## davidschwartznz (Aug 24, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> How often did you see some criticism of "Vancian magic", culminating in the sentence "I really like to know why D&D chose such a stupid system like Vancian magic, a system that has never been used in any fantasy literature whatsoever!". Well, it's obvious that even the name isn't recognized anymore as a fantasy author, which is even more of a problem than when the books are not read anymore.



There is a modern fanatsy that uses the 'Vancian' magic system: _Charmed_. Ignoring her innate talents, if a witch wants to cast a spell, she gets it out of her spellbook. And if she has to leave the house, she has to memorize the spell beforehand (in poetry form, no less). Admittedly, they cheat occasionally, by writing the spell down, but I've long been of the opinion that this is a property that would be easy to convert to d20 (it's girl-friendly too).


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## T. Foster (Aug 24, 2005)

_The Face in the Frost_ by John Bellairs also uses a more-or-less Vancian magic system (and is referenced by name in the 1E DMG alongside the Vance books). It's also a tremendously entertaining book that I highly recommend.


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## The Grackle (Aug 24, 2005)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> Jack Vance's sf books are also very good, especially the "Demon Princes" series, which was arguably as influential on the Traveller rpg as the Dying Earth series was on D&D (heck, you can find "Smade's Planet" right there in the Solomani Rim sector!)



Don't forget the Planet of Adventure tetralogy.  It's my favorite of Vance's SF.  It's a little more _cohesive_ than a lot of his other short sf novels.


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## MerricB (Aug 24, 2005)

One of the things that is occasionally hard to remember is that the mythological tales we know (Greek, Egyptian, etc.) were once living mythologies - and indeed, could well be considered that now, with their reinvention in many novels.

There isn't one received wisdom. Instead you have variant after variant. (See a book like Robert Graves' "The Greek Myths" for examples). The tales changed as the storytellers changed. 

Read Mallory and then read TH White - they share a lineage, but the actual tales they tell of Arthur are different. (And, if you'd like a real treat, then read Guy Gavriel Kay's "Fionavar Tapestry" for yet another take on it).

For examples of a living mythology, it is interesting to take the example of James Bond; there is the initial form of Ian Fleming's novels, then there are the movies, and then later novels by different authors.

James Bond is an iconic character, but the interpretation of him has changed with the years. D&D is not immune from this!

I came to D&D through the tales of Egyptian, Greek and Norse mythology, and the stories of Asimov, Clarke, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Tolkien (amongst others). 

One notable thing about D&D (all versions) is that the default style of play embodies the "pulp" ideal: lots of combat and action, and discounts character interaction. I hasten to say that this isn't how it is played universally, but the tricks of making the game more role-playing based are something that could stand to be explored further.

I am mainly talking in this case about the art of constructing adventures that rely on secrets; I intend to write a longer essay on this in the near future.

Cheers!


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 24, 2005)

I don't think anyone's saying not to reference them, just not to build them as the baseline from which 3rd edition has sprung.

For example, someone mentioned the Conan reprints along with Howard's other work. The bad news is only the first book sold very well. The others have been... troubled from what I've heard on various posts and boards.



			
				Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> Well, about Howard, et. al. being an influence on younger readers, I remember when I was a teenager in the 90s I went all out to track down Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Lovecraft. I mean, heck, Leiber was reprinted by White Wolf's imprint not too long ago. I had to work at tracking down original Howard stories though, and at the time, it was all mixed with De Camp stories. At any rate, this stuff still has a much more profound influence on me and my D&D gaming than Tolkien or any modern writer has (though I love Guy Gavriel Kay's and Patricia McKillip's stories).
> 
> The point is, to make a blanket assumption that young gamers are going to lose these influences or not seek out these influences is bull. If the stuff is out there, and the word is out there, young people _will_ seek these stories out. I did. Lots of my gaming friends did. To just throw up your hands and say "Well! Kids don't read this stuff! There's no point to referencing these stories at all!" just makes sure that these fundamental influences are flat-out lost. Talk. Young people do listen. Give them at least _some_ credit. Sheesh.


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## Belen (Aug 24, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> I don't think D&D should be 'restricted' to any set of authors.
> 
> My point was that as a _'baseline'_ or 'default', the classics are best (Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc.).
> 
> ...




The problem with your comments is that some people consider Howard or Lieber to be mediocre.  I attempted to read them when I was younger, but could not stand their style.  Of the older authors, only Tolkien has made a real influence on me.


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## diaglo (Aug 24, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> I am mainly talking in this case about the art of constructing adventures that rely on secrets; I intend to write a longer essay on this in the near future.
> 
> Cheers!



Da Vinci Code

or the movie with Nick Cage ... National Treasure or whatever it was called.


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## Belen (Aug 24, 2005)

*Influences for my games*

The fantasy literature I read definitely influences my current games.  That literature does not include Howard, Vance, or Lieber.  Instead, it is the books I am reading at the moment that gives me the ideas I use to run games.  If D&D does not model some of the items that I love from the books I read, then I will create rules to help silmulate those aspects.  

Here are my current influences:

*Michael A. Stackpole:* The man can write!  He is one of the best fantasy authors I have ever encountered.  His novel "Dark Glory War" and the sequel trilogy are major influences on my games.  

*Katherine Kerr:* "Daggerspell" and the subsequent series set in the land of Deverry has been a HUGE influence in my latest campaign world.  I love her world and her concept of Wyrd.

*Mercedes Lackey:* Valdemar.  You can definitely find the influence from D&D within the pages of her books.  Her new books starting with "The Outstretched Shadow" are spectacular and will find a way into my games!

*Elizabeth Moon:* "The Deed of Paksennarion." This trilogy has been a major influence on me.  It is obvious that the woman plays D&D.  I have even imported some of her deities like Achyra and Liart into my games.  I have never seen anyone write a better Paladin character.  Heck, I even ported the Marshals of Gird into my last two campaign worlds.

*Terry Brooks:* I love the Shannara series.  The latest books are especially good.  

*James Clemens:* He wrote "Wit'ch Fire" and the accompanying series.  These books are amazing.  

*Elizabeth Haydon:* "Rhapsody."  She wrote a wonderfully amazing Bard.  The story is compelling and may have the best prologue sequence of any novel I have ever read.

*Robbin Hobb:* The Assassin trilogy and the Tawny Man trilogy.  These have been big influences on me of late.  

*Tad Williams:* "Dragonbone chair."  I loved this trilogy.  The first campaign world I made from scratch was heavily influences by these books.  I even had summer and winter elves as races in that world.

*J.R.R Tolkien:* Enough said.

These are the authors that serve as the greatest incluences on me and on the games that I run.  I could care less about Lovecraft, Howard, or Burroughs.   For me, the modern fantasy authors are amazing.  If D&D incorporated these newer authors into the mix, then I would be sold.


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## Ranes (Aug 24, 2005)

Apart from anything else, it takes time to make a classic. One of the interesting things about fantasy literature is that you can have a classic because of the fantasy, not the literature.

I agree with Merric that influences move on and the contemporary will and should have an influence on D&D. After all, Vance, for example, was contemporary with OD&D and I'm pro-Vancian magic without being a Vance fan. Meanwhile, the only fantasy fiction I've read this year is Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Even Heaney's foreword, which concerns itself primarily with language, is enough to inspire a DM.

New blood will explore the classics but the response will be different to that of previous generations, influenced as it has to be by the present. I was watching Live8 Hyde Park with an old friend, when his seventeen year-old sent him a text message to say she couldn't believe she was actually seeing Pink Floyd live. I told him I couldn't believe she was sending a text message in the middle of the last live Pink Floyd performance.


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## Desdichado (Aug 24, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> There are a few exceptions. He has two or three other fleshed out characters. But in most books, the only distinguishing quality of the character is the name; everything else is pretty predictable if you know one of his other characters.



That's kinda ironic; if I'm remembering correctly, isn't your screen name one of those exact same characters you're complaining about?


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## Arrgh! Mark! (Aug 24, 2005)

Here goes.

Fantasy RPG's to begin with were defined by Fantasy books of the day. 

Sounds rational enough, right? The people who played fantasy were influenced by the big books of the day and earlier.

When was D+D first out? The seventies? 

Right. Fantasy had been going much before that. Possibly due to it's extremely unknown subculture factor, people who liked RPGs were the ones that were deeply interested in Fantasy, and fantasy books in general. So we have some evidence of researching in our older patrons. Maybe because there wasn't such a glut in the market of pulp fantasy (I wouldn't know, I wasn't alive at this point) things such as the masterworks were able to be read much more. 

So, these books were read by geeks and had a deep effect on games. This seems a fair inclination. Especially to start with. The good ole days when magic was rare and magical, monsters were new and dangerous and traps weren't simply assumed to be bypassed. Why? Because even this so called fire-and-forget magic of Vancian origin (If you read the books again) is quite amazing and different. (Read Sepulcraves Mostin the Metagnostic for a very good re-enactment of a Vancian wizard, at least the insanity.)




Cut to the current day. D+D is still a not-particularly-huge hobby group filled with geeks and fanatics. But it's bigger and it's more popular than before. People can pick up and play and enjoy games - and often do. But they don't need to be fantasy geeks to pick it up. In fact, they barely need be able to read at all. If they have read fantasy it's going to be the good fantasy of their day. 

It's logical that if the books of elder year affected our elder, the books of today affect our RPGs. But thats a wrong statement. It's actually incorrect to assume this at all. If we assume modern authors to be Eddings, Lackey, Robin Hobb, Hickman and Weis for us geeks and so on - god, if we even look at those piss-poor D+D novels. Do our games resemble this? Everyone's game is different. BUT - the D+D "Core Setting" as I take it does not act like those books at all, especially regarding magic. New players are not as well read as older players because of the neccesity of old players to be more obsessive about fantasy (Needed to define it for themselves?). I have a good player in my group that's never read a fantasy book in his life. But he likes fantasy.



My theory is this - D+D over time has evolved its own sort of self-propagating stereotype. You can see this from Dungeon adventures. You can especially see this from the fact a 10 foot pole is standard equipment in a bog standard game. It's a stereotype that gamers themselves put forward, but it's there. It very much has traces of killing evil priests and taking their stuff, but it isn't taking a lot of the more complex issues raised in either the classics or Modern fiction in. Dungeon, the magazine that caters exclusively to our hobby - Does it deal with ignorant non-relativistic viewpoints as wrong as a general rule? Does it cover unknowable horror as a roleplaying stunt? Not very often, though Dark gods are common enough. Is there a great focus on this? Nope, not really - thats for the DM to use or abuse.

Nope. It gives us dungeons filled with goblins. I must admit, there's a few interesting dungeons and things lately. But generally, there's a dungeon and lets get people in it, looting away. 

The self-propagating stereotype of D+D is it's very basic nature of a combat/problem game overcome with dice. You get a lot of D+D haters yapping on about this endlessly. But the very nature of this dungeoneering and general stereotype leads into a sort of Dungeonpunk atmosphere that absolutely permeates Dungeon. The artwork especially lends to this. 

Now, I'm sure people will say the game is what you make of it. But look at the way it's set up and how Dungeon deals with how to play the game. It's a quick bit of investigation followed by combat and traps and underground passages. We can see the general feel of the standard gamer leaning toward this feeling - otherwise Dungeon wouldn't be able to publish itself. 


Anyway, I think RPG's started with Conan and so forth. But due to the nature of the difficulty of intellectual matters, they kept the dungeons and the combat and the spunky women but lost the horror of things unknown. Modern writers haven't influenced this stereotype a great deal; at least not as far as I can tell. What was easy and good about the old novels was kept, even though now there's probably dungeons even Conan wouldn't recognise. The dungeons tone might have changed over the years, but it's still a dungeon.

Once, a group of frightened and drunk (White, Norman/Saxon) adventurers treaded cautiously through dripping caverns, lanterns held high and sword in the other. Now, red-metalled plate and indigo weapon carrying drow stalk through abandoned dwarven mines. Things are a bit more PC, maybe, but a ten foot pole is a ten foot pole. 

It's up to the GM to give influence to his game - otherwise the influence will be the stereotype of a dungeon-hack. Simple as that.


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## Desdichado (Aug 24, 2005)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> _The Face in the Frost_ by John Bellairs also uses a more-or-less Vancian magic system (and is referenced by name in the 1E DMG alongside the Vance books). It's also a tremendously entertaining book that I highly recommend.



More or less Vancian?  In what way?  I just read that for the first time about a year ago, and I didn't think that it and D&D magic had much (if anything) in common.  It was more a prelude to Harry Potter esque magic, IMO.


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## Prince of Happiness (Aug 24, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> I don't think anyone's saying not to reference them, just not to build them as the baseline from which 3rd edition has sprung.




But why? My point is that people, young people can and do find these classics out and read them regardless if they're in print or not (in print is helpful, but this is the age of Amazon, eBay, Half-Price Books, Half.com, and small presses dedicated to printing exactly this kind of stuff). They can then read these, decide if it's up to their tastes or not and get to reading what does float their boat. They should still be the base line namely because they're part of the fundamental baseline that the whole gameline has sprung from! Editions are passing and in however many years a new one will be made and will have a different cultural "environment" in which it grows up in.

As far as adventure construction goes, I recall that there used to be quite a few published adventures that would feature intrigue, they were part of a setting called "Lankhmar." Wonder where that came from. Hmmmmmmmmmm....


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## Belen (Aug 24, 2005)

Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> But why? My point is that people, young people can and do find these classics out and read them regardless if they're in print or not (in print is helpful, but this is the age of Amazon, eBay, Half-Price Books, Half.com, and small presses dedicated to printing exactly this kind of stuff). They can then read these, decide if it's up to their tastes or not and get to reading what does float their boat. They should still be the base line namely because they're part of the fundamental baseline that the whole gameline has sprung from! Editions are passing and in however many years a new one will be made and will have a different cultural "environment" in which it grows up in.
> 
> As far as adventure construction goes, I recall that there used to be quite a few published adventures that would feature intrigue, they were part of a setting called "Lankhmar." Wonder where that came from. Hmmmmmmmmmm....




Why?  No one asks you to find an old copy of a PC game from the mid-90s to try and see where the baseline for computer games come from.

I think that D&D should be relevant to the current tropes in literature.  For me, fantasy literature has seen a golden age of late.


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## Turjan (Aug 24, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> That's kinda ironic; if I'm remembering correctly, isn't your screen name one of those exact same characters you're complaining about?



I'm not "complaining about" the characters. I said they're mostly the same, just with exchanged names. They behave the same, down to their mannerisms. That's something different from complaining .

My screen name is in reverence for the first fantasy story I ever read. It's a sword-fighting wizard doing stunts like the "three musketeers", who's on a quest to perfect the growing of creatures in vats. What's not to love about that ? Doesn't matter that his character is typically Vancian.


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## Mystery Man (Aug 24, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> For me, fantasy literature has seen a golden age of late.




The "golden age" came and went a good and long time ago. Were in the "l33t" age now.


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 24, 2005)

Why? Well, first reason, WoTC has their own lines of fiction. I imagine at a business level that directing your customers to buy game x from them but line y of fiction from another company would just be seen as stupid.

In addition, the old books while classics are hard to find. You never make the assumption that yoru customer is going to put more work into the game than is needed. Many people are casual players. Assuming their going to be able to find old C. L. Moore work or other out of print titles is a good way to insure the obscurity of the game.

If WoTC wants the game to only appear to die hard fantasy fans then sure, you've got a point but otherwise...

And the Lankhimar stuff was the early 80's no? There was a comic book series by First I believe and other good stuff for Laknhimar, in addition to actually being in print and easy to find.

Times change.


			
				Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> But why? My point is that people, young people can and do find these classics out and read them regardless if they're in print or not (in print is helpful, but this is the age of Amazon, eBay, Half-Price Books, Half.com, and small presses dedicated to printing exactly this kind of stuff). They can then read these, decide if it's up to their tastes or not and get to reading what does float their boat. They should still be the base line namely because they're part of the fundamental baseline that the whole gameline has sprung from! Editions are passing and in however many years a new one will be made and will have a different cultural "environment" in which it grows up in.
> 
> As far as adventure construction goes, I recall that there used to be quite a few published adventures that would feature intrigue, they were part of a setting called "Lankhmar." Wonder where that came from. Hmmmmmmmmmm....


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## Desdichado (Aug 24, 2005)

Mystery Man said:
			
		

> The "golden age" came and went a good and long time ago. We're in the "l33t" age now.



  Yes, indeed we are.


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## Hussar (Aug 24, 2005)

I have to admit, I've never picked up a Leiber story in my life.  And I'm a pretty ardent SF reader.  Just, not an ardent reader of things written several decades before I was born.  I loved Conan, and lots of other pulp fantasy, but, really, why shouldn't DnD change with the times?

I think the fact that DnD is moving farther and farther away from its origins is a good thing.  Why should I be stuck playing in a game where magic in no way resembles what I'm reading?  Pretty much every fantasy novel you pick up today has pervasive magic that is used by nearly everyone.  So, if I'm coming off of those novels, into DnD, wouldn't I be pretty disappointed to find out that my DM considers a +1 sword to be the rarest of finds for a 10th level character?


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## T. Foster (Aug 24, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> More or less Vancian?  In what way?  I just read that for the first time about a year ago, and I didn't think that it and D&D magic had much (if anything) in common.  It was more a prelude to Harry Potter esque magic, IMO.




The characters prepare specific spells in advance by studying spell books. Without taking time to study a particular spell in a particular book they're unable to cast it, and they're only able to study/prepare a limited number of spells at any given time. Once prepared, the act of actually casting those spells involves speaking specific words, making specific gestures, and sometimes employing specific objects (which makes it perhaps even a bit more like D&D magic than Vance, since I don't recall "material components" as such being used in Vance). The only thing missing is the names for spells -- in Vance and in D&D spells have proper names ("excellent prismatic spray," etc.) whereas in Bellairs they don't, or at least they aren't mentioned.


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## painandgreed (Aug 24, 2005)

Another "Vancian" magic system seemed to be what they used in the Amber series. They'd cast tehir spells which would take a long time all except for the last word which would act as a trigger. When they wanted to use it, they'd say the last word trigger and the spell would complete. Explains metamagic too if you wanted to look at it that way.

As another author I don't think has been mentioned, i'd have to add Barbra Hambly. Time of the Dark series is pretty D&Dish and the wizard gives echos of Greenwoods Elminster. Personally, I think Dragonsbane is one of the great fantasy stories that has affected the flavor in my D&D games. Where the bard finds out all the heroic stories and songs about knights doing battle with dragons are drivel and the only living person to ever actually kill a dragon used poison after sneaking up on it and finished it off with an axe was classic.


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## SweeneyTodd (Aug 24, 2005)

I just wanted to poke my head in to cheerlead Vance's Dying Earth books. I really, really think they're worth reading. 

As much as I love Cugel the Clever (who's a fantastic iconic rogue/con man), Rhialto the Marvelous and his fellow mages are how I'll always imagine archmages. Plus, all the spell names are so evocative, for instance:

Xarfaggio's Physical Malepsy ... Arnhoult's Sequestrious Digitalia ... The Spell of Forlorn Encystment ... Khulip's Nasal Enhancement ...  The Excellent Prismatic Spray ... Phandaal's Critique of the Chill ... etc.


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## The Grackle (Aug 24, 2005)

Another similarity between D&D magic and Dying Earth's is that there were only a limited number of spells, created long ago, that all wizards learned, shared, traded, or kept secret.  A common pool of spells.  This changed in D&D, and now it's not unheard of for a wizard to create a new spell, but pretty much they are all pulling from the same catalog.


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## Voadam (Aug 24, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> I have to admit, I've never picked up a Leiber story in my life.  And I'm a pretty ardent SF reader.  Just, not an ardent reader of things written several decades before I was born.  I loved Conan, and lots of other pulp fantasy, but, really, why shouldn't DnD change with the times?
> 
> I think the fact that DnD is moving farther and farther away from its origins is a good thing.  Why should I be stuck playing in a game where magic in no way resembles what I'm reading?  Pretty much every fantasy novel you pick up today has pervasive magic that is used by nearly everyone.  So, if I'm coming off of those novels, into DnD, wouldn't I be pretty disappointed to find out that my DM considers a +1 sword to be the rarest of finds for a 10th level character?




  I started playing in the 80s and I have never read a Vance fantasy novel. So for over 20 years and four editions of D&D I've played with a magic system that "in no way resembles what I'm reading" in fantasy novels. There have been various options for various ways to do things differently since back then as well but I think the game should be based and evolve more around what works for a game more than trying to mimick the style of any particular book or genre.

For instance I'm primarily happy with the sorcerer class in 3e because it dispenses with the game issues of lots of time for high level spell prep, not because it mimicks any particular novel I've read.


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## The Grackle (Aug 24, 2005)

I think that back in the day D&D had to reference fantasy books so people could get what the game was all about.  Now, I don't think that's necessary.  D&D has enough material on it's own that a newcomer could get it w/o ever reading a classic fantasy book (or a current one).  I don't think that's bad, b/c I don't think the game was ever trying to mimic those stories so much as draw from some of the same fantasy conventions.

The younger generation of D&D players have A LOT more fantasy than we did- in movies, TV, video games, and books.  They don't really have to hunt down books by old authors in the back of the DMG to get their fix.  Most of them aren't going to read Leiber, but there are so many more of them, I'm sure the Grey Mouser will never be forgotten.  No worries here.


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## Blustar (Aug 24, 2005)

Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> Well, about Howard, et. al. being an influence on younger readers, I remember when I was a teenager in the 90s I went all out to track down Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Lovecraft. I mean, heck, Leiber was reprinted by White Wolf's imprint not too long ago. I had to work at tracking down original Howard stories though, and at the time, it was all mixed with De Camp stories. At any rate, this stuff still has a much more profound influence on me and my D&D gaming than Tolkien or any modern writer has (though I love Guy Gavriel Kay's and Patricia McKillip's stories).
> 
> The point is, to make a blanket assumption that young gamers are going to lose these influences or not seek out these influences is bull. If the stuff is out there, and the word is out there, young people _will_ seek these stories out. I did. Lots of my gaming friends did. To just throw up your hands and say "Well! Kids don't read this stuff! There's no point to referencing these stories at all!" just makes sure that these fundamental influences are flat-out lost. Talk. Young people do listen. Give them at least _some_ credit. Sheesh.





      First off I would suggest reading a lot more Tolkien, until your eyes bleed! Howard is great, and Leiber, yadayadayada, but please don't fall into the "snob" trap that all these other author's are somehow superior to Tolkien. (They are not!!!   )
      Unfortunately, I am a high school teacher and I would have to concur it doesn't make a difference with our current youngen's because more than half of them can't even read a book written by Howard, Vance, or even Tolkien. Sad but very, very true. You , I would say, are an exception to the rule. The level of reading comprehension ( at 12th grade!!!) these kids come in with is very depressing and demoralizing. (and I teach in an affluent district!)
I think D&D should keep to its roots or they will lose their old fan base who care little for "new" fantasy. But financially it might be better to cater to the "younger" generation but of course I will not be playing "Modern" D&D flavor because most, not all, recent fantasy works leave me high and dry. Anyways, here's hoping D&D doesn't abandon "Ye Olde Myths"!

regards,

Alex


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## Akrasia (Aug 24, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> ... For example, someone mentioned the Conan reprints along with Howard's other work. The bad news is only the first book sold very well. The others have been... troubled from what I've heard on various posts and boards.




Well that's disappointing to hear.  Of course, claims made in posts and boards should be taken with a boulder of salt.  I hope it's not true.


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## The Grackle (Aug 24, 2005)

Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> But why? My point is that people, young people can and do find these classics out and read them regardless if they're in print or not




Agreed.  "A Princess of Mars" came out in 1917, and how many of us have read it?  The first Conan story came out in the early 30s.  Some of the kids today are going to find this stuff and keep it alive.


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 24, 2005)

The Grackle said:
			
		

> Agreed.  "A Princess of Mars" came out in 1917, and how many of us have read it?  The first Conan story came out in the early 30s.  Some of the kids today are going to find this stuff and keep it alive.





And if you discovered that over say, 70% of the readers didn't read that book or the Conan one, would you feel that your point was valid or that more people needed to go out and read those books? Just asking because I have no idea what the actual % would be, but John Carter of Mars and Tarzan are other books that go in and out of print all the time.


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## Mark CMG (Aug 24, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> And the Lankhimar stuff was the early 80's no? There was a comic book series by First I believe and other good stuff for Laknhimar, in addition to actually being in print and easy to find.
> 
> Times change.




http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&....com&sitesearch=acaeum.com&q=Lankhmar&spell=1


http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Fritz_Leiber.htm


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## The Grackle (Aug 24, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> And if you discovered that over say, 70% of the readers didn't read that book or the Conan one, would you feel that your point was valid or that more people needed to go out and read those books? Just asking because I have no idea what the actual % would be, but John Carter of Mars and Tarzan are other books that go in and out of print all the time.




No I think it would be valid. As long as they are never entirely forgotten, I'm happy.

I'm not of the opinion that other people have to or should read the books that I love.  They don't appeal to everyone, and that's okay.  If they did appeal to everyone they'd never go out of print.  And books that, apparently, do appeal to everyone, like Harry Potter, I don't really like.  

Basically, I don't get mad that everyone doesn't share my taste in books.

Also I don't get mad that D&D doesn't conform to my (admittedly narrow) taste in fantasy books.  (That's what Grim Tales is for.)
-----------------------------------


What I'm curious about is how many new fantasy books have actually been influenced by D&D.  Either because they were written by roleplayers, or certain elements just sort of leaked out into the collective mind.

I've definitely read some... _not so great_ books that were like reading boring campaign notes.


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## rogueattorney (Aug 24, 2005)

The Grackle said:
			
		

> What I'm curious about is how many new fantasy books have actually been influenced by D&D.  Either because they were written by roleplayers, or certain elements just sort of leaked out into the collective mind.




China Mieville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council) was definitely influenced by D&D, and has said so in various interviews.  Many of his monsters aren't too far removed from the original Fiend Folio.

I like this quote in particular:


> They were immediately and absolutley recognizable as adventurers... They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever and whatever came... Most were nothing but tomb raiders. They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and occasionally impressive exploits. *China Mieville, Perdido Street Station*




I'm certain there are dozens of others, but he was the first that came to mind.

R.A.


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## Felon (Aug 24, 2005)

Well, imagine my surprise to see a quote from me become the basis of a multi-page thread.



			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> Once upon a time, you could possibly make the assumption that Howard and Leiber were read widely amongst the youths who would be interested in D&D. That time has long since passed.




Howard and Leiber are two names I dropped specifically because they preceded D&D and had a clear influence on what the genre was for the folks who got the game off the ground. If you want to insert a couple of other modern names like Jordan or Martin for a more  young, hip fantasy crowds, feel free. The point about D&D slowly developing into more of a slow video game than being influenced by literature or cinema remains. 



> I look at my (extensive) book shelves, and I see names like Robin Hobb, Anne Bishop, Terry Pratchett, Jennifer Roberson, George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson and Lynn Flewelling. The range of worlds these authors have created is astonishing. This is what the people of today are reading. There are some who will go back into the past and dig up the classics of yesteryear, but [ED we can't assume that people will read the books of the past. D&D cannot afford to ignore that.




Well, I don't know who any of those folks are besides Martin, and I didn't really enjoy his stuff. All the same, I will bet that D&D's designers aren't paying any of those folks any heed either, so if the basis of this thread is to take a deconstructive approach to my comments, what's your point? D&D cannot afford to be inaccessible to fantasy fans, whether that be a fan of Conan or Scribbledeedoo the earthy priestess-heroine of some other more modern and politically-sensible fantasy series. Specific names had little to do with what I was discussing. 



> Cannot Janelle of the Dark Jewels trilogy create her own magic rings - and Elayne do likewise in the Wheel of Time?




Is the creation of a magic item special in those worlds, Merric, or does everyone have an extensive panoply of magic toys? So much so that possessions eventually eclipse the characters who possess them? Is there some point where every major character, from barbarian to wizard, can take to the sky with a ring of flying like they were in the Legion of Superheroes? Is every major character individually more wealthy than the GNP of the three richest countries of their world? Are there adventures ultimately free of any consequences--death included--other than monetary expenses? Are they solving every mystery with the casting of a spell and then teleporting to wherever they need to go so they can cut to the chase, eliminate the boring stuff, and get down to what matters: blowing stuff up and killing things?

Now, I have to be clear here: those questions are more of a rhetorical nature. Their purpose is to be demonstrative, not inquisitive. I say this because I expect the usual battery of deconstructive response from folks iif not necessarily Merric, quoting each sentence above individually and picking nits and going on about rule zero, etc. rather than actually trying to address the actual source of my consternation--namely, that D&D is adopting the conventions of a video game. That's not healthy, because no matter what lengths the designers go to provide easy methods of removing long-term consequences for players' actions, no matter how much they encourage a "cut-to-the-chase" mentality, the pace of RPG's just don't move fast enough to compete with that market. 

Moreover, removing those long-term consequences and cutting to the chase constantly does decrease its accessibility for some, even to someone like me who's been playing a long time. Now, how many "some" represents is wide open to speculation.


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## MerricB (Aug 24, 2005)

As I partially mention above, video games have adopted the conventions _of D&D_! From the early days of D&D, it was _essential_ for PCs to get the biggest magic weapon they could find, just because of things like golems and demons that couldn't be hurt otherwise!

And I'd say that D&D has indeed been influenced back - the slot form of magic items is a convenient way of representing it in computer games, but as with all good game design, it has been adapted back to D&D because it works.

Design moves both ways.

Are computer games as legitimate an influence on D&D as novels? I'd say so. I do think there's a large chasm between playing a computer game and playing D&D, but I also believe that there's a large chasm between reading a novel and playing D&D. 

I don't see the magical item aspect as being overly troubling in of itself. Although it isn't directly presented in that form in most books I know, high levels of magic *are*, and it's just a logical progression from that.

What it is more of an aspect of is the "let's kill everything and have the best PCs for doing that" mentality. When you come down to it, magic items are primarily useful in combat. When the game focuses on that, of course magic items rise in importance.

Not that I think there's anything wrong with that style of play! It's a particularly good one for younger people, just as games like chess are. They hone strategical and tactical thinking, which are useful abilities. Is it video-gamey? Not quite: it's gamey! It's the playing of a game - without too many of the added elements that make D&D more than that.

One of my contentions is that we need to think about what are the elements that go into a good non-combat-based game. We need to explain how to construct adventures that bring the game out of being merely one combat after another. 

I can see in the published Eberron adventures the attempt to introduce intrigue into the mix. I've run all of them, and I can now see how woefully it was done. _Whispers of the Vampire's Blade_ is probably the poster child for this - although they all have big problems. WotVB does at least have big set pieces that aren't all about combat - there is investigation and roleplaying to be done. This is great.

WotVB is closest in form to a James Bond adventure. Where it fails is that at no time do the PCs ever get to know what's going on! Thus, the adventure devolves into a set of chases and combats without ever getting the real pay-off of fitting the jigsaw together. Indeed, they never get to address the real cause of the problem - there's a lot of background information that the DM knows, but the PCs never will. I think that's a huge flaw.

I'm sure others can think of more elements that can be added to take D&D away from merely being killing monsters - and that many of you do it all the time. (I may find the DMG2, which I'm _still_ waiting on - stupid, incompetent Wizards Australia! - covers this, though I'd be somewhat surprised).

Cheers!


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## Turjan (Aug 24, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> ...rather than actually trying to address the actual source of my consternation--namely, that D&D is adopting the conventions of a video game. That's not healthy, because no matter what lengths the designers go to provide easy methods of removing long-term consequences for players' actions, no matter how much they encourage a "cut-to-the-chase" mentality, the pace of RPG's just on't move fast enough to compete with that market.



The conventions of which computer game? Spending days and weeks tayloring leather armor after leather armor in Ultima Online? Or hunting for virtues in one of the other Ultima titles? Uncovering the whole map of a part of the Sword Coast in Baldur's Gate? Solving gnomish family problems in the sequel? And I can tell you that I'd probably buy a setting book based on Tamriel from the Elder Scrolls, although printing all those books from the games would probably very costly. It's not all bleak; that's why I don't see the video games as the main threat to the flavor of D&D.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

> address the actual source of my consternation--namely, that D&D is adopting the conventions of a video game.




Well, in the first instance, I want to say this is WAY off base. Check the link in my sig, and you'll see the first steps of actually translating D&D to take more of a video game feel into account. And I've been working at it for years. The two are FAR different beasts, and even making D&D "more like a videogame" has warranted an entirely new game system that bears only superficial resemblance to D&D. 

Video games are simplistic elements of button-pushing that achieve on-screen results. The core of a video game involves pushing a button and getting a reaction, a peg-and-slot kind of formula of mathematical simplicity. In a video game, you advance the plot by pushing buttons. Everything is abstracted -- doing things because "it is a game" is perfectly fine, because the game is the main reason it is being played. Verisimilitude always runs a constant second to the ability of the player to push a button and see pretty lights. 

D&D is a complex game of rescource management and strategy wherein the plot adapts to the needs of the party, where the choices of the players drive the story in a demonstrably powerful way. Verismilitude is ac ore concern, and demands a certain complexity from the rules. Everything is made more concrete -- doing things because "it is a game" is only fine if it doesn't ruin the feel that "this is a role-playing game." It is only partially being played to roll dice -- it is also played to tell a story that changes, fluctuates, and moves with the powers and descisions of the players.

D&D is NOWHERE NEAR a video game.

That's not to say that D&D hasn't gained some qualities for feedback, namely in the realm of complexity and miniatures combat. D&D has been made, to some extent, a SIMPLER game by the use of some videogame ideas (such as body slots).



> Is the creation of a magic item special in those worlds, Merric, or does everyone have an extensive panoply of magic toys? So much so that possessions eventually eclipse the characters who possess them? Is there some point where every major character, from barbarian to wizard, can take to the sky with a ring of flying like they were in the Legion of Superheroes? Is every major character individually more wealthy than the GNP of the three richest countries of their world? Are there adventures ultimately free of any consequences--death included--other than monetary expenses? Are they solving every mystery with the casting of a spell and then teleporting to wherever they need to go so they can cut to the chase, eliminate the boring stuff, and get down to what matters: blowing stuff up and killing things?




You point these out as evidence that D&D has suffered from an inclusion of videogame motifs, but it just doesn't ring true. Extensive panoplies of magic toys have been in every edition of D&D, and they never have taken over from someone who was invested in their own character. Never have video games given carte blanche mobility (because in a videogame, this would be impossible) like an enire flying party. Characters have never been richer than towns becuase towns never have riches in video games -- they are plot devices. The adventures are never free of consequences in a video game, rather the consequences are dictated (while in D&D the conesquences are in the players' hands). Video games don't have divination. They have VERY limited teleportation. What matters is not blowing up stuff and killing things but advancing the plot of the world or developing your character's next ability.

This is not evidence for your main beef. There is nothing in what you have said to support your hypothesis. Video games have none of these symptoms, yet D&D does. It's obviously not video games that are the PROBLEM here. At most, the problem is D&D having too much magic (which has been a beef against it since day 1), at least the problem is you not liking to deal with the complications that lots of magic introduces (and who can really blame you)?

Video games are not the problem.


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## Hussar (Aug 25, 2005)

I would just like to add a further thought to that if I may.

For people coming from different literary traditions, their expectations of a fantasy RPG is going to be very different.  For someone coming in from Tolkein or Howard, they are going to expect a fairly low magic world where spells are rare and feared.  For a reader coming from Martin or Erikson or Donaldson, or Pratchett they are going to expect a much higher magic world where magic is far more commonplace.

The problem is, DND has always favoured the second over the first.  Magic in DnD has never been rare or feared.  Anybody with a 10 Int can cast spells.  The modules featured vast amounts of magical items.  While the appearances of classic fantasy have been imported into DnD - Elves, orcs, hob... err ... halflings, vorpal swords and barbarians - that's all it ever has been; window dressing.

In any edition, at least a third of the PHB, a good chunk of the DMG and a large number of the Monster Manual have been devoted almost entirely to magic.  And, much of that magic is simple and persistent.  A Continual Light spell would have a massive impact on a feudal society.  Free (or almost) light that lasts forever and gives off no heat?  Good grief, that would revolutionize society.  Yet, we're supposed to sit back and poo poo the idea of magic shops or "high" magic.  The game has always been designed around high magic.  The only thing limiting that is the DM.  Logically, because of the way the magic system is set, every campaign world should be high magic.


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## Aldarc (Aug 25, 2005)

> For a reader coming from Martin or Erikson or Donaldson, or Pratchett they are going to expect a much higher magic world where magic is far more commonplace.



Higher magic in Martin? Where? All the magic in Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is rather dubious and subtle. Magic in Donaldson's The Land is definately higher, but nowhere near the levels of D&D. The Lord of the Land do not have a great array of spells, and what little spells they do cast put great strain on them. Erikson and Pratchett however supports your statement. Even in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, where magic is common place, the magic is relatively unstable and can have terrible consequences. 

I do prefer one where magic is rarer and feels like magic. A world where magic is not always a gimmick to get out of a tight spot or to short-cut the storytelling. Magic should be the primal shaping of energy, not a safe pseudo-replacement for technology.


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## Turjan (Aug 25, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> While the appearances of classic fantasy have been imported into DnD - Elves, orcs, hob... err ... halflings, vorpal swords and barbarians - that's all it ever has been; window dressing.



This sentence reduces the term "classic fantasy" to Tolkien, Carroll and Howard. There's not much other classic fantasy that contains the elf/orc/hobbit mix besides Tolkien. D&D's magic level is also taken from classic fantasy works; just from different ones.

_*edited for accuracy*_


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 25, 2005)

Well, be fair. Vorpal swords are from _Jabberwocky_ and D&D-style barbarians are from Howard.  You're right, though. I'm sick and tired of seeing people yammering about how D&D should be All Tolkien, All The Time.


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## Turjan (Aug 25, 2005)

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> Well, be fair. Vorpal swords are from _Jabberwocky_ and D&D-style barbarians are from Howard.



Of course, you're right . I just wanted to point out that it's kind of cherry picking to attribute some elements to "classic fantasy" and to see others as unfitting. Classic fantasy is a wide field. _*(edited original post)*_


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## Akrasia (Aug 25, 2005)

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> .... I'm sick and tired of seeing people yammering about how D&D should be All Tolkien, All The Time.




You're right.  It should be _all_ Tolkien -- _and_ Howard, Vance, and Leiber ... All The Time.


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## Captain Tagon (Aug 25, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> You're right.  It should be _all_ Tolkien -- _and_ Howard, Vance, and Leiber ... All The Time.




Or...none of the above? Base DnD doesn't accurately reflect any of their stories. And I'm perfectly fine with that.


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## Akrasia (Aug 25, 2005)

Captain Tagon said:
			
		

> Or...none of the above? Base DnD doesn't accurately reflect any of their stories...




No it doesn't.  D&D was originally based on a _mixture_ of elements from those authors' works (and some others as well, of course).

3e has some evolved from those origins -- but I'm not sure if it has any _new_ literary sources.


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## Reynard (Aug 25, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> No it doesn't.  D&D was originally based on a _mixture_ of elements from those authors' works (and some others as well, of course).
> 
> 3e has some evolved from those origins -- but I'm not sure if it has any _new_ literary sources.




Let's not forget that as much as fantasy literature shaped D&D, so did the games from which it descended.  The whole resource management, class and level structure was based on ways to quantify abilities to fit within a rules structure.  to ignore this and concentrate solely on the literary influences -- however varied they may be -- cannot possibly lead to an understanding of why D&D is the way it is.


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## Captain Tagon (Aug 25, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> No it doesn't.  D&D was originally based on a _mixture_ of elements from those authors' works (and some others as well, of course).
> 
> 3e has some evolved from those origins -- but I'm not sure if it has any _new_ literary sources.





And in my mind, that is a good thing.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

> 3e has some evolved from those origins -- but I'm not sure if it has any new literary sources.




I think it obviously has MORE sources. How new they are, how literary they are...that's been up in the air. Keep in mind 3e came out before the most recent boom in fatansy (spurred in part by LotR and HP), in an era where many of the "core books" were D&D novels themselves. So it could be said that some of the literary sources for D&D3e, some of the books they were trying to emulate, were the D&D books, which show their own formation in an earlier era of D&D...this could be why 3e harkened back to earlier editions after 2e, rather than continue down 2e's divergent path.


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## Prince of Happiness (Aug 25, 2005)

Blustar said:
			
		

> First off I would suggest reading a lot more Tolkien, until your eyes bleed! Howard is great, and Leiber, yadayadayada, but please don't fall into the "snob" trap that all these other author's are somehow superior to Tolkien. (They are not!!!   )
> Unfortunately, I am a high school teacher and I would have to concur it doesn't make a difference with our current youngen's because more than half of them can't even read a book written by Howard, Vance, or even Tolkien. Sad but very, very true. You , I would say, are an exception to the rule. The level of reading comprehension ( at 12th grade!!!) these kids come in with is very depressing and demoralizing. (and I teach in an affluent district!)
> I think D&D should keep to its roots or they will lose their old fan base who care little for "new" fantasy. But financially it might be better to cater to the "younger" generation but of course I will not be playing "Modern" D&D flavor because most, not all, recent fantasy works leave me high and dry. Anyways, here's hoping D&D doesn't abandon "Ye Olde Myths"!
> 
> ...




Good sir! Don't me wrong, I adore Tolkien, but the others just speak to me more, gets the blood pumping. But indeed, cheers to ye olde myths!

A point that I'm trying to make regarding the stories is, don't give up on the young ones they can surprise you. I think a bunch of people quite a few years removed from being teenagers themselves making assumptions on what young people who are geared to playing D&D (foremost and gaming second) are only, and purely constructs of the kinds of fantasy that is available in popular culture right now is erroneous. D&D is a big game, and there's lots of room for many kinds of ideas and variants. Add more ideas, more influences but don't take away or down play not _a single damn thing_.


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Aug 25, 2005)

Leiber, Howard, Moorcock, and Lovecraft all have a flavor to them, so to speak.  It is a shame if young readers aren't exposed to them, because they are unique.  Luckily, the only one that doesn't have an existing RPG is Leiber, and there are plenty of excellent fantasy (and sci-fi) available to inspire the new generation.  

BTW, some of my favorites not already mentioned include Orson Card's Prentice Alvin series, Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionovar Tapestry, Roger Zelazny's Amber, Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, and Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series.  Some of it is technically SciFi, but there is a strong fantasy feel to them.


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 25, 2005)

I think D&D should be inspired by some elements of fantasy literature while not feeling beholden to them.

Novels are *different* from games. There *has* to be a compromise in translation - and there's a reason there's never been a licensed role-playing game that's truly lasted and succeeded.


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## Felon (Aug 25, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Video games are simplistic elements of button-pushing that achieve on-screen results. The core of a video game involves pushing a button and getting a reaction, a peg-and-slot kind of formula of mathematical simplicity. In a video game, you advance the plot by pushing buttons. Everything is abstracted -- doing things because "it is a game" is perfectly fine, because the game is the main reason it is being played. Verisimilitude always runs a constant second to the ability of the player to push a button and see pretty lights.  D&D is a complex game of rescource management and strategy wherein the plot adapts to the needs of the party, where the choices of the players drive the story in a demonstrably powerful way. Verismilitude is ac ore concern, and demands a certain complexity from the rules. Everything is made more concrete -- doing things because "it is a game" is only fine if it doesn't ruin the feel that "this is a role-playing game." It is only partially being played to roll dice -- it is also played to tell a story that changes, fluctuates, and moves with the powers and descisions of the players. D&D is NOWHERE NEAR a video game.




This massive, gargantuan gulf between video games and RPG's that you're trying to paint doesn't exist. D&D can and often is played by the logic of a video game. Players often do things because "it is a game". Verisimilitude may be a core concern for *you* in *your* game, but to portray that as inherent to every D&D game played everywhere is blatantly fallacious. Likewise, to claim that it is absent from video games is also erroneous. Many MMOG's have servers where people can talk and behave "in character" and immerse themselves into the world as much as they like. 



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> This is not evidence for your main beef. There is nothing in what you have said to support your hypothesis.




You seem to have a penchant for speaking in absolute terms by bandying about a lot of "nevers" and "nothings". It doesn't strengthen your position as much as you seem to think it does. There's quite a bit of support in my post, which I'm guessing you didn't really read. If you want to slap on your _blinders of ignorance +8 _ and ignore it, that's your call. Quite obviously, when I'm talking about the lack of long-term consequences and the "cut-to-the-chase" mentality, I was discussing the rules that provide the foundation of the game for all players, not some abstract, self-imposed notions about immersion and verisimilitude that the PHB actually covers in very little detail.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

> This massive, gargantuan gulf between video games and RPG's that you're trying to paint doesn't exist. D&D can and often is played by the logic of a video game. Players often do things because "it is a game". Verisimilitude may be a core concern for you in your game, but to portray that as inherent to every D&D game played everywhere is blatantly fallacious. Likewise, to claim that it is absent from video games is also erroneous. Many MMOG's have servers where people can talk and behave "in character" and immerse themselves into the world as much as they like.




Just because there are vague similarities does not make it an equality.

Weren't we talking in broad generalizations? Piles of magic items? More wealth than countries? Parties with rings that let them fly? No consequences?

Are you going to tell me that it's not as generally true that verisimilitude is more important in D&D than in video games while at the same time telling me that it is generally true that D&D adventures have no real consequences?

If you want to talk specifics, we can, but...


> quoting each sentence above individually and picking nits and going on about rule zero, etc. rather than actually trying to address the actual source



...seemed to be something you weren't really interested in. 



> There's quite a bit of support in my post, which I'm guessing you didn't really read. If you want to slap on your blinders of ignorance +8 and ignore it, that's your call. Quite obviously, when I'm talking about the lack of long-term consequences and the "cut-to-the-chase" mentality, I was discussing the rules that provide the foundation of the game for all players, not some abstract, self-imposed notions about immersion and verisimilitude that the PHB actually covers in very little detail.




If there's support, give it. I can't ignore what isn't there. Quite obviously, you weren't clear what you were actually talking about.

Specifically:

"Lack of long term consequences": This doesn't come from a videogame. Resurrection magic existed in D&D long before 16 bits used them. Lack of long term consequences is inherent in D&D, not a bi-product from a video game. EVIDENCE: Was there a resurrection spell in any edition before 3rd? Perhaps one even pre-dating 1980? And did it remove a "real consequence" from the game? Furthermore, there is much in the way of long term consequences in video games. EVIDENCE: In most MMO's, a character death will undo hours of game play that you will never get back. This is a long term consequence, no? A permenant loss of your playing time invested?

"Cut-to-the-chase mentality": Do you mean the desire for players to not want to waste time on the boring stuff? Because I think you can find THAT inherent in D&D, too. EVIDENCE: DM's are supposed to gloss over days, hours, weeks, months, DECADES of game time to, in effect "cut to the chase." Largely, I believe, becuase people don't want to waste time. EVIDENCE: Cutting to the chase is not often supported in video games, where hours of game play will be spent beating up minor monsters in order to build skills, with nothing related to any sort of major world issues resolved. Often, this is even required to simply succeed...thus getting to "the chase" is often held up by many roadblocks that D&D isn't constrained by.

If you're going to assert something, you're going to have to back it up. You haven't shown that D&D has suffered undully from any video game taint. I'll gladly agree that there have been some things from D&D that have come from video games, but none of the things you are complaining about are those things.


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## Patman21967 (Aug 25, 2005)

Well, 
As someone who recently ran a game for a group of stranger at my FLGS, let me say, the ways of gaming are a changing. It is much more tactical now. It seems to be more adversarial than I ever remember. I have been gaming with the same group for 20 years, rarely breaking out and seeing how the rest of the world plays. 

1 thing that really bothered me, is after every fight, they would expend their magic, and want to rest. They fought for 2 minutes, spent 15 searching, and now, let's rest to get our spells back. Very computer gamish if you ask me. They want to take weeks to create items, and expect everything to remain static. 

We recently tried miniatures for the first time, actually using AoO and such, and let me say, it is extremely boring and wasteful. I understand that all these tactics are cool if that's how you want to play the game,but for ME, and I am not denegrating anyones choice of game style, I don't like it. I don''t like that characters now have their feats and prestige classes mapped out before the campaign even begins, so they can yoink whatever they can. In my game, I prefer earning pretige classes through actions, not just as something you go to to get Improved Evasion or Mettle. Instead of just saying, I vecome a Harper Scout, the story should revolve around that character finding the Harpers, convincing them to let them join, doing things that Harpers would do. 

Someone mentioned that the game is all "kill things and take their stuff" while the poster may have said that tounge in cheek, I think it is becaoming very true. Games that I have witnessed don't seem very story driven anymore. 

Enough rambling.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

> As someone who recently ran a game for a group of stranger at my FLGS, let me say, the ways of gaming are a changing. It is much more tactical now. It seems to be more adversarial than I ever remember. I have been gaming with the same group for 20 years, rarely breaking out and seeing how the rest of the world plays.




Looking at it another way, you just like the way your group plays and don't like this other style. AFAIK, this isn't a change. It might be something you're not used to, but maybe you just hadn't been exposed to it until this recent game?

Basically, I don't think that one game in a group of strangers is indicative of any change in the ways of gaming, especially when it is only really divergent from your own experiences (which are by no means nessecarily normitive, yeah?)

I think this "other group" has been playing thier way since you've been playing yours.


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## Turjan (Aug 25, 2005)

Patman21967 said:
			
		

> Well,
> As someone who recently ran a game for a group of stranger at my FLGS, let me say, the ways of gaming are a changing. It is much more tactical now. It seems to be more adversarial than I ever remember. I have been gaming with the same group for 20 years, rarely breaking out and seeing how the rest of the world plays.



Hmm, I sometimes have the feeling that the people on this messageboard are to a certain extent detached from how the game is often played by groups outside in the world, even though we have quite a mix of different playstyles presented here. When I see the book "Deities and Demigods" denigrated on this board (for the record: I don't like it, either), I have to think about how many groups out there actually take this book and, with their bags of holding full of major artifacts and riding their gold dragon cohorts, work down the list of gods in that book on their way to replace them as rulers of the world. I know they exist. I know they always existed, even in prior incarnations of D&D. It's just that they don't post on EN World . Doesn't make them less real, though .


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 25, 2005)

Patman21967 said:
			
		

> 1 thing that really bothered me, is after every fight, they would expend their magic, and want to rest. They fought for 2 minutes, spent 15 searching, and now, let's rest to get our spells back. Very computer gamish if you ask me. They want to take weeks to create items, and expect everything to remain static.



Not everyone likes playing in a world that makes sense. To a *certain* extent, without overstating it, I think that comes with maturation of one's gaming tastes. But my question is this: As the DM, why did you allow this?



> In my game, I prefer earning pretige classes through actions, not just as something you go to to get Improved Evasion or Mettle. Instead of just saying, I vecome a Harper Scout, the story should revolve around that character finding the Harpers, convincing them to let them join, doing things that Harpers would do.



As the DM, what prevents you from saying that the acquisition of feats and prestige classes doesn't require a teacher or an initiator?


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## Hussar (Aug 25, 2005)

Aldarc said:
			
		

> *snip*
> I do prefer one where magic is rarer and feels like magic. A world where magic is not always a gimmick to get out of a tight spot or to short-cut the storytelling. Magic should be the primal shaping of energy, not a safe pseudo-replacement for technology.




But, the problem with that is, magic in DND has ALWAYS been a pseudo-replacement for technology.  Say the words, get the spell.  There has never been any sort of "primal shaping of energy" in DnD.  It can't be really.  How the heck would you design game mechanics around it?

Really, the only reason that magic isn't commonplace in campaign world's is because people ignore the logical extensions of the existence of DnD magic.  I wasn't kidding about the idea of Continual Light (or Continual Flame) resulting in a major revolution in technology in a DnD world.  The fact that you can have a perpetual light source for free would greatly change any society.

Take it a step farther.  The existence of flying creatures large enough to ride.  All it takes is a single nation to step up and begin a breeding program and you suddenly have Roc Airlines.  Create Water and Purify Food and Drink would greatly change a Medieval setting.  Non-humans SHOULD dominate the world.  Heck, a standard Yuan-Ti is a genius.  Why bother messing around with cults and whatnot?  Just take over the world the smart way - through money.    

So long as DnD has the magic system it has, it logically should look a lot more like Harry Potter than Hyboria.


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## tetsujin28 (Aug 25, 2005)

The more D&D is influenced by Howard and Leiber, and the less by Tolkein, the happier I am.

Oh, wait...there's Iron Heroes


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 25, 2005)

Word, Tetsujin. But then, that would be demanding that D&D cater to my preferences and prejudices, and I'm not that selfish.


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## MerricB (Aug 25, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> So long as DnD has the magic system it has, it logically should look a lot more like Harry Potter than Hyboria.




And thus, Eberron. 

Early D&D gets around the lack of magic by saying "high-level wizards are grumpy old bastards who won't help anyone" and "there's not many of them". One wonders where all the magic swords came from that litter the early adventures...

Cheers!


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 25, 2005)

Well, the answer to *that* was "Ancient empires now fallen and forgotten! Old techniques now lost!"

Yes, pretty dumb.


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## Felon (Aug 25, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Just because there are vague similarities does not make it an equality.




The existence of similarities takes all those blanket statements filled with all those "nevers" and "nothings" out of the tautological context you were trying to put them in. You went out of your way to be so utterly contrary, telling me how I'm "way OFF BASE" and that "D&D is NOWHERE NEAR a video game" and based it on nothing more than an abstract concept like verisimilutude, speaking of it like it was some vast, monumental, tangible barrier between RPG and MMOG. Commitment to role-playing is pretty inconsistent from group to group--and in some groups, there is no commitment. Some folks play D&D with the same outlook they would a MMOG. 



> Are you going to tell me that it's not as generally true that verisimilitude is more important in D&D than in video games while at the same time telling me that it is generally true that D&D adventures have no real consequences?




I will tell you that the emphasis on verisimilitude is not a sacred concept as presented by the PHB, and it is not unversally considered sacred by players. It is something sacred to individuals, and a new player will only pick it up from interacting with them, not from the books. Maybe you're not talking about D&D as presented by the folks writing the books, but I was.



> Specifically: "Lack of long term consequences": This doesn't come from a videogame. Resurrection magic existed in D&D long before 16 bits used them. Lack of long term consequences is inherent in D&D, not a bi-product from a video game. EVIDENCE: Was there a resurrection spell in any edition before 3rd? Perhaps one even pre-dating 1980?




I'm saying D&D is becoming more like a MMOG with every iteration. So, is raising the dead more routine and prescribed now, or less? Is a 9th-level cleric from OD&D the equivalent of a 9th-level cleric in 3e?



> And did it remove a "real consequence" from the game? Furthermore, there is much in the way of long term consequences in video games. EVIDENCE: In most MMO's, a character death will undo hours of game play that you will never get back. This is a long term consequence, no? A permenant loss of your playing time invested?




No, spending a little time to eliminate XP debt or what-have-you is a transitory consequence. And in most modern MMOG's, it's not even a matter of hours. A character dying ahd staying dead is long-term. 

Let's look at how a couple of other long-term effects are handled. Consider a character afflicted with a terrible curse or a debilitating disease. In a literary context, it would be a story element; the character would have to struggle to cope with it. In a video game it would simply be a negative effect ("debuff") to be removed with the expenditure of a resource. Going strictly by the book, which most closely resembles the way curses and diseases are handled in D&D? 



> "Cut-to-the-chase mentality": Do you mean the desire for players to not want to waste time on the boring stuff? Because I think you can find THAT inherent in D&D, too. EVIDENCE: DM's are supposed to gloss over days, hours, weeks, months, DECADES of game time to, in effect "cut to the chase."




Who decides what's boring? Would the LotR trilogy have been more interesting if the fellowship just went "poof" to Sauron's doorstep? I don't think so. It's those savory moments between points A and B that allow characters to develop and allow tension to build. They make for a good novel, and for a good RP experience, and the official attitude is that they should be gone for the sake of expediency. Forget daring the high seas, just get the cleric to cast Wind Walk so you can jet where you want to go as 600mph intangible vapors. Forget having to figure things out and look for clues, just cast a spell to get the info you need and move things along to the next fight scene. 



> If you're going to assert something, you're going to have to back it up.




If a person needs to go into very specific details to explain something to you, don't be so quick to lay all of the blame at their feet because you refuse to see their point of view.


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## MonsterMash (Aug 25, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> You're right.  It should be _all_ Tolkien -- _and_ Howard, Vance, and Leiber ... All The Time.



Not sure I can fit all four together that easily for the approach to fantasy - Tolkien's heroic stuggle against an all enveloping darkness is a bit different from the other three. 

The morality (if it can be called that) of Howard, Vance and Leiber's heroes is much closer though


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## Desdichado (Aug 25, 2005)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> The characters prepare specific spells in advance by studying spell books. Without taking time to study a particular spell in a particular book they're unable to cast it, and they're only able to study/prepare a limited number of spells at any given time. Once prepared, the act of actually casting those spells involves speaking specific words, making specific gestures, and sometimes employing specific objects (which makes it perhaps even a bit more like D&D magic than Vance, since I don't recall "material components" as such being used in Vance). The only thing missing is the names for spells -- in Vance and in D&D spells have proper names ("excellent prismatic spray," etc.) whereas in Bellairs they don't, or at least they aren't mentioned.



Huh.  I don't remember any of those details being true.  I'll have to reread it--it's a quick little 100 to 120 page ebook.  I think I still have a copy on my computer here at work, even.


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## Desdichado (Aug 25, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> John Carter of Mars and Tarzan are other books that go in and out of print all the time.



Both _A Princess of Mars_ and _Tarzan of the Apes_, plus many of the follow-up novels, are in the public domain now and are available as text files from Project Gutenburg and other places as well, though.

It may not always be as convenient as a book (although a text file and a PDA probably is for those who have them) but it's certainly easier to get ahold of them than ever before.


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## Desdichado (Aug 25, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Now, I have to be clear here: those questions are more of a rhetorical nature. Their purpose is to be demonstrative, not inquisitive. I say this because I expect the usual battery of deconstructive response from folks iif not necessarily Merric, quoting each sentence above individually and picking nits and going on about rule zero, etc. rather than actually trying to address the actual source of my consternation--namely, that D&D is adopting the conventions of a video game. That's not healthy, because no matter what lengths the designers go to provide easy methods of removing long-term consequences for players' actions, no matter how much they encourage a "cut-to-the-chase" mentality, the pace of RPG's just don't move fast enough to compete with that market.



I think you create a bit of a false dichotomy though, Felon.  D&D doesn't compete head to head, directly with computer RPGs because it offers an experience that is completely different.  Taking some of what makes computer RPGs successful and integrating it into D&D isn't necessarily indicative of direct head to head competition.


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## MerricB (Aug 25, 2005)

Just addressing the "computer game reset" aspect of raise dead:

In earlier editions, I got around the lack of accessible raise dead by a simple method: I didn't kill PCs because I didn't want the game to end.

_Especially_ in AD&D, where advancement was so slow. Being unable to continue with an established PC meant the death of all the role-playing and plot threads associated with that character. So, either I made a plotless campaign where such didn't matter, or I didn't kill the characters.

Occasionally, a PC death was significant enough that it gave birth to greater things, but this was extremely rare. Mostly, it derailed the campaign.


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## Hussar (Aug 25, 2005)

> Let's look at how a couple of other long-term effects are handled. Consider a character afflicted with a terrible curse or a debilitating disease. In a literary context, it would be a story element; the character would have to struggle to cope with it. In a video game it would simply be a negative effect ("debuff") to be removed with the expenditure of a resource. Going strictly by the book, which most closely resembles the way curses and diseases are handled in D&D?




But, really, that has never changed from 1e to present.  Cure Blindness/Deafness has been a second level priest spell and Cure Disease a third since the game went into hardcover.  Diseases and curses have always been something to get rid of as fast as possible, most likely with magic.  Go find your friendly neighbourhood paladin and get him to cure disease on you and you were good to go.

Saying that this is something new to DnD that has crept in as an influence from CRPG's is ignoring the fact that it was DnD who did it first.  The "debuff" idea is drawn pretty much straight from the PHB.  

I really think Felon is putting the cart before the horse here.  DnD had a much larger effect on the design of MMORGS than the other way around.  Most of the elements, particularly of early CRPG's, were drawn straight from DnD - hit points, armor class, magic systems, etc.  It's only natural that there would be some cross polination now that CRPG's have become very popular.


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## Slobber Monster (Aug 25, 2005)

Patman21967 said:
			
		

> Well,
> As someone who recently ran a game for a group of stranger at my FLGS, let me say, the ways of gaming are a changing. It is much more tactical now. It seems to be more adversarial than I ever remember. I have been gaming with the same group for 20 years, rarely breaking out and seeing how the rest of the world plays.
> 
> 1 thing that really bothered me, is after every fight, they would expend their magic, and want to rest. They fought for 2 minutes, spent 15 searching, and now, let's rest to get our spells back. Very computer gamish if you ask me. They want to take weeks to create items, and expect everything to remain static.




This is a symptom of bad adventure design, and not really a fault of the players. Look at it this way - a rational person confronted with dangerous situations who is afforded all the time they want will proceed cautiously and slowly before exposing themselves to further risk. If given the option of confronting every problem with maximum resources they will choose to do so. This is how normal, rational people act, and therefore is not inherently "computer gamish". A key component of adventure design involves introducing some element of time pressure which at least makes such an approach less desireable, if not impossible.



> We recently tried miniatures for the first time, actually using AoO and such, and let me say, it is extremely boring and wasteful. I understand that all these tactics are cool if that's how you want to play the game,but for ME, and I am not denegrating anyones choice of game style, I don't like it.




I take it you prefer the old battles which for a fighter basically amounted to nothing more than "I swing, I hit/miss, I roll damage"? Gak, nothing could ever make me go back to that. I prefer for everyone to have interesting choices to make.



> I don''t like that characters now have their feats and prestige classes mapped out before the campaign even begins, so they can yoink whatever they can. In my game, I prefer earning pretige classes through actions, not just as something you go to to get Improved Evasion or Mettle. Instead of just saying, I vecome a Harper Scout, the story should revolve around that character finding the Harpers, convincing them to let them join, doing things that Harpers would do.
> 
> Someone mentioned that the game is all "kill things and take their stuff" while the poster may have said that tounge in cheek, I think it is becaoming very true. Games that I have witnessed don't seem very story driven anymore.
> 
> Enough rambling.




Becoming true? Kill things and take there stuff is what it was all about back in the 80's.


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## Orius (Aug 25, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: _The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, _ and_Bran Mak Morn: The Last king_ -- with more to come!).
> 
> Apparently they've been selling _extremely_ well in North America.  (I'm not sure if they're available in the U.K. and Ireland yet.)
> 
> Howard's making a comeback!




Howard, particularly Conan does seem to have a sort of 20-yea or so cycle of popularity.  He wrote his stuff in the 20' and 30's.  It was reprinted in the 50's and late 70'/early 80's and we're hitting another reprint cycle.  So the stuff resurfaces roughly every generation.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

> The existence of similarities takes all those blanket statements filled with all those "nevers" and "nothings" out of the tautological context you were trying to put them in. You went out of your way to be so utterly contrary, telling me how I'm "way OFF BASE" and that "D&D is NOWHERE NEAR a video game" and based it on nothing more than an abstract concept like verisimilutude, speaking of it like it was some vast, monumental, tangible barrier between RPG and MMOG. Commitment to role-playing is pretty inconsistent from group to group--and in some groups, there is no commitment. Some folks play D&D with the same outlook they would a MMOG.




There are many quite vast, monumental barriers between pen-and-paper gaming and video-gaming. The two do not directly compete. They are very different things, meant for very different effects. They share some similarities, but so do literature and movies, but I'd hardly say the two are trying for the same effect.

You're right, some folks do play D&D with the same outlook they would an MMO. You pointed out those deep-immersion "role playing servers" where people stay in-character, for instance. There's also those who want to use D&D to simply develop character abilities (which is the main goal of most MMO's). Only, people wanting to play D&D like MMO's predates MMO's. Gaining XP for finding treasure? Resurrection magic that is commonly available? Gaining name level? 

Thus, you haven't shown that MMOG's are responsible for any sort of change in behavior or game design. D&D has long supported people more interested in gaining treasure and levels than in exploring character deapth, and has done so quite happily. 



> I will tell you that the emphasis on verisimilitude is not a sacred concept as presented by the PHB, and it is not unversally considered sacred by players. It is something sacred to individuals, and a new player will only pick it up from interacting with them, not from the books. Maybe you're not talking about D&D as presented by the folks writing the books, but I was.




You're telling me a general statement doesn't universally apply? Weeeee-eeell, ain't you just full of keen observations of the obvious.   

Let's consult the books themselves, then, to find out how important role-playing is in them?



			
				DMG said:
			
		

> Your primary role [as Dungeon Master] in the game is to present adventures in which other players can roleplay their characters






			
				DMG said:
			
		

> Every Dungeon Master is the creator of his or her own campaign world....The setting is more than just a backdrop for adventures, although it's that too. The setting is everything in the fictional world except for the PC's and the adventure plot. A well-designed and well-run world seems to go on around the PC's, so that they feel a part of something, instead of apart from it.






			
				DMG said:
			
		

> Rules and game balance are very important in this [kick-in-the-door] style of play....If you're using this style, be very careful about adjudicating rules and think long and hard abuo additions or changes to the rules before making them.






			
				DMG said:
			
		

> In this [deep-immersion storytelling] style of game, the NPC's should be as complex and richly detailed as the PC's -- al though the focus should be on motivation and personality, not on game statistics....Rules become less important in this style. Since combat isn't the focus, ame mechanics take a back seat to character development....Feel free to change rules to fit the player's roleplaying needs. You may even want to streamline the combat system so that it takes less time away from the story."






			
				PHB said:
			
		

> Your characters star in the adventures you play, just like the hero of a book or a movie. As a player, you create a character using the rules in this book...[several examples of archetypes]...As your character participates in adventures, her or she gains experience and becomes more powerful
> ...
> Your character is an adventurer, a hero who sets out on epic quests for fortune and glory. Other characters join your adventuring party to explore dungeons adn battle monsters such as the terrible dragon or the carnivorous troll. These quests unfold as storiescreated by the actions your characters perform and the situations your DM presents...A Dungeons & Dragons adventure features plenty of action, exciting combat, terrifying monsters, epic challenges, and all kinds of mysteries to uncover...Playing the roles of your characters, you and your friends face the dangers and explore a world of medieval fantasy.






			
				PHB said:
			
		

> This chapter helps you establish your character's identity by creating details that make her more lifelike, like a main character in a novel or a movie. For many players, the action lies here, in defining a character as a person to be roleplayed.




It really seems that at the baseline of the D&D game lies a heapin' helpin' of storytelling and making PC's "part of the world," (e.g.: verisimilitude). That's certainly not the sole focus, and some groups won't be concerned with it as much, but it is a very prominent focus.

Some folks playing D&D like an MMO is not the fault of MMO's or because D&D is being designed like a video game. Some folks were playing D&D like an MMO before MMO's existed. The most recent edition seems very concerned with creating a character, creating a story, creating dramatic tension, and giving the DM all the tools he needs  to do that. Becuase a campaign more focused on story does not need concrete rules (according to the DMG), the concrete rules exist to facilitate a campaign focused on combat. 



> I'm saying D&D is becoming more like a MMOG with every iteration. So, is raising the dead more routine and prescribed now, or less? Is a 9th-level cleric from OD&D the equivalent of a 9th-level cleric in 3e?




So you think easy raising existing now is an example of making D&D more like an MMO? There are a few problems with this theory:

1 -- Raising has always been as easy or as complex as the DM makes it. People were getting raised on a daily basis before the Apple IIe, and the new edition does not ignore this method of play. Indeed, it has been informed by this method of play, because it is focused on helping people have fun playing D&D. Most people don't have a lot of fun if the entire story of their game is ripped from it's tracks and put on something less-satisfying just because some die rolls didn't go your way that day. Easy raising facilitates storytelling because it allows the group to cut to the chase. For those who prefer more difficulty, the DMG's advice is "ignore the rules and have fun your way!" It sounds more like D&D is inspired by D&D in this case (which I think is very true of 3e in general), not by MMO's.

2 -- Getting raised in D&D is often easier than getting raised in an MMO. In an MMO, time is money, time is XP, time is the one thing that stands between you and the ultimate goal of reaching the level cap. Thus, time spent recovering from death -- whether through XP penalties or some other method -- is time wasted. Time that the player will never get back. It is a permenant loss of power because it is a permenant loss of time and in an MMO, time = power. In D&D, the only comprable loss is a level, and the ability to regain it is dependant upon the DM's pacing. 

3 -- When getting raised in D&D is NOT easier than getting raised in an MMO, it is utterly impossible without deus ex machina. For the first 2 levels, it is entirely outside of a PC's wealth range, and by the time it is within the wealth range, it represents a significant sacrifice roughly equal to a +1 weapon (which is ceratinly a big part of a PC's wealth for the first 5 or so levels). 

I understand that getting raised is only one example of this percieved "problem," but it, at least, is an example that doesn't hold up under close scrutiny, and thus is not a very good piece of evidence for this theory you have. A death in D&D is usually far less harmful than a death in an MMO, and the ease with which characters are revived is something that has been present in some games (indeed, perhaps even in the majority of games? WotC did do extensive customer research before developing these rules) since long before MMO's came to be.



> Let's look at how a couple of other long-term effects are handled. Consider a character afflicted with a terrible curse or a debilitating disease. In a literary context, it would be a story element; the character would have to struggle to cope with it. In a video game it would simply be a negative effect ("debuff") to be removed with the expenditure of a resource. Going strictly by the book, which most closely resembles the way curses and diseases are handled in D&D?




In a literary context, sometimes curses *are* just "debuffs." This is especially ture in a high-magic environment, where the nearest wizard is next door, not on the other side of the Impassable Peaks. If your son was turned into a frog varies greatly in severity depending upon the kind of world in which it happens.

D&D is suggestive of that kind of world, where there are wizards living next door (or at most, on the other side of the kingdom). Demographic tables, the presence of monsters, and the existence of 20th-plus-level NPC's (admittedly as famous figures, but not out of the reach of the PC's) all suggest this. Thus, the ease in which a D&D "curse" (assuming you mean the spell _bestow curse_ and not something more potent and more plot-based, like _geas_, or a cursed item or artifact) is removed reflects this idea of a believable world. Verisimilitude.

This world is ultimately in control of the DM. As advised above in the DMG, if your desire is to create a great drama, ignore the rules and play the drama. The rules exist to support the play that needs rules the most -- the ones who aren't concerned as much with great drama. Those who *are* don't need the rules as much. 

Simultaneously, D&D characters have to deal with cursed items, cursed artifacts, and spells like _geas_, which more closely represent the feel of sturggling under a burden. Only some of these have the word "curse" in them, but this is no more than semantics. D&D has many methods of exploring this literary trope supported in the rules. If in a story the most powerful wizard in the land casts a dying curse on one who thwarted his plans, commanding him to forever seek a certain liche's phylactery and deliver it to him, in D&D, this is equivalent to a 20th level wizard using _geas_ to do it. 

Having shown that the quality and power of the curse is simply a semantics and world-design issue (a handgun is more powerful in a world with cavemen than it is in a world with other guns, after all), it is not surprising that video games do similar. Debuffs exist in video games, and the names come, in many cases, after the mechanics -- call it a curse, call it a handicap, call it a MacGuffin, whatever. What is important in a video game is the mechanic, not the title of the mechanic.

Video games like to have it both ways, though, and they are under no great burden to provide a coherent world like a DM is. So while they have debuffs they call curses, they also have things similar to _geas_ that they call curses. In MMOs, this often involves quests (run this rock to point x in under 5 minutes and do it WHILE AT HALF LEVEL! MWAHAHA!). In more cinematic videogames (such as the FF series) it is entirely a plot point and doesn't affect the mechanics at all (it doesn't matter how many times use cast Esuna, they're still stone!). 

So the reality of this particular example is that D&D has "debuffs" it calls curses. It also has literary-style curses it calls curses (and also calls them _geas_). Removing the debuffs is as easy as finding the nearest bard or cleric (which can be very hard depending upon the DM's design); removing a _geas_ by the most powerful wizard in the land is not so much small potatoes, though. Video games have debuffs they call curses. They also have plot devices and mission criteria that they call curses. Removing the debuffs is as simple as finding a healer-type. However, no one can heal you of plot points and quest requirements, 

Seriously, if _geas_ was renamed CURSE and _bestow curse_ was renamed, I dunno, INHIBIT ABILITY, would there even be a problem?



> Who decides what's boring? Would the LotR trilogy have been more interesting if the fellowship just went "poof" to Sauron's doorstep? I don't think so. It's those savory moments between points A and B that allow characters to develop and allow tension to build. They make for a good novel, and for a good RP experience, and the official attitude is that they should be gone for the sake of expediency. Forget daring the high seas, just get the cleric to cast Wind Walk so you can jet where you want to go as 600mph intangible vapors. Forget having to figure things out and look for clues, just cast a spell to get the info you need and move things along to the next fight scene.




No one thinks that LotR would be more interesting if the fellowship just poofed around. It is generally agreed that encounters on the way to accomplishing things allow tension to build. The official attitude, however, is NOT that they should be gone for the sake of expediency. The official attitude, as represented in the DMG is "if poofing around isn't fun for you, disable the poofing around, because the story is more important to you than the abilities, and that's okay."

This is perhaps the biggest problem with accusing 3e of being "like a video game." I can't think of any video game where teleporting helped you advance anything, or where divination, I dunno, even EXISTED in any recognizable capacity. At best, teleportation removed you from the dungeon and back to a safe point, but that was only after you got the MacGuffin you needed to get in the dungeon (which is a way to cut to the chase that is rare to find in video games -- think of the original Final Fantasy's quest for the crown, where you fought your way into a den of poisonous swamp monsters, got the crown, and then had to fight all the way back out again...).

High-level magic ruining your story? Get rid of it by playing low-magic or low-level. The DMG, the RAW, Monte Cook, encourages you to do this. It also warns you that some players might not like it, but everyone needs to find the players they are most comfortable with anyway. If ditching rules enriches you game, ditch them and be richer for it.

Altenately, you can embrace these D&D-specific tropes (again, not from a video game influence) and use them to enrich your game. If you as a DM *need* point-A-to-point-B travelling adventures, ban travel magic, and go and have fun. If your mind is open to other kinds of styles, maybe you'll have fun in this other style, too. Much of the advice presented in another thread about using teleportation, loving the bomb, embracing the idea of not capturing PC's, was about asking you to be open-minded about the possibility of the dramatic potential that is achieved without taking away abilities from PC's. Asking you to consider the idea that teleportation does not remove danger. 

Video games are often built along point-A-to-point-B adventures themselves. Almost every FF game can be summed up as a series of traveling encounters leading to plot points. A large amount of quests in MMO's revolve around going someplace dangerous and getting some item and coming back to someplace safe and giving it to whoever wanted it. Most video games have only rudimentary teleportation and no divination. If you prefer that video game style, enjoy it.



> If a person needs to go into very specific details to explain something to you, don't be so quick to lay all of the blame at their feet because you refuse to see their point of view.




When two people have differing hypothesis, it is only by a comparison of evidence that they have any hope of being resolved. I don't intend to blame anyone for anything, but I do intend to challenge your hypothesis. Hence this LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG post.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Occasionally, a PC death was significant enough that it gave birth to greater things, but this was extremely rare. Mostly, it derailed the campaign.




I think this is the true influence of "easy resurrection" in 3e, myself. It is a story consideration. If death is permenant, and death can be one failed saving throw away, then the story built around the character is subject to being completely derailed by one die roll. 

This same reason is also why death is (often) easily reversable in CRPG's, too. If later in the game the main character has to fight the main villain, and the main character dies during the first boss battle...well, that disrputs the story too much to really allow.



> I really think Felon is putting the cart before the horse here. DnD had a much larger effect on the design of MMORGS than the other way around. Most of the elements, particularly of early CRPG's, were drawn straight from DnD - hit points, armor class, magic systems, etc. It's only natural that there would be some cross polination now that CRPG's have become very popular.




I entirely agree. One of the first CRPG's, Final Fantasy, had character classes: Warrior, Thief, Wizard, Priest, Bard. It had spell slots. Later in the game you could upgrade your classes (like the prestige classes of earlier editions).


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## Orius (Aug 25, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> No it doesn't.  D&D was originally based on a _mixture_ of elements from those authors' works (and some others as well, of course).
> 
> 3e has some evolved from those origins -- but I'm not sure if it has any _new_ literary sources.




Well, there's the sorcerer class for one, which seems to be inspired by more modern fantasy fiction, particularly Eddings.


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## Mark CMG (Aug 25, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It is a story consideration. If death is permenant, and death can be one failed saving throw away, then the story built around the character is subject to being completely derailed by one die roll.





Sounds like an exciting game that can be won or lost.  But is that D&D?


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## kigmatzomat (Aug 25, 2005)

Patman21967 said:
			
		

> Well,
> As someone who recently ran a game for a group of stranger at my FLGS, let me say, the ways of gaming are a changing. It is much more tactical now.




You are aware that TSR stood for Tactical Studies Rules, right?  



> 1 thing that really bothered me, is after every fight, they would expend their magic, and want to rest. They fought for 2 minutes, spent 15 searching, and now, let's rest to get our spells back. Very computer gamish if you ask me. They want to take weeks to create items, and expect everything to remain static.




It would surprise me if they did NOT want to rest and heal if they have the option and no particular disincentive.  Let's think about it: you get hurt in the middle of the boonies by a bear.  Youascertain that if you can rest for a day you'll be hail and hearty again.  Since the offending bear is dead and likely drove off other major predators, you are likely safe from further assault.  Sounds like a perfect lace to rest.  

Taking weeks to create magic items?  Why not?  Some things take time.  I'm driven insane by gamers who never want to take a day's downtime; always eager to kill the next thing.  What's the hurry?

The only problem I see they have is expecting things to be static.  That is a problem with many less than stellar CRPGs; nothing is time dependent and very little is event driven.  As a DM you should help them unlearn.  LET them take 2 weeks to make a magic doodad of Bob-Slaying but let them see what mayhem Bob hath wrought in the meantime.  If they decide to rest while Bob flees, Bob may get far enough ahead that he disappears while he makes his doodad of Bob-Don't-Die.  

If you don't like the tactical decisions they make, give them strategic reasons to do otherwise.


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## Orius (Aug 25, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I entirely agree. One of the first CRPG's, Final Fantasy, had character classes: Warrior, Thief, Wizard, Priest, Bard. It had spell slots. Later in the game you could upgrade your classes (like the prestige classes of earlier editions).




The original Final Fantasy shows clear D&D influences.

Of 6 playable chacter types, 4 more or less correspond to the 4 basic classes of D&D: fighter, thief, clerc (white mage), wizard (black mage).  It has a magic system in which the character have a fixed number of spells/level/day which are regained by resting.  The monsters encountered are in many cases inspired by D&D monsters — and this is more clear in the PSX rerelease since it has more memory do display the names (unlike the NES version which chopped down some of the names for space).  Tiamat and Bahamut exist in the world.   I'm sure there's more, but that's just off the top of my head.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 25, 2005)

> Sounds like an exciting game that can be won or lost. But is that D&D?




According to the quotes from the PHB and DMG, it absolutely *is* D&D. Especially the new edition, which is not geared toward constantly starting over at 1st level like the other editions have been (and, odly enough, like video games are). 

Is this true to D&D's origins? I don't rightly know for a fact. I just know coming back to life and poofing all over Middle-Earth have been with D&D since before I started to play, and have probably been complained about for just as long. Their influence apparently is not from video games, but from D&D itself.

If you get rid of teleportation, divination, and resurrection magic, is that still D&D? It is to me, but I think I have a pretty broad view of what D&D can be before it stops being D&D to me.

Oh, and P.S.:


			
				Orius said:
			
		

> I'm sure there's more, but that's just off the top of my head.




You may be interested in what's in my sig....


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## Mark CMG (Aug 25, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ... I think I have a pretty broad view of what D&D can be before it stops being D&D to me.





I believe I do as well.  I've always been able to switch to new editions without much trouble or grousing.  When I said/asked "Sounds like an exciting game that can be won or lost. But is that D&D?" it was meant rhetorically and with the understanding that it's a question to which not all would agree.


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## Wolv0rine (Aug 26, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Hmm, I sometimes have the feeling that the people on this messageboard are to a certain extent detached from how the game is often played by groups outside in the world, even though we have quite a mix of different playstyles presented here. When I see the book "Deities and Demigods" denigrated on this board (for the record: I don't like it, either), I have to think about how many groups out there actually take this book and, with their bags of holding full of major artifacts and riding their gold dragon cohorts, work down the list of gods in that book on their way to replace them as rulers of the world. I know they exist. I know they always existed, even in prior incarnations of D&D. It's just that they don't post on EN World . Doesn't make them less real, though .




Don't they?  Before I start, let me preface by saying I actually do understand that (as far as I can tell) you're referring to people who's typical play style is like this without seeing anything shallow or asinine about it.  That said...

Circa 1989 (give or take a few months), my best friend at the time and I, at the end of a 72 hellride of vivarin over-dosed madness decide to roll up 2 characters using NPC stats (1E DMG) and then progress them to godhood.  24 hours later we were systematically slaughtering our way through the 1E D&Dg.  It was never meant to be anything but a lark, although that fit of pure purile goofiness actually spawned a campaign setting based on the ideals of logic and sensibility (ironically).  So yeah, in a manner of speaking those people Do post on EN World. 

(And just to keep this even vaguely on topic)...

I'd have to agree that D&D *must* remain current with the time it's in to have any hope of continuing on past the time of those of us who's been keeping it's torch alive since it began.  But that doesn't mean (I'd go so far as to say Mustn't mean) that the classic literature that the game (and the gamers) were based on should be let to fall by the wayside.  You can keep the game current while still pointing the newcomers to the roots of it, and you damned well should.  Gamers have always been (typically) the smart lot.  Gygax never wrote down to his audience (he never felt the need to explain what a DOOR was to us for godsake).  We were assumed to be smart enough to understand and play the game we were offered, and we usually were.  If we allow those who come after us to become a lower and lower denominator we are just doing a disservice to the game and to those future gamers.  Sure, make things familiar in a way they can relate to it, but at least point them in the direction of those things that helped expand our minds and our vocabularies.  And hope they understand that the game should be more than just Killing Things and Taking Their Stuff.


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## Wolv0rine (Aug 26, 2005)

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> Not everyone likes playing in a world that makes sense. To a *certain* extent, without overstating it, I think that comes with maturation of one's gaming tastes. But my question is this: As the DM, why did you allow this?
> 
> 
> As the DM, what prevents you from saying that the acquisition of feats and prestige classes doesn't require a teacher or an initiator?




I don't think his point was that the game played out that way, or that he as DM could disallow it or didn't disallow it...  I think his point was that the players were coming from that angle, and to HAVE to disallow it was what he was sorry to experience.


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## mhacdebhandia (Aug 26, 2005)

Why, though? There's *nothing wrong with how they wanted to play*. It might not be to his taste, but I don't feel bad for telling guests in my house that they can't put on trance music. Feeling sad because they "shouldn't want to play like that in the first place" is ridiculous - who is anyone to say how someone should have fun?

Your choice is to participate or not.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 26, 2005)

> I believe I do as well. I've always been able to switch to new editions without much trouble or grousing. When I said/asked "Sounds like an exciting game that can be won or lost. But is that D&D?" it was meant rhetorically and with the understanding that it's a question to which not all would agree.




It was good for my brain to think like that, and you're right, not everyone would agree to such a change, I guess, even if it made the game more "playable," in a certain light.

I still don't see how videogames are at fault, but I guess I see why some may use them as a scapegoat for their own problems with D&D today.


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## Hussar (Aug 26, 2005)

Now that we've beaten the video game issue to death, let's get back to books.

I'm currently reading, and enjoying immensely, Stephen Erikson's Malazan series.  Now, in that series, you have very common wizardry (although in a different form from DnD, but, still very common) being used all the time.  Erikson has taken the consequences of the existence of a stable form of magic that is predictable and extended them to a fantasy setting.  

Personally, I think most of his books are screaming for a d20 treatment, and I hope someone picks it up sometime.  Playing a sapper would be an absolute blast (pun intended).  And the creatures like the D'ivers would be phenomenal to see.  Unfortunately, I lack pretty much any talent for this sort of thing, so I'll sit and hope someone else does it.

My point to this whole ramble is that I'm sure there are a number of recent fantasy series that would work every bit as well as Howard or Leiber.  Heck, Green Ronin's release of Thieves World shows that, at least for some, fantasy doesn't have to be decades old to inspire.  While I'm sure that we should retain the best of the inspirations from older sources, ignoring the work being done now is really a diservice to the genre.


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## tetsujin28 (Aug 26, 2005)

Maybe it doesn't, but other than Jessica Salmonson's Tomoe Gozen novels, I've found fantasy from the last couple decades incredibly uninspiring and unimaginative.


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## Turjan (Aug 26, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> Maybe it doesn't, but other than Jessica Salmonson's Tomoe Gozen novels, I've found fantasy from the last couple decades incredibly uninspiring and unimaginative.



I think I've got much more insipiration for games from SF books than from fantasy ones.


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## MerricB (Aug 26, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Now that we've beaten the video game issue to death, let's get back to books.
> 
> I'm currently reading, and enjoying immensely, Stephen Erikson's Malazan series.  Now, in that series, you have very common wizardry (although in a different form from DnD, but, still very common) being used all the time.  Erikson has taken the consequences of the existence of a stable form of magic that is predictable and extended them to a fantasy setting.




I love those books; I've mined them for inspiration in the past. 

Both the Shadowhounds and Shadowthrone made their way into some memorable encounters in my Greyhawk game.

Cheers!


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 26, 2005)

I do think I agree that the level of magic has gone up as society has accepted "arcane technology" (things people use daily wherein it is unclear how it works). If 1's and 0's can help me talk to a guy from Brazil and balance my checkbook without leaving my room, it's probably easier to accept that, in a fantasy world, that guy three houses down probably knows how to help me with my little "I've turned into a frog" problem.


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## Felon (Aug 26, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I still don't see how videogames are at fault, but I guess I see why some may use them as a scapegoat for their own problems with D&D today.




Blaming and scapegoating wasn't the point. Sorry if after all the debate you still just don't get it. I'd try again, but life is just too damn short for this.


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## Renton (Aug 26, 2005)

Weren't Leiber and Howard the hit songwriting duo who penned such classics as _Lankmar City_, _Healing Potion # 9_, _Barbarians Fall in Love_, and _(Hell) Hound Dog_?


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Aug 26, 2005)

Renton said:
			
		

> Weren't Leiber and Howard the hit songwriting duo who penned such classics as _Lankmar City_, _Healing Potion # 9_, _Barbarians Fall in Love_, and _(Hell) Hound Dog_?




Renton wins.


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## Akrasia (Aug 26, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ...
> If you get rid of teleportation, divination, and resurrection magic, is that still D&D? ...




I don't know if it's D&D or not, but it makes for a much better game IME.


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## Turjan (Aug 26, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> I don't know if it's D&D or not, but it makes for a much better game IME.



Even the slight changes in AU/AE make for a better game .


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## haakon1 (Aug 26, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> It's all been downhill since Homer.




I tend to agree with the Epicurean from Seamus Heaney's country . . . there are only a few true classics.

To me, the classics to which all D&D players need to be introduced are, in historical order:
- The Odyssey.  (In a pinch, hope they've at least seen "Troy", "Jason and the Argonauts", "Empire", or any other sandals and togas type movie.)
- Beowulf, preferably the Seamus Heaney version
- Robin Hood, preferably the 1930s Errol Flynn movie version
- The Knights of the Round-Table, preferably Monty Python's version
- The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings
- Star Wars
- Conan the Barbarian (198x movie)
- The 13th Warrior (Beowulf reinterpreted)
- LOTR movies

That's a complete education, IMHO.    

Lots of things are good for extra credit, like H.P. Lovecraft, "Willow", "Braveheart", those little Osprey books, or watching "Battlefield Britain" . . .


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## haakon1 (Aug 26, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> rogue vs rouge
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Hussar (Aug 27, 2005)

When you boil it right down, one of the biggest changes from fantasy novels of the past to DnD and fantasy novels of the present is the inclusion of wizard protagonists.  Whether it's Howard or Tolkein, or even older stories, the wizards have always been at best sidekicks and more often than not, antagonists.  

The second you have a wizard protagonist, magic has to be somewhat predictable and dependable.  If the protagonist has to spend three weeks chanting in a circle every time he wants to do magic, it's going to make for a pretty boring story.  It would certainly make for a very boring game.

So, if you want to have wizard heroes, the magic has to function, more or less, like technology.  Perform act A get result B as expected.  Otherwise, the wizard hero can't do any magic without constantly worrying about blowing himself up.  While this works in some novels, like Thomas Covenant, it tends to get pretty old and stale after a while.  We WANT wizards who can casts the spells to makes the bads mens fall down.   

Fantasy as a genre has followed this trend.  Harry Potter is a perfect example of this.  Magic is still dangerous, but, is still pretty much like technology in that if you know the right thing to do, you get the desired effect.  Eberron, from what I can see, takes this approach as well.  If magic is predictable, then it WILL be included in daily lives.   For it to not be makes no logical sense.

DnD magic has always been predictable.  The arguements against household magic have been specious at best and never in keeping with the actual mechanics of the game.  If magic is so dangerous and difficult, then how come a normal person with an average intelligence score, can cast spells?


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> If magic is so dangerous and difficult, then how come a normal person with an average intelligence score, can cast spells?




It was only with 3.0 that the rulebooks stated that with training any INT 10+ person could cast Wizard spells.  Previously only rare exceptional individuals could become Wizards or _any_ character class - BXCMI D&D stated that 1% of the population could be Classed, which is the figure I use for PC-class in my current 3e campaign.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

I agree that spellcasting protagonists is a recent, 20th century phenomenon, though not _terribly_ recent - post Tolkien, but I think A Wizard of Earthsea was published in the '60s & there are probably earlier examples (The Magician's Nephew?)


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## The Shaman (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> When you boil it right down, one of the biggest changes from fantasy novels of the past to DnD and fantasy novels of the present is the inclusion of wizard protagonists.  Whether it's Howard or Tolkein, or even older stories, the wizards have always been at best sidekicks and more often than not, antagonists.



The Grey Mouser, one of Fritz Leiber's legendary protagonists, is a wizard - try _The Unholy Grail_.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> The Grey Mouser, one of Fritz Leiber's legendary protagonists, is a wizard - try _The Unholy Grail_.




Well he casts 2 spells in the entire series - 1 spontaneous blast of magic when he was Mouse, and a failed attempt to read a scroll.  Not exactly Merlin!


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## Turjan (Aug 27, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> I agree that spellcasting protagonists is a recent, 20th century phenomenon, though not _terribly_ recent - post Tolkien, but I think A Wizard of Earthsea was published in the '60s & there are probably earlier examples (The Magician's Nephew?)



I can only repeat: 'The Dying Earth', 1950. The protagonists of the first two stories are spellcasters.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Yep, I think you see it from the '50s on.  Like I said, 20th century phenomenon.


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## Hussar (Aug 27, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> It was only with 3.0 that the rulebooks stated that with training any INT 10+ person could cast Wizard spells.  Previously only rare exceptional individuals could become Wizards or _any_ character class - BXCMI D&D stated that 1% of the population could be Classed, which is the figure I use for PC-class in my current 3e campaign.




Take a look at your 2e PHB.  Requirement for playing a wizard= Intelligence of 9.  The fact that they went ahead and said that only 1% of the population is classed only proves how they couldn't be bothered to take the mechanics to any sort of logical conclusion.  If an average intelligence PC could become a (poor) mage, then why can't anyone do it?  The double standard of PC's to everyone else is at the heart of this discussion.  Earlier editions didn't match the mechanics to the worlds they developed.  

But let's go with this 1% figure for a second.  The population of Germany in the 1300's was around 14 million people.  That translates to 140 000 classed citizens.  Figure a fairly even distribution of classes, which, considering the requirements for any given base class - Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Rogue - are pretty much identical, isn't a bad assumption, that gives us about 14 000 mages and 14 000 clerics.  Roughly.  Now, if the political power of that area could conscript/hire 10% of those, he's got 1400 mages and clerics to play with at any given time.  Granted, most of those would be low level, 5th or less, but, then again, there are many low level spells which would make household magic very useful.  Given a few decades, it wouldn't be difficult for a nation to build up a vast store of magical knowledge and whatnot.  And this is the logical conclusion of a completely arbitrary 1% figure.  Never mind that in earlier editions, only humans were zero level.  All the demihumans were at least 1st level somethings.  

Dnd has shaped modern fantasy just as much as its been shaped.  Forcing common themes like magic to follow logical conclusions is a basic concept of campaign building.  Fantasy and DnD is locked into a virtuous circle where concepts from one migrate to the other, get tossed around, changed, warped and made better then tossed back to the first.  

Yes, there are examples of wizard protagonists prior to the last twenty years.  That's true.  However, VERY few people have read Vance, and two examples hardly make for an overwhelming change to the genre.  It's been the last twenty years before you saw protagonist wizards in any numbers.  While they did exist prior to about 1980, they were pretty few and far between and VASTLY outnumbered.  Now, with Eddings,  Wiess and Hickman, and Rowlings and Brooks and a host of other authors, wizards are frequently featured as the protagonist.  This is a major change from earlier fantasty, say pre-1975.

/edit - taking things to their logical extention


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Take a look at your 2e PHB.  Requirement for playing a wizard= Intelligence of 9.




 :\   THAT IS FOR PCs!!!  LIKE I SAID, ONLY WITH 3e did the PC-generation rules become of general application for everyone.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The double standard of PC's to everyone else is at the heart of this discussion.  Earlier editions didn't match the mechanics to the worlds they developed.




The mechanics of the 1e & 2e *Player's Handbook* were for generating PCs, and PC-like NPCs.  They were not, and were not intended, to be for generating non-PC-like NPCs, such as the general population.

There is nothing wrong about this as a design decision IMO.  The opposite approach - that per the rules everyone can be a Wizard, say - causes far more illogicality for most settings.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> But let's go with this 1% figure for a second.  The population of Germany in the 1300's was around 14 million people.  That translates to 140 000 classed citizens.  Figure a fairly even distribution of classes, which, considering the requirements for any given base class - Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Rogue - are pretty much identical, isn't a bad assumption, that gives us about 14 000 mages and 14 000 clerics.  Roughly.  Now, if the political power of that area could conscript/hire 10% of those, he's got 1400 mages and clerics to play with at any given time.  Granted, most of those would be low level, 5th or less, but, then again, there are many low level spells which would make household magic very useful.  Given a few decades, it wouldn't be difficult for a nation to build up a vast store of magical knowledge and whatnot.  And this is the logical conclusion of a completely arbitrary 1% figure.




I'm not sure what the problem here is - a vast, strong strong unitary state (nothing like the actual Holy Roman Empire, more like late-medieval Spain ca the Armada) that commands 1400 wizards & 1400 clerics, 10% of all wizards & clerics in the domain, has vast magical power.  That's pretty much a tautology.

Most fantasy kingdoms are actually more Tolkienesque, which means they resemble the kingdoms of dark ages England, with a few hundred thousand citizens and not directly controlling 10% of the population of warriors, priests etc - more like 1%.  Say population 140,000 for something like dark ages Sussex (or Rohan), that's 1,400 classed characters.  Per the Greyhawk or 1e DMG, about 20% of those are spellcasters of all types, or 280 spellcasters, of whom maybe 1-2% are in the personal guard of the king - probably just a court wizard, an apprentice, and a chaplain with a couple lesser clerics.


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## Hussar (Aug 27, 2005)

Really?  Most campaigns are Tolkienesque?   What's the population of Waterdeep?  Isn't Waterdeep considered a pretty  base campaign setting.  Granted, I believe Greyhawk the city is under the 100 k mark but, then again, IIRC, there are areas of Greyhawk with much higher populations.  

The problem with the numbers you are using is they make absolutely no logical sense.  Or, rather, they only make sense if you refuse to apply the PHB to the general population.  The only reason that you don't is because, if you do, you wind up with ridiculous numbers.  I'll agree with that.  

Even using your own numbers, it simply doesn't work. Or rather, it ONLY works if you play in a very sparsely populated area and concentrate on humans.  Why would only 1-2% of the spellcaster types work for the king?  If I'm the king, I've got lots of money, I'm going to make sure that I am going to hire as many spellcasters as I can.  It makes perfect sense for me to do so.  It actually makes no sense for me to allow spellcasters in my kingdom that are not under my direct control.  How many kingdoms would allow private citizens to wander around with the equivalent of tactical nuclear weaponry?

The logical upshot of the existence of spellcasters is guilds.  Those guilds would be forced to work with the existing political system, or the existing powers would see them as a threat and eliminate them as fast as possible.  A wandering mage is an incredible threat to a kingdom.  Never mind a bloody cleric or druid.  Even Dragonlance took a stab at this in saying that all mages had to belong to the Order and would be hunted down if they didn't.

Looking at your own numbers, that's about 250 spellcasters wandering the kingdom without any link to the king other than citizenship.  No king in his right mind would allow this.  The clerics have the protection of their churches, and since churches exist as political bodies, the king would have a fair bit of influence there.  But wizards don't have any ties.  A rogue wizard in a kingdom would become a major threat.  It makes no sense for the king to not actively recruit and/or kill wizards.  Even clerics and druids would be actively recruited, simply for the benefit of having their abilities to rely on.

Imagine what I could do with a hundred wizards.  That's a whole bunch of power.  It doesn't really matter whether it's 100 or 1000, any king who wants to keep his kingdom is going to have to actively court these people or these people will take away his kingdom.

That's one example of the logical extentions that get ignored by earlier campaign settings that are starting to be addressed in later ones.  And these things are starting to be addressed in fantasy literature as well.  They all result from the idea that magic is stable and functional.  The second you want to have a spell casting class in a fantasy game, you have these issues.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Really?  Most campaigns are Tolkienesque?   What's the population of Waterdeep?  Isn't Waterdeep considered a pretty  base campaign setting.




No, Waterdeep, the largest city of the Realms (except Calimport) is not a "pretty base campaign setting", & it has a population ca 200,000 AFAIK.  If you look at your DMG you'll see a D&D 'metropolis' is pop 25,000+.  Greyhawk, largest known city on Oerth, is ca 60,000.  Most campaigns are Tolkienesque in terms of state organisations & population sizes - you very rarely see pop 25 million+ states like 15th century medieval France.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The problem with the numbers you are using is they make absolutely no logical sense.  Or, rather, they only make sense if you refuse to apply the PHB to the general population.  The only reason that you don't is because, if you do, you wind up with ridiculous numbers.  I'll agree with that.




Well you can create a world where everyone's a hero (PC class) if you wish, or you can use the 3e DMG where there are lots of high-level heroes in the cities, or some other demographic more suited to your setting.  I have no problem with the idea that the PHB is for generating exceptional individuals and the NPC classes are for everyone else.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Looking at your own numbers, that's about 250 spellcasters wandering the kingdom without any link to the king other than citizenship.  No king in his right mind would allow this.  The clerics have the protection of their churches, and since churches exist as political bodies, the king would have a fair bit of influence there.  But wizards don't have any ties.  A rogue wizard in a kingdom would become a major threat.  It makes no sense for the king to not actively recruit and/or kill wizards.  Even clerics and druids would be actively recruited, simply for the benefit of having their abilities to rely on.




For a late-medieval style setting where states & monarchs are as powerful as you assume, I agree with you - IMC all the wizards, of whom there are several hundred in a population of ca 15 million, are members of wizardly orders, and the main order is pretty much controlled by the king.  In a more Tolkienesque early-feudal setting though, the king simply _does not have the power_ to exert this kind of control.

NB re 'early feudal' I am talking about societal organisation; Tolkien had 14th century technology with 8th century social structures.  The modern trend in D&D is away from this towards something more like the 16th century sans gunpowder, with powerful cities & states.  The more 16th century the setting, the more the State will amass magical & other power to itself and prevent its free use by others.   I think we basically agree on this.


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## S'mon (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> That's one example of the logical extentions that get ignored by earlier campaign settings that are starting to be addressed in later ones.  And these things are starting to be addressed in fantasy literature as well.  They all result from the idea that magic is stable and functional.  The second you want to have a spell casting class in a fantasy game, you have these issues.




It can be addressed in other ways though - eg maybe Wizards are far rarer than we're assuming (older settings that lack wizards' guilds often have very very few wizards who aren't adventurers or BBEGs); or maybe magic isn't stable & functional - it's stable and functional for PCs, but most NPCs who try it end up as green goop.


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## wingsandsword (Aug 27, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Really?  Most campaigns are Tolkienesque?   What's the population of Waterdeep?  Isn't Waterdeep considered a pretty  base campaign setting.  Granted, I believe Greyhawk the city is under the 100 k mark but, then again, IIRC, there are areas of Greyhawk with much higher populations.



Rome had a population of 1 million by 250 AD, peaking around 320 at 1.5 million.  

The 3e FRCS puts the population of Waterdeep at 1.3 million.  Thus, it's equivalent to Rome, say, circa 300 AD.  

Huge metropolises are not impossible in a fantasy world, and remember that Medieval Europe was the provincial regions of a great empire slowly rebuilding from a huge collapse centuries before.

As for the "1% have a character class" idea from old Basic D&D, I always used the guideline in 2e High Level Campaigns, that 10% of the population reached 1st level, and that half that reached the next higher level, and so on.  This means that an 18th level character is one in 1.3 million, a 20th level character is one in five million.


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## Turjan (Aug 27, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> Rome had a population of 1 million by 250 AD, peaking around 320 at 1.5 million.
> 
> The 3e FRCS puts the population of Waterdeep at 1.3 million.  Thus, it's equivalent to Rome, say, circa 300 AD.
> 
> Huge metropolises are not impossible in a fantasy world, and remember that Medieval Europe was the provincial regions of a great empire slowly rebuilding from a huge collapse centuries before.



Rome is actually a good example, and it explains why this size of city is only possible in a vast empire. The problem with big city sizes were food logistics. Rome was fed by ship (via Ostia), mostly from Sicily and Egypt, i.e., it was dependent on overseas resources. Getting enough food into the city by land was not possible at that time. It wasn't really the pillage of the city in the turmoils after the end of the western Roman Empire that brought the city population down, but the inability to feed its inhabitants. 

That's probably why the 3e FRCS puts the population of the City of Waterdeep at 132,661 inhabitants, and not at 1.3 millions. The last number includes the rural population of the state of Waterdeep. This is in accordance with the notion that it takes roughly 10 peasants to feed one city dweller.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 27, 2005)

Side note about Rome and other ancient metropolises:

The tech level in those cities is often higher than the average modern person expects.  Rome's aqueducts are lined with tubes of concrete.  Weak batteries 1000's of years old have been found that were used to create thin layers of gold on certain objects (electroplating) and to aid in creating certain effects believed to be "magical."

Surprise your players- do a little research on ancient tech...


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## wingsandsword (Aug 27, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Side note about Rome and other ancient metropolises:
> 
> The tech level in those cities is often higher than the average modern person expects.  Rome's aqueducts are lined with tubes of concrete.  Weak batteries 1000's of years old have been found that were used to create thin layers of gold on certain objects (electroplating) and to aid in creating certain effects believed to be "magical."



Oh, I certainly know that.  One thing I find very amusing is, that the typical fantasy setting is very much locked into a medieval western europe model, ala LotR, King Arthur ect.

However, a Roman themed setting would in many ways accomodate the standard fantasy cliches and typical D&D play style much better:
Slaves & Gladiators.
Encountering strange beasts from far & wide, and quite possibly killing them.
World-Spanning Empires united by a single common language.
Polytheistic religion with at least some tolerance of foriegn faiths.
Mysterious cults that promise deep knowledge, and keep their beliefs secret from outsiders.
Characters of many different races/ethnicities meeting together in relative peace.
Huge cities where anything can happen.
Some "Modern" technology like indoor plumbing, and relatiely advanced medicine (some elements of Roman medicine we're just discovering were as good as things we have today, like their method of "stapling" wounds closed with silver wire promotes faster healing than conventional modern sutures).
Colorful characters (some Roman Emperors read like D&D NPC's in their biographies).
Huge standing armies with outposts around the known world.
Well mapped, maintained and guarded for PC's to travel far & wide.
Savage and menacing barbaric peoples on the fringes of society that threaten civlization itself.

A Roman themed setting really could be a way to get a semi-historically grounded setting with lots of room for gaming while not even being too implausible culturally or technologically.

Although this is getting a little far afield of the topic, maybe somebody should start a separate topic on the plausibility of setting demographics and technologies?


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## The Shaman (Aug 27, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> Well he casts 2 spells in the entire series - 1 spontaneous blast of magic when he was Mouse, and a failed attempt to read a scroll.  Not exactly Merlin!



I was simply refuting the erroneous "always" in the preceding claim.

The fact that the Mouser is not a particularly effective wizard is immaterial. 


			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The problem with the numbers you are using is they make absolutely no logical sense....Even using your own numbers, it simply doesn't work. Or rather, it ONLY works if you play in a very sparsely populated area...



You mean like Western Europe during the Dark Ages? A time when Roman towns disappeared by the dozens in the face of plague, barbarian invasions, and the collapse of civil and economic systems?

Now where have I seen that in a fantasy game...oh, that's right, it was my 3.0 D&D game-setting, where four kingdoms and a principality ruled an area roughly the size of New Mexico, pressed from the north by goblins, from the east by human barbarians, and by sea by two different groups of raiders.

"Logic" is highly subjective in discussing something like this, *Hussar* - my setting was perfectly logical given the starting assumptions of long periods of warfare in which humans and their allies were losing ground, where urban areas were infrequent and sparsely populated due to the bulk of the populace living in a druidical society that eschewed large conurbations.


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## haakon1 (Aug 28, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> A Roman themed setting really could be a way to get a semi-historically grounded setting with lots of room for gaming while not even being too implausible culturally or technologically.




Agreed.  So why is there no Roman-style setting?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 28, 2005)

There WAS a splatbook for Rome (and the Crusades, and Vikings, and...) in 2Ed- I imagine much of the info in them is still usable.  Look for a green softcover book bound like "Complete Fighter" etc. in the bookstores or online.


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## Turjan (Aug 28, 2005)

haakon1 said:
			
		

> Agreed.  So why is there no Roman-style setting?



Morningstar is very Roman-style. The main Empire of the Arcanis setting also reminds of Rome. For converting it a bit more to historical Rome, you might look at this here.


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## Hussar (Aug 28, 2005)

From a historical perspective as well, I would point out that Angkor had a population of well over a million at around 1000 AD.  

As far as the Grey Mouser goes, I haven't read the series, I admit, but, I was always under the impression that it was Fafrd (sp) and the Grey Mouser.  Isn't he Fafrd's sidekick?  I was unaware that he was the main protagonist of the stories.  Again, I haven't read them, so, I could very well be wrong.

Shaman - fair enough.  You have developed a solid reason why the structures I'm talking about don't exist in your world.  However, not every setting includes the collapse of civilization.  The fact that you have created a setting which is pretty far removed from "Tolkeinesque" in order to actually satisfy the assumptions of a Tolkenesque setting pretty much shows how bad those base assumptions are.  For S'mon's idea of the powers that be to not have the power to control wizards would require every kingdom in the setting to not have the power.  The second one kingdom had the power, it would have such a huge advantage over its neighbours, it would completely dominate.  Much in the same way that higher technology societies in the real world frequently (not always) dominate their lower technology neighbours.

Really, that's the problem with using a "Tolkenesque" setting.  If you change any of the assumptions, then the mechanics of the game throw everything out of whack.  Give a king a bit more control over the population and he can start wizard colleges a la the Calastian Battle Mages of the Scarred Lands setting.  Actually, at least early on, Calastia was based heavily on Rome.  The Calastia setting book is a pretty decent stab at it anyway.


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## Turjan (Aug 28, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> From a historical perspective as well, I would point out that Angkor had a population of well over a million at around 1000 AD.



The economical and sociological implications of growing rice are, indeed, fascinating .  



> Much in the same way that higher technology societies in the real world frequently (not always) dominate their lower technology neighbours.



Just look at the impact of several great inventions of the Middle Ages on the shift of the European power center from the Mediterranean further North.


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## Akrasia (Aug 28, 2005)

haakon1 said:
			
		

> Agreed.  So why is there no Roman-style setting?




See 'Thyatis' (part of the 'Known World'/Mystara) from _The Dawn of the Emperors_ by Aaron Alston.


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## francisca (Aug 28, 2005)

haakon1 said:
			
		

> Agreed.  So why is there no Roman-style setting?



Well, apart from Akrasia's suggestion, there was the Roman Historical Setting book for 2e.  Should be plenty of fluff there.  For the rules you might want to look at Stone to Steel by Monkey God for 3e stats on Roman armor/weapons, and a gladiator class.  There is also SKRs new Argonauts, which is ancient greece, but could be "modernized" a bit w/out too much grief.

But, that will just get you the mediterranian portion of ancient rome.  The empire was huge, and there are many cultures and myths to exploit for gaming purposes.


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## The Shaman (Aug 28, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> As far as the Grey Mouser goes, I haven't read the series, I admit, but, I was always under the impression that it was Fafrd (sp) and the Grey Mouser.  Isn't he Fafrd's sidekick?  I was unaware that he was the main protagonist of the stories.  Again, I haven't read them, so, I could very well be wrong.



Fafhrd and the Mouser are partners - neither is sidekick to the other.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The fact that you have created a setting which is pretty far removed from "Tolkeinesque" in order to actually satisfy the assumptions of a Tolkenesque setting pretty much shows how bad those base assumptions are.



Interestingly enough, I considered that to be my most "tolkienesque" homebrew world, without question - fractious kingdoms striving to unite against an ancient evil that threatened, both from within and without, to destroy them.

I'm really not at all clear on how you're using the term "tolkienesque" in this context.


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## francisca (Aug 28, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Fafhrd and the Mouser are partners - neither is sidekick to the other.



There is even a hint that they are two sundered parts of some great, ancient hero.  
Once in a while, each will follow the others fancy, shaking his head all the while, but there is no sidekick action going on, in any case.


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## S'mon (Aug 28, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Interestingly enough, I considered that to be my most "tolkienesque" homebrew world, without question - fractious kingdoms striving to unite against an ancient evil that threatened, both from within and without, to destroy them.
> 
> I'm really not at all clear on how you're using the term "tolkienesque" in this context.




Yeah, it sounded very Tolkienesque to me.


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## Hussar (Aug 28, 2005)

/editted to remove my own stupidity.    

Not every campaign is based on Dark Ages Europe.  That's always been my point.  The existence of stable, predictable magic has massive impacts on a society.  Handwaving them away by saying that, despite mechanics, only a tiny fraction of the population can cast spells and all kingdoms lack the internal control to take advantage of that is hardly logical.

Like I said, it only takes one.  Why did Rome rise to power?  Were they destined?  Did they have some gift from the Great Juju?  Were they smarter than everyone around them?  No.  They were more advanced technologically and took advantage of those advancements.  A small edge led to a huge empire.  Thus, there's no reason it wouldn't be the same in a fantasy setting with predictable magic.  It's pretty much an inevitable outgrowth of having stable magic.  

I've mentioned it a couple of times, but even something as simple as Continual Light/Continual Flame would have a massive impact on a society.  A king would be stupid to not take advantage of this.


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## S'mon (Aug 28, 2005)

Rome certainly didn't achieve greatness through being "more technologically advanced" - the Greek cities, notably Syracuse, were mostly considerably more advanced in military technology at the time of Rome's rise to greatness.   It seems to have been discipline & bloody-mindedness that brought Rome victory in the face of many more technologically-advanced enemies.

My 'handwave', which for some reason you refuse to accept, is that magic per se is not as stable and predictable or as common as implied by the PHB, that PHB magic is only for PCs and a few exceptional NPCs.  OTOH I agree with your view that stable powerful kingdoms will attempt to control and use this small number of magic-users.


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## francisca (Aug 28, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> My 'handwave', which for some reason you refuse to accept, is that magic per se is not as stable and predictable or as common as implied by the PHB, that PHB magic is only for PCs and a few exceptional NPCs.  OTOH I agree with your view that stable powerful kingdoms will attempt to control and use this small number of magic-users.



That's the way I've always played it, no matter what edition.  That's the way everyone else I've ever played with runs it.


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## sword-dancer (Aug 28, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Quite right.  That post was ridiculous, IMO.  Leiber's women had spunk and character.  They were nothing like, say, Howard's women.  Not that some of them didn't have spunk too.  I despise forced and unnatural political correctness for its own sake.



Look at Red Sonja  or black agnes.


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## sword-dancer (Aug 28, 2005)

Jyrdan Fairblade said:
			
		

> I wonder, is it even possible for a fantasy writer to avoid being even slightly influenced by D&D these days?



As Urban Fantasy or Historic Fantasy like Lackey, Kaye or Martin  proves.


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## francisca (Aug 28, 2005)

sword-dancer said:
			
		

> Look at Red Sonja  or black agnes.



Or Belit (sp?), the pirate queen.


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## JoeGKushner (Aug 28, 2005)

sword-dancer said:
			
		

> Look at Red Sonja  or black agnes.




I could be wrong, but was Red Sonja actually in any of Howard's Conan work or did she come latter in the 'shared' universe?


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## argo (Aug 28, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> I could be wrong, but was Red Sonja actually in any of Howard's Conan work or did she come latter in the 'shared' universe?



She was a Howard creation but not as part of the Hyborian age.  The story where he created her Howard has her as an adventurer in semi-historical Turkey, circa 1400 IIRC.  It was later that other authors moved the character to the Hyborian age.

Actually Howard wrote a lot of "historical fiction", it was the genre that got him into fantasy writting in the first place.  He only created the Hyborian age for Conan because he got tired of people nitpicking the historical inaccuracies in his stories.  Inventing a fictional proto-history let him use the historical tropes he wanted to without having to sweat the details.  Thus some Conan stories read like Arabian Nights while others read like a Wild West yarn.


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## S'mon (Aug 29, 2005)

Leiber and Howard both have strong female characters IMO - Nemia of the Dusk & the Eyes of Ogo are very different from Belit & Red Sonja, but they're definitely strong women!  They also have helpless damsels, though moreso in Howard.  Strong but scary females were always a major theme in Leiber; Howard had weak helpless females as well as butt-kicking warriors, and some apparently helpless but actually wily & ingenious females.  Neither should offend any but the most sensitive sensibilities.


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## Hussar (Aug 29, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> *snip*
> My 'handwave', which for some reason you refuse to accept, is that magic per se is not as stable and predictable or as common as implied by the PHB, that PHB magic is only for PCs and a few exceptional NPCs.  OTOH I agree with your view that stable powerful kingdoms will attempt to control and use this small number of magic-users.




Here's why I refuse to accept the whole 1% number.  The only justification for that number is because, as you said, classes should only apply to exceptional people - PC's and NPC's.  So, to phrase it another way, classes should only apply to people who are important to the adventure.  I do not accept that as a logical basis.  Saying that classes should only apply for narrative reasons is hardly a basis for a logical assumption.

Add to this the fact that many of the published material routinely ignored this number as well.  Look at modules like Cult of the Reptile God, Hommlet, heck, even Keep on the Borderlands, and you see classes far in excess of 1%.  Even NPC's that had little reason for having classes, like bartenders or farmers, were routinely fighters or whatnot.  

Plus, if you run with this 1% assumption, then the likelyhood of any adventuring group coming together becomes very, very small.  I'm no math wiz, but, even I know that the chances of 6 people who all come from 1% of the population, coming together in the same place and the same time AND all having similar enough outlooks to want to work together is pretty bloody slight.


I have a problem with trying to use a narrative assumption to justify realism in a game.  The 1% number isn't supported by the mechanics whatsoever.  Hrmm, the only reason Joe can't become a mage is because he's surplus to needs for the plot?  How is that realistic?  If PC classes were meant to only represent 1% of the population, they should have been much more difficult to become.  None of the 4 base classes require more than a 9 in a base stat.  Mechanically, there is no reason why classes shouldn't be more popular.

That's why I refuse to accept the handwave.  The assumption of only 1% of the population having a class has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with narrative.


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## The Shaman (Aug 29, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The assumption of only 1% of the population having a class has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with narrative.



If the assumption is that only stats determine entry into a class, then this might be true. However, I don't think that's any more "realistic" than the 1% blanket - the potential to be able to do something doesn't automatically translate into the ability to do it.

From an entirely practical standpoint, wizards (for example) could be rare because entry requirements for a mage guild, or finding a mentor, or public resentment of wizards, or the laws of the land, or social pressure to be a warrior, steer people with the potential to become wizards away from the profession. There are dozens of in-game reasons why wizards (and other adventuring, as opposed to NPC) classes are rare, even as low as 1%.

*Hussar*, I like to create worlds that "make sense," too, but I also know that "logic" and "realism" are often overused. Looking at the incredible variety of social constructs that exist in our own world, some of them seemingly "illogical" to our modern, usually Western way of thinking, I think just about anything can be reasonably justified in a fantasy world if the GM cares to do so. Too often gamers use logic and realism to argue that there is only one possible outcome or implication, when a look at how people conduct themselves in the world around us suggests that that is far from true.


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## S'mon (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The assumption of only 1% of the population having a class has nothing to do with realism...




*shrug* uh, yeah...  :\  it's just a workable assumption to create a workable campaign world that looks vaguely pseudo-medieval.


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## tetsujin28 (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> I do not accept that as a logical basis.  Saying that classes should only apply for narrative reasons is hardly a basis for a logical assumption.



Sure it is: the logical assumption that classes exist for narrative reasons. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it illogical.


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## Hussar (Aug 30, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> Sure it is: the logical assumption that classes exist for narrative reasons. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it illogical.




I hadn't actually thought of it like that.  If classes only exist for narrative reasons, then narrative restrictions apply.  The problem I see with that is there is very little to support the idea that classes only exist for narrative reasons other than the idea that if you allow classes to apply to everyone, then the baseline restrictions don't make sense.  It's a circular arguement.  

Classes are narrative because the restrictions on classes are narrative.  The restrictions on classes are narrative because the existence of classes is narrative.  I got accused of using tautologies early on.

S'mon, my point has always been, and will remain, that with the existence of stable magic and a fantasy assortment of races/creatures, you CANNOT have a medieval society such as seen in Howard or Tolkein.  Only by having magic incredibly rare, unstable and unpredictable, can you create a Tolkeinesque world.  DnD magic is not unstable or unpredictable.  In fact, it's entirely predictable.  Using DnD magic, you cannot create a Tolkeinesque world without making some very large and unrealistic assumptions.

Back to the original topic.  Recent authors have, by and large, embraced what I've just said.  Rowlings is but one example.  The Bartemaeus series and the Amber Spyglass books also root themselves in the idea that magic is predictable.  Modern fantasy has moved away from the idea that magic is this unknowable force a la Lovecraft, to a pseudo-science where magic is integrated into the society.  This is not a bad thing and, IMO, something that is an outgrowth of DnD itself.  

The popularity of DnD has driven the rise of Fantasy over the past couple of decades.  Prior to about 1975, you won't find a New York Times bestseller from the fantasy genre (with a couple of possible exceptions).  Now, names like Salvatore and of course Rowlings, regularly make appearances.  This is directly driven from DnD.  And the fantasy of the past couple of decades has largely been inspired by DnD - predictable magic that can be used as a tool rather than unknowable rites performed for inscrutable reasons.


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## The Shaman (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> S'mon, my point has always been, and will remain, that with the existence of stable magic and a fantasy assortment of races/creatures, you CANNOT have a medieval society such as seen in Howard or Tolkein.  Only by having magic incredibly rare, unstable and unpredictable, can you create a Tolkeinesque world.  DnD magic is not unstable or unpredictable.  In fact, it's entirely predictable.  Using DnD magic, you cannot create a Tolkeinesque world without making some very large and unrealistic assumptions.



*Hussar*, I'm really lost with respect to how you're defining "tolkienesque." (BTW, the "i" goes before the "e".  )

Magic in Middle-earth is incredibly powerful and no less predictable than that of many D&D spells. That fact that there isn't a lot of flashy spell-casting (though there is certainly some) is a direct consequence of its power, not the lack thereof. It's understood that the power of magic may be a corrupting influence (in the same vein as temporal power) and that it draws the attention of the forces of darkness (divination, anyone?), so it is used circumspectly.

It's really not all that rare, either - magic items pop up throughout the War of the Ring, and I would go so far as to call it abundant in earlier ages (considering for example the magic swords in the barrows).







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The popularity of DnD has driven the rise of Fantasy over the past couple of decades.  Prior to about 1975, you won't find a New York Times bestseller from the fantasy genre (with a couple of possible exceptions).



This is an interesting premise for which I would like to see other factors considered, such as how the marketing and retailing of books of all sorts and fantasy in particular has changed in the same time-period, or how authors approach fantasy as a writing genre. As it stands, I feel it may be important to remind you that correlation is not causation.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Now, names like Salvatore and of course Rowlings, regularly make appearances.  This is directly driven from DnD.  And the fantasy of the past couple of decades has largely been inspired by DnD - predictable magic that can be used as a tool rather than unknowable rites performed for inscrutable reasons.



I was inspired by this thread to take a stroll through the fantasy section of a B&N over the weekend, to check out some of the authors mentioned here.

I would suggest that the correlation noted above could be explained by the fact that fantasy authors have discovered what popular authors like Danielle Steele and Sydney Sheldon discovered a long time ago, that turning out light-weight page-turners appeals to a broader audience than dense novels with challenging themes. The fact that this work is popular doesn't really sway me to the merits of relying on more contemporary authors for building a gaming experience.


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## Hussar (Aug 30, 2005)

By Tolkienesque, I would say, low magic abilities on the part of the protagonists, magical items exist but are fairly rare - sure the Fellowship had a fair bit of loot, but, looking at the Hobbit, there isn't all that much.  Monsters are fairly rare (while yes, there's orcs and goblins, actual MONSTERS aren't all that common).  That's what Tolkienesque means to me.  None of that applies to a DnD setting where monsters are around nearly every corner, magical abilities are not rare in the protagonists - let's face it the standard party of 3 fighters, cleric, wizard and thief means that 1/3 of the party is a spellcaster - and magical items aren't all that rare judging by published modules.

As far as quantity over quality goes, well, I'm willing to stack up the best of the 21st centuries fantasy authors against Howard any day of the week.  Let's face it, great prose Howard is not.  I'll see your Howard and raise you a Mercedes Lackey, or CJ Cherryh or Donaldson or Pratchett.    The authors of today are most certainly not lacking in skill or creativity.  Yes, there are crap authors, but, then again, that's always been true.  For every Howard or Tolkien, there's a hundred other short story authors lying forgotten in the pages of the pulp books.

You're saying that DnD has had no effect on the popularity of fantasy as a genre.  That the rise in popularity of DND and other RPG's has had no effect on Fantasy as a genre.  Well, I'd point to R.A Salvatore and Weiss and Hickman to show the mistake of that.  Best selling authors whose work has been derived straight from DnD.  Would Dragonlance have been half as popular if it was published in the 60's?  I don't think so.  Would a certain dual wielding _DROW_ made the best sellers list without DND?  Not a chance.  No one would even know what a drow is without DnD.  

Like I said some time ago, it's a virtuous circle.  Elements from fantasy were drawn together to make DND.  DnD's rise has fueled the rise in the fantasy genre.  The rise in the fantasy genre has given rise to the idea that not every setting is required to be Middle Earth or Hyboria in order to be fantasy.  That has been ported back into DnD.  It goes around and around.  The ideas get bashed about, rewritten, revised and the meme passed back, all buffed and shiny.  

Is DnD based on the early "Golden Age" fantasy works?  Of course.  There's no denying it.  Does that mean that we should lock DnD into the same forms and ignore the wealth of information brought out by new fantasy authors?  Of course not.  Both the genre and the game evolve as new ideas and concepts are explored.  You can't ever really go back. 

 It's no longer enough to crank out a dungeon crawl in the middle of the wilderness for no reason other than to give the players something to kill.  Dungeons need to have an ecology to increase verisimilitude.  Look at the "Worst Modules" thread bouncing around and you'll see people thinking exactly that.  Twenty years ago, you didn't need a reason for that orc in the 10 foot room guarding a chest.  No one cared.  We do now.  Because, as gamers, we've evolved and changed, and, well, become considerably more sophisticated.  That's an element that has been reflected in fantasy as well.  It's not enough just to plunk a serpent cult in the middle of the mountains.  Now you need to explore where they get their food and why the heck they are there and not on some comfortable beach somewhere.  

I for one, would never want to go back to the days when the DM could simple wave away any sort of nod towards realism and just plunk down 10 different kinds of humanoids in the middle of a ravine with nothing to eat, a half days walk from a fortress.  As a DM, I would never want to present this to my players without a pretty good explanation.


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## S'mon (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> S'mon, my point has always been, and will remain, that with the existence of stable magic and a fantasy assortment of races/creatures, you CANNOT have a medieval society such as seen in Howard or Tolkein.  Only by having magic incredibly rare, unstable and unpredictable, can you create a Tolkeinesque world.  DnD magic is not unstable or unpredictable.  In fact, it's entirely predictable.  Using DnD magic, you cannot create a Tolkeinesque world without making some very large and unrealistic assumptions.




"Very large and unrealistic assumptions"?  - you mean the assumption that magic is not as common in the world at large as it is in the environment experienced by the PCs?  I have no problem with that - low level scenarios are set in unusual borderland areas where civilisation meets savagery and you have to be tough to survive.  High level scenarios are set amongst the world's movers & shakers, involving quests that will become the stuff of future legends.

I think a fundamental disconnect here is that I am the sort of GM who first decides the kind of campaign world I want, with little or no reference to the specific ruleset.  In my case my campaign world derives from Leiber, Howard, a lot of Moorcock and some Tolkien, and very little from modern D&D.  I don't see the rules as a world-building tool.  As a wise sage said, "rules are for players" - the rules are there to help the players interact with the milieu, not to define that milieu.  Hence I take the opposite approach from that advocated by Monte Cook in the 3.0 DMG.  If I need to change the rules and the baseline D&D assumptions to get the milieu I want, I change those, not the setting.  I've used different rules for the same setting depending on the ruleset I'm using (edit: for the kind of game I want to run - swords & sorcery PBEM, dungeon crawl, skirmish wargame etc), and an NPC in my setting will stay the same person whatever ruleset.  If the D&D ruleset can't properly define a Heavenly Mountains Guardian (a sort of martial sorceress-monk) I'll do an approximation within the D&D ruleset, but only to the extent needed for that NPC to interact with D&D-statted PCs.  Stuff doesn't need to be defined in the ruleset to exist in the campaign world, _it only needs to be defined to the extent necessary to interact with the PCs_.

Once this is accepted, logic problems re the particular ruleset largely disappear.


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## S'mon (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Plus, if you run with this 1% assumption, then the likelyhood of any adventuring group coming together becomes very, very small.  I'm no math wiz, but, even I know that the chances of 6 people who all come from 1% of the population, coming together in the same place and the same time AND all having similar enough outlooks to want to work together is pretty bloody slight.




The reason you're wrong here is the simple one that like-minded people always tend to congregate together, whether they are police, military, criminal gangs, bail bondsmen, nurses, volunteer workers or any other group.  Taking professional criminals as an example, they frequent the same bars, have the same interests, similar aptitudes.  Obviously they sometimes come together to form groups and even large networks.


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## The Shaman (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> By Tolkienesque, I would say, low magic abilities on the part of the protagonists, magical items exist but are fairly rare - sure the Fellowship had a fair bit of loot, but, looking at the Hobbit, there isn't all that much.



Beater, Biter, the Ring - three powerful items in a pretty short story. 







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Monsters are fairly rare (while yes, there's orcs and goblins, actual MONSTERS aren't all that common).



Worgs, ents, giant intelligent spiders, dragons, ringwraiths, the Balrog, Shelob, the dinosaur-like mounts of the _Nazgul_, trolls, lycanthropes (such as Beorn), giant eagles, animal spies - again, I don't see the lack of monsters, particularly when compared to the Conan stories. (And that's without getting into the Silmarillion.)

*Hussar*, I do take your point - what is in core D&D is quite different from what's in Tolkein, or Howard, or LeGuin. 







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> As far as quantity over quality goes, well, I'm willing to stack up the best of the 21st centuries fantasy authors against Howard any day of the week.  Let's face it, great prose Howard is not.  I'll see your Howard and raise you a Mercedes Lackey, or CJ Cherryh or Donaldson or Pratchett.



Howard's purple prose is appropriate to the story he wants to tell - he wasn't writing _Ulysses_. As far as Lackey _et al._, I'm only personally familar with CJ Cherryh, and I find the language to be pretty pedestrian - nothing that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck like Howard. This is a matter of taste of course, and so it's not something that can be compared with any rigor.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The authors of today are most certainly not lacking in skill or creativity.



Again, this is a question of taste, but I can say after looking over title after title, the amount of derivative, repetitive plots and characters, coupled with inoffensive prose good for all time zones didn't wow me.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> For every Howard or Tolkien, there's a hundred other short story authors lying forgotten in the pages of the pulp books.



That's what makes the classics, classics - they stand the test of time.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> You're saying that DnD has had no effect on the popularity of fantasy as a genre.  That the rise in popularity of DND and other RPG's has had no effect on Fantasy as a genre.



No, that's not even in the same area code as what I said, and I'll thank you to not put words in my mouth...er, post.

What I said was your premise that the growth of the fantasy genre is a phenomenon related directly to the influence of D&D needs some more convincing evidence.  Correlation (two things happening simultaneously) is not causation (the change in one is not dependent on the other.) Do I think it's a potentially significant influence? Yes. Do I think you can look at the two in isolation from all the other factors that affect the popularity of fiction genres? No, I don't.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Well, I'd point to R.A Salvatore and Weiss and Hickman to show the mistake of that.  Best selling authors whose work has been derived straight from DnD.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Hussar (Aug 30, 2005)

^ So you figure that a priest, a rogue and a paladin all find themselves in the same place frequently enough that the makings of an adventuring party doesn't stretch the bounds of random chance.  

  Does sound like the good start to a joke though:

A priest, a paladin and a rogue walk into a bar...  

Seeing your example though, I can see why we have such a problem coming together on this.  I've always designed my campaigns based on the mechanics, even in my 1e days I did this.  One of my favourite homebrews was an outgrowth of an arguement with a friend of mine over who would win between clerics and wizards.  A purely mechanical arguement led to a five year campaign under a number of different groups.  But, I've never started from the point of view of, "This is the world as it is." rather than "How would the world be if X is true?"

In the end, it's more a question of personal preference.  I have difficulty ignoring the impact of mechanics on a campaign setting.  Obviously.    I don't like the idea of ignoring the RAW and making the RAW shoehorn into a campaign setting.  I would rather work from the other direction, simply because it reduces the amount of work I have to do.   

IMO, when you start with a setting and then try to make it fit into a particular ruleset, then you wind up with a boatload of house rules and ad hoc reasons for the existence of various elements.  I don't like that.  It's not my style of gaming.  Mostly becuase different settings would claim X and then completely ignore it.  The 1% concept being a particularly obvious suspect.  I understand where you're coming from, I just don't subscribe to those assumptions when creating a campaign setting.  I would much prefer that an element fits with existing mechanics than make an exception for a particular element, particularly if the only reason I'm making that assumption is narrative based.

I'm not saying you're wrong S'mon.  At least, not anymore  .  Just that the assumptions you start from are radically different than the ones I come from.


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## S'mon (Aug 30, 2005)

BTW re authors, few of the higher-quality modern authors like Donaldson & Cherryh were at all D&D influenced - I'd say Donaldson and Cherryh's seminal work was in the 1980s, before D&D fantasy fiction became widespread, and Donaldson isn't really even very 'modern' in tone IMO.  I haven't read Brust's Vlad Taltos novels so that may be an exception, but in general my impression is that D&D-derived fantasy fiction is of rather low quality, notably lower quality than fantasy fiction in general.  Of course it can be extremely popular, eg Salvatore (and he certainly writes good fight scenes), but there's a reasonable case that D&D per se has harmed more than helped the quality of the genre, even as it has increased sales.


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## S'mon (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> ^ So you figure that a priest, a rogue and a paladin all find themselves in the same place frequently enough that the makings of an adventuring party doesn't stretch the bounds of random chance.
> 
> Does sound like the good start to a joke though:
> 
> A priest, a paladin and a rogue walk into a bar...




If it's an "adventurer bar", why not?   :\   Similar people congregate in similar places.  IRL groups of bank robbers, mercenaries, polar exploreres and bail bondsmen certainly manage to get together.  Obviously the "you all met in a bar" cliche is overused.  That doesn't mean there's anything implausible about groups of like-minded individuals getting together.  IMC I tend to have PCs who know each other and have the PC group formed before the campaign began, eg in my latest campaign the PC party of adventurers was recruited by the PC priest Cambyses to explore the Lost City of Barakus.  This took several visits to several bars and such, gathering information on like-minded individuals, etc - the kind of stuff that happens IRL all the time.  The group continues to look out for potential recruits in inns & taverns, and occasionally finds some, even though adventurers are much less than 1% of the population in my campaign area.


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## The Shaman (Aug 30, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Worgs, ents, giant intelligent spiders, dragons, ringwraiths, the Balrog, Shelob, the dinosaur-like mounts of the _Nazgul_, trolls, lycanthropes (such as Beorn), giant eagles, animal spies...



...oh, and I forgot the Watcher in the Water, and Old Man Willow, and Goldberry, and the barrow-wights, and ghosts, and _mumakil_.


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## S'mon (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm not saying you're wrong S'mon.  At least, not anymore  .  Just that the assumptions you start from are radically different than the ones I come from.




Yup.  I do have a lot of house rules running 3e; my campaign world initially developed in 1986 running 1e and back then very few house rules were needed.  As the world has developed and as the current ruleset has deviated from 1e norms, more changes have been needed.  It has taken me a while with 3e to see what changes needed to be made to default demographics to fit my setting, and it's an ongoing process - eg 3e turned out to require far more NPCs above 1st level than 1e (or core 3e demographics), with fewer very high level NPCs (since 20th in 3e is far more powerful than 20th in 1e), in order to keep the right feel.  I've settled on 12th in 3e being about equivalent to 20th in 1e in terms of power; with about 50% of NPCs 1st level, half number each higher level.  But the important thing is that this is usually only relevant in PC-NPC interaction, eg how many mooks can the PC fighter kill, or what spells can the NPC wizard cast at the PCs.


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## The Shaman (Aug 30, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> I think a fundamental disconnect here is that I am the sort of GM who first decides the kind of campaign world I want, with little or no reference to the specific ruleset....I don't see the rules as a world-building tool....If I need to change the rules and the baseline D&D assumptions to get the milieu I want, I change those, not the setting.



I take the same approach - I create the world I want to play in, and tweak the rules as needed to bring it to life.


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## Hussar (Aug 30, 2005)

> May I suggest, Hussar, that your tastes are not necessarily the tastes of all gamers, that there are in fact some very good adventures that ignore ecological verisimilitude and yet are entirely consistent with their game-world. White Plume Mountain is not supposed to reflect an ecology - it's a trap- and monster-filled test for adventurers created by a crazy wizard using powerful magic to protect more magic. It's supposed to defy logic.




Might I perhaps suggest that the fact that you point to a 25 year old module is pretty much exactly what I said.  If you published White Plume Mountain now, I highly doubt it would receive the reception it got back then.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 30, 2005)

> Originally Posted by Hussar
> As far as quantity over quality goes, well, I'm willing to stack up the best of the 21st centuries fantasy authors against Howard any day of the week. Let's face it, great prose Howard is not. I'll see your Howard and raise you a Mercedes Lackey, or CJ Cherryh or Donaldson or Pratchett.




You're comparing not apples and oranges, but rather poker and blackjack.  The writers use all of the same tools, but the rules under which they must operate are VERY different.

Howard's stuff is clearly pulp influenced (no big surprise there!), which tended towards excruciatingly descriptive details on the surroundings and violence.  Protagonists are monolithic, unchanging, iconic ideals, their worldviews very black and white, even if they walk along the grey boundaries.  Their conflicts are easily defined.  The heroes are to be admired and emulated...maybe even worshipped.  We identify with them because we wish we could BE them.

Meanwhile Lackey and the others' work show more modern influences, especially the snarky Pratchett. They're more interested in character development and internal states than earlier writers.  Cherryh spends equal time writing sci fi and fantasy, and it shows.  Ditto Donaldson.  The characters are often regular people thrust into unusual situations.  We identify with them because we ARE them.  Their worldviews are all shades of grey, their conflicts involve sliding scales of morality.


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## davidschwartznz (Aug 30, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Plus, if you run with this 1% assumption, then the likelyhood of any adventuring group coming together becomes very, very small.  I'm no math wiz, but, even I know that the chances of 6 people who all come from 1% of the population, coming together in the same place and the same time AND all having similar enough outlooks to want to work together is pretty bloody slight.



Haven't you just described a gaming group?


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 30, 2005)

davidschwartznz said:
			
		

> Haven't you just described a gaming group?




That was, in fact, his point.


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## Hussar (Aug 31, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> You're comparing not apples and oranges, but rather poker and blackjack.  The writers use all of the same tools, but the rules under which they must operate are VERY different.
> 
> Howard's stuff is clearly pulp influenced (no big surprise there!), which tended towards excruciatingly descriptive details on the surroundings and violence.  Protagonists are monolithic, unchanging, iconic ideals, their worldviews very black and white, even if they walk along the grey boundaries.  Their conflicts are easily defined.  The heroes are to be admired and emulated...maybe even worshipped.  We identify with them because we wish we could BE them.
> 
> Meanwhile Lackey and the others' work show more modern influences, especially the snarky Pratchett. They're more interested in character development and internal states than earlier writers.  Cherryh spends equal time writing sci fi and fantasy, and it shows.  Ditto Donaldson.  The characters are often regular people thrust into unusual situations.  We identify with them because we ARE them.  Their worldviews are all shades of grey, their conflicts involve sliding scales of morality.





I'll agree with that 100%.  That's pretty much been my point from the beginning.  However, others here are trying to argue that the older writers have defined the genre and any deviation from that basic definition is somehow inferior.  Or at least, that's how I've interpreted what they've said.

I would, in no way try to argue that "golden age" fantasy is any better or worse than modern fantasy.  Saying that it's all mindless drivel a la Steel or Sheldon ignores the very excellent work that's being done recently.  Tad Williams creates a fantasy setting in the Dragonbone Chair series that compares favourably in depth and style with anyone's in the business.  I am certainly not going to write off everyone who's writing after 1972 simply because it's "boring" or "derivative".  That's a completely unsupportable arguement and hyperbole to boot.  

Let's face it, prior to 1970, fantasy was a tiny little genre read by very few people (with a couple of exceptions).  After the release and giant popularity of DnD, fantasy suddenly becomes a major player.  Those of us old enough to remember, can remember going into a bookstore, and, if they even had a fantasy section, it was a single shelf tucked into the back of the store.  By the mid 80's, the fantasy sections of the larger bookstores rivalled any other section in the store.  It can be argued that it's simple coincidence, but, I'm not buying it.  DnD drove fantasy into the bookstores and onto the bookshelves.  Take a look at the original Thieves World anthologies.  Prior to their release, every fantasy anthology was a giant black hole of lost profits.  Thieves World not only made money, it made a LOT of money.  Now, who was buying those books in 1981?  Was it the standard book buyer who had never bought fantasy books before and suddenly decided that fantasy looked like a good thing?  Or was it the guy who just got into DnD, like the hundreds of thousands like him, looking for stories that looked and felt like a DND game?


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## Turjan (Aug 31, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Cherryh spends equal time writing sci fi and fantasy, and it shows.



Hmm, memories ! I always had a soft spot for her science fantasy, although I only know it in translations. I've got still quite a lot of her science fiction stuff on my shelves. The last one is "Downbelow Station", I think.


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## Turjan (Aug 31, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> After the release and giant popularity of DnD, fantasy suddenly becomes a major player.  Those of us old enough to remember, can remember going into a bookstore, and, if they even had a fantasy section, it was a single shelf tucked into the back of the store.  By the mid 80's, the fantasy sections of the larger bookstores rivalled any other section in the store.  It can be argued that it's simple coincidence, but, I'm not buying it.  DnD drove fantasy into the bookstores and onto the bookshelves.



I'm not convinced. I come from a country where D&D was mostly unknown among teenagers and where it never was one of the major players in the RPG market before the advent of Baldurs Gate. At least there, the fantasy boom didn't owe anything to D&D, except maybe the translated originals from the US. I will not exclude, though, that things went below my radar. I still have to touch a single Drizzt novel.


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## sword-dancer (Aug 31, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Howard's stuff is clearly pulp influenced (no big surprise there!), which tended towards excruciatingly descriptive details on the surroundings and violence.  Protagonists are monolithic, unchanging, iconic ideals, their worldviews very black and white, even if they walk along the grey boundaries. .



I doubt you`ve read the original Conan stories.
Conan develops himself over the road of his life, but these pulp Characters Conan, Kull, Elric... live whenall is said andcounted by their own rules, they`re not angst ridden, they don`t believe in justifying what they do.
This Axe  is my Scepter, said Kull after he smashed the law which forbidds him to do what he seemed right.
Like it or like it not, i don`t care, if you don´t want me to do it so try it, take my crown


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## Hussar (Aug 31, 2005)

Having read the original Conan stories many times, I'd say that DannyA has it nailed pretty well.  Regardless of what Conan is doing at the time - robbing a house, leading a Turanian charge, running a kingdom, he's pretty much the same character.  He doesn't change.  He's iconic and larger than life.  His character is static and that's probably a major part of its appeal.

Turjan, I would argue that the reason those stories made it into translation is due to the fact that they became so popular in the States.  Without that popularity, publishers would be unwilling to translate them into other languages.  We see this with movies all the time.  Despite being crap many times, Hollywood movies get translated into pretty much every language on the planet.  How many Korean movies have you seen lately?


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## tetsujin28 (Aug 31, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Might I perhaps suggest that the fact that you point to a 25 year old module is pretty much exactly what I said.  If you published White Plume Mountain now, I highly doubt it would receive the reception it got back then.



Probably true. It would appeal to that segment of the market that enjoys more free-wheeling adventures, but not to the children of the '90s with their plot-based orientation.


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## tetsujin28 (Aug 31, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> Hmm, memories ! I always had a soft spot for her science fantasy, although I only know it in translations. I've got still quite a lot of her science fiction stuff on my shelves. The last one is "Downbelow Station", I think.



Cherryh's fantasy/sf stuff is really under-rated.


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## Turjan (Aug 31, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> Cherryh's fantasy/sf stuff is really under-rated.



Yes, some of her books are really good, even without my personal nostalgia factor .


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## Turjan (Aug 31, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Turjan, I would argue that the reason those stories made it into translation is due to the fact that they became so popular in the States.  Without that popularity, publishers would be unwilling to translate them into other languages.  We see this with movies all the time.  Despite being crap many times, Hollywood movies get translated into pretty much every language on the planet.  How many Korean movies have you seen lately?



That's not that easy in this case. Being popular in the US definitely helps with being translated in the first place. That doesn't help selling the books, though. People must have some incentive to buy them . I think it's movies like Star Wars that slowly paved the path to success. I'm sure there are quite a lot of people who made the SF->Space Opera->Science Fantasy->Fantasy transition.

Your book/movie analogy doesn't work exactly like that in my home country. As books have fixed prices (even on amazon they have the same ), publishers take more risks with completely unknown foreign authors. And as state TV is paid by compulsory fees, they also translate Korean films that potentially 5 people watch around Tuesday midnight.


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## davidschwartznz (Aug 31, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> That was, in fact, his point.



My point is: Getting a cohesive group from a small percentage of the population together may be hard, but it's not 'bloody slight'. A fantasy world may not have the advantage of the Law of Large Numbers (which may, in part, justify why we're able to have this conversation right now), but it does have the Law of Large Monsters - which certainly puts an imperative on the adventurous sort to get together (even if they do have the occasional personality conflicts - just like a gaming group).


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## barsoomcore (Aug 31, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> As far as quantity over quality goes, well, I'm willing to stack up the best of the 21st centuries fantasy authors against Howard any day of the week. Let's face it, great prose Howard is not. I'll see your Howard and raise you a Mercedes Lackey, or CJ Cherryh or Donaldson or Pratchett.



Um, snicker?

MERCEDES HACKEY (sorry, couldn't resist) as an example of great prose? Okay, whatever. What's next, Anne McCaffery?

Cherryh has interesting ideas and Donaldson's got stones, and Pratchett's funny enough to get around anything, but NONE of those writers are producing great prose.

Steven Brust is, but nobody reads him anyway.

But okay, throw down: Give a a quote from one of the above named authors (except Steven Brust) that demonstrates a level of prose quality that you think Howard is incapable of. I'll smack you down with a quote from Howard that blows it away.

One thing Howard's DEFINITELY got going for him is very strong prose. He's a powerful, exciting writer who isn't always the best thinker about the human condition, occasionally uses racial stereotypes instead of defining characters, and is a little too fond of wacky coincidence to suit my tastes, but his PROSE? Howard kicks prose butt.


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## MoogleEmpMog (Aug 31, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Um, snicker?
> 
> MERCEDES HACKEY (sorry, couldn't resist) as an example of great prose? Okay, whatever. What's next, Anne McCaffery?
> 
> ...




Goodness, yes.  Donaldson or Lackey as "great prose"?  Yeeech.  There's good fantasy being written yet (or was in the '80s, I can't think of a single post 1995 fantasy novel I've enjoyed that wasn't unambiguosly a 'trashy quick summer read' or a Discworld novel).  Better than Howard?  I seriously doubt it; I find Howard's prose the very best in the business.

Pratchett is a brilliant humorist, but he's a humorist first, a fantasist second.  As well call Dave Barry a great fantasy writer!  He's written about giant insects and magic from time to time, and he's certainly funny.

Go back to when Glen Cook was churning out Black Company novels and I'll say there's good fantasy, perhaps even approaching Howard's level.  Since then?  Not so much.

Personally, I've found far more innovate settings and well-told stories in console RPGs of the last ten years than in the fantasy novels of the same period.  If future pen-and-paper RPGs take their cue from the former, I'll be pleased as punch.  If the latter, well, it's not like I have to use their generic, 90s-mentality-in-pseudo-medieval-trappings settings, and since no one even tries to put together any metaplot anymore, much less an interesting one, no worries on that account.


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## tetsujin28 (Aug 31, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Um, snicker?



Word. None of the current crop are nearly as good as Howard, Leiber, A.A. Merritt, C.L. Moore...not only are they lacking in any ability to write decent prose, they lack originality.







> Steven Brust is, but nobody reads him anyway.



_Did_, up 'till Tekla. Then it went rapidly downhill. _Gypsie_? *yeesh* Just plain awful.


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## MonsterMash (Sep 1, 2005)

Pratchett is one of the few authors that I know played D&D - he has mentioned it in interviews with gaming magazines back when his books first started appearing, for example the luggage was actually in a D&D game originally. Not sure what edition though (must have been either OD&D, BD&D or 1e due to the period though).


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## Krypter (Sep 1, 2005)

I agree with Moogle and Barsoomcore that few, if any, of today's fantasy writers can match the great masters of the past...and I'm not some old, nostalgic fogey! Their prose is just plain better, though I understand that people's tastes will vary according to their preference for high-brow or middle-brow culture. I just finished reading Perdido Street Station (a modern book which has won awards and plaudits left and right) and was terribly disappointed, not by the world (which was very interesting), but by the story and prose. It was mediocre, and it seemed to reek of D&D.  D&D needs to go back to the roots for some of its inspiration. I think the success of "originalist" books like Iron Heroes and Grim Tales attests to this. 

As for Vance, if you want to see which RPG was most influenced by his work, try Talislanta. It's a wonderful interpretation of his worlds, without being a hack clone. The weird spell names, strange creatures, devastated landscapes, eccentric wizards and circumlocutious descriptions are all there. 

I also agree that today's authors make magic too commonplace, and reflect too much the contorted politics, political-correctness and sensibilities of our times. They create bland, magic-suffused worlds that appeal to everyone and no-one. 

I don't agree with the "high-magic/low-magic" dichotomy. I want my worlds to be dazzlingly high-magic and my characters/players solidly mundane; therein lies the adventure. 

I think Howard, Leiber, White, and Glen Cook got it exactly right. 

Last note: I blame today's educational system for the shortcomings of modern writers. The great masters had a far better classical education than any university is capable of today. Even as our sciences have gotten better, our humanities have degenerated in a horrendous fashion. That too, is a sad reflection of the politics of our times.  :\


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 2, 2005)

> Last note: I blame today's educational system for the shortcomings of modern writers. The great masters had a far better classical education than any university is capable of today. Even as our sciences have gotten better, our humanities have degenerated in a horrendous fashion. That too, is a sad reflection of the politics of our times.




Don't blame the system, the educational system is just there to give you the fundamentals and perhaps erect some signs in your line of  sight towards points of interest...

The person with the most responsibility for educating a person is THAT PERSON.  I've got friends who learned greek to read certain philosophers in their original words.  I've got a personal library numbering thousands of books: fiction and non-fiction; sci/fantasy and "classics;" philosophy and sciences.

If the writers of today are poorly read, then its on their own heads.

Besides, even those writers with brilliant minds make occasional gaffes.  I've read several ruminations on the craft by luminaries like Asimov, Niven, Bester and others who point out (with great humor, I might add) the errors they and others have made in their worlds' physics, economics, continuity, and even the basics of grammar.

Example:  Zelazny's 10 book cycle of The Chronicles of Amber has recently been collected into an omnibus edition...and the stories are FULL of innapropriately used homonyms.  Ultimately, the final error in the missed corrections is on the part of the editors...but Zelazny erred FIRST and FUNDAMENTALLY.


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## Thotas (Sep 2, 2005)

I've actually found it harder to find good science-fiction and fantasy since the popularities of Tolkien and Star Wars upped the amount both genres to be found in stores about a generation ago.  It's entirely possible that with the increase of material that there's an increase in good material, but there is _definately_ an increase in the bad, to the point where the signal to noise ration is extremely frustrating.  

And there is good and bad in whatever era you look at.  For example the "classic" Amber Chronicle mentioned above ... I found a major plot point in the first book to be so un-grandma-friendly-adjective assinine that there's no way in blazes I'm touching anything past it.  Many people have told me that if I read further, it will make sense.  They don't say anything further, I assume because they don't want to spoil it.  They fail to understand that without a very good explanation of how it isn't stupid, there's nothing to spoil 'cause I'm not reading it.  

On the other hand, if you claim to like fantasy and haven't read Lieber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, it's as if you claim to like Italian food but just haven't tried pasta yet.  Age is no excuse.


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## Turjan (Sep 2, 2005)

Krypter said:
			
		

> As for Vance, if you want to see which RPG was most influenced by his work, try Talislanta. It's a wonderful interpretation of his worlds, without being a hack clone. The weird spell names, strange creatures, devastated landscapes, eccentric wizards and circumlocutious descriptions are all there.



I agree concerning Talislanta, although I sometimes have the feeling that, in some places, it's different just to be different, whereas in other regards it only pretends to be different without actually being so . Anyway, for RPGs influenced by Vance I'd like to add the "Dying Earth RPG". That one breathes that much Vancian prose that it's getting very difficult for people who aren't native English speakers .


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## Hussar (Sep 2, 2005)

^ Agree fully on the "Dying Earth RPG"  Bloody fantastic game.  Very, very fun.  And, difficult for some so-called native speakers as well.  

Like I said, I've mentioned quite a few authors here that are very good.  Tad Williams?  Excellent fantasy author.  Erikson?  Also very, very good.  

But, I will agree that the number of bad GREATLY outnumbers the good.  I won't argue that one at all.  There's tons of crap out there.  But, then again, there always has been.  

As a question though, would you say Moorcock is classic or modern?  He's riding the cusp IMO.  I'm just asking.

But, really, people who sit back and say nothing good has been written in the past twenty years, need to head to the library more often.  It's kind of like the people who claim that no good music has been made since X.  Nostalgia doesn't make something true.

On the point about White Plume Mountain, I think we actually agree.  The older modules, like a lot of the older fantasy, simply handwaved away all issues of realism in favour of plot.  Why are those cultists hanging out in the mountain, just waiting for Conan to find them?  What are they eating, sitting in a mountain in the middle of a desert?  We don't know and we don't care.  We're reading Conan to see Conan kick butt and take names.  Same goes for something like White Plume Mountain.  An amazingly fun module with about as much realism as a rubber hammer.  

As a genre, fantasy has evolved past those days.  We can no longer simply plunk down a sprawling maze in the middle of nowhere without explaining how it can exist.  Why?  Because, as readers, we've become a tad more sophisticated, we've seen the "Cultists hanging out in the middle of the desert" more than a few times, and we've finally started to ask some of the hard questions.  It isn't a case of angst ridden drama queens taking over the genre, it's a case of actually slamming a couple of brain cells together and saying, "Hey, wait a minute, just exactly how does this work?"


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 2, 2005)

Moorcock is at least part of the bridge between modern and older styles...especially if you read the Jerry Cornelius and the Dancers at the End of Time stuff...who needs acid when you've got THAT?


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## Hussar (Sep 2, 2005)

:rotf:

To be fair, my fav Moorcock will always be the first three of the Krieghund series.  The last one blows chunks, but, the first three, particularly the first one, is fantastic.


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## Krypter (Sep 2, 2005)

On a somewhat related note, do any Leiber fans know where I can track down the comic book adaptation of Ill Met in Lankhmar? It was a great series from around 1990, drawn by Mike Mignola (see a review here). I haven't had any luck with ebay or amazon. The art was phenomenal, and I think it was collected into a graphic novel at some point. Tips? Pointers? Are there any websites that cater to finding old comics? All appreciated.


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## The Shaman (Sep 2, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> It's no longer enough to crank out a dungeon crawl in the middle of the wilderness for no reason other than to give the players something to kill.  Dungeons need to have an ecology to increase verisimilitude.  Look at the "Worst Modules" thread bouncing around and you'll see people thinking exactly that.



I finally got around to reading the "worst adventures" thread, and after originally reading your comment here, I was quite surprised to find that it says nothing of the kind.

I didn't find a single reference to _White Plume Mountain_ in the worst adventures thread - there were only one or two references to _Keep on the Borderlands_, _Palace of the Silver Princess_, and _In Search of the Unknown_, IIRC, and a couple of reactions to _Tomb of Horrors_, but none of these negative comments had anything to do with "dungeon crawls in the middle of a wilderness."

In fact the most common source of disparaging remarks (including your own...) had to do with modules that were heavy on metaplot and railroaded the players and their characters along a pre-determined plot line – Dragonlance seemed to earn the greatest ire. The subjects of ecological or cultural verisimilitude never came up in the six pages of posts that I read.

I have no idea what you're citing as the basis for the opinion expressed above.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Twenty years ago, you didn't need a reason for that orc in the 10 foot room guarding a chest.  No one cared.  We do now.  Because, as gamers, we've evolved and changed, and, well, become considerably more sophisticated.  That's an element that has been reflected in fantasy as well.  It's not enough just to plunk a serpent cult in the middle of the mountains.  Now you need to explore where they get their food and why the heck they are there and not on some comfortable beach somewhere.



Again, I disagree.

First, let's let the 1e DMG comment on the view taken toward ecology and fantasy gaming, c. 1979 (twenty-six years ago):







			
				EGG said:
			
		

> *Climate and Ecology*
> When you develop your world, leave plenty of area for cultivation, even more for wildlife. Indicate the general sorts of creatures inhabiting an area, using logic with regard to natural balance. This is not to say that you must be textbook perfect, it is merely a cautionary word to remind you not to put in too many large carnivores without any visible means of support. Some participants in your campaign might question the ecology- particularly if it does not favor their favorite player characters. You must be prepared to justify it….Dungeons likewise must be balanced and justified, or else wildly improbable and caused by some supernatural entity which keeps the whole thing running - or at least has set it up to run until another stops it.



More than twenty years ago the primary text on constructing adventures and campaigns for D&D suggested that GMs consider some basic ecology in constructing their game-worlds. The idea that this is some sort of recent development, somehow shaped by contemporary fantasy fiction, isn't borne out by a simple look back at the rules of the day.

The 1e AD&D _DMG_ section quoted above concludes with the following:







			
				EGG said:
			
		

> In any event, do not allow either the demands of "realism" or impossible makebelieve to spoil your milieu. Climate and ecology are simply reminders to use a bit of care!



In a fantasy game, anything is possible - my view is that 90% of the world represents the probable and the other 10% the improbable and even the impossible. I have no problem with writing a White Plume Mountain into my games - the adventurers spend their lives immersed in that 10% because that's where the adventure is - the fame, the glory, the untold riches.

I think authors like Leiber and Howard and Moorcock and Tolkien understood this intellectually and viscerally - they wrote to that 10%. Later authors took a couple of different approaches: Some still wrote to that 10%, but by aping those classic writers, recycling thematic elements but without the elegant prose and the spark of genius that inhabited the earlier works. (Terry Brooks, I’m talking to you and those who followed your example.) Others among contemporary fantasists seem drawn instead to exploring the 90% through a mix of post-modernist contextualism and marxfem philosophy, perhaps to add “depth” to fantasy that the “dinosaurs” of the genre lack (or maybe just to show how far beyond the pale they can be).

Are their stories better? Without diving into the merits of literary criticism, I can only say that it’s a matter of taste. The more important question here and now is, do they make for good gaming? I’m simply not well-versed enough in contemporary fantasy to offer an informed opinion. I can offer a couple of metatextual observations however. (Yeah, I can work some post-modern mojo, too.)

Taking a look once again at that worst adventures thread, it seems that many of the adventures deemed “worst” by our ENWorld peers are those steeped in metaplot, where the adventurers are reduced to being passive observers while other heroes do great things. Conversely, the best adventures thread and the commentary on the _Wilderlands of High Fantasy_ all point to the classic feel of those “dungeon crawls” that some enjoy ridiculing. Many gamers enjoy angsty navel-gazing, perhaps following in the example of more contemporary fantasy authors' desire to explore the implications or inner life of fantasy worlds and characters – others enjoy more red-blooded, often politically incorrect kick-in-the-door, kill-things-and-take-their-stuff, then blow-it-all-on-whores-and-ale adventures in the style of the classic writers of the genre. (Please note that I am not attempting to disparage either style of gaming – I’m really just going for a cheap laugh with my descriptions.  ) It seems to me that perhaps the former group of gamers might draw more inspiration from contemporary fantasists while the latter would seek the classic authors for guidance.

For myself, I write my games to the 10%, so I will continue to mine fantasy classics, literary and cinematic, both well-known and obscure for inspiration.


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## kigmatzomat (Sep 2, 2005)

Thotas said:
			
		

> I've actually found it harder to find good science-fiction and fantasy since the popularities of Tolkien and Star Wars upped the amount both genres to be found in stores about a generation ago.  It's entirely possible that with the increase of material that there's an increase in good material, but there is _definately_ an increase in the bad, to the point where the signal to noise ration is extremely frustrating.




Try baen.com.  They've got an excellent stable of authors that run from sci-fi to fantasy to alternate history.  David Weber's Bahzell books are wonderful fantasy with a solid setting.  Holly Lisle is very engaging even if I feel her worlds tend to be a bit thin.  John Ringo's sci-fi is like David Drake's Slammers but with character development.  

The best part is they post 4-8 chapters of many books on their site so you can decide if the writer's a hack or a genius before you buy.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 3, 2005)

> I think authors like Leiber and Howard and Moorcock and Tolkien understood this intellectually and viscerally - they wrote to that 10%. Later authors took a couple of different approaches: Some still wrote to that 10%, but by aping those classic writers, recycling thematic elements but without the elegant prose and the spark of genius that inhabited the earlier works. (Terry Brooks, I’m talking to you and those who followed your example.)




You are undoubtedly referring to the _Shanarra_ books.  In defense of T. Brooks, I would have to point out that what some percieve as ripping off JRRT is not neccessarily the case.

Tolkien's originality lay in his creation of new languages, and that while his prose is beautiful, his plot points were clearly derived from other sources.  Many elements of his opus can be found in Grimm's Fairy tales and the numerous epics from the various literatures of Europe.  Tolkien's masterstroke was that he was able to synthesize a new tale in a relatively new form (the Novel) that nonetheless echoed the familiar stories of legend.  He took old forms and gave sent them in some slightly different directions, while simultaneously widening the scope of the tales- of all the epics, few beyond the Illiad have so grand a stage.

The thing is, Tolkien's work did not erase that original source material from existence, and any other subsequent author is as free as he was to mine the same literary veins.  Brooks does use some of the same imagery as JRRT, but whether his source was Tolkien or the same epics the man himself used only T. Brooks knows for sure.  Furthermore, he has added his own new trope to fantasy, unique AFAIK: Shannara is a magical post-apocalyptic world- but_ his_ world of magic succeeded the world of science, not the other way around as it is usually done.

(For the record- I've enjoyed the Shanarra books immensely, but even I'll admit that Brooks' prose is but a candle to Tolkien's bonfire...)


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## Poster Bard (Sep 3, 2005)

> Who are Howard and Leiber?





_. . . and what of Lord Dunsany's The Book of Wonder?_


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## Krypter (Sep 3, 2005)

Nice. Thanks, CM Games. I've never had the chance to read his short stories, even though I've been a Lovecraft fan forever and have heard of Lord Dunsany many a time.


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## Thotas (Sep 3, 2005)

Thanks, kigmatzomatz.   I may have to give that a try ... especially that Bahzell stuff, since I've already been enjoying the adventures of the Royal Manticoran Navy.


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## tetsujin28 (Sep 3, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> :rotf:
> 
> To be fair, my fav Moorcock will always be the first three of the Krieghund series.  The last one blows chunks, but, the first three, particularly the first one, is fantastic.



Those are darn fine and interesting books, especially _The Warhound and the World's Pain_.


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## Hussar (Sep 3, 2005)

Funnily enough, I'm currently far closer to Shaman in my games than previously.  I've gone back to the "kick in the door" approach with my World's Largest Dungeon game.  Loads of fun.

And, yes, railroading is probably the worst thing you can do in a game.  I'll agree with that.

My point will still remain that modern authors are by no means destroying the genre, nor are they simply pale comparisons to older authors.  That's just nostalgia talking.  Yes, I love Howard and I love Tolkein.  I've read and reread them enough times to say that.  But, I also love new authors as well.  Painting them all with broad strokes and saying they are locked into post modern tropes is simply ignoring the really excellent work that is being done.  Sure, there's tons of crap out there.  But, there's also lots of good stuff that can be mined.

On a side note, I would say that Pratchett is a satirist, not a humourist.  There's a world of difference.  

To be fair though, over the past couple of years, I find myself reading a lot more SF than fantasy, so, I avoid most of the really trashy fantasy stuff out there.  But, really, I think saying that all modern fantasy is crap is really shortchanging things.


----------



## Krypter (Sep 3, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> My point will still remain that modern authors are by no means destroying the genre, nor are they simply pale comparisons to older authors.  That's just nostalgia talking.  Yes, I love Howard and I love Tolkein.  I've read and reread them enough times to say that.  But, I also love new authors as well.  Painting them all with broad strokes and saying they are locked into post modern tropes is simply ignoring the really excellent work that is being done.  Sure, there's tons of crap out there.  But, there's also lots of good stuff that can be mined.




Well, there are exceptions to everything, but for me at least it's not nostalgia at all. I just read Howard and Leiber for the first time a couple of years ago, in the 90s, and I'm a young-ish guy. Hardly weeping gently at my glory days there. I tried reading the Shannara books and the Wheel of Time series, honestly I did, but it was just so mediocre. I too am reading more SF than fantasy; the quality seems to be much higher. Tad Williams was not bad though.

So what modern writers are truly exceptional in your opinion? I'm genuinely interested in writing that exceeds the Brooks\Eddings\Martin level, but I don't have time to research obscure authors. (And no, I don't consider Mieville to be truly exceptional. Not when I can spot dozens of grammatical and spelling mistakes in his books, and I'm hardly a Lit major.) 

Something with the flair and impact of Leiber's _The Bleak Shore _would be good.  I find that the masters can tell a better story in 100 pages than Brooks et al. can tell in 1000.


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## Krypter (Sep 3, 2005)

One master author who is almost never mentioned is Mervyn Peake. _Gormenghast_ is quite possibly the finest piece of fantasy writing in the English language. Yes, better than Tolkien, though his world is far different and less detailed than Tolkien's. I was amused to no end when I saw it cited as the inspiration for Perdido Street Station. 

That, and the quote from Dick's _We Can Build You_. Where did that come from?


----------



## Hussar (Sep 3, 2005)

Hrm, excellent fantasy (and, I avoided Jordan like the plague)

Stephen Erikson - hands down
Lynn Abbey - the new Thieves World novels have been really excellent
Guy Gavriel Kay - although its been a long time
Stephen Donaldson  - I've mentioned before
Neil Gaiman - American Gods is really excellent IMO
Robin Hobb - to be fair, I've never read them, but I've heard very good things
Stephen King - writes some darn good fantasy - Eyes of the Dragon?
Julian May - not specifically fantasy, but close
Michael Moorcock 
Terry Pratchett - again, I'Ve mentioned him too
Fred Saberhagen - to be fair, I'm not sure if I'd include him in new school or old
Weiss and Hickman - hit an miss really, but the Deathgate Cycle really was pretty cool

That would round out authors I think are more than just "post modern hacks".  As I say, I follow SF far more than fantasy now.


----------



## tetsujin28 (Sep 4, 2005)

Krypter said:
			
		

> One master author who is almost never mentioned is Mervyn Peake. _Gormenghast_ is quite possibly the finest piece of fantasy writing in the English language. Yes, better than Tolkien, though his world is far different and less detailed than Tolkien's.



A much better writer of fiction than Tolkein. I put him up there with E.R. Eddison.


----------



## Wormwood (Sep 4, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> A much better writer of fiction than Tolkein. I put him up there with E.R. Eddison.



Granted. But if you are looking to Tolkein for polished fiction, you're missing the point.


----------



## MerricB (Sep 4, 2005)

One of the things that... well, I can hardly say it amazes me. Perhaps saddens. One of the the things that saddens me about this thread are the group of people who seem to think that if you're a modern writer of fantasy who is incredibly succesful, you're a BAD WRITER.



> As a question though, would you say Moorcock is classic or modern? He's riding the cusp IMO. I'm just asking.




I'd say the edge of Classic - most of his seminal work was back in the 60s and 70s.

One aspect to look at is the length of the books - newer authors tend to use more pages and tell bigger stories.

Consider Louise Cooper's Indigo series, Katherine Kerr's Deverry series, Jennifer Roberson's Chronicles of the Cheysuli, and the works of Martin, Goodkind, Jordan, Erikson and - indeed - J.K.Rowling.

Fantasy fiction is unusual as to how many books it takes to tell one story. Most other genres do it in one. 

There's more of a link between modern fantasy tales and the Adventure Paths - especially the ones in Dragon - then between classic fantasy and Adventure Paths. Classic Fantasy, especially Leiber, Howard and ERB, tends to concentration on more episodic, self-contained adventures with continuing characters.

Cheers!


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## Hussar (Sep 4, 2005)

Ok, let's see if I can be coherent.  I've been having trouble with that, so, here goes. 

From what I understand, people are arguing that later players and versions of DnD have moved farther and farther away from the roots of Tolkein or Howard.  At some point in the past, DnD closely resembled Tolkein and now it doesn't.   That is how I am understanding the arguement.  If that's incorrect, I appologise.

Now, to answer the idea that we started close to Tolkein and then moved farther away, I would say that DnD has only ever passingly come close to Tolkein.  Other than creatures and a few concepts, DnD in play has never looked like Tolkein.  Now, before you start tossing tomatoes at me, let me give an example.  Take the famous scene in Moria when the goblins come boiling out of the halls to chase the heroes.  What do the heroes do?  They run.  "Fly you fools" says Gandalf.

Pardon me?  Gandalf, in DnD terms is a double digit spell caster.  He may not be the greatest mage around, but, he's certainly in the top ten.  And he's running from goblins.  Imagine the situation around the gaming table for a second:

DM:  You see hundreds of goblins boil out of every entrance to the great hall.  They are everywhere behind you.

Wizzie:  I cast protection from missiles.  They're more than one round behind us right?

Dm:  Yup.

Wizzie:  Ok, second round, I cast fly, rise up about forty feet.

DM:  The goblins pelt you with arrows to no effect.

Wizzie:  Hmm, ok, time to magic 'em till they glow.  We'll lead off with a wall of fire to slow them down.  Follow that with a couple of fireballs, maybe a Major Creation to make lots of oil, close to the wall of fire.

DM:  Thousands of goblins die.  But!  Here comes the dreaded Balrog.

Wizzie and Players:  All RIGHT!  TIme for some serious XP.  None of that nickle and dime crap anymore.  We hit this thing with everything we got!

DM:  Balrog dies.  

THAT'S how that scene from the LOTR would play out around a high level DnD table in any edition.  First, Second or Third, it doesn't matter.  High level mages are death on wheels and they are NOT going to start running from a bunch of bloody goblins.  

Or, take Conan for a second.  Conan once again swings into that forbidden temple to save the fair damsel.  High Priest Gehnerik sneers at the steely thewed barbarian, drops a Hold Person and giggles slightly as Conan freezes in mid stride.  End of story.

The idea that DnD has abandoned its roots is a false one brought on by nostalgia IMO.   DnD has never had its roots in Tolkein or Howard or Leiber.  It borrowed lots of ideas from all of them and more, that's true.  I won't deny that at all.  And certainly any player of DnD should read those authors.  Denying them their place is like trying to study English Lit without reading Shakespeare.  Seeing where things began is always a good thing.  But, DnD has never had more than a passing relationship with those authors.  They were the source of ideas nothing more.  And certainly nothing less as well.


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## S'mon (Sep 4, 2005)

D&D is certainly much higher-magic than Tolkien.  A 3.5 Balrog would probably wipe the floor with Gandalf (using Blasphemy, Implosion et al) though.


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## jaerdaph (Sep 4, 2005)

Interesting bit of trivia about Fritz Leiber I learned this weekend:

Leiber's father, Fritz Sr., was a film actor in the 1910s, 20s and 30s and appeared in the 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton. Fritz, Jr. also appeared in that movie with his father, uncredited.


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## WayneLigon (Sep 4, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Fantasy fiction is unusual as to how many books it takes to tell one story. Most other genres do it in one.




Juliet McKenna has a great article on the 'why' of trilogies.


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## barsoomcore (Sep 4, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Newer authors tend to use more pages and tell bigger stories.



I don't entirely disagree with this, but wanted to point out that there are plenty of big, long stories in earlier years: Peake's Gormenghast books require serious commitment from any writer, and Charles Dickens (in which one can see many modern fantasy tropes prefigured) certainly wrote effective doorstops (in serial format, no less).

But 50, 100 years ago, I suspect the primary market for fiction was magazines. And so stories tended to be shorter, more self-contained. Nowadays the publishing business has its manufacturing and distribution processes well-tuned enough that churning out thousands of mammoth tomes and getting them to bookstore shelves and readers' hands is more feasible than it once was.

So part of the trend has little to do with fantasy in and of itself. And certainly other genres produce extended series -- go review the mystery section of your favourite bookstore and see how many books are subtitled "A Mr. Hoobajoob Mystery" or "Fifth in the Small-Time Murders series".

But of course it is fantasy that is primarily concerned with world-building. In writing a fantasy novel, a writer typically creates an entire world, with history and what not. When telling their tale, they have to also explain the context in which it occurs, which something the writer of detective novels doesn't have to worry about so much. When John Le Carre's character goes to France, John can write, "He went to France," and his readers have all sorts of built-in context for that statement.

But when a fantasy writer writes, "He went to Yamamunga," he needs to provide for his readers all the context that Le Carre gets for free.

And of course part of the motivation driving a fantasy writer is the chance to show off his world, and therefore a story that explores every nook and cranny and brings to light every clever detail is going to naturally appeal to him.

So I don't think it should be surprising that fantasy writers tend towards large tomes.

That said, it's instructive to review the old magazine/serial writers, because they tend be very good at providing that context very efficiently. You don't need to read much Leiber to know what Lankhmar is like, nor much Howard to get a very clear impression of Hyboria.

Or go back to Burroughs and watch how he evokes Barsoom. Mm, tasty...


----------



## tetsujin28 (Sep 4, 2005)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> Granted. But if you are looking to Tolkein for polished fiction, you're missing the point.



Other than The Hobbit, I don't look to him for fiction at all  I'm mainly a fan of his academic work, which was top-notch.


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## tetsujin28 (Sep 4, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> One of the things that... well, I can hardly say it amazes me. Perhaps saddens. One of the the things that saddens me about this thread are the group of people who seem to think that if you're a modern writer of fantasy who is incredibly succesful, you're a BAD WRITER.



No, I just think bad writers are BAD WRITERS  I'm very, very hard to please when it comes to fiction.







> I'd say the edge of Classic - most of his seminal work was back in the 60s and 70s.



Ron Edwards puts Moorcock in the second wave of sword-and-sorcery writers, "the fans". The '60s and '70s is actually where S&S takes a serious plunge into mediocrity, with a few notable exceptions (Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson).


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## Glyfair (Sep 4, 2005)

MonsterMash said:
			
		

> Pratchett is one of the few authors that I know played D&D - he has mentioned it in interviews with gaming magazines back when his books first started appearing, for example the luggage was actually in a D&D game originally. Not sure what edition though (must have been either OD&D, BD&D or 1e due to the period though).




George R.R. Martin has at least played _Superworld_ (the _Wild Cards_ series developed from a Superworld campaign).  Feist has played D&D.  I think a number of the shared world series developed out of roleplaying games (I think _Thieves World_ might be on of the few that went the other way).  Liavek comes to mind.


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## Glyfair (Sep 4, 2005)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Let's face it, prior to 1970, fantasy was a tiny little genre read by very few people (with a couple of exceptions).




A lot of that seems to have been publisher bias (although some of that might also have come from audience bias).  I read somewhere that in the 40's and 50's if you wanted to write fantasy and make any money, you needed to write it as science fiction.  A good percentage of the middle century's fantasy would actually be considered fantasy.  Vance's _Dying Earth_ comes to mind.  Any of the books that seemed to be pure fantasy, but took place on another planet (which is a huge sub-genre of its own).


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## MonsterMash (Sep 4, 2005)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> George R.R. Martin has at least played _Superworld_ (the _Wild Cards_ series developed from a Superworld campaign).  Feist has played D&D.  I think a number of the shared world series developed out of roleplaying games (I think _Thieves World_ might be on of the few that went the other way).  Liavek comes to mind.



I think I should have added a rider to my note about Terry Pratchett to say that obviously the authors of the D&D related novels probably have played at some point (Weiss, Hickman, Salvatore) and are very much immersed in their settings.



			
				Barsoomcore said:
			
		

> So part of the trend has little to do with fantasy in and of itself. And certainly other genres produce extended series -- go review the mystery section of your favourite bookstore and see how many books are subtitled "A Mr. Hoobajoob Mystery" or "Fifth in the Small-Time Murders series".



True, though it tends to be extended series of stand alone titles with a recurring cast of characters rather than having a plot continum (at least with the mystery authors I've read the most of recently - James Lee Burke and Iain Rankin), unlike say Philip Pullman or Stephen Donaldson, though Pratchett generally writes with a recurring cast but no overall plot arc.

The amount of space that authors have in the trilogies I suspect leads to prolixity, while a Howard, Vance or Burroughs was writing to fill an x,000 word slot usually.


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## tetsujin28 (Sep 5, 2005)

jaerdaph said:
			
		

> Interesting bit of trivia about Fritz Leiber I learned this weekend:
> 
> Leiber's father, Fritz Sr., was a film actor in the 1910s, 20s and 30s and appeared in the 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton. Fritz, Jr. also appeared in that movie with his father, uncredited.



Yep. Fritz Sr. was in a number of movies. He was also in the Theda Bara _Cleopatra_ (lost), _The Prince and the Pauper_, _The Sea Hawk_, the Claude Rains _Phantom of the Opera_...lots of films.


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## barsoomcore (Sep 6, 2005)

I spent the weekend reading _Swords and Wizardry_.

1. Lieber rocks.

2. People who think these books are sexist are confusing a sexist society with a sexist story. Nehwon is a sexist world, no question (nearly as sexist as, say, the REAL world), but the stories themselves are hardly sexist. A surprising number of the stories end with the Twain getting rescued by fearless young ladies of surprising ability ("Stardock", for one, and even _The Swords of Lankhmar_), and they are certainly not superior to the women they encounter ("The Two Best Thieves In Lankhmar"). Sure, an inordinate number of women fall for the lads, but they never seem to stick around very long, and it's the men's hearts that seem to suffer the most.

3. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are YOUNG men. It's interesting to read these stories now that my (ahem) younger days are behind me -- they're young men, and so they behave and think (or DON'T) like young men. So yeah, when they meet a woman they tend to consider her sexual potential -- as far as I know, that's what young men do. And they have big, clumsy hearts that they wear on their sleeves and get broken over and over again, but because they're young, they recover and move on with their lives. Or DON'T, it sometimes seems.


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## tetsujin28 (Sep 7, 2005)

They're very much patterned after the young Leiber during his theatre days. He was quite a charmer.


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## Hussar (Sep 7, 2005)

Ok, now I'm really intrigued.  I just saw that they've reprinted a number of the Leiber stories.  Next paycheck, I'm going to get my butt around to reading them.  Sword and Sorcery HO!  Heh.  

But, seriously, thanks for the nudge to go find some excellent fantasy.


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## Turjan (Sep 7, 2005)

It's funny that it needed this thread to grow to page nine in order to get the question from the title literally answered . Well, at least half of it .


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## Varianor Abroad (Sep 7, 2005)

Speaking of authors who have played D&D, what about Raymond Feist? Or David Brin? Or even Steven Brust? There's a lot more too, but those are some "big" names.


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## barsoomcore (Sep 8, 2005)

Varianor Abroad said:
			
		

> Speaking of authors who have played D&D, what about Raymond Feist? Or David Brin? Or even Steven Brust? There's a lot more too, but those are some "big" names.



?

I'm not sure what the question is.

Steven Brust is one of the finest living writers in the English language. Seriously, he's a genius. He has written more brilliant books than most writers have mediocre books. He honestly took fantasy adventure places it had never been before. He is a great, great, great writer. His books are grown-up, funny, painful and thrilling. He has characters you can recognize by their dialogue alone (heck, he has NARRATORS you can recognize by their voice alone). He has one of the best-realised high-magic worlds you'll ever come across. He has a dizzying grasp of meta-textual issues (some of his novels are WRITTEN (and read) by people who live in his OTHER novels).

And he has the sharpest, cleanest prose anywhere. AND he has the best-structured books you'll ever come across. Seriously, his books are like Swiss watch mechanisms, they're so finely constructed. I remember finally realising that EVERY Vlad book has seventeen chapters. What the heck? The man's a fiend.

What can I say? Brust slays me.

Fiest I've never had any interest in, Brin's got some really good ideas but his books seem to get steadily worse (I still think _Sundiver_ is his best book) -- and I don't think he's ever been a great stylist. So can't help you there.

But Brust is the bomb.


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## Varianor Abroad (Sep 8, 2005)

Just pointing out that these are "name" authors who do D&D. Brust's fiction is based on his Hungarian past, but he ran for years a D&D game set in Adrilankha. Many of the characters come from the games. He is indeed the bomb.


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## Gentlegamer (Sep 8, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: _The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, _ and_Bran Mak Morn: The Last king_ -- with more to come!).
> 
> Apparently they've been selling _extremely_ well in North America.  (I'm not sure if they're available in the U.K. and Ireland yet.)
> 
> Howard's making a comeback!



*tears of joy*


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## Gentlegamer (Sep 8, 2005)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> Okay, okay.  Calm down already.
> 
> Howard, Tolkien and Vance should determine D&D above all else.  The current stuff is largely rubbish -- and the great current stuff (e.g. Neil Gaiman, China Mielville, et al.) is too unlike standard D&D to be of any use.



Throw in Burroughs and you've got it!


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## Gentlegamer (Sep 8, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> *Somewhat* sexist?!?!?!?
> 
> Have you read Lieber?!?!?!?
> From the conniving women of Fafhrd's tribe, to the slave girls in the bazar, and even in the way the heros sweetheatrs are killed off and used to motivate Fafhrd and the Mouser. Lieber treats women as objects.
> ...



Dude!  Gor rox!  I recommend the first 3 as a nice little trilogy.


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## Gentlegamer (Sep 12, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Just addressing the "computer game reset" aspect of raise dead:
> 
> In earlier editions, I got around the lack of accessible raise dead by a simple method: I didn't kill PCs because I didn't want the game to end.
> 
> ...



Your players didn't groom their henchmen to "replace" them in the event of a death?


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## Gentlegamer (Sep 12, 2005)

haakon1 said:
			
		

> I tend to agree with the Epicurean from Seamus Heaney's country . . . there are only a few true classics.
> 
> To me, the classics to which all D&D players need to be introduced are, in historical order:
> - The Odyssey.  (In a pinch, hope they've at least seen "Troy", "Jason and the Argonauts", "Empire", or any other sandals and togas type movie.)
> ...



Dude, how could you make such a list and not include _Hawk the Slayer_?


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## Gentlegamer (Sep 12, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> You are undoubtedly referring to the _Shanarra_ books.  In defense of T. Brooks, I would have to point out that what some percieve as ripping off JRRT is not neccessarily the case.
> 
> Tolkien's originality lay in his creation of new languages, and that while his prose is beautiful, his plot points were clearly derived from other sources.  Many elements of his opus can be found in Grimm's Fairy tales and the numerous epics from the various literatures of Europe.  Tolkien's masterstroke was that he was able to synthesize a new tale in a relatively new form (the Novel) that nonetheless echoed the familiar stories of legend.  He took old forms and gave sent them in some slightly different directions, while simultaneously widening the scope of the tales- of all the epics, few beyond the Illiad have so grand a stage.
> 
> ...



Tolkien was creating a "true story" from which the other stories were derived over time (Sleeping Beauty = Eowyn, Atlantis = Numenore, etc.)


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 12, 2005)

> Tolkien was creating a "true story" from which the other stories were derived over time (Sleeping Beauty = Eowyn, Atlantis = Numenore, etc.)




Your point is?


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## mhacdebhandia (Sep 12, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> (For the record- I've enjoyed the Shanarra books immensely, but even I'll admit that Brooks' prose is but a candle to Tolkien's bonfire...)



And Tolkien's prose is but a bonfire to the blazing suns of most gifted prose writers. Agreed.


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## Agback (Sep 12, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> The '60s and '70s is actually where S&S takes a serious plunge into mediocrity, with a few notable exceptions (Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson).




Poul Anderson is Golden Age writer, not a 'Sixties newcomer. _Three Hearts and Three Lions_ was published in 1961, but it was very far from being Anderson's first fantasy novel. _The Broken Sword_ came out in '54, for example, and _Vault of the Ages_ in 1952. Little surprise then that he was immune from the fads of the time.


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## MerricB (Sep 12, 2005)

Gentlegamer said:
			
		

> Your players didn't groom their henchmen to "replace" them in the event of a death?




Not at the time. Either there were too many PCs, or *everyone* died. 

I've seen more henchmen in 3e than 1e, actually.

Cheers!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 13, 2005)

Mini-Hijack:

jaerdaph, were you ever connected with Trinity University's Philosopy Department?


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## MonsterMash (Sep 13, 2005)

Varianor Abroad said:
			
		

> Speaking of authors who have played D&D, what about Raymond Feist? Or David Brin? Or even Steven Brust? There's a lot more too, but those are some "big" names.



I'll be honest and say I didn't know that they had - I know China Mieville has talked about reading monster books for D&D as inspiration.

I'll have to check out Brust some time.


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## Hussar (Sep 14, 2005)

Well, based on Barsoomecore's glowing recomendation, I just ordered a Brust from Amazon.  Just noticed too that the new Thieves World anthology includes a story by Brust.  So, if it sucks, I know who to blame.


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