# Gaming Generation Gap



## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

The following is just an example of a greater point:



Mouseferatu said:


> Um, yes. Yes you did [lose your geek card].
> 
> In the pantheon of Classic Fantasy You Darn Well Better Have Read, Lloyd Alexander is only one step below Tolkien, Howard, or Moorcock in importance. Heck, he's also the only semi-modern writer I can think of to have inspired a Disney movie. (The Black Cauldron, while neither a fantastic movie nor particularly loyal as an adaptation, at least pushed the books further into public consciousness for a time.)






Sandwich said:


> Now I'm worried I can't properly play D&D. The only fantasy books I've ever read were some R.A. Salvatore stuff in middle school, The Hobbit, and the first half of the Lord of the Rings. I am now concerned that I am doing it wrong.
> 
> I tried to read Wolfe's New Sun series, but didn't get too far. I've been meaning to read Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books (which no one has mentioned, I don't think. I have no idea how D&D they are), but have yet to get started. That's all I've got for fantasy.
> 
> Maybe I need to read more.




I didn't start getting into real RPGs until around 1998 - when I was a freshman in HS. I can count on my hand the number of 2e AD&D sessions I played. It also means that my first legitimate fantasy fiction was Forgotten Realms novels, not literature.

So, I find myself in an odd place around here, and with quite a few folks I play with: talk of starting with Box sets, growing up on Moorcock/Leiber/Tolkien/etc etc etc. It's like sitting in a room with a bunch of old timers waxing about the Good Ol' Days when you weren't born yet. You can't relate. 

There is also this undercurrent of an expectation, of how the Old Ways and Old Books color the eyes of folks here. An assumption everyone's played it, or should play it, and that all the tastes of the Old Timers ruminate from the early days. So, as a youngin, I don't really know how to grasp at it; it's a generation gap.

The interesting thing is that it's a generation gap of CULTURE, not age. I'd say that most of those with fond memories of the Box Set are in their mid thirties to mid forties. I, being 25, am not _too_ much younger than that, but it's a definitely different experience. 

So for me it's almost a disconnect, having little reference beyond the second hand information of posters here saying how things were, or talking about oldschool literature.

This isn't me complaining or saying I'm feeling inadequate. I just find it an interesting dynamic.

It also makes me wonder how, as the community ages and new, younger gamers come in, what the culture will be, where the RPG Community touchstones will be, and what qualifies you for a "Geek Card". For instance, a few months ago there was a thread asking "Those 25 and under, what of this long list of D&D inspiration material (Leiber, Moorcock, Tolkein, etc) have you read?" I'd say that 90% of the respondents 25 and under had read three or less.


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## Glyfair (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> I didn't start getting into Fantasy/RPGs until around 1998 - when I was a freshman in HS. I can count on my hand the number of 2e AD&D sessions I played. It also means that my youth of fantasy fiction was more related to Forgotten Realms novels than literature.
> 
> So, I find myself in an odd place around here, and with quite a few folks I play with: talk of starting with Box sets, growing up on Moorcock/Leiber/Tolkien/etc etc etc. It's like sitting in a room with a bunch of old timers waxing about the Good Ol' Days when you weren't born yet. You can't relate.



Now, I started as a sophomore in HS, in '79.  Those authors were all "old school."  I mostly went to the library and used book stores to start reading them. The fantasy books at the time centered around the Shannara books, IIRC.

Now, I did love the the Gygax recommended books.  What sort of books you like and influence you (even if pointed in their direction) is as much personal taste as it is generation.  The generation mostly shows what sort of books to which you were exposed.


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> I didn't start getting into Fantasy/RPGs until around 1998 - when I was a freshman in HS. I can count on my hand the number of 2e AD&D sessions I played. It also means that my youth of fantasy fiction was more related to Forgotten Realms novels than literature.
> 
> So, I find myself in an odd place around here, and with quite a few folks I play with: talk of starting with Box sets, growing up on Moorcock/Leiber/Tolkien/etc etc etc. It's like sitting in a room with a bunch of old timers waxing about the Good Ol' Days when you weren't born yet. You can't relate.




My "knowledge gap" (for lack of a better term) over the years, is that I have read very few fantasy books.  I tried reading through the first Dragonlance novel, but stopped after reading the first few chapters and never went back to it.  I also have read very few books in genres like science fiction.  I don't watch many science fiction or fantasy shows on television or at the movies (for that matter).

Around the gaming table, I frequently have no clue what the other players are talking about when they're making references to books I've never read and/or to something they've seen in a movie or on television.  The books I read and the stuff I watch on television or at the movies, is very different than what the other players read and watch.  It's as if we're in two totally different worlds, speaking completely different "languages" (figuratively).

The only stuff I've read which has any remote relevance to fantasy rpg games like D&D, is some history of Europe from 500 years ago or more.


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Now, I started as a sophomore in HS, in '79.  Those authors were all "old school."  I mostly went to the library and used book stores to start reading them. The fantasy books at the time centered around the Shannara books, IIRC.
> 
> Now, I did love the the Gygax recommended books.  What sort of books you like and influence you (even if pointed in their direction) is as much personal taste as it is generation.  The generation mostly shows what sort of books to which you were exposed.



True, but with age and taste, what Generation deals with what Edition you started with. That effects your development, or at least experience, as a gamer. 

While someone who started playing 1e when they were 8 and someone who started when they were 17 are going to be Different (and develop differently), they also have that similar experience of the same touchstones and references of how things where when they first started playing. They learned how to play in a similar manner.


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## Mark (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> For instance, a few months ago there was a thread asking "Those 25 and under, what of this long list of D&D inspiration material (Leiber, Moorcock, Tolkein, etc) have you read?" I'd say that 90% of the respondents 25 and under had read three or less.





Link?


I think the advent of the Internet makes generation gaps (and culture gaps) much less of an issue than prior to that access.  Even those who choose not to read or experience the culture of another individual can at least readily find the information that allows them to understand it.


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## Fallen Seraph (Jul 13, 2009)

I started in the 90's as a kid. Though it was less fantasy and more just genres in general. So fantasy, sci-fi, horror, cyberpunk, etc. I think this may have attributed to me being very much a "genres shouldn't be kept separate" viewpoint. As for D&D started right in the cut-off between 2e and 3e, though also with lots of other games like Vampire at same time.

As for actual authors besides for Tolkien yeah a lot of those older authors haven't really touched. Actually in general the authors I read most and remember aren't entirely fantasy-oriented (at least traditional) stuff like Neil Gaiman, China Meville, William Gibson and such.

As for future generations, I know that from 90's and really coming to a head in 2000-present New Weird had lots of books coming out. So perhaps that is where the culture will focus somewhat. Also Steampunk continously growing in the 2000's as a general concept not just literature would effect future gaming culture I think.


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## mach1.9pants (Jul 13, 2009)

Well, as a grognard (just, started in 81) I only like Tolkien and (a little bit) leiber of all the classic books. I have tried pretty much most of the others on the 'geek card' list but find most of them incredibly dull; I even don't finish them (Vance, Elric, Conan, etc are all books I found so poor that I didn't finish).

So I feel on the cusp, I feel in between (I played heaps of BECMI, ADnD, 2E, 3E and now 4E- along with tons of other systems) but I find most of the inspirational traditional books of DnD un-readable. SO maybe it is a generational cultural gap and I am just stuck in the middle (35)?


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

Mark said:


> Link?



http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...estion-25-under-crowd-what-have-you-read.html


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 13, 2009)

I'm around your generation, Rechan. Most of my formative fantasy was Japanese fantasy from anime and videogames. A little bit of He-Man or the Thundercats meant that I was also perfectly happy with sci fi in my fantasy.  

I found Tolkien exceptionally boring, and could never stomach a lot of the '80's fantasy that was present in D&D that I learned. Big hair and nude barbarians and stuff ripped from Heavy Metal was never much my fare.

I think it's true that fantasy has gotten a whole lot more diverse, too. In the early days, it was a fairly new genre, with only a few good books in it. Now, it's significantly broader and bigger, with a lot of good books (and other media). 

It's kind of like TV before and after the huge expansion of cable and sattelite TV. When you had only 5 or so TV stations, who all kind of played by the same rules, you have a definition of _Television_ that doesn't mesh with the experience of the kids nowadays.

I'm sure I'll go through it to in 10-20 years when kids who have never lived without Wikipedia are synthesizing more knowledge than I could have ever dreamt of having when my brain was at it's spongiest. 

I'm kind of excited to see where the train goes.


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## Mercutio01 (Jul 13, 2009)

Interestingly, Rechan, I'm 30 and didn't discover any of those authors until the last 5 years or so.  I too grew up reading Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms (although I had read LotR long before either D&D series--4th or 5th grade IIRC).  Moorcock and Leiber, Burroughs and Howard, etc were out of print.

I had read the Prydain series and the Dark is Rising sequence by the time I got to high school, but the pulp fiction of the 20's through the 60s were all but impossible to come by.  That said, I've been voraciously devouring those books I find or search out based on recommendations from boards like this or from "commonality" with another author; ie Leiber and Moorcock as inheritors of Howard and Burroughs, Bradbury as inheritor of Verne, etc.  Some of those books are coming back into print (PlanetStories from Paizo has a big hand in that), and some are resurfacing through used book stores in ways I hadn't noticed before.  But perhaps that latter point is just because I've now been actively looking.

I'm also kind of working through those classics in chronological order.  Started with Lord Dunsany and have been working my way forward from there.  I'm up to Moorcock and Leiber, mostly by way of trading entities like paperbackswap.com and used book stores (and wikipedia as a reference point for who leads to who and what is similar to which).


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

mach1.9pants said:


> Well, as a grognard (just, started in 81) I only like Tolkien and (a little bit) leiber of all the classic books. I have tried pretty much most of the others on the 'geek card' list but find most of them incredibly dull; I even don't finish them (Vance, Elric, Conan, etc are all books I found so poor that I didn't finish).




Most of these sorts of books I've never read, or only read the first chapter or so and stopped abruptly.  I never quite understood what hardcore readers found fascinating about particular titles, authors, genres, etc ...

For Tolkien's stuff, I only ever read a chapter or two before abruptly stopping, largely out of boredom.


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## Mark (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...estion-25-under-crowd-what-have-you-read.html






Thanks.  I bumped it to see if more data points could be garnered.


To add to the discussion more, I also believe that some portion of the literature (from then and now) in question is best read as a young adult and often difficult to work through once someone's reading preferences have committed more fully to particular styles of writing.


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## mach1.9pants (Jul 13, 2009)

Good point about the explosion of content, K-M. But your wrong about the Heavy Metal thing, they ripped it from DnD!


ggroy said:


> For Tolkien's stuff, I only ever read a chapter or two before abruptly stopping, largely out of boredom.



I can see where you are coming from, Tolkien is bloody long winded. But for me it is a nostalgia thing, I guess. The first ever fantasy books I got were LotR when I was 7, opened up a new way of thinking. I think Time of the Twins was next!


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

Mark said:


> To add to the discussion more, I also believe that some portion of the literature (from then and now) in question is best read as a young adult and often difficult to work through once someone's reading preferences have committed more fully to particular styles of writing.



Also, for some, it was "all they had" in terms of fantasy. I mean, back in the 70s there wasn't a LOT of material to go through, so you read what was available and there to reference. Now, there are so many books I Should read (in addition to movies and games), that I think I'd never get them all done.


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## FriarRosing (Jul 13, 2009)

No one I play with has ever read any of the classic fantasy literature people have recommended as being close to D&D. Sure, we've read Tolkien, and I know a few folks who enjoy George R.R. Martin, but otherwise my friends aren't too big of fantasy buffs. And those who are mainly have read the D&D novels. Older sword and sorcery stuff is kind of lost on us. And, really, I'm not even that big into fantasy a genre even though I love D&D. I think I'm part of a newer generation whose introduction to fantasy was through video games. I came to D&D and fantasy through Warcraft 2, Diablo and the Baldur's Gate series. So, I think for a lot of people of my generation (and I'm 21, by the way), the original literature and inspiration is something of an unknown. Our experience is from computer games of our childhood, not books we read as kids. This is based on my own experience, of course. 

Still, hearing about the likes of Moorcock and the other guys has piqued my interest in reading them. I'm sure if I ever finish my current to read list, I'll add them to my next one.


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

Mark said:


> To add to the discussion more, I also believe that some portion of the literature (from then and now) in question is best read as a young adult and often difficult to work through once someone's reading preferences have committed more fully to particular styles of writing.




For a long time, I found that I had a very hard time reading most fantasy and science fiction type books.  After reading through several pages, frequently I didn't remember anything I had just previously read a few minutes prior.  Sometimes after reading a paragraph or two, I had no clue what it was about.

I suppose when I was a younger, I never got into the habit of reading paperback fiction books.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> It also makes me wonder how, as the community ages and new, younger gamers come in, what the culture will be, where the RPG Community touchstones will be, and what qualifies you for a "Geek Card". For instance, a few months ago there was a thread asking "Those 25 and under, what of this long list of D&D inspiration material (Leiber, Moorcock, Tolkein, etc) have you read?" I'd say that 90% of the respondents 25 and under had read three or less.




You aren't missing anything not having read Leiber, Moorcock, and the other Pulp-ish writers. Theirs are stories that work best on a youthful mind. The older you are when you first encounter them, the less likely you will find them COOL. It's kind of like Ender's Game. You either like or not depending on how old you were when you read it.

I'm not saying you can't like them if you read them when you are older. I'm saying that they play best on a mind first discovering the "new" ideas of fantasy. If you have any amount of "seen it, been there, done it" in you, they will fall flat.


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> I'm not saying you can't like them if you read them when you are older. I'm saying that they play best on a mind first discovering the "new" ideas of fantasy. If you have any amount of "seen it, been there, done it" in you, they will fall flat.




For most of the "ideas" of fantasy and science fiction literature, I learned most of it tangentially from reading books on topics like:  history, warfare, politics, economics, espionage, psychology, sociology, science, some philosophy, etc ... and various non-fiction books written by some despicable individuals (ie. Machiavelli, Hitler, Marx, etc ...).

If I started reading fantasy and science fiction books again today, I think I may very well end up in the "seen it, been there, done it" category in overanalyzing things.


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## Mark (Jul 13, 2009)

I guess I am of the youngest of those who began back in 1974, having been only 11 or 12 at the time.  It's also true that a great deal of the literature read by the early D&D player generations was written by previous generations of authors, sometimes many generations earlier and before our time.  In the Seventies, Tolkien was still enjoying a resurgence fostered by the American (US) Sixties counter-culture movement and Howard was being reprinted in paperback with those evocative Frank Frazetta covers.  Artists like the Hildebrandt Brothers were getting their feet wet in fantasy and would go on to do the covers for Terry Brooks books and others.  There was a feel to the times but it was made up of a mix of contemporary materials and artists as well as artists from previous generations such as those from the early Brandywine School and materials dating back many decades and even centuries.

Of course, at that time there were no video games and animation was in its infancy in regard to fantasy themes.  D&D was also not yet self-referential.  It should also be noted that there is some good deal of material that influenced early RPGing that embraced attitudes exposed as abhorrent by today's standards, particularly regarding race, gender, substance abuse, etc.  Society has matured and raised its standards, and modern artistic materials reflect different attitudes.  Rightfully so, IMO.  However, I might be taking this conversation in a sociological direction the OP had not intended, so I'll stop there and leave it to Rechen to make that choice or not.


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> You aren't missing anything not having read Leiber, Moorcock, and the other Pulp-ish writers. Theirs are stories that work best on a youthful mind. The older you are when you first encounter them, the less likely you will find them COOL. It's kind of like Ender's Game. You either like or not depending on how old you were when you read it.
> 
> I'm not saying you can't like them if you read them when you are older. I'm saying that they play best on a mind first discovering the "new" ideas of fantasy. If you have any amount of "seen it, been there, done it" in you, they will fall flat.




Well honestly, they say there's only like 7 plots. So to an extent, everything is done to death, it's a matter of seeing the execution.  Or rather, it's interesting to see interesting interpretations, or when someone makes a subtle twist that hadn't been done with the same story.

I mean, if they have been mined completely for ideas and it's all popped up elsewhere, I can see your point. But, it's also kind of fun to see where references originate; watching Full Metal Jacket, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca in my early 20s made me appreciate them a little more because I suddenly understood all the references others had made, and the influence on later works they effected.

On the flip side, I just could not read Of Mice and Men because the big orange hairy monster from Bugs Bunny cartoons utterly ruined Lenny's character for me. I couldn't read it without picturing George saying "What's up, Doc?" 

And then there are those things I hear hyped and "You have to/got to read/see this" and when I get to it, I just find it utterly dull. This is more the case of movies than books.


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

Mark said:


> Of course, at that time there were no video games and animation was in its infancy in regard to fantasy themes.  D&D was also not yet self-referential.  It should also be noted that there is some good deal of material that influenced early RPGing that embraced attitudes exposed as abhorrent by today's standards, particularly regarding race, gender, substance abuse, etc.  Society has matured and raised its standards, and modern artistic materials reflect different attitudes.  Rightfully so, IMO.  However, I might be taking this conversation in a sociological direction the OP had not intended, so I'll stop there and leave it to Rechen to make that choice or not.



As someone studying social psychology, I adore sociological stuff. But, I don't know what direction that'll drag the thread into.


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## Mark (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> As someone studying social psychology, I adore sociological stuff. But, I don't know what direction that'll drag the thread into.





No doubt.  It's sometimes hard to discuss such subjects without including politics and religion but it may be that any discussion of generational or cultural gaps needs to tread close to that realm.  Maybe our own voiced (posted) trepidations are enough of a warning to allow some significant discussion along those lines without straying toward the taboos.


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Well honestly, they say there's only like 7 plots. So to an extent, everything is done to death, it's a matter of seeing the execution.




Many of these plots are repeated in many forms of fiction and media. Or for that matter, sometimes even in real life (ie. Michael Jackson, Richard Nixon, etc ...).

For example, turn on the television to a cheesy prime time show like CSI or "Law and Order".  Same type of plots, rinsed and recycled repeatedly.


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## Oni (Jul 13, 2009)

Hurm, lets see I was born in '80.  I've not read most of what is considered the classic fantasy library, so I know that feeling of being lost when the conversation turns to a lot of stories that seem to come up in relation to D&D.  

When I was little my bedtime stories were King Arthur, Robin Hood, and The Hobbit.  The first thing I remember reading on my own were the Elfquest graphic novels.  I read LotR's in elementary school (heh, it took me a while, started in the early in 5th grade and ended in the 6th).  And I loved Orson Scott Card and Chronicle of Narnia, but beyond that not really much in the book department. Movies had a big influence like Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Dragonslayer, and especially Willow, and of course stuff like Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  These days I'm mostly into anime and manga.  Stuff like Full Metal Alchemist, Witch Hunter Robin, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Berserk, Lone Wolf and Cub, and anything by Junji Ito (horror manga-ka) and even Fairy Tail and One Piece inform a lot of how I view and think of fantasy and gaming.  Most recently, coming back around to books I've come to enjoy China Miéville.

I doubt I'm alone in that kind of experience.  Really I think you're right, there is a disconnect in gamer culture, like we're cooking with totally different ingredients.


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## Mark (Jul 13, 2009)

Oni said:


> (. . .) the Elfquest graphic novels.





Those can be read online now in their entirety -

Digital EQ: Online Comics


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

It's kinda funny this turned into a literature thread. I was just using Mouse's comment as a springboard. Part of it is also what Edition you started with; that's part of the gap, I think, too.


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Many of these plots are repeated in many forms of fiction and media. Or for that matter, sometimes even in real life (ie. Michael Jackson, Richard Nixon, etc ...).
> 
> For example, turn on the television to a cheesy prime time show like CSI or "Law and Order".  Same type of plots, rinsed and recycled repeatedly.



Aye. I have terrible taste in TV; I love all the cheesy prime time shows, watch'm like clockwork. (I love you, DVR).


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> It's kinda funny this turned into a literature thread. I was just using Mouse's comment as a springboard. Part of it is also what Edition you started with; that's part of the gap, I think, too.




Sometimes "habits" from older editions can die hard in someone.

For example, whenever I play a wizard in 4E D&D, I still think of conserving magic spells and using the fighters/rangers/paladins as "meat shields".  These are common habits for playing a magic user in 1E AD&D.  With the way spells are done and the higher AC for a wizard in 4E, one doesn't have to do these things as much anymore.


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## Rechan (Jul 13, 2009)

ggroy said:


> and using the fighters/rangers/paladins as "meat shields".



You mean they're not?


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## ggroy (Jul 13, 2009)

Rechan said:


> You mean they're not?




With the higher AC for wizards in 4E, the meat shield thing isn't as prominent.  Though I suppose the fighters/rangers/paladins are still used as meat shields against ranged attacks, like arrows and other projectiles aimed towards the wizard.


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## Mark (Jul 13, 2009)

Maybe we could avoid discussion of edition in this thread?


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## Ahnehnois (Jul 13, 2009)

I am in the twentysomething crowd and began playing just before the advent of 3.0

I haven't read a great deal of fantasy, largely because the time i used tp devote to reading I now devote to D&D. My D&D is influenced heavily by Battlestar Galactica-not to say I have robots in full plate but I get my plot structures and character concepts from that line of thinking. Of fantasy authors, I am familiar with and influenced by only Tolkien and Lovecraft, and even in these I am not expert.


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## Ariosto (Jul 13, 2009)

> The interesting thing is that it's a generation gap of CULTURE, not age.



Indeed. I don't think a few more years makes much difference in the appeal (or lack thereof) of E.R. Eddison, Lord Dunsany, Abe Merritt, or Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is not really a matter either of when one was born or how old one is now.

Much of the inspiration for D&D came from well outside popular culture. That was where heroic fantasy, science fiction, and (to a lesser degree) supernatural horror largely resided in the early 1970s -- along with medieval military history and other hobby-horses.

The game itself was a phenomenon that not only helped to popularize fantasy beyond fandom but to shape what genre fantasy was popular. The movies of Spielberg and Lucas kicked the spread to mass media into high gear.

The wainscot society of hardcore literary devotees has not necessarily shrunk. It simply was never numerous enough to make of anything the smash hits that D&D and Traveller became -- any more than Star Trek could have become a huge franchise based solely on the few souls to whom (e.g.) Harlan Ellison and James Blish are household names.

In the field of RPGs, D&D may no longer get the lion's share of that demographic, either. It is, after all, no longer literally "the only game in town."


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## Ariosto (Jul 13, 2009)

For my part, I credit D&D with turning me on to genre fantasy. Before I encountered the game, I was immersed in science fiction. Apart from classic tales of myth and legend, the realm of swordsmen and sorcery was something I generally passed over (with a bit of prejudice) on the bookshelves.

I had read _The Hobbit_, and the Chronicles of Narnia (which my grandparents sent for the sake of religious allegory, and were more appreciated than later offerings of George MacDonald's Highland romances). With the blithe precociousness of a literary omnivore, I had even dipped (quite ignorant of the scandal once attached to it) into Cabell's _Jurgen_.

Not everything published in the "Frodo Lives!" fantasy craze, and the (partly) D&D-fueled explosion afterward, lived down to the garish covers -- but enough did to steer me quite firmly for a while back to rocketships and ray guns. At least a "proper" SF novel was still not so likely to turn out to be pornography of some stripe (simply boring before a certain age) as something involving "mighty thews".


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## Achan hiArusa (Jul 13, 2009)

Its not always just literature.  I was basically chided by two different 50-something gamers for liking Dark Sun (actually one them called it a steaming pile and the other one was not that far behind him, though they have never met).  For them D&D itself was innovative.  You got to play a single person with a personality instead of a unit, the Norse Gods and the Celtic Gods were a refreshing change from all the Greek Mythology they (and I) were forced to read in grade school, and elves, dwarves, halflings, half-orcs, and gnomes were something that _wasn't human_, even the Vancian system was completely liberating compared to the choices you had in a wargame, and you played something other than a soldier.

Whereas for me being in my 30s, all that was standard and you found it every where with the same variations on a theme:  Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Kulthea, Perilous Realms, etc. etc.  I had seen so many versions of the Orient that even that seemed a bit mudane (Oriental Adventures, Bushido, etc).  So I naturally loved Dark Sun, Maztica, the Old Empires, Empire of the Petal Throne (yes I know how old it really is), and other games like that that broke the standard mold and went in their own direction.  I still play standard fantasy, but give me a few odd hooks and I can be reeled in.


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## Lord Mhoram (Jul 13, 2009)

I started with fantasy kid lit when I was six (I was reading at 4). I read Oz and Narnia in the first grade, the Hobbit in second, and the LorR in 4th ( I got a lot more out of them when I read them as a teenager). Read lots of adolescent SF too - Alan Dean Foster was a mainstay, as were comic books. I discovered Amber in Jr High and just kept going with other new stuff in HS.

When I discovered D&D when I was 11 or so, I was already a huge fantasy/science fiction fan. 

I never read Vance, and I read Conan, Elric and Leiber after I discovered D&D . Read them - hated them, but read them (I find I generally just don't like S&S as a subgenre).

The only D&D books I have actually read were the first Dragonlance Trilogy. Never have read a Forgotten Realms book, nor any other gaming novels.

For editions, I started with the boxes, but moved quickly to AD&D. I play 4th now.

I'm 42.


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## AFGNCAAP (Jul 13, 2009)

Well, as a member of the 30something crowd, I can say a lot of my formative years with D&D-esque materials were:

Reading the Lloyd Alexander books after _The Black Cauldron_ came out in theaters (IIRC, I was in elementary school at the time).
Seeing movies like Bakshi's _The Lord of the Rings_, the Rankin-Bass _The Hobbit_, _Conan the Barbarian_, _Excalibur_, _Dragonslayer_, and the Disney _Robin Hood_ and _The Sword in the Stone_ (and, FWIW, the 'original' Star Wars trilogy).
Cartoons like _Masters of the Universe_, _Thundercats_, and _Dungeons & Dragons_.

Around the end of middle school/start of junior high, I really got into D&D and computer games with a fantasy theme (Ultima, Might & Magic, Zork, the Gold Box games, etc.).  I read the Dragonlance Chronicles & Legends then, followed by a successful read of The Hobbit and LOTR (tried many times when I was younger, but couldn't get into it).  Read a fair amount of the D&D-based fiction, as well as Asprin's Myth Adventures series.

(FYI: I got into D&D around the end of 1st ed./rise of 2nd ed., and the reign of BECMI D&D.)

However, it wasn't until college that I got into Leiber, Howard, Moorcock, Vance, and other "formative" authors for D&D.  I only did thanks to the "recommended reading" lists present in  1st ed./BECMI copies of the games.

My big D&D days of my "prime" happened to be during the days when Magic first took off, and the Storyteller system took hold (the days of the trend of trenchcoats & katanas, if you will); essentially back when FR was the uber-cool setting for D&D, but D&D was seen as gauche in some gaming circles, and not too trendy by some.


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## Ariosto (Jul 13, 2009)

> So I naturally loved Dark Sun, Maztica, the Old Empires, Empire of the Petal Throne (yes I know how old it really is).



I am not acquainted with Old Empires. I think Dark Sun (and Planescape) came out when I had washed my hands of TSR and moved on to other things -- but would probably have suffered (perhaps unfairly) from my weariness at the time of all things remotely "Orks ... in ... Spaaaace!" anyway.

*Empire of the Petal Throne*, though, rocks if anything harder given the conservatism into which the D&D scene has settled since its ambitious 1975 release. It was no more to mass-market tastes when it was also deluxe and costly than it is today.


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## Orius (Jul 13, 2009)

Well, let's see I'm 32, and I started playing when I was 16.  But I'd already had some degree of exposure to fantasy at the time.  I'd read some of Narnia when I was 10, and then LotR about a year later.  From there I read the Prydain books, Edding's Elenium, and a bunch of Conan stuff, not just Howard's stuff but the various Ace and Tor pastiches. There's maybe other stuff I'd forgotten, and I'd always known about LotR, because I had a coloring book based on Bakshi's film when I was a kid. 

 I'd also had some exposure to D&D itself on the fringes, I watched the cartoon every week, and had some of the toys and stuff that was being marketed to kids, and I had a couple of books like the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were D&D based (which introduced me to color-coded dragons, gorgons, elementals, and umber hulks that I remember) too, and later when I was starting out on the LotR, the local library had some of the Endless Quest books on the paperback rack that I enjoyed reading as well.  So by the time I started D&D, I was somewhat well grounded in the ideas.

I was also influenced by 80's fantasy movies as well from childhood until I first played (some perhaps subconciously).  At the very least they included Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, Beastmaster, The Dark Crystal (from which I shamelessly ripped off some of my first homebrew monsters), The Neverending Story, Labyrinth, Willow, and possibly Krull.


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## Daern (Jul 13, 2009)

*book club*

Its fun when your gaming group functions as a bit of a book club.  For a while my group was passing around the RR Martin books and then we all got into  Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian books.  
Also, for what its worth, the Loyd Alexander Prydain Chronicles are really great, young adult fantasy.  
Some of the old pulp S&S stuff is not that incredible in a literary sense, but I think the Howard short stories and the Clark Ashton Smith stories are pretty unique pieces of writing.
and I started with the red box in i think '87 and i do wish there would be a 4e edition with all elmore art...


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## jasonbostwick (Jul 13, 2009)

I'm 22, and only started gaming when I was about 17. I devoured the Redwall books and read LotR when I was ten or so, but fantasy never really grabbed me before I moved on to what would be shelved under 'literature' at Borders. 

My D&D sessions take more inspiration from Neal Stephenson novels, superhero comics, and old SNES RPGs than they do from fantasy. A few of my gaming friends have read some R.A. Salvatore books, but I was never particularily interested.

I certainly never had any contact with Moorcock, Vance, or Howard (and still really haven't read anything that would be considered Swords and Sorcery). 


I'm trying a bit to reverse this trend - I just started reading fantasy again this summer. So far I've finished China Mieville's _Perdido Street Station_ and _The Scar_ and am just starting _Iron Council_. I've really enjoyed his stuff - fantasy that can work state-sponsored revisionist histories into the plot is something I can get behind.
I read Gaiman's collections of short stories on a roadtrip and loved them, but haven't started in on his novels yet - after I finish _The City and the City_ I'll probably get to them.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 13, 2009)

For me it's not just a generation gap, but also a language/location gap. I have never heard of most of the books people talk about, not merely because I am not a big fantasy reader, but also because the books might not have been very popular or available in Germany and almost certainly had titles that are not simple translations from the original ones.

On top of that, there is also an "interest" gap. I am not really a big fan of fantasy books. I always prefered Science Fiction. 
Fritz, Leiber, Vance, those are all names that I just know from EN World. 
I could name some Star Wars and Startrek book authors (that has always been more my type of books). But most of those are also fairly "new" - 80s and later. 
I know some books and themes from Isaac Assimov, Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke. if we are talking classics. But that's it.


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## Fallen Seraph (Jul 13, 2009)

jasonbostwick said:


> I'm trying a bit to reverse this trend - I just started reading fantasy again this summer. So far I've finished China Mieville's _Perdido Street Station_ and _The Scar_ and am just starting _Iron Council_. I've really enjoyed his stuff - fantasy that can work state-sponsored revisionist histories into the plot is something I can get behind.
> I read Gaiman's collections of short stories on a roadtrip and loved them, but haven't started in on his novels yet - after I finish _The City and the City_ I'll probably get to them.



Those two are probably my two favourite authors just in general, not just fantasy.


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## S'mon (Jul 13, 2009)

Easy solution - go read some Moorcock, Leiber and Howard short stories.  Only takes a few minutes!


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## Ariosto (Jul 13, 2009)

Leiber, like Raymond Chandler, seems IMO only to gather nuance as his works roll over the hill.

Gaiman and Mieville have a sweetness that is in itself and by its merits truly becoming ... but neither is quite the second coming of Goethe.

Or Hermann Hesse or Jack London. The werewolf does not read comicbooks.

How could one tell a story incomprehensible to the reader?

If you would read of valor, then be daring. If you would read of infinities, then at least expand the limits of your quantification.

But, G*d d*mn it, you've got to be kind.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Jul 13, 2009)

I'm 24 and didn't start D&D until high school, around 2000.  I read the entire Prydain Chronicles (but never saw the movie) and the Dark is Rising Sequence in middle school, and they remain my favorite books of all time, not just in the fantasy genre, but in general.  I have not read any of the typically listed fantasy authors -- Tolkein, Moorcock, um...geeze, it's hard to even remember these guys' names since I never heard of most of them before...Vance....

I don't know how much the fantasy lit I read influenced my views on D&D.  As for the future, I'd have to say anime will play a big role for lots of people.  It does for me already.  I'm unsure if Alexander and Cooper had an impact on the game for me, but Record of Lodoss War?  Absolutely.  And how can you not crack a hentai joke when using Evard's tentacles?

EDIT: Gaiman!  I did read Neverwhere in high school.  I guess he would also count as a big name.


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## Clavis (Jul 13, 2009)

Honestly, the biggest culture/generational gap I've noticed isn't about the books different gamers have read, but the difference between Metal D&D and Non-Metal D&D. In the 80s, a very large percentage of D&D players were also involved in the Heavy Metal scene, and to great extent played D&D because of its "evil" and "satanic" reputation. In my experience, players who came of age in the Metal scene at that time, or were influenced by players from that time, have a very different attitude towards the game than other players. They tend to want to live out fantasies of power and rebellion rather than heroism. They don't want to play the King's loyal knight, but the outlaw the knight is hunting. They don't want to kill the Queen of the Succubi, but make her their girlfriend. They want to conquer and rule Hell, not destroy it. They tend to play evil and neutral characters, and if they play Good characters they're Chaotic Good rebels who want to stick it to society.  Their idea of fantasy is as much about Frank Frazetta paintings and Manowar songs as any books. Their character concepts are more likely to be taken from Heavy Metal and its tropes than anything to be found in classic fantasy literature.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 13, 2009)

S'mon said:


> Easy solution - go read some Moorcock, Leiber and Howard short stories.  Only takes a few minutes!



Easy solution for what? The generation gap? If so, wouldn't an alternate solution be for all the people of the older generations to go play the videogames Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Chrono Trigger? Of course, that would take a lot more time than reading a few short stories...

Crossing the generation gap requires a lot more than the young generation embracing what came before. It also involves people of the older generation embracing what has come since. Both are pretty tricky, though, hence the generation gap.

Of course, as my comment above indicates, I think the biggest change across the generations is the rise of whole generations who got their fantasy fix from videogames, rather than books. As I mentioned in the "what books have you read if you are 25 or under?" thread, I read a lot of fantasy stories, albeit not stuff like Vance or Moorcock, but my love of fantasy comes from videogames, not books.

To phrase this in a more amusing manner... I played the SNES Lord of the Rings game before I ever knew that there was a series of novels called The Lord of the Rings (as a side note, that game was absolutely horrid). It was only much later that I came across the books, and I took an interest in them partly because they had a videogame adaptation (The game was so terrible I'm surprised I bothered. Good thing I did, though.). Of course, I only ever played the Lord of the Rings SNES game because it was a fantasy game, and I was mostly interested in those thanks to games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy IV.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Jul 13, 2009)

And there are even some great JRPGs NOT made by Square-Enix! 

Agree a lot with Twin Bahamut.  Video games are a major influence on me, and I do like fantasy games.  I'd still like to do some kind of Suikoden or Legend of Dragoon game some day, and I wouldn't mind playing in a FF Tactics styled game.  I'd consider Dragon Warrior and Legend of Zelda my first tastes of the fantasy genre.  And Ultima, if I had ever been able to find it in a store as a kid   Never have I known so much about a game without even playing it.

You mentioned myth and folklore in the under 25 thread.  Those also heavily influenced me.  I love mythology especially.  One of my favorite games I ever played in (and not D&D) involved our characters being the chosen "champions" for deadly games held every 1000 years to determine what god(s) can reign supreme till the next tourney, as a way of avoiding war between them.  The winning champions getting a wish for their troubles.  We went to several different cultures' underworlds (Xibalba being the coolest by far), had lots of interactions with our deities (more often than not in an antogonizing fashion; half the group wanted to win so they could use their wish to gain enough power to slay their own patron deity  ), encountered lots of mythic monsters, got items of power from our gods to aid us (my goddess was Athena, I got the Aegis), etc...  Great fun.  Eating ambrosia, paying for sex with a succubus in the underworld, trying to sabotage and kill the other champions (even if they were other players)...

Oh, and I had never even heard of Lord of the Rings until the movies came out, nevermind that Tolkein guy.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 14, 2009)

StreamOfTheSky said:


> And there are even some great JRPGs NOT made by Square-Enix!



Yep, tons. I'm a big fan of a great many RPGs made by various videogame companies, not the least of which are the Suikoden series and the Fire Emblem series. But I can't help the fact that Square-Enix's games defined my childhood. 

To prove how much they did, consider the fact that my username is _not_ a D&D reference. I have been using this name online since well before I ever knew that Bahamut was the name of a D&D god.



> Agree a lot with Twin Bahamut. Video games are a major influence on me, and I do like fantasy games. I'd still like to do some kind of Suikoden or Legend of Dragoon game some day, and I wouldn't mind playing in a FF Tactics styled game. I'd consider Dragon Warrior and Legend of Zelda my first tastes of the fantasy genre. And Ultima, if I had ever been able to find it in a store as a kid  Never have I known so much about a game without even playing it.



I'll certainly agree with all of that (except Ultima, since I am not as familiar with that one). Suikoden  alone has had an insane amount of influence of all of my homebrew settings and campaigns. The game Shadow Hearts gave me quite a few ideas for an Eberron campaign I was going to run. Of course, more recent games like Persona 3 and The World Ends With You are also turning out to be huge influences, and would probably define any campaigns I would run in a theoretical 4E version of D20 Modern.



> You mentioned myth and folklore in the under 25 thread.  Those also heavily influenced me.  I love mythology especially.  One of my favorite games I ever played in (and not D&D) involved our characters being the chosen "champions" for deadly games held every 1000 years to determine what god(s) can reign supreme till the next tourney, as a way of avoiding war between them.  The winning champions getting a wish for their troubles.  We went to several different cultures' underworlds (Xibalba being the coolest by far), had lots of interactions with our deities (more often than not in an antogonizing fashion; half the group wanted to win so they could use their wish to gain enough power to slay their own patron deity  ), encountered lots of mythic monsters, got items of power from our gods to aid us (my goddess was Athena, I got the Aegis), etc...  Great fun.  Eating ambrosia, paying for sex with a succubus in the underworld, trying to sabotage and kill the other champions (even if they were other players)...



That sounds like it must have been a blast. It doesn't really sound like my preference, but it does sound fun.

My fondness for myth and folklore tends to mix with anime and videogames to create a general fondness for over-the-top action involving swordplay and martial arts and an exaggerated Epic Tier where unspeakable evils and dark gods are the default foes, not impossible challenges.



> Oh, and I had never even heard of Lord of the Rings until the movies came out, nevermind that Tolkein guy.



That is understandable. Before the movies came out, you basically had to stumble upon Tolkien's works by chance, unless you knew a bunch of people who knew a lot about the history of the fantasy book genre.


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## Reynard (Jul 14, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> My fondness for myth and folklore tends to mix with anime and videogames to create a general fondness for over-the-top action involving swordplay and martial arts and an exaggerated Epic Tier where unspeakable evils and dark gods are the default foes, not impossible challenges.




I think this is one of the reasons why D&D looks the way it does today, and this is the true "generation gap" (with acknowledgement that a lot of people cross the gap, too.)  Simply put, the influences are different -- different in style, tone and atmosphere.  Even leaving literature out of it, just the film differences are amazing. Excalibur used to be one of the ultimate "gamer" movies.  How many "new" gamers (i.e. those that came to D&D with 3E) have even seen it, let alone consider it an exemplary work? Back before we had Jackson's LotR trilogy, we had Ladyhawk and The Dark Crystal. Fantasy in film was not so much more "realistic" but it tended to be more "grounded" -- mostly because of the limits on special effects, I think, but also due to style. While not a fantasy per se, the Matrix redefined genre film from a stylistic and visual standpoint (due in no small part to anime influnces) and that informs the kind of "geek culture" that both feeds and feeds off D&D and related games.

Modern genre entertainment tends toward the super-heroic, regardless of the actual genre, and it tends toward badassitude as a major selling point for its heroes. There's less fear, trepidation, uncertainty and just plain retreat and/or failure in modern stories, regardless of medium, than there is in stories from just one or two decades ago. Blame John McCain or Hulk Hogan (yes, pro wrestling is genre entertainment) if you want, but the "action hero" is one who gets "bloodied" but never goes down, who always pulls out a badass move in the end and wins the day. Compare this to earlier, when even Conan was terrified of the undead or demons or magic.

I'm not that old, but my preferences lean toward "gritty" and "sword and sorcery", with a big old heaping helping of lovecraftian horror and the attitude that sometimes just getting out with all four limbs attached is a "victory". That, and I prefer it when one can assume "it works just like the real world" unless there's an explicit point at which it doesn't.

It should be no surprise that I prefer AD&D 1E above all other versions of the game, but am comfortable with any edition before 4th (though 3E only up till about 12th level). It's not just the anime inspired kung fu attitude -- I love Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for example -- but the disconnect from "realism" and "simulation" that creates my generation gap.


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## Glyfair (Jul 14, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> Easy solution for what? The generation gap? If so, wouldn't an alternate solution be for all the people of the older generations to go play the videogames Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Chrono Trigger? Of course, that would take a lot more time than reading a few short stories...



I am definitely older generation and have played all those video games.  They aren't that high on my inspiration list.

What I find most interesting here, though, is how self-referential this may have become to D&D (and other fantasy RPGs, but most D&D).  A large percentage of the influences that are supposedly "younger generation" were influenced directly or indirectly by D&D.

The video games above, all influenced by D&D.  More recent fantasy video/computer games?  Influenced either by D&D or games influenced by D&D.  The OP, and several other posters, list their primary literary influences to be D&D novels.  Anime, a lot of it was influenced by D&D, sometimes quite directly.  

Twenty years from now many may consider some version of D&D to be a perfect representation of their fantasy inspirations because they all grew out of D&D.


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## Fifth Element (Jul 14, 2009)

Reynard said:


> Back before we had Jackson's LotR trilogy, we had Ladyhawk and The Dark Crystal.
> 
> ...
> 
> Blame John McCain or Hulk Hogan (yes, pro wrestling is genre entertainment) if you want, but the "action hero" is one who gets "bloodied" but never goes down, who always pulls out a badass move in the end and wins the day. Compare this to earlier, when even Conan was terrified of the undead or demons or magic.



Assuming you mean John McClane here - _Die Hard_ was released in 1988. _Ladyhawke _in 1985, _Dark Crystal_ 1982. _Conan _was 1982 and 1984. Hulkamania started when, about 1984? I daresay for many players who came to D&D in 3E, those are all from the very same era.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Jul 14, 2009)

Reynard said:


> It should be no surprise that I prefer AD&D 1E above all other versions of the game, but am comfortable with any edition before 4th (though 3E only up till about 12th level). It's not just the anime inspired kung fu attitude -- I love Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for example -- but the disconnect from "realism" and "simulation" that creates my generation gap.




I guess this is my generation gap...you talk about simulation and realism, yet prefer 1e.  Seems like (never played, just read threads on it) 1e is incredibly unrealistic.  People talk about going through PCs like a fashionista goes through clothes.  "Tom died when he opened the door and all the water came rushing out and smashed him against the wall.  Then Bill...aww man.  He fumbled with his great axe and decapitated himself.  It was amazing!  Johhnny...he actually got through 3 rooms of the dungeon before walking into that invisible green slime."  The high death rate and rotating roster of PCs is realistic?  I know adventuring is dangerous, but...wow.  It makes me wonder why these people didn't just line up to walk into a meat grinder and get it over with faster.


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## Hairfoot (Jul 14, 2009)

Fifth Element said:


> Assuming you mean John McClane here



I pray to the gods of comedy that he didn't.


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## Hussar (Jul 14, 2009)

Reynard said:


> I think this is one of the reasons why D&D looks the way it does today, and this is the true "generation gap" (with acknowledgement that a lot of people cross the gap, too.)  Simply put, the influences are different -- different in style, tone and atmosphere.  Even leaving literature out of it, just the film differences are amazing. Excalibur used to be one of the ultimate "gamer" movies.  How many "new" gamers (i.e. those that came to D&D with 3E) have even seen it, let alone consider it an exemplary work? Back before we had Jackson's LotR trilogy, we had Ladyhawk and The Dark Crystal. Fantasy in film was not so much more "realistic" but it tended to be more "grounded" -- mostly because of the limits on special effects, I think, but also due to style. While not a fantasy per se, the Matrix redefined genre film from a stylistic and visual standpoint (due in no small part to anime influnces) and that informs the kind of "geek culture" that both feeds and feeds off D&D and related games.




Oh come on.  The vast majority of fantasy pre-LOTR was flat out crap.  For every Ladyhawke, you had DungeonMaster starring David Moll (Bull from Night Court).  Even the so called "classics" like Highlander are absolutely horrid movies.  Let's take France's worst actor, pair him with Scotland's best and we'll make the French guy the Highlander.  

Sheena?  Red Sonja?  Rankin and Bass' Lord of the Rings?  Gor?  Yor?  Beastmaster?  The list of B fantasy movies is looooong.  And while I watched probably every single one of them, they really were all crap.



> Modern genre entertainment tends toward the super-heroic, regardless of the actual genre, and it tends toward badassitude as a major selling point for its heroes. There's less fear, trepidation, uncertainty and just plain retreat and/or failure in modern stories, regardless of medium, than there is in stories from just one or two decades ago. Blame John McCain or Hulk Hogan (yes, pro wrestling is genre entertainment) if you want, but the "action hero" is one who gets "bloodied" but never goes down, who always pulls out a badass move in the end and wins the day. Compare this to earlier, when even Conan was terrified of the undead or demons or magic.




Umm, what?  When was Conan terrified?  Ever.  I've read the Howard novels and I've watch the movies.  At what point is the super-heroic, last son of Atlantis, who is stronger, faster, smarter and more bad assed than everyone around him EVER terrified.

Conan was once beaten unconcious, nailed to a cross, left for dead for a day, the cross was then cut down and fell while he was on it, he pulled the nails out of his own hands and legs then rode a horse for an entire night (A Witch is Born).  And you're going to say that the ultimate pulp barbarian is somehow less bad assed than heroes today?

Wow.



> I'm not that old, but my preferences lean toward "gritty" and "sword and sorcery", with a big old heaping helping of lovecraftian horror and the attitude that sometimes just getting out with all four limbs attached is a "victory". That, and I prefer it when one can assume "it works just like the real world" unless there's an explicit point at which it doesn't.
> 
> It should be no surprise that I prefer AD&D 1E above all other versions of the game, but am comfortable with any edition before 4th (though 3E only up till about 12th level). It's not just the anime inspired kung fu attitude -- I love Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for example -- but the disconnect from "realism" and "simulation" that creates my generation gap.




I think it's the very nostalgia colored glasses that you wear that disconnect you from "realism" and "simulationism".


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## Hairfoot (Jul 14, 2009)

Hussar said:


> I think it's the very nostalgia colored glasses that you wear



_What _coloured?


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## Shemeska (Jul 14, 2009)

I'm feeling like the middle-kid here. I don't feel any connection to the old school material of 1e, and not much to a majority of its fantasy literature influences (never read Moorcock, Leiber, or any of Howard's Conan work). Yet at the same time I'm just barely removed from the 25 and under range and some of the influences often mentioned there.

I read Tolkein in highschool, but prior to that I'd devoured Lloyd Alexander's work in middle school in the space of a week. I read Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space' when I was 9 (which might explain some things), and then rediscovered his work during highschool (didn't know his name when I read that story and had horrible horrible nightmares for weeks of crumbling things in the attic). I've come to seriously adore HPL, and even more so, the work of Clark Ashton Smith, M.R. James, Arthur Machen, and a few others that Lovecraft himself was more enamoured with. There's a very strong strain of horror and weird fiction in my literary likes and influences.

Like a few others have mentioned here, I read Enders Game as a highschool sophomore and thought it was an incredible book (and he spoke at my highschool one year removed from when I graduated and got some assistant under secretary of transport or something).

More recently I've been reading China Mieville (just finished The City & The City; and just today noticed that he's going to be working on a Paizo supplement...), F. Paul Wilson, Steven King, and Jack McDevitt. A whole hell of a lot of horror and strange mixed into my fantasy. Very little conventional tolkein'ish fantasy except for the occasional D&D novel (which outside of two specific authors I've stopped reading).

As far as video game influences: everything from classic NES Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, then the Breath of Fire games, and yes Disgaea. I <3 that last one.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Jul 14, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Even the so called "classics" like Highlander are absolutely horrid movies.  Let's take France's worst actor, pair him with Scotland's best and we'll make the French guy the Highlander.




...I like him... Never saw Highlander, but he was an awesome Raiden and Beowulf.... *whimper*

Come on...he's still better than Jean-Claude at least.  We can agree on that, right?


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## small pumpkin man (Jul 14, 2009)

I'm 26. I started playing around '01/'02 and I've never played 2e or earlier. I'm pretty sure I've read every author Gygax recommends in that dungeon article of his where he recommends books. The guys in my group who've been playing since they picked up Basic in '83/'84 haven't. (One guy's close, but he's never read Vance. I don't blame him.) So Nah, The generation gap doesn't follow those lines in our group.

The Prydain Chronicles were fun, but I couldn't really recommend them to anyone who wasn't either 15 or a had a good grasp on their inner child though.


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## Hairfoot (Jul 14, 2009)

I just started reading Jack Vance.  I'm through the Cugel books and into Magnus Ridolph.  I got the nostalgia in reverse: "ah, so _this _is what OD&D was based on when I played it!"


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## jasonbostwick (Jul 14, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> More recently I've been reading China Mieville (just finished The City & The City; and just today noticed that he's going to be working on a Paizo supplement...).




A Paizo supplement? Where did you hear about that?

I saw the news about _Tales of New Crobuzon_ but nothing about Mieville and Paizo beyond what was in Dungeon 352.


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 14, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Umm, what?  When was Conan terrified?  Ever.  I've read the Howard novels and I've watch the movies.  At what point is the super-heroic, last son of Atlantis, who is stronger, faster, smarter and more bad assed than everyone around him EVER terrified.
> 
> I think it's the very nostalgia colored glasses that you wear that disconnect you from "realism" and "simulationism".





Quote from REH:

"And then the hair lifted from the nape of his neck, and he felt his skin roughen with a supernatural thrill."

This knowledge however did not calm the youth's sudden chill of terror.  Fearless beyond his years in war, willing to stand against a man or brute beast in battle, he feared neither pain, nor death, nor mortal foes.  But he was a barbarian from the northern hills of backward Cimmeria, and like all barbarians, he dreaded the supernatural terrors of the grave and the dark, with all its dreads and demons.  Much rather would Conan have faced even the hungry wolves than remain here with the dead thing glaring down at him from its rocky throne, while the wavering firelight painted life and animation into the withered skull-face and moved the shadows in its sunken sockets like dark, burning eyes."

"He stopped, frozen in mid-stride, as a sound - an indescribable, dry creaking - came from the throne side of the crypt.  Wheeling, he saw... and felt the hair lift from his scalp and the blood turn to ice in his veins.  All his superstitious terrors and primal night-fears rose howling, to fill his mind with shadows of madness and horror.  For the dead thing lived..."

You didn't read very far then.  Those are from the very first story.


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## Reynard (Jul 14, 2009)

Hairfoot said:


> I pray to the gods of comedy that he didn't.




Fruedian slip?


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## Reynard (Jul 14, 2009)

StreamOfTheSky said:


> I guess this is my generation gap...you talk about simulation and realism, yet prefer 1e.  Seems like (never played, just read threads on it) 1e is incredibly unrealistic.  People talk about going through PCs like a fashionista goes through clothes.  "Tom died when he opened the door and all the water came rushing out and smashed him against the wall.  Then Bill...aww man.  He fumbled with his great axe and decapitated himself.  It was amazing!  Johhnny...he actually got through 3 rooms of the dungeon before walking into that invisible green slime."  The high death rate and rotating roster of PCs is realistic?  I know adventuring is dangerous, but...wow.  It makes me wonder why these people didn't just line up to walk into a meat grinder and get it over with faster.




What you're describing here is a kind og KoDT over the top satire of play, which, while highly entertaining, doesn't really have any bearing on actual play.


----------



## Shemeska (Jul 14, 2009)

jasonbostwick said:


> A Paizo supplement? Where did you hear about that?
> 
> I saw the news about _Tales of New Crobuzon_ but nothing about Mieville and Paizo beyond what was in Dungeon 352.




Here's a link to it, the Guide to the River Kingdoms which will be a supplement on the setting for one of the next Pathfinder APs.



> Thieves, brigands, deposed princes, and the truly desperate inhabitants of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting flock to the River Kingdoms, a motley collection of tiny enclaves whose rulers command only so far as their brute strength and mercenary armies can carve out for them. This comprehensive 64-page guidebook presents the first-ever extensive overview of this treacherous land, where any man can become a king so long as he keeps his hand on his sword and his back free of daggers. More than a dozen rogue kingdoms come alive with lavish illustrations and detailed maps in this first look at the setting for the next Pathfinder Adventure Path: KINGMAKER!
> 
> by Eric Bailey, Kevin Carter, Elaine Cunningham, Adam Daigle, Mike Ferguson, Joshua J. Frost, James Jacobs, Steve Kenson, Rob Manning, Colin McComb, Alison McKenzie, *China Miéville*, Brock Mitchel-Slentz, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Chris Pramas, Jeff Quick, Sean K Reynolds, F. Wesley Schneider, Neil Spicer, Lisa Stevens, Matthew Stinson, and John Wick.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 14, 2009)

Reynard said:


> There's less fear, trepidation, uncertainty and just plain retreat and/or failure in modern stories, regardless of medium, than there is in stories from just one or two decades ago. Blame John McCain or Hulk Hogan (yes, pro wrestling is genre entertainment) if you want, but the "action hero" is one who gets "bloodied" but never goes down, who always pulls out a badass move in the end and wins the day. Compare this to earlier, when even Conan was terrified of the undead or demons or magic.



It does seem utterly bizarre to me to associate Conan with any kind of realism. Trepidation, uncertainty? That's not Conan. That's the opposite of Conan. He's not a modern hero, not some angst-ridden, doubting Peter Parker type. There's very little internal world, he's all external, a man of action, not a useless philosopher like Elric. He's a man's man. A tail-chasing, danger-embracing, skull-splitting escapist fantasy for the depression years.

The passage anti-Tolkien quotes above is quite uncharacteristic, dealing as it does with Conan's thoughts and feelings for a whole two paragraphs.

Okay, so magic is his kryptonite, he's allegedly scared of it. That doesn't stop him killing almost every weird monster and wizard he meets. He doesn't avoid encounters that don't have any treasure, like old school D&Ders faced with a wandering monster. He murders them.

As Hussar says, Conan is a superhero. One reason I disliked REH's stories is that Conan is so very much better than everyone around him, he rarely experiences serious setbacks, he hardly ever loses. In only one I read was he actually, temporarily, defeated, knocked unconscious by a stone thrown at his head. That event was remarkable because it was exceptional. Conan doesn't really experience the 'middle downturn' common in fiction. Unlike a wrestler he doesn't lie on the mat in the middle of the fight, getting stomped by the cheating heel. As soon as he confronts a foe, he wins.


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## Hussar (Jul 14, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Quote from REH:
> 
> "And then the hair lifted from the nape of his neck, and he felt his skin roughen with a supernatural thrill."
> 
> ...




Heh, that's most certainly NOT the first REH Conan story.  However, that's the first one of the reprints, so, that's fair enough.

Ok, when Conan is a young teen, he's afraid.  Note, while being afraid, he still takes the sword and kills the undead creature.  So much for being so scared he runs away.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 14, 2009)

There has been a tendency, over the last 100 or so years, for heroes in adventure fiction to become more powerful in absolute terms. They've become weirder and more magical. (Psychologically, however they've become more realistic, more doubt-ridden, we see more of their thought processes.)

Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen demonstrates this. Most of them were the bad guys in the original stories. If Moore had created a League composed of protagonists from the time period, if they'd all been like Rudolf Rassendyll or Raffles, the story would have been too boring for our modern sensibilities. Instead he choose the more outre, interesting characters. The ones with the powers and impossible machines. Villains became protagonists.

Although superheroes, the most powerful characters in adventure fiction until Dragonball Z, appeared in the late 1930s at first they were mostly just guys in costumes. Most Golden Age superheroes weren't like Superman or the Spectre, they were Batman-types. It was only by the Silver Age they virtually all had powers, and in general the level of power increased over time.

In fantasy fiction, the rise of the wizard as protagonist exemplifies the trend. In the 1930s, wizards were the bad guys. Gandalf is a mentor, not the hero. Post WW2, the wizard could take the starring role - Elric, Dying Earth, The Face In the Frost, A Wizard of Earthsea. 1974 D&D, with its wizard and cleric PCs, was part of this trend towards more powerful, magical heroes. Compare also the willingness of all D&D PCs to use magic to Conan's distrust of the stuff.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 14, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> I am definitely older generation and have played all those video games.  They aren't that high on my inspiration list.



The fact that they are not that high on your inspiration list probably has something to do with the generation gap. People tend to be more inspired by the stuff they first encounter, and the stuff they encountered most often in the younger years.



> What I find most interesting here, though, is how self-referential this may have become to D&D (and other fantasy RPGs, but most D&D).  A large percentage of the influences that are supposedly "younger generation" were influenced directly or indirectly by D&D.
> 
> The video games above, all influenced by D&D.  More recent fantasy video/computer games?  Influenced either by D&D or games influenced by D&D.  The OP, and several other posters, list their primary literary influences to be D&D novels.  Anime, a lot of it was influenced by D&D, sometimes quite directly.
> 
> Twenty years from now many may consider some version of D&D to be a perfect representation of their fantasy inspirations because they all grew out of D&D.



You certainly have a point in saying that D&D has been extremely influential in the modern conception of fantasy, but I think you overstate exactly how influential it is.

Sure, the original Final Fantasy blatantly steals a huge number of ideas from D&D in general and Dragonlance in particular, and many of these stolen ideas (such as the Black Mage/White Mage/Red Mage distinction) continue to stay close to the thematic core of the series, but at the same time the Final Fantasy series has gone off to create a huge number of interesting and unique ideas that don't resemble core D&D whatsoever. I mean, at this point a significant fraction of the Final Fantasy games feature modern or futuristic settings in which swordsmen, wizards, guns, cars, and robots all exist side by side, something that D&D itself has not supported whatsoever, and probably won't support any time soon.

At the same time, many other videogames have been creating their own ideas and diverging more and more from the D&D default. If anything, the kind of vanilla fantasy that D&D represents is considered old-fashioned and cliché in the realm of modern videogames, and new games are continually pushing the boundaries of fantasy and looking for new inspirations and ideas.

So, in a certain sense, D&D is showing its age, even in 4E, more than it is really representing the pinnacle of modern fantasy.

To put this in a bit clearer of terms... There are plenty of people I have encountered who seem to not want to see a ninja class, or even ninjas as a whole, in 4E. However, from my own perspective, the ninja may as well be part of the "vanilla core" of fantasy character archetypes, right alongside the knight and the wizard. Ninja certainly are not some kind of exotic thing you only put into an "oriental" campaign you play when you want to try something different for a while. I think the same might be said for the use of firearms in a fantasy game...


----------



## Ariosto (Jul 14, 2009)

> Before the movies came out, you basically had to stumble upon Tolkien's works by chance, unless you knew a bunch of people who knew a lot about the history of the fantasy book genre.



Actually, knowledge of fantasy literature has tended to be low among those on whose shelves I have found Tolkien.

TlotR has been well represented, though, in households with a more general interest in 20th-century literature. Other works of fantasy one might find in such libraries include T.H. White's _The Once and Future King_; C.S. Lewis's _Till We Have Faces_ and Space Trilogy; Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books; Walter Wangerin, Jr.'s _The Book of the Dun Cow_; and Richard Adams's _Watership Down_ and _Shardik_.

Growing up among people who are "bookish" in that sense may make exposure to some works more likely; one may well have been read to from _The Hobbit_, or received it as a gift, as a child. On the other hand, such folks seem less often (my maternal grandfather, with his collection of Ace Double Novels, being an exception) to be great fans of fantasy and science-fiction. Their light reading, from what I have seen, tends more to historical romances, mysteries and espionage thrillers. 

The needs of film, television, comic books, computer games, and toys are, I think, more often in harmony with those of a D&D game than are those of literature. They have taken over the role in popular culture that "pulp magazines" and radio played in a former era (one waning even when Gary Gygax was a little boy).

The cartoon series "Thundarr the Barbarian", for instance, seems an excellent match. I would not be surprised to learn that many adventure serials have not only influenced D&D players but been partly shaped by them.

The basic ethos has not changed much, I think. _Weird Tales_ was aimed primarily at an older audience, so it does not seem apt to compare its "spicy" or "dark" aspects with the tenor of works meant mainly for children. Beyond that age group, sex and violence are now commonly treated in ways that make (for instance) Howard's tales of Conan seem comparatively tame.

One could make too much of superficials. When TSR reached a wider audience with the Basic and Advanced D&D products, it settled on a baseline set of elements to define the game's identity -- what has since come to be taken as a genre of "D&D fantasy" (or even, to some folks, "standard" fantasy).

That presentation started to expand in the 2E era, and WotC continued the process. It has been IMO a matter less of truly broadening horizons than of shifting emphases, although the former aspect may be considerable for those to whom D&D is essentially self-contained and self-referential.

Among the fellows with whom I am currently playing, one has read Leiber's tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and has at least heard of Moorcock's Elric. That Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Andre Norton, Manly Wade Wellman, Clark Ashton Smith, Abe Merritt, and most others whom Gygax cited as influences are if not unknown then unread does not surprise me. DMG Appendix N was probably what first brought them to the attention of most D&Ders -- and most among them probably did not go in search of the books.

The one big surprise to me was lack of acquaintance with Conan the Cimmerian in any form (even, I think, the movies). The Marvel Comics version especially (both the color comics and the _Savage Sword of Conan_ magazine) had seemed to me ubiquitous, and these fellows are all of similar age.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 14, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> The one big surprise to me was lack of acquaintance with Conan the Cimmerian in any form (even, I think, the movies). The Marvel Comics version especially (both the color comics and the _Savage Sword of Conan_ magazine) had seemed to me ubiquitous, and these fellows are all of similar age.



Am I the only person whose familiarity with Conan began and ended with the "Conan the Adventurer" saturday morning cartoon that ran when I was a kid?


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## Fifth Element (Jul 14, 2009)

Reynard said:


> What you're describing here is a kind og KoDT over the top satire of play, which, while highly entertaining, doesn't really have any bearing on actual play.



You obviously haven't met my first DM.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Jul 14, 2009)

Reynard said:


> What you're describing here is a kind og KoDT over the top satire of play, which, while highly entertaining, doesn't really have any bearing on actual play.



Is Tomb of Horrors merely a satire then, never intended to be actually run? That makes a lot of sense tbh.


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## Dragonbait (Jul 14, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> Am I the only person whose familiarity with Conan began and ended with the "Conan the Adventurer" saturday morning cartoon that ran when I was a kid?




Conan, the adventurer! Conan, warrior made of steel!
I'm right there with you... Well, I saw the Conan movie after I watched the cartoon, but that's it. 

I'm 30 and I grew up with Thundercats, Dungeons & Dragons, He-Man, and Japanese anime rather than Tolkien or any of the "old guard." Sci-fi and fantasy were always one and the same. When I was getting into D&D and other fantasy role-playing games I had to make an effort to change my views of what fantasy is and all that it could be to conform to the much more conservative limits of Tolkien and Co.'s works that D&D was more in line with.


----------



## Ariosto (Jul 14, 2009)

> Final Fantasy games feature modern or futuristic settings in which swordsmen, wizards, guns, cars, and robots all exist side by side, something that D&D itself has not supported whatsoever, and probably won't support any time soon.



The concept of what "support" means in a D&D context has evolved.

It might conceivably be fair -- I lack familiarity with the game beyond having seen a movie spin-off -- to say that FF does not "support" a setting with only some of those elements rather than a melange. After all, what one can do is limited by what's been put into the program.

There has been a tendency to treat D&D similarly, rather than as an exemplary starting point for creating a game of one's own imagination (as originally intended). That said, its primary identity is with the "sword and sorcery" genre. The idea of making it a "plain vanilla" game along the lines of GURPS was not behind its conception, and I think has yet to gain much traction (although I have seen at least one "old-school" fan suggest that as an opportunity TSR missed).

My own D&D campaign of the 1980s included modern and futuristic elements as ordinary features, but I think that is unusual at least among folks who like to play diverse other RPGs as well. More commonly, characters might _visit_ (or experience an irruption of) the Stone Age or the Space Age -- but a roughly ancient or medieval milieu, in which high technology is indistinguishable from magic, is predominantly "home" to player-characters. That seems to be one of the commonly recognized or expected characteristics of a "D&D" game. Boot Hill, Gangbusters, Top Secret, Gamma World and Star Frontiers likewise come with some assumptions as to what the norm and starting point shall be (even if dragons or wizards should occasionally appear).


----------



## stuart (Jul 14, 2009)

I think the idea that D&D (or D&D players) _used to be_ influenced by literature instead of TV / Movies isn't quite accurate.

I got a chance to ask Gary Gygax about classic monster movies and he confirmed he was a big fan. You'll get insight into what the designers of 1st Edition D&D and it's contemporaries were thinking about if you read Vance, Leiber, Moorcock, etc... but you'll also see inspirations for the game in old Sinbad movies and the Kung Fu TV show. Watch the 7th Voyage of Sinbad and you'll see as much D&D inspiration as you will in any Conan novel.

There's different literature (eg. Harry Potter) and TV/movies (eg. Anime) that's influencing new gamers today -- but they're being influenced by books AND tv/movies just like they were in the 70s, 80s and 90s.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 14, 2009)

stuart said:


> I got a chance to ask Gary Gygax about classic monster movies and he confirmed he was a big fan.



WG4 Isle of the Ape


----------



## stuart (Jul 14, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> WG4 Isle of the Ape



Absolutely. Monster/Sci-Fi/Fantasy films have had as much influence on D&D and RPGs as literature.

The Cleric was originally introduced to D&D as a Peter Cushing style Van Helsing from the old Hammer Horror films for one of the players to deal with a certain Vampire Count that was in the game...


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## rkwoodard (Jul 14, 2009)

*My Group*

I started gaming in 79 or 80, with 2 brothers of a same age as myself.  We later added 5 other gamers that were 2-4 years younger.

We all owned a copy of Lord of the Rings, the Narnia Box Set, and the Lord Bane's Foul set.

We had all read the Myth Adventure Books.

The more dedicated of us were also into The Complete Enchanter series by L. Sprague DeCamp and F. Platt.

We also had familiarity with Elric, Dragonriders of Pern, and Shannara.

Ahh, back when there was time to read.  

RK


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## amysrevenge (Jul 14, 2009)

Hairfoot said:


> I just started reading Jack Vance.  I'm through the Cugel books and into Magnus Ridolph.  I got the nostalgia in reverse: "ah, so _this _is what OD&D was based on when I played it!"




I'm reading Dying Earth for the first time myself (at age 34).  I find that I'm not enjoying it, and I probably will move on to other books without finishing it.  And I doubt that the problem is the age - I'm a big time Golden Age SF buff, and continually read SF from the 40s and 50s.  I just don't feel any empathy at all for the characters, who I find universally morally reprehensible, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  I just can't get through a book about one sociopath after another.


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## Ariosto (Jul 14, 2009)

I do not think that "literature" in the customary or "high-brow" sense, had excessively much to do with the origins and early development of D&D! Universal, Hammer, and Harryhausen  pictures were probably at least on par with the classic tales on which they drew for inspiration. The _Kung Fu_ TV show has always seemed a strong association with the Monk class (a stranger in the strange land of predominantly Western D&D) -- along with the "Kung Fu Fighting" pop song!

Ancient myths and legends continue to inform works even by artists who have themselves received them only via very recent reinterpretations. Shakespeare's plays were part of the "pop culture" of his day, as perhaps were Homer's poems. They stand out as especially fine works, long recognized and preserved as "art" while most of their contemporaries have been forgotten. The roots of Story in them, though, are perennial stock from which popular works sprout. Fantasy has, I think, come to much greater prominence in "mainstream" entertainment than it enjoyed 35 years ago.

I see a slight difference in generations, though, in the role that the visual media play. I think they weigh a bit more heavily in the balance these days than reading and listening do -- or at least than those once did. Besides the decline of radio as a dramatic medium, face-to-face storytelling seems less commonly indulged in as a form of entertainment. Young people have hardly stopped reading books, and SF magazines are notable among the few short-fiction venues still precariously clinging to existence. Television has grown, though, and video games pretty much came into existence, in the decades since D&D first appeared.


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## Ariosto (Jul 14, 2009)

> I just can't get through a book about one sociopath after another.



That is not as ubiquitous in Vance as his unique prose style, but certainly predominates in the jaded and cynical Dying Earth. The Demon Princes series is another in which even the protagonist (a man driven by vengeance, reminiscent of the Count of Monte Cristo) is not very much more sympathetic than the villains.

If memory serves, _The Languages of Pao_, _Big Planet_ and the Tschai (Planet of Adventure) series are among those in which Vance portrays characters of more traditionally heroic bent. I have yet to read _Lyonesse_, so cannot speak to that.


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## Herschel (Jul 14, 2009)

I haven't read a lot of them either and I turned 40. Heck I just got around to actually reading LotR a couple of years ago (although I had heard the BBC radio play a few times. Most of my early reading was Donaldson and then historical records of mythology, warfare and a few of the true "classics" (Homer). Later, I read the Forgotten Realms books when I wanted some fluff, and read a few of the Dragonlance books, but always really hated Raistlin as a character and never got why people like him. 

Then again, maybe I'm geek-light.


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 14, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Heh, that's most certainly NOT the first REH Conan story.  However, that's the first one of the reprints, so, that's fair enough.
> 
> Ok, when Conan is a young teen, he's afraid.  Note, while being afraid, he still takes the sword and kills the undead creature.  So much for being so scared he runs away.




Yeah, it was like 4 am, I meant to say the first story I looked in, "Tower of the Elephant."

That's what being a hero is about.  Heroism is action, not due to lack of fear, but despite it.

Also Conan WAS running from the wolves, but I don't think it was in fear, just practical.  He knew he couldn't handle an entire pack of wolves, although in the movie, we see him wearing skins of some sort after he leaves the cave.    Nor does it mean the pcs in D&D are necessarily afraid when they retreat from overwhelming odds or deathtraps.  It's merely pragmaticism.


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## Reynard (Jul 14, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> Is Tomb of Horrors merely a satire then, never intended to be actually run? That makes a lot of sense tbh.




Tomb of Horrors is a very specific kind of adventure and not representative of anything else.

But I'm guessing you knew that.


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## amysrevenge (Jul 14, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> That is not as ubiquitous in Vance as his unique prose style, but certainly predominates in the jaded and cynical Dying Earth.





I think that the style is an indication of this culture gap as well.  I started playing in 2E, and I have this impression that many of the people playing ahead of me played similar types of characters to the Dying Earth ones, who were only interested in things they could kill, steal, or hump.  Obviously this impression is incorrect (or at most vastly exaggerated in my mind), but it still colours how I react on a gut level, and makes me feel disconnected from my gaming elders.


As an aside, how funny is it that my favourite modern fictional character is Bender from Futurama, who exhibits most of the characteristics I dislike from Vance, and yet it's OK because he's a robot?  There's hypocrisy for you lol.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 15, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> You certainly have a point in saying that D&D has been extremely influential in the modern conception of fantasy, but I think you overstate exactly how influential it is.
> 
> Sure, the original Final Fantasy blatantly steals a huge number of ideas from D&D in general and Dragonlance in particular, and many of these stolen ideas (such as the Black Mage/White Mage/Red Mage distinction) continue to stay close to the thematic core of the series, but at the same time the Final Fantasy series has gone off to create a huge number of interesting and unique ideas that don't resemble core D&D whatsoever. I mean, at this point a significant fraction of the Final Fantasy games feature modern or futuristic settings in which swordsmen, wizards, guns, cars, and robots all exist side by side, something that D&D itself has not supported whatsoever, and probably won't support any time soon.






			
				1e DMG pg 112 said:
			
		

> *Sixguns & Sorcery:*
> 
> Whether or not you opt to have time/space warp throw *BOOT HILL* gunfighters into your *AD&D* world, or the advernturers from your fantasy milieu enter a Wild West setting, the conversions are the same.





			
				1e DMG said:
			
		

> *Mutants & Magic:*
> 
> Readers of *THE DRAGON* might already be familiar with the concept of mixing science fantasy and heroic fantasy from reading my previous article about the adventurers of a group of *AD&D* characters transported via a curse scroll to another continuum and ending up amidst the androids and mutants aboard the Starship Warden....




These 3 pages of the 1e DMG explain how to convert AD&D characters to Boot Hill and Gamma World and vice versa.

Yes, you are right. D&D never _directly_ supported bonzo Rifts like play but it certainly was not said that you couldn't add such to your D&D game should you choose to. (See also S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.) If you don't see the influence of D&D on Final Fantasy in all its forms, you don't know D&D as well as you might.

** Hey, remember when it called The Dragon.


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## haakon1 (Jul 15, 2009)

Whether you read fantasy books or not isn't about age, it's circles of geekdom.  Some things (Tolkien) are pretty core.  Other things are common among D&D players (liking comics), but at all required.

The circles don't all overlap.  And being totally out of one circle (no interest in comics) doesn't make you not a geek.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Yeah, it was like 4 am, I meant to say the first story I looked in, "Tower of the Elephant."
> 
> That's what being a hero is about.  Heroism is action, not due to lack of fear, but despite it.
> 
> Also Conan WAS running from the wolves, but I don't think it was in fear, just practical.  He knew he couldn't handle an entire pack of wolves, although in the movie, we see him wearing skins of some sort after he leaves the cave.    Nor does it mean the pcs in D&D are necessarily afraid when they retreat from overwhelming odds or deathtraps.  It's merely pragmaticism.




That wasn't from Tower of the Elephant.  That's from the one where Conan is a teen ager running away.  I forget right now what the title is.  Tower of the Elephant, Conan is not a youth and there's no wolves or crypts.  There's a honking big Elephant like god and a wizard, but, no wolves.  And certainly nothing howls.  

But, I think we agree more than we disagree.  Conan is a really poor example of the idea that PC's should not be bad assed.  Conan is the original superhero bad ass.  He wades through armies and comes out on top.  

Again, he's the biggest, baddest, strongest, whatever est warrior around.  That makes him a super-bad ass in my mind.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2009)

Reynard said:


> Tomb of Horrors is a very specific kind of adventure and not representative of anything else.
> 
> But I'm guessing you knew that.




But, Reynard, I've been told, over and over and over again that old school play is all about dying lots and lots of times.  That early D&D was incredibly lethal and you died any number of times before finally getting lucky enough to hit higher levels.

Is that a complete fabrication in your mind?  Is early D&D actually not all that lethal the way it's been advertised by Grognard after Grognard?


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## Storminator (Jul 15, 2009)

Hussar said:


> But, Reynard, I've been told, over and over and over again that old school play is all about dying lots and lots of times.  That early D&D was incredibly lethal and you died any number of times before finally getting lucky enough to hit higher levels.
> 
> Is that a complete fabrication in your mind?  Is early D&D actually not all that lethal the way it's been advertised by Grognard after Grognard?




Certainly IMX 1e was an endless stream of disposable PCs. We'd see an adventure for 4 PCs, bring 12, and lose at least 6... every adventure. We used to say "your character didn't survive, he just hasn't died _yet_."

PS


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Hussar said:


> But, Reynard, I've been told, over and over and over again that old school play is all about dying lots and lots of times.  That early D&D was incredibly lethal and you died any number of times before finally getting lucky enough to hit higher levels.
> 
> Is that a complete fabrication in your mind?  Is early D&D actually not all that lethal the way it's been advertised by Grognard after Grognard?




AD&D certainly can be lethal, but I think you are making a false assumption here: the lethality isn't based solely on luck. AD&D emphasized a certain style of play, one often referred to as "player skill", where mastering the fiddly bits of the mechanics are relying on polyhedrons wasn't the point. Especially at low levels, jumping into combat (or any other dangerous situation0 with just the fickle dice as your allies was a good prologue to character generation.

All those super lethal traps, gotcha monsters, riddles and puzzles and other often derided "old school" elements: those were there to enhance everyones fun by engaging the *players* in the game, to immerse them beyond their character sheets.


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## Mallus (Jul 15, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Is early D&D actually not all that lethal the way it's been advertised by Grognard after Grognard?



My experience is that while early D&D certainly _can_ be lethal, for quite a few group's it wasn't. 

When you hear people rhapsodizing about the extremely deadly, acumen-heavy, usually combat-light old-school D&D, they're talking about a particular way some groups approached the game.

Other early D&D-groups embraced options like Unearthed Arcana, had their PC's decked out with enough magic items to keep the entire Rockefeller Center Christmas tree a-glitter, and unleashed a video game-sized amount of whoop-ass on their foes.  

Different strokes and all.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2009)

Storminator said:


> Certainly IMX 1e was an endless stream of disposable PCs. We'd see an adventure for 4 PCs, bring 12, and lose at least 6... every adventure. We used to say "your character didn't survive, he just hasn't died _yet_."
> 
> PS






Reynard said:


> AD&D certainly can be lethal, but I think you are making a false assumption here: the lethality isn't based solely on luck. AD&D emphasized a certain style of play, one often referred to as "player skill", where mastering the fiddly bits of the mechanics are relying on polyhedrons wasn't the point. Especially at low levels, jumping into combat (or any other dangerous situation0 with just the fickle dice as your allies was a good prologue to character generation.
> 
> All those super lethal traps, gotcha monsters, riddles and puzzles and other often derided "old school" elements: those were there to enhance everyones fun by engaging the *players* in the game, to immerse them beyond their character sheets.






Mallus said:


> My experience is that while early D&D certainly _can_ be lethal, for quite a few group's it wasn't.
> 
> When you hear people rhapsodizing about the extremely deadly, acumen-heavy, usually combat-light old-school D&D, they're talking about a particular way some groups approached the game.
> 
> ...




These three quotes, put together pretty much say to me, "The experiences at the table were so wildly varied that making any broad brush assumptions is false."   

To be honest, I probably fell into Mallus' latter group - an Unearthed Arcana Paladin playing through G-D-Q and other modules.  I had more Schwag than I knew what to do with.  I remember at one point adding up our magic loot list, and gaining a complete LEVEL from selling it.

My point is, Reynard is trying to say that earlier edition play was one way.  It most certainly wasn't.


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## Oni (Jul 15, 2009)

Mallus said:


> My experience is that while early D&D certainly _can_ be lethal, for quite a few group's it wasn't.
> 
> When you hear people rhapsodizing about the extremely deadly, acumen-heavy, usually combat-light old-school D&D, they're talking about a particular way some groups approached the game.
> 
> ...




Yet the former is what I always hear about in regards to why the old school is so much more superior to everything that came after.  There is a definite sense of "kids these days" ruining the game amongst the grognard community that frankly has poisoned the atmosphere so much that it has all but destroyed my, at one time burgeoning, interest in older games.  It wasn't the games that put me off, it was the people who were their supposed proponents.  

It seems weird to me, but I often feel like that a lot of old schoolers are trying to give the impression that they're harder, have a more manly approach to gaming and a bigger set of polyhedrons, and had to roll their dice up hill...both ways.  Now that is a generation gap.


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Hussar said:


> My point is, Reynard is trying to say that earlier edition play was one way.  It most certainly wasn't.




I most certainly am not. Rather I refuting the statement by *others* that AD&D was played in a kill the PCs, RBDM style as the default.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2009)

Really Oni, and this gets back to the OP's original thoughts, my honest opinion is that people are so tied into a certain mind-set that they cannot be objective.  I'm probably just as guilty as anyone of that.

But, it does make any sort of discussion of the history of the game extremely difficult.  People's experiences so color their perceptions of how things were done that they cannot separate the experience from objective view.  Add to this the tendency of people to get very defensive when their views are challenged, and it becomes even more difficult.

The "generation gap" gets blurred behind some very real politicking that goes on as well.


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Oni said:


> Yet the former is what I always hear about in regards to why the old school is so much more superior to everything that came after.  There is a definite sense of "kids these days" ruining the game amongst the grognard community that frankly has poisoned the atmosphere so much that it has all but destroyed my, at one time burgeoning, interest in older games.  It wasn't the games that put me off, it was the people who were their supposed proponents.
> 
> It seems weird to me, but I often feel like that a lot of old schoolers are trying to give the impression that they're harder, have a more manly approach to gaming and a bigger set of polyhedrons, and had to roll their dice up hill...both ways.  Now that is a generation gap.




Whereas i would say that the environment here has become increasingly less friendly to different playstyles -- "old school" in particular, but others as well -- over the past year or so.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2009)

Reynard said:


> Whereas i would say that the environment here has become increasingly less friendly to different playstyles -- "old school" in particular, but others as well -- over the past year or so.




When I first read this, my first reaction was to let this slide, but, y'know what?  I don't think so.

You reap what you sow.  And I mean that in the general sense of everyone, not you specifically.  Reynard, even in this thread, you specifically stated:



			
				Reynard said:
			
		

> Blame John McCain or Hulk Hogan (yes, pro wrestling is genre entertainment) if you want, but the "action hero" is one who gets "bloodied" but never goes down, who always pulls out a badass move in the end and wins the day. Compare this to earlier, when even Conan was terrified of the undead or demons or magic.




Now, this is factually incorrect.  It's been pretty much shown that your interpretation of Conan is not supported by the text.  Conan is and was a superhero and every bit as bad assed as any modern hero.  Yet, you use that interpretation to completely dismiss later era fantasy as



			
				Reynard said:
			
		

> Modern genre entertainment tends toward the super-heroic, regardless of the actual genre, and it tends toward badassitude as a major selling point for its heroes. There's less fear, trepidation, uncertainty and just plain retreat and/or failure in modern stories, regardless of medium, than there is in stories from just one or two decades ago.




You then end off with:



> It should be no surprise that I prefer AD&D 1E above all other versions of the game, but am comfortable with any edition before 4th (though 3E only up till about 12th level). It's not just the anime inspired kung fu attitude -- I love Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for example -- but the disconnect from "realism" and "simulation" that creates my generation gap.




as if 4e is "anime inspired kung fu attitude".  Gimme a break.  You pretty much slam everything 4e and tell everyone that your way is better, more "realistic" and then wonder why you get a negative reaction?  Really?

Hrm, 4e=anime, gee where have I heard that before?  Oh yeah, I heard it for TEN FREAKING YEARS from grognards bitching about 3e.  

If you would like to find a more reasoned discussion, then perhaps couching your criticisms in forms that haven't been repeated ad nauseum for almost a decade might aid in that endevour.  Instead of telling me how much better things were in the past, how they were more "pure" and "true to the roots", tell me why those roots are something I should be interested in.  Instead of telling me why the things that I like suck, why not tell me why the things you like are actually good.

I double dog dare you.


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Hussar said:


> If you would like to find a more reasoned discussion, then perhaps couching your criticisms in forms that haven't been repeated ad nauseum for almost a decade might aid in that endevour.  Instead of telling me how much better things were in the past, how they were more "pure" and "true to the roots", tell me why those roots are something I should be interested in.  Instead of telling me why the things that I like suck, why not tell me why the things you like are actually good.
> 
> I double dog dare you.




I'll make you deal: we'll meet halfway. I'll make a greater effort to be explicit about the fact that I am talking about *my* preferences and *my* experiences, if you make an effort to no actively search for things to feel attacked over. Sound reasonable?


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## Piratecat (Jul 15, 2009)

Meeting half-way is good, challenging people to be positive is great, being rude is bad. Try to adjust accordingly.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 15, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> These 3 pages of the 1e DMG explain how to convert AD&D characters to Boot Hill and Gamma World and vice versa.



You admit it below, but I think I still need to say it. This is so far outside of what I would call "support" that it hardly bears mention. If anything, it is an explicit statement saying that if you want to combine D&D with the tropes of some other genre, you need to completely change setting via weird magical phenomenon and convert your characters over to a totally different ruleset. It is the exact opposite of what I would want to see.



> Yes, you are right. D&D never _directly_ supported bonzo Rifts like play but it certainly was not said that you couldn't add such to your D&D game should you choose to. (See also S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.)



"Bonzo Rifts-like play"? That isn't what I would want to see at all. A somewhat broader definition of the word "fantasy", perhaps, but certainly not "bonzo". That can certainly be fun (I'm fond of many of the SaGa games), but it is far from the only way to mix things like guns, technology, and fantasy.



> If you don't see the influence of D&D on Final Fantasy in all its forms, you don't know D&D as well as you might.



Well, certainly D&D has some small influence on even the most recent Final Fantasy games (they still have HP, Levels, and a generic group of loosely allied heroes on a quest, after all), but that is hardly the point.

Keep in mind, what you quoted was written in response to someone putting forward the idea that D&D can be seen by fans of modern fantasy as the defining pinnacle of the kind of fantasy they have been exposed to, because videogames primarily draw inspiration from D&D. That is simply untrue, and excessively dismisses the imagination and creativity of the countless games that have been made over the years. In terms of game mechanics, the Final Fantasy series abandoned some of the basic premises of D&D (important things like characters who have set classes) in the second iteration of the series, and never looked back. In terms of "fluff", presentation, and the like, recent Final Fantasy games don't resemble the "vanilla fantasy" of D&D in the least. Final Fantasy 12 probably takes more from Star Wars than it does D&D. As for the upcoming Final Fantasy 13, well, see for yourself...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDjkGUM7skk"]Final Fantasy XIII Trailer[/ame]

Not really a lot like D&D on any significant level. And this is from a series that started as a D&D clone. Countless other videogames started even further away from the D&D baseline, and diverged just as far. The Breath of Fire series, for example (I mention this one simply because Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter has to be one of the most un-D&D-like fantasy games I have ever seen). Even though D&D may be the root of the genre, it doesn't define or embody the genre as a whole. It is the same for videogames as it is for tabletop RPGs, really, except that D&D isn't the giant gorilla of the videogame market like it is in the tabletop RPG market.



> ** Hey, remember when it called The Dragon.



???

The fact that your sentence is incomplete aside, I never read Dragon magazine, and 1E was before my time. Seriously, I wasn't even born yet when that was first printed.


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## stuart (Jul 15, 2009)

D&D 3e and 4e undoubtedly have lots of anime influences... because there's lots of action/adventure anime movies and TV shows from the past 15 years or so.  If they had been around to the same extent in the 70s in North America I guarantee they'd have been part of 1st edition.  The old Kung Fu TV show with David Carradine was the inspiration for the 1e Monk.  Cowboy movies and Sci Fi flicks all got their bits and pieces thrown into the D&D pot too (with rules in the DMG).

If some new style of action/adventure movie becomes really popular in the future, I'm sure it will influence future RPGs as well.


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## amysrevenge (Jul 15, 2009)

stuart said:


> D&D 3e and 4e undoubtedly have lots of anime influences... because there's lots of action/adventure anime movies and TV shows from the past 15 years or so.  If they had been around to the same extent in the 70s in North America I guarantee they'd have been part of 1st edition.




Now there's a truth.


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## Ariosto (Jul 15, 2009)

Objectively, "by the book", relying on the dice in "old-school" D&D is going to kill a lot of first-level characters. The effect of even a few telling dice-rolls weighs so much that the best skill can usually do is improve the odds of survival to second level from negligible to roughly even.

Still, that's a pretty significant difference. "Learning the ropes" to the extent that it takes on average only 2-3 characters to get one to 2nd is a big down-payment on the know-how it shall eventually take to get through the Tomb of Horrors or similar. Repeating the experience more than a couple of times might not (YMMV) be very entertaining, though; it may be best to start experienced players with characters of 2nd, 3rd or even 4th-5th level.

Going up to Greyhawk hit dice helps magic-users, but Greyhawk damage boosts (especially for monsters) seem to me to make the game tougher for all classes until hit dice get a further boost in AD&D ... for everyone except the m-u.


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## Ariosto (Jul 15, 2009)

Twin Bahamut, the DMG references to Boot Hill and Gamma World were partly a matter of marketing. Gygax naturally was not going to write, "Interested readers should pick up Dave Hargrave's *Welcome to Skull Tower* for the Gunnery Charts, Star Powered Mages, Rune Singers, and other groovy goodies."


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## Cadfan (Jul 15, 2009)

I'm 28.

I don't know if I have a "formative fantasy" experience or set of novels.  I continue to read today, relatively voraciously, as I have since I was about 10.  I started with CS Lewis and the sort of fantasy your mom might give you, moved to Anne McCaffrey, whom I found shelved in part in the children's section of the library, and then followed her into the young adult section where I found Gordon R. Dickson.  But I continue to read, and to read a lot, and I continue to really enjoy finding newly published authors who do new things I haven't seen before.

And then on top of that, I like anime.  Not all anime, but some.  Begin with the premise that 90% of everything is crap.  If you're willing to watch both english language tv AND japanese tv, you've got twice as much to sort through to find the 10% that's good.  _Darker than Black_, for example, is as much an influence on my vision of fantasy as is _Thunderer_.

I do tend to find myself becoming somewhat frustrated with older (sometimes just mentally older...) gamers who look at me with my stack of novels published in the past five years, and see a threat to the way they want to game.

And I find myself incredibly frustrated with gamers who think that we really, REALLY need fifteen types of polearms with individual stat lines for each, but who also think that the addition of a katana is not only somehow _bad_ but actually unnecessary when we have a longsword.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 15, 2009)

stuart said:


> D&D 3e and 4e undoubtedly have lots of anime influences...



Could you give some examples? I actually think d20 D&D has fewer Eastern influences than 1e. The only one I've seen is a picture of a hair horror J-ghost in 4e's Open Grave - Secrets of the Undead, and that's pretty obscure.


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> And I find myself incredibly frustrated with gamers who think that we really, REALLY need fifteen types of polearms with individual stat lines for each, but who also think that the addition of a katana is not only somehow _bad_ but actually unnecessary when we have a longsword.




People have their preferences, to be sure, but I think generally speaking the kind of player that would enjoy really granular weapon stats would probably appreciate the inclusion of said stats for a wide variety of weapons. Even so, though, i understand where your coming from: a lot of grognardia has a particular inyterest in medieval europe and doesn't much care for other historical periods or cultures.

In the end, i think your first game experiences -- the group, the playstyle, the edition -- defines your "generation", though that can indeed change over time.


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> Could you give some examples? I actually think d20 D&D has fewer Eastern influences than 1e. The only one I've seen is a picture of a hair horror J-ghost in 4e's Open Grave - Secrets of the Undead, and that's pretty obscure.




"Anime" is, i think, very often a shorthand term used to describe a tone (much in the same way that "videogamey" or "WoWism" are).  The thing is, the exact meaning varies from person to person, depending on their views of "anime", which "anime" they have encountered and so on. This means, the liklihood is pretty good the speaker/writer and the audience/reader are not on the same page, sparking disagreement, maybe even offense.

We (and i definitely include myself, first in line) should probably stop using that kind of short hand (this goes for "old school" and "grognard", too) if we want to have valuable, reasonable discussions with each other.


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## coyote6 (Jul 15, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> And I find myself incredibly frustrated with gamers who think that we really, REALLY need fifteen types of polearms with individual stat lines for each, but who also think that the addition of a katana is not only somehow _bad_ but actually unnecessary when we have a longsword.




Some of that may be backlash from games that stat up the katana and make it _way better_ than every other weapon, seemingly just because katanas are cool. (I'd have to agree with the cool part, but Highlander is one of those movies I've seen a zillion times, so...  ) 

Anyways, so after one too many trenchcoat wearing vampires with a katana, sometimes people overcorrect, and you can get snide dismissals of even needing stats for one kind of thing --  "It's just like X!" -- and instead obsessively details some other area.

(Of course, depending on the game system, sometimes it really is just like X, because the game's weapon stats aren't granular enough for differences to show up. For example, I doubt there's room for much differentiation between longsword, broadsword, katana, & bastard sword in M&M. But in GURPS, or D&D 4e, sure, you could probably tweak stuff.)

*** 

FWIW, I'm 38; I'm not sure what my "formative fantasy" influence was. I read all kinds of stuff -- Pern, Hobbit, LotR, Larry Niven, John Carter, Thieves World, even some of the Gor books. Actually, my formative fiction was probably comic books -- Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Avengers, JLA, LSH, etc.


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## Cadfan (Jul 15, 2009)

Reynard said:


> People have their preferences, to be sure, but I think generally speaking the kind of player that would enjoy really granular weapon stats would probably appreciate the inclusion of said stats for a wide variety of weapons.



I'm not actually convinced that a preference for many, many types of polearms is indicative of a preference for granularity.  Hopefully, in this thread of all places, with its extensive discussion of formulative experiences and preference formation, I can get away with suggesting that this may be merely a contingent effect of one's initial RPG experiences?


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## Reynard (Jul 15, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I'm not actually convinced that a preference for many, many types of polearms is indicative of a preference for granularity.  Hopefully, in this thread of all places, with its extensive discussion of formulative experiences and preference formation, I can get away with suggesting that this may be merely a contingent effect of one's initial RPG experiences?




To be sure. If we're moving beyond literary and other pop-culture influences (which I think we have) and moving in the direction of "formative gaming" I'd say that those initial experiences are as likely to produce positive preferences as they are negative ones. I am sure there are many people who, upon first encountering D&D or other rpgs, thought "Awesome, I get to be a mighty thewed barbarian/demon-sword wielding albino/boy wizard/whatever" and end up *not* getting to do those things and being disappointed. Assuming that person came back to the table, that initial disappointment is going to color their feelings about RPGs for some time, maybe even forever.

Likewise any assumption or hope about gaming before actually engaging in it, from the joy of medieval simulation to kick-ass cinematic combat to deep immersion storytelling. The lucky ones, I think, are those who discover the game for themselves and form their own way to play from the outset (I am in this group*) or those that observe the game from outside, like what they see and are able to join in. There's still surprises, to be sure, in either of those cases, but I think disappointment and negative experiences are less likely.

To veer back toward the OP a little bit more, after thinking on it some I would guess that the relationship between genre preference and gaming preferences are not just related, but interconnected and constantly informaing one another.  While I read the Hobbit and some other fantasy before I played D&D, finding D&D and falling in love with it led me to indulge in more fantasy, from the "old generation" classics like REH and LotR to "new generation" (at the time) stuff like the Dragon Lance Series and Feist. Add to that movies, video/computer games and comics, both old and new. It's a continuing process.

* My father brought home the Red Box when I was 10.  Myself and my two brothers played together, occassionally with friends, for years before adding anything to our arsenal outside the next box (blue, green, black and gold, baby!). We created our own adventures, toyed with the rules and played "our own way".  To this day, I still have trouble running modules, as we never used them.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 16, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Twin Bahamut, the DMG references to Boot Hill and Gamma World were partly a matter of marketing. Gygax naturally was not going to write, "Interested readers should pick up Dave Hargrave's *Welcome to Skull Tower* for the Gunnery Charts, Star Powered Mages, Rune Singers, and other groovy goodies."



You know, at this point I can only throw up my hands and repeat what I said before. _I wasn't born yet when all of this took place._ I don't have the context to understand what you are talking about. Sorry, but I just don't. You are going to need to be a lot more verbose and descriptive if you want me to understand what you are exactly talking about.

Either way, until we see something like "PHB 4: Modern Heroes" and "PHB 5: Future Heroes", I think my biggest point still stands. D&D simply doesn't support the freeform combination of traditional fantasy, non-traditional fantasy, modern settings, and futuristic settings in a way that is really necessary for it to perfectly match up with the broad definition of "fantasy" that has become so much more common over the last several years. Whether 1E supported it or not, the segregation between D&D and D20 Modern in the 3E era, and the lack of even basic firearms rules in the 4E rulebooks so far, are reason enough for me to make my point.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jul 16, 2009)

Is there a gap?  Yes.  I dont think that can even be questioned.  But what IS the gap?

I recently got my grubby hands on a classic 2e PHB, and was pleased at how many references there were to historical figures and notes advising players to go to the library and read up on such things.  The book didn't just assume players would know generic fantasy archtypes, but fictional and classic characters *defining* their archtype.  So Merlin, Medea, and Circe are mentioned under wizards, and the fighter section has long lists of not just classic fighter types, but also generals and leaders - and again the mention on visiting your library to read up on stories.

On the other hand, last few times I've worked with kids, _none of them knew what a library was_.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 16, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> Either way, until we see something like "PHB 4: Modern Heroes" and "PHB 5: Future Heroes", I think my biggest point still stands. D&D simply doesn't support the freeform combination of traditional fantasy, non-traditional fantasy, modern settings, and futuristic settings in a way that is really necessary for it to perfectly match up with the broad definition of "fantasy" that has become so much more common over the last several years. Whether 1E supported it or not, the segregation between D&D and D20 Modern in the 3E era, and the lack of even basic firearms rules in the 4E rulebooks so far, are reason enough for me to make my point.




The 3.0E DMG (pg164) had combat statistics for archaic and modern handguns. It also had stats for futuristic weapons like "laser pistols" with "energy packs". If you create a 3e fighter or rogue and arm them with pistols (gunpowder or laser), you can play any sci-fi genre you want. Cyborgs and robot? examine Eberron's warforged for an example of adding such "races" to your game. Reskinning a Mind Flayer as an alien race is trivial. D&D supports genre-bending as well as it supports high fantasy or low fantasy. Sometimes you (yes, you) have to do some legwork to get the feel you want out of it. But the tools are there inside the core books of every edition.

That is was old-school truly is all about. Forget about player-skill vs character-skill. Forget about deathtraps and rolling up new characters twice a session (or not). Old-school had rule 0 just like 3E. But in the old-school way of playing rule 0 was also rule 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and up. The books were a distant second behind the do it your way meaning behind rule 0. I played in 1E games with lasers, with flying ships, in worlds populated with elves and worlds where every intelligent being was human, games entirely within a single dungeon, games that had no underground environments, underdark locales, as generals on battle fields, with cities where for a few coppers you could teleport to its sister cities on the moon!

All of it was possible because each DM had his own ideas of what a "fantasy" world was like. And that was just 1E. And to support all those different elements the DMs had a single DMG, a single PHB, a single player's option book (Unearthed Arcana), and 3 slim monster manuals (MM1, Fiend Folio and MM2). All of those books are 128 pages except the DMG weighing in at 240. 

So how did someone have lasers and how did ships fly? The DM made it up. You want firearms in 4e. Make it up. Or hunt around the Internet I'm sure someone has made it up. Any martial character should be able to substitute a firearm in the place of a (W) power. Or make it more 4E-ish if you wish, create a "tech" power source and make up some classes that know how to use futuristic gadgets that "ordinary" folk can't comprehend. Yes, this is work you would have to do. But if you did would you still be playing 4E? Of course. 

Ultimately I'm saying the old-school definition of "support" is much-much-much broader than apparently what modern players mean when they say "support". 3E was similar. That's how all those 3rd party splatbooks got sold. (I even sold a few.)

When you pick up your 4E PHB don't you ever think about modifying some of the classes? Modify the rogue's allowed weapons to be falchion and scimitar, reskin his charisma powers to constitution and call him a whirling dervish. Or change his allowed weapons so he can use a laser pistol and a stungun and call him a futuristic bounty hunter. I'm making these up off the top of my head and have not looked at the PHB in months so these specific example may make no sense. The point is the rulebooks should be a gateway to imagination not a set of regulations you must follow.

I've probably rambled to long and I think I'm repeating myself so I'll stop here. Remember: there is no wrong way to play and your badwrongfun might be my goodperfectfun. To each their own.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jul 16, 2009)

My early (pre-DnD) literary influences include: Tolkien; Greek, Norse, Chinese and Japanese mythology; King Arthur (in many forms from T.H. White to Disney to the musical Camelot to Exalibur to the old King (?) Cartoons cartoons.) There were kiddies books as well although I have trouble remembering anything specific now. (Have this vague recollection, from about age 6, of a series of stories with characters with names like The Blue Pirate and The Golden Gryphon.) Oh and let's not forget Grimms Fairytales and Hans Christian Anderson. Also a lot of Sci-fi. Star Wars and Star Trek, Asimov and Bradbury. Oodles of TV shows, movies and super hero cartoons (TV shows, rarely able to get the books, they cost money.)

The suggested reading list in the back of the DMG was a great thing. Really helped expand my geek reading list. Moorcock, Howard and Lovecraft were my introduction to pulp. Loved them then, love them now. Ursula Le Guin and the Prydain books too. Can't think what else was on that list but I know I read as many as I could find. 

And I continue to read sf&f. Because it's great. 

Just read _Perdido Street Station_. Excellent. (Although I can't help saying the plotting was a bit clunky in places. But more than made up for by great characterisation, a beautifully imagined setting and a real gift for language.) Stephen Hunt and his Jackals books are brilliant: another really beautiful world with great characters and rip roaring adventure. Naomi Novik and JV Jones also excellent authors who create very enjoyable characters. Harry Potter, great kids books and Pullman's _His Dark Materials_ stuff are the best kids books I've ever read.

I'd just like to say at this point that "kids books" is by no means a derogatory term. A lot of literature aimed at younger audiences deals with much more difficult topics in more thoughtful ways than a lot of adult literature.

Formative Gaming: my earliest RPG experience, at age 12, was the _Tomb of Horrors_. Despite this I continued to game and, 27 and a bit years later, still am. 

How has all this effected my gaming style? No idea. Well, I hate 'trick/trap' dungeons and monsters. That's _Tomb of Horrors _(and many other similar experiences) speaking. I like more role playing in my games but certainly want some combat and dice rolling and such. I prefer games set in cities with lots of NPC interaction and social encounters. But I hate to think I'd never go down into a dungeon again. I do have a preference for 'Down and Dirty' over 'Wahoo,' certainly in the fantasy genre. But I love the Supers genre and am all for extra wahoo there. 

One thing I note that sets me apart from many of the younger gamers round here: I can't say video games have influenced me much. I haven't played the RPG ones much (although my Mum and Dad are big fans of them) and the games I did play obsessively as a boy were things like Space Invaders (back when it first came out.) Not really the thing to inspire great adventures. Mmmm, now trying to think of a way to create an encounter like a Space Invaders game. 

About that 15 types of polearms thing: you've got to remember (or hear for the first time, which ever is applicable) that back in the day there was a paucity of stats and stuff. So new stats/stuff was good, even if it was rather niche and a tad, er, exhaustive/OCD/train spotter. But you must admit, the cliche of a bunch of 14 year old gamers sitting around a table arguing about whose character is cooler takes on a new level of hilarious when it's "I've got a Fauchard-Guisarme!" "Oh yeah? Well I've got a Bohemian Ear Spoon!"



> ProfessorCirno wrote:
> On the other hand, last few times I've worked with kids, _none of them knew what a library was_.




Now this makes me cry.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 16, 2009)

You know, jmucchiello, it may not be your intent, but your post comes across quite strongly as a big rant on how lazy younger gamers are (with a very clear implication that my criticisms are simply a result of my own laziness). Which, frankly, is really insulting. I'd appreciate it if you dialed back the implications that I (or other people who are not "old-school") don't have enough imagination or will to create something new and interesting.

Of course you can always just make things up. But that is not what I have been talking about. When I say that D&D doesn't support certain things, I am   _not_ even remotely saying that it is impossible to play a D&D game that involves things like guns or robots. What I _am_ saying is that the game as written doesn't really help you do such things.

Currently, D&D is very much locked into a certain mindset of "traditional fantasy". As far as actual WotC books are considered, all D&D campaigns take place in a vaguely European medieval society full of knights, elves, orcs, and wizards. Elements inspired by non-European cultures are less common (in fact, anything more specific than vaguely European is less common), guns don't exist (to an extent that counters the historical presence of gunpowder in the medieval world), and the entire world is governed by generic polytheistic gods and magical planes of existence.

I don't think that having a baseline like that is a problem in of itself, but it gets to be a problem when WotC would rather publish really weird and non-iconic races and classes within that framework rather than expand outside of the framework. We get crazy things like genasi, wilden, and the like, but we don't get support for more iconic things like gunslingers.

Of course, I do again need to repeat that the basic baseline of D&D simply is not the basic baseline of the kind of fantasy I most encounter outside of D&D. In videogames, I see gunslingers and robots mixed with fantasy more often than I see orcs and elves. So, basically, I have to ask one thing. Why do I need to invent stats for guns and robots on my own? Instead, couldn't I get the guns and robots that I want, and you could leave it up to the fans to create orcs and elves for themselves? Of course, I don't really expect that situation any time soon, but I think it is an interesting question for people to think about.



jmucchiello said:


> Ultimately I'm saying the old-school definition of "support" is much-much-much broader than apparently what modern players mean when they say "support". 3E was similar. That's how all those 3rd party splatbooks got sold. (I even sold a few.)



Well, when I have used the term support in this thread, I have entirely meant official WotC D&D products. I also imply detailed and useful support, that allows such material to be easily integrated into all aspects of the game. So I am setting a pretty high standard.



> I've probably rambled to long and I think I'm repeating myself so I'll stop here. Remember: there is no wrong way to play and your badwrongfun might be my goodperfectfun. To each their own.



Err... When did that "badwrongfun" stuff get pulled into this conversation? I never said a single thing about play styles, and certainly I never said that someone was playing the game wrong or anything like that...


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## Scribble (Jul 16, 2009)

stuart said:


> D&D 3e and 4e undoubtedly have lots of anime influences... because there's lots of action/adventure anime movies and TV shows from the past 15 years or so.  If they had been around to the same extent in the 70s in North America I guarantee they'd have been part of 1st edition.  The old Kung Fu TV show with David Carradine was the inspiration for the 1e Monk.  Cowboy movies and Sci Fi flicks all got their bits and pieces thrown into the D&D pot too (with rules in the DMG).
> 
> If some new style of action/adventure movie becomes really popular in the future, I'm sure it will influence future RPGs as well.




To me, this has always been the best thing about D&D. It never tried to have a clear "this is the look/feel of D&D."  It was Conan mixed with Lord of The Rings, mixed with Star Wars, and Kung Fu, and Ray Harryhausen, and weird 1950s sci-fi and planet of the apes, and mythology, and fairy tales and horror films and books... All of it rolled up into a strange little ball of imagination. 

It didn't try too hard to focus the game into how it "should" be seen, and as a result was almost literally ANYTHING a young kid could imagine between two covers.

Thats why it always amuses/bugs me when people say things are core concepts of D&D or that a certain look/feel has no place in D&D. It does. Pretty much anything/everything does.

It's fine if your game wants to focus on a specific look/feel/idea. Take WoD games. They do one concept and they do it really well (imo.) But that's not the strength of D&D. The strength of D&D is that it doesn't do any one part very "well" but together that makes the experience excellent.


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## The Ghost (Jul 16, 2009)

Scribble said:


> To me, this has always been the best thing about D&D. It never tried to have a clear "this is the look/feel of D&D."  It was Conan mixed with Lord of The Rings, mixed with Star Wars, and Kung Fu, and Ray Harryhausen, and weird 1950s sci-fi and planet of the apes, and mythology, and fairy tales and horror films and books... All of it rolled up into a strange little ball of imagination.




Looking back after twenty-odd years of gaming, I agree.



> Thats why it always amuses/bugs me when people say things are core concepts of D&D or that a certain look/feel has no place in D&D. It does. Pretty much anything/everything does.




I don't find it all that annoying that different people found different core ideas within the same set of rules. If you asked me back when I started playing D&D what D&D was I would have told you it is medieval Europe with Arthurian fantasies thrown in. Why? Because that is what I was interested in when I discovered the rules. So I can understand when people see certain elements as being core and others not. There was a time when that is all that I saw as well.


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## Scribble (Jul 16, 2009)

The Ghost said:


> Looking back after twenty-odd years of gaming, I agree.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't find it all that annoying that different people found different core ideas within the same set of rules. If you asked me back when I started playing D&D what D&D was I would have told you it is medieval Europe with Arthurian fantasies thrown in. Why? Because that is what I was interested in when I discovered the rules. So I can understand when people see certain elements as being core and others not. There was a time when that is all that I saw as well.




Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with people wanting to focus their own games on one element or another, or want to exclude one element or another. 
The very fact that two people can look at the same game and see two completely different ideas is where the game should be.


What bugs me is when people want to say something added to the game, is NOT D&D or something taken from the game makes it not D&D. The idea that D&D should be built to a certain look or feel really, and if it doesn't match that look or feel it shouldn't be in the game. I guess "annoys me" is a bad choice of words? Maybe "makes me sad" is better? 

I guess I just like the fact that D&D has always seemed to be more about wild imagination, and less about "focused" imagination, and feel that was always its strong point.


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## Ariosto (Jul 16, 2009)

Considering what I see as a fundamental "re-skinning" ethos in 4E, I'm not sure how much what would amount to "fluff" in modern or futuristic terminology would be in demand.

In the first 4E session I DMed, one of the players played a robot. I'm guessing it was built as a warforged -- but that really does not matter much that I can see.

In that sense, it's a lot like early D&D or T&T. If you imagine your character as a spaceman, an android, or a rabbit-shaped pooka -- then just play him/her/it that way!

There are a lot more rules to manipulate now, but their tenor seems far from one likely to get concerned with distinguishing .38 caliber from 9mm. That sort of thing might go over better in 3E.

Back when D&D was published by a company also publishing different RPGs on different subjects, and variety was largely considered by hobbyists as a spice of the gaming life, it was pretty natural to let (e.g.) Marvel Super Heroes and AD&D each be its own thing.

EPT, MA, and GW all used rules similar to D&D, and Buck Rogers XXVc was rather like an interplanetary 2E AD&D.

Articles in The Dragon mostly took over the role that OD&D supplements had briefly filled in offering all sorts of variants. Supplements came in some quarters (and perhaps increasingly over the course of 2E and 3E) to be seen as adding to "canon", defining the "D&D world" in some authoritative way. 

In general, I think the idea of packaging setting and mechanics together has only grown stronger even as "vanilla systems" such as BRP, Hero, and GURPS have carved out their own niche. My guess is that "D&D fantasy" is likely to continue to become more rather than less sharply defined under WotC, whatever elements may be added.


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## Glyfair (Jul 18, 2009)

As an aside, since Vance was discussed quite a bit earlier...

The NYT a few days ago put up a story on Vance, which touches somewhat on why he is "lesser known."


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## Achan hiArusa (Jul 18, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> Currently, D&D is very much locked into a certain mindset of "traditional fantasy". As far as actual WotC books are considered, all D&D campaigns take place in a vaguely European medieval society full of knights, elves, orcs, and wizards. Elements inspired by non-European cultures are less common (in fact, anything more specific than vaguely European is less common), guns don't exist (to an extent that counters the historical presence of gunpowder in the medieval world), and the entire world is governed by generic polytheistic gods and magical planes of existence.




Sticking with official TSR and WotC products:

Nonwestern:  Oriental Adventures (1st Edition and 3rd Edition versions), Maztica (2nd Edition), Complete Ninja's Handbook (2nd Edition), Old Empires (2nd Edition), Al Qadim (2nd Edition), Empire of the Petal Throne (OD&D related:  Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne).  There were several Dragon Articles on using India and Africa as campaign settings.

Blackpowder Weapons:  2nd Edition Player's Handbook, Forgotten Realms Campaign setting (both 2nd and 3rd Edition), 3.x Edition DMG, Immortals Storm module (for pre 3e D&D).  There are lots of Dragon magazine articles on it.

Modern Weapons and Warfare:  The previously mentioned sections in the DMG 1.0 and 3.x.  Masque of the Red Death (2nd Edition), *Modern d20* (3rd Edition compatiable), Eberron (using D&D with modern sensibilities), and the Dragon module "City Beyond the Gate"

Futuristic Weapons and Warfare:  Buck Rogers XXVc (2nd Edition), Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1st Edition), Gamma World (all but 3rd Edition and the Alternity version were D&D compatible), Alternity (with a little work compatible with 2nd Edition), and Star Wars d20 (and its subsequent editions Revised and Saga) 

And that doesn't even begin to include the 3PP such as Deadlands d20 with its Gunslinger character class or Dragonstar.

I could run an entire Final Fantasy Type Campaign with 2nd Edition D&D and 4th Edition Gamma World, though I would probably throw in a bit of Buck Rogers XXVc just because they all used _the same basic system_.  And I could do it even easier with the D&D 3.x and Modern d20 games.

And all this stuff spans from the beginning of D&D to this very day.


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## Achan hiArusa (Jul 18, 2009)

Sorry Double Post

As for the D&D to Final Fantasy connection, go watch "Record of Lodoss War".


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## Orius (Jul 18, 2009)

Achan hiArusa said:


> Blackpowder Weapons:  2nd Edition Player's Handbook, Forgotten Realms Campaign setting (both 2nd and 3rd Edition), 3.x Edition DMG, Immortals Storm module (for pre 3e D&D).  There are lots of Dragon magazine articles on it.




Don't forget the Player's Option books for 2e.  Firearms are there in Combat & Tactics, and I think they're presented in Skills and Powers.  High-Level Campaigns makes mentions of firearms as they apply to world with technology and magical level different from the AD&D n orm.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 18, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> You know, jmucchiello, it may not be your intent, but your post comes across quite strongly as a big rant on how lazy younger gamers are (with a very clear implication that my criticisms are simply a result of my own laziness). Which, frankly, is really insulting. I'd appreciate it if you dialed back the implications that I (or other people who are not "old-school") don't have enough imagination or will to create something new and interesting.



Well, I'm not ranting. I'm raving, celebrating. The whole point of D&D is to explore your imagination.



> Of course you can always just make things up. But that is not what I have been talking about. When I say that D&D doesn't support certain things, I am   _not_ even remotely saying that it is impossible to play a D&D game that involves things like guns or robots. What I _am_ saying is that the game as written doesn't really help you do such things.



And I fundamentally disagree with you. The game as written gives you everything you need to play androids, ninja, pirates and cat-people. Aristo above says he's played in a 4e game with an android. He didn't mention the use of 3rd party material. 

Everything in the game is just made up. When your DM says "The king looks troubled as you are summoned before him...." did he read that line from a WotC approved plot? No, he made it up. Unless you only play pre-generated characters in pre-written adventures at some point you must make something up. So why stop with just our good king delivering a plot macguffin and also make up your own rules for androids? What is the difference?



> Currently, D&D is very much locked into a certain mindset of "traditional fantasy". As far as actual WotC books are considered, all D&D campaigns take place in a vaguely European medieval society full of knights, elves, orcs, and wizards. Elements inspired by non-European cultures are less common (in fact, anything more specific than vaguely European is less common), guns don't exist (to an extent that counters the historical presence of gunpowder in the medieval world), and the entire world is governed by generic polytheistic gods and magical planes of existence.



D&D really doesn't support Knights very well. Play Harn if you want to see how far D&D's assumptions stray from truly Medieval inspired gaming.

The level of Greek and Western European influence dominates D&D is far more a result of the game being written in ENGLISH than anything else. All the Greek and Norse myths are heavily dominant because the words we speak resonate with those concepts. But I'd guess half the monsters in any MM are made-up and non-European influenced creatures.


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## Ariosto (Jul 18, 2009)

Conflating "support" and "more rules" seems often to be a phase through which gamers go. (It can also be a firm and enduring conviction, of course!)

The "classic" Traveller line in its fullness provided an awful lot of rules -- on some subjects, effectively two or three or more different games! Some systems made for engrossing solitaire games, and might produce materials of great utility in certain contexts (such as a war-game). One might come to find, though, that they really made no significant contribution (even had they required much less effort) to one's role-playing sessions. More precisely, it might depend on circumstances; I am not sympathetic to blanket claims that fewer tools in the toolbox is categorically A Good Thing.

I personally find pleasure in "simulation" in (probably) whatever sense you may interpret the term ... but not necessarily in all forms at once.

A lacuna in RPG rules is rarely a big deal to me, whereas a heap of rules that actively confounds either common sense or speed of play -- or, worst of all, both at once -- can easily lose my interest. (My own mileage on that score may vary depending on personal hierarchies of values or even the moment's mood.)

Not at all intending to paint everyone's experience with the same brush, I will observe that some phenomena seem pretty common.

The RPG field, like the wargame field before it, can -- especially when it is still fairly novel in one's experience -- present an incredibly alluring range of intellectual toys. Yes, _this_ works just fine ... but _that_ is interesting, too! It's a combination of a big buffet for the eating and a big pantry for the cooking.

Another factor, perhaps more associated with youth, is the reassurance one can find in Official Rules®. When I was 11 years old, I knew very little about mortgages, machine-guns or a host of other things about which I now know a little more. Rule-books gave me something on which to lean when my life experience seemed insufficient support.

Certainly not always, but I think rather often, those early enthusiasms run their course and fall away from the fore. One tends to get comfortable with methods that "just work" and fit one like an old pair of bluejeans, and to find it easier to make ad hoc rulings rather than looking up rules.

As well, one's previous explorations of various rules sets have given one a wide variety of models on which to draw. The precise data may escape memory, but the essential concepts are still at hand.

One may find that "game mechanics" have become pretty trivial, not much worth buying more of at all. Calculations for armor value based on slope of glacis? Bah! How does a tank _smell_ when it brews up? Evocative detail! It is not models for which one is in demand, but more prototypes that are interesting to model.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 18, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> The level of Greek and Western European influence dominates D&D is far more a result of the game being written in ENGLISH than anything else. All the Greek and Norse myths are heavily dominant because the words we speak resonate with those concepts. But I'd guess half the monsters in any MM are made-up and non-European influenced creatures.



Funny thing is, the PC classes have more of a Celtic influence - bards and druids. A lot of the monsters are from Greek myth, and a few - ice/fire giants, drow - are Norse. So D&D is a game of Celtic heroes battling Greek monsters.

You're right that the monsters come from all over. There are a lot more monsters in D&D than there are classes and PC races. They are weirder, more exotic, more varied and have a broader range of influences, including sci-fi (displacer beast), TV shows (roper), comic books (shambling mound) and kids' toys (bulette).


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## WayneLigon (Jul 18, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I'm 28.
> 
> I don't know if I have a "formative fantasy" experience or set of novels.  I continue to read today, relatively voraciously, as I have since I was about 10. ... And then on top of that, I like anime.  Not all anime, but some.  ...
> I do tend to find myself becoming somewhat frustrated with older (sometimes just mentally older...) gamers who look at me with my stack of novels published in the past five years, and see a threat to the way they want to game.




Bah, I'm 47 and I'd welcome anyone who has read stacks of novels, even if they are recent ones. My frustration with some younger gamers comes from the ones that have _never _read a fantasy novel. IMO, you cannot be an effective D&D player, or roleplayer in general, without also being an avid reader in sci-fi-, fantasy, mystery, etc. Otherwise, most of it is just going over your head.

It can be old-school 1E DMG fantasy, new wave LeGuin, YA Harry Potter, _whatever_, but just read something on a regular basis.


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## The Ghost (Jul 19, 2009)

WayneLigon said:


> Bah, I'm 47 and I'd welcome anyone who has read stacks of novels, even if they are recent ones. My frustration with some younger gamers comes from the ones that have _never _read a fantasy novel. IMO, you cannot be an effective D&D player, or roleplayer in general, without also being an avid reader in sci-fi-, fantasy, mystery, etc. Otherwise, most of it is just going over your head.
> 
> It can be old-school 1E DMG fantasy, new wave LeGuin, YA Harry Potter, _whatever_, but just read something on a regular basis.




I am 30 and I have never read a fantasy novel. I have also never read a science fiction novel. I do read a lot. I read histories and biographies. I can wile away hours on Saturday afternoons reading about the Pilgrimage of Grace; or the Tokugawa shogunate; or biographies about Eisenhower.

I also have been playing D&D for about twenty years. 

Please tell me why I am not an effective gamer. I am interested to know why my lack of reading fantasy, in any way, effects my ability to be an effective D&D player or roleplayer in general.


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## mmadsen (Jul 20, 2009)

The Ghost said:


> I am 30 and I have never read a fantasy novel. I have also never read a science fiction novel.



Why not?  If you like fantasy, and you like reading, why haven't you at least _tried_ a single fantasy novel?


The Ghost said:


> Please tell me why I am not an effective gamer. I am interested to know why my lack of reading fantasy, in any way, effects my ability to be an effective D&D player or roleplayer in general.



I would expect a screenwriter to watch (good) movies.  I would expect a D&D player to read (good) fantasy novels.  There's a lot to learn from (good) examples.

I wouldn't recommend _restricting_ your reading to fantasy novels, but I would expect you to read at least a few of the better examples of the genre.


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## The Ghost (Jul 20, 2009)

mmadsen said:


> Why not?  If you like fantasy, and you like reading, why haven't you at least _tried_ a single fantasy novel? I would expect a screenwriter to watch (good) movies.  I would expect a D&D player to read (good) fantasy novels.  There's a lot to learn from (good) examples.
> 
> I wouldn't recommend _restricting_ your reading to fantasy novels, but I would expect you to read at least a few of the better examples of the genre.




Over the last two months I have picked up a compilation of Conan stories and The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings to read - I just have not had the time to read them yet.  What I objected to is that I cannot be an effective roleplayer *without* reading them. Yet I have been.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 20, 2009)

Achan hiArusa said:


> As for the D&D to Final Fantasy connection, go watch "Record of Lodoss War".



...

I have no idea how you connected _Final Fantasy_ and _Record of Lodoss War_, other than the fact that both were originally inspired by D&D. One is a videogame series that started off as a D&D rip-off, the other is the animated version of what was originally a D&D campaign. I'm not sure what you are getting at, exactly...

As for your previous post, I think the fact that you referenced non-D&D products, campaign settings that have not been supported for over a decade, and various other dubious suggestions, shows that D&D _itself_ hasn't really supported non-traditional fantasy settings to a great extent. And please don't try to pass off d20 Modern and _especially_ Alternity as being compatible with D&D. I've played both. I know exactly how different they are.

I'm getting tired of everyone assuming that I am saying that it is "impossible to such and such" with D&D. That is not what I have been saying. As such, saying "you can do such and such with D&D right now!" or "such and such has been done before!" doesn't really address any of my comments so far. I'm not speaking out a position of ignorance. When I say that D&D hasn't quite done what I want it to do, it means that even with all of the things brought up in this thread taken into consideration, D&D _still_ doesn't do the things I wish it did.


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## Jack7 (Jul 20, 2009)

> I think the advent of the Internet makes generation gaps (and culture gaps) much less of an issue than prior to that access. Even those who choose not to read or experience the culture of another individual can at least readily find the information that allows them to understand it.




I think that is true to a certain degree Mark. As a research (disclosure and dispersal of information) and communications tool the internet allows one great exposure to numerous subjects, and even to various sub-cultures (if one wants to make the effort to investigate them).

But as a social tool and medium the internet has a tendency to produce greater and greater specialization of sub-cultures and therefore to further fragment and shatter such sub-cultures into ever smaller and smaller units or clique-groups. A good example of this is lingo. Military cultures and sub-cultures on the internet have their own lingo. Gamers have their own lingo, but this lingo is split into ever more specialized sets of terminology, such as that employed by video gamers, role play gamers, board gamers, LARPers, etc, etc. Even within the same basic sub-cultural set you have the "old-school crowd" and the "new school group" and I have noticed the subtle differences in not only background influences of development, but even the basic and generalized terminology used.

That said, as for me, and I'm definitely old school in this subcultural respect (pushing 50), fiction was an early influence on my gaming and gaming styles. Fantasy fiction was an personal influence prior to me ever playing D&D, though about concurrent with my initial wargaming and military interests. And I was rather well schooled at the time in the "classical fantasy literature including Lord Dunsany and Tolkien and others.

But after my teenage years I gave up fiction altogether and truth be told I couldn't even stand to read it for well over twenty years. So non-fiction and history and the real world became my inspiration for what gaming I did, including fantasy gaming. I'm not sure if that's entirely unusual or not, I suspect it might not be in many cases, but nevertheless fiction died away for me as role play gaming inspiration a long, long, long time ago.

I read fiction again now, having taken it back up a couple of years ago. Occasionally I even read fantasy and science fiction, and some of it is now actually good to me. (I sometimes enjoy reading it.) I haven't though seen a fictional book, setting, or idea that would in any way interest me as inspiration for a game though. Fantasy or otherwise. Maybe I will consider the idea of adopting small discreet elements of something an author has suggested or implied.

I guess it's because I have read non-fiction for so long, or studied or been involve din so many real world things or events or undertakings, that whenever I read fiction nowadays almost the first thought that passes my mind is, "I know the real world event or person or occurrence that gave the author the idea for that." Reading somebody like Michael Crichton for instance is like going backwards away from the original source to me. (I like some of his books by the way, but the ideas they discuss don't seem very original to me. And I think in this respect the internet makes it very hard for modern fiction authors to strike any kind of real blow for originality. I say that as an author myself. I know the limitations modern forms of information dispersal place upon authors, game designers, artists, etc when it comes to being original. Of course very few things under the sun are new, but nowadays it is very hard for an author or anyone else working in fields like that to surprise his readers because they do, or should, know pretty close to as much as he does. Unless of course the readers just don't bother to expose themselves to what is current or what is being research in the world. For sentence at one time fiction authors served a popular function of information dispersal to the masses. They took real information, reworked it, and then disseminated it to the crowds which tended to be far less highly educated and who did not have easy access to the research materials many authors had. With the internet, satellite channels, etc. it is no longer so much a function of information dispersal in a popular form as it is "information reminder.") So to me the idea of taking a fictional idea and then running it through a game adaptation seems to me like straining chicken broth through a sieve just to reheat it when I could just take the original source of inspiration (for the author's functional interpolation of the original real thing) and work that out instead.

Still, I enjoy some fiction nowadays, I'm not saying that I hate it. I'm just saying it seems kinda weak to me comparatively speaking as a source for gaming material. So I skip it in favor of mostly non-fiction.


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## Ariosto (Jul 20, 2009)

> D&D _still_ doesn't do the things I wish it did.



What are those?

Also, do you see how people might consider it sufficient for D&D to do "its own thing", just as other games do other things -- including some (e.g., *Shadowrun*) that do Cyborg Orcs With Big Guns, Magic Spells And Mocha Lattes?


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## coyote6 (Jul 20, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Also, do you see how people might consider it sufficient for D&D to do "its own thing", just as other games do other things -- including some (e.g., *Shadowrun*) that do Cyborg Orcs With Big Guns, Magic Spells And Mocha Lattes?




Alas, I'm afraid SR's Mocha Latte rules are sadly lacking, though I hear a future supplement may correct that. Real shame, too, given the default setting.


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## Ariosto (Jul 20, 2009)

I thought that got remedied in SR 4th Edition? Bummer.

Coffee -- lasers -- random harlots -- cowbell!


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## Hussar (Jul 21, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> What are those?
> 
> Also, do you see how people might consider it sufficient for D&D to do "its own thing", just as other games do other things -- including some (e.g., *Shadowrun*) that do Cyborg Orcs With Big Guns, Magic Spells And Mocha Lattes?




One would have to ask, what is this "its own thing" that D&D does?  

D&D, to me, has always been the melting pot of all things fantasy and a good chunk of things SF.  Whether it's giant robots piloted by Communist gnomes in Earthshaker, stock heroes taking on the evil empire in Dragonlance, or powered armor in Barrier Peaks, D&D has always been a "big tent" sort of game to me.

So, again, I ask, what is this "own thing" that D&D does?


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## Cadfan (Jul 21, 2009)

Hussar said:


> So, again, I ask, what is this "own thing" that D&D does?



The thing that's my thing and not your thing.  Obviously.


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## coyote6 (Jul 21, 2009)

It's definitely not "Our Thing", either. That was Gangbusters' thing, I think.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 21, 2009)

Hussar said:


> So, again, I ask, what is this "own thing" that D&D does?



Kill things and take their stuff. The things come from the mythology of many cultures, from fantasy, sci-fi, movies, comic books and Gary's fevered mind. But they are all there to be killed. There's also lots of ways to kill them and lots of stuff to take from them, neither as numerous as the things or from such a diverse array of sources.

You can do other things with D&D if you want. For example you can use it to simulate the life of a courtesan in 16th century Florence. But that's not as well supported by the game text.


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## Gentlegamer (Jul 21, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> Easy solution for what? The generation gap? If so, wouldn't an alternate solution be for all the people of the older generations to go play the videogames Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Chrono Trigger? Of course, that would take a lot more time than reading a few short stories...



Your remedy is for everyone to experience level grinding? :cheeky:


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## Gentlegamer (Jul 21, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Twenty years from now many may consider some version of D&D to be a perfect representation of their fantasy inspirations because they all grew out of D&D.



We better all read _The Worm Ouroboros_ so we can be prepared for this event.


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## Gentlegamer (Jul 21, 2009)

StreamOfTheSky said:


> I guess this is my generation gap...you talk about simulation and realism, yet prefer 1e.  Seems like (never played, just read threads on it) 1e is incredibly unrealistic.  People talk about going through PCs like a fashionista goes through clothes.  "Tom died when he opened the door and all the water came rushing out and smashed him against the wall.  Then Bill...aww man.  He fumbled with his great axe and decapitated himself.  It was amazing!  Johhnny...he actually got through 3 rooms of the dungeon before walking into that invisible green slime."  The high death rate and rotating roster of PCs is realistic?  I know adventuring is dangerous, but...wow.  It makes me wonder why these people didn't just line up to walk into a meat grinder and get it over with faster.



If I may be forgiven for cross-posting, I'd like to post a link to a video game forum that touches on a similar theme (and may tie into some of the video game discussion in this thread):

I tormented my uncles kids with MEGAMAN 9


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## Henry (Jul 21, 2009)

StreamOfTheSky said:


> Seems like (never played, just read threads on it) 1e is incredibly unrealistic. ...I know adventuring is dangerous, but...wow.  It makes me wonder why these people didn't just line up to walk into a meat grinder and get it over with faster.




Part of it is the culture gap - D&D in the first decade was as much about excelling at the game aspect as it was about story. Also, when so many of us tell those old meat-grinder stories, we're not talking about the success of our characters at the end, so much as we tell about our success as players in the end - and a good misfortune story is always more fun than some boring success story, anyway. 

Speaking to the culture gap, I feel the same way, when a group of younger gamers starts throwing out *Rorune Kenshin*, or *Escaflowne*, or *Zenki,* or _(insert random collection of syllables here)._ I look at most Manga like most people look at Tolkien (not that Tolkien was a fave for me anyway), and the only manga I ever managed to enjoy was Cowboy Bebop - the English Dub is what sold it, and every other program I tried just lost me out the gate.


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## Ariosto (Jul 21, 2009)

Colorful demises can be counted on to be entertaining, and the incident has a clear END.

Otherwise, "Once Upon a Time in D&D" has a tendency just to rattle on; "you had to be there" is usually true.

There's a reason _Knights of the Dinner Table_ is mostly comedy; and, in the words of Carol Burnett, "Comedy is tragedy plus time."


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## Achan hiArusa (Jul 21, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> ...
> 
> I have no idea how you connected _Final Fantasy_ and _Record of Lodoss War_, other than the fact that both were originally inspired by D&D. One is a videogame series that started off as a D&D rip-off, the other is the animated version of what was originally a D&D campaign. I'm not sure what you are getting at, exactly...




RLW came out a full year before the original Final Fantasy.



TwinBahamut said:


> ...
> As for your previous post, I think the fact that you referenced non-D&D products, campaign settings that have not been supported for over a decade, and various other dubious suggestions, shows that D&D _itself_ hasn't really supported non-traditional fantasy settings to a great extent. And please don't try to pass off d20 Modern and _especially_ Alternity as being compatible with D&D. I've played both. I know exactly how different they are.




Oh, and please support your statements.  I want line item.  Just note you are talking to someone who did Vampire the Masquerade conversions to d20 long before Monte Cook ever thought of it.



TwinBahamut said:


> ...
> I'm getting tired of everyone assuming that I am saying that it is "impossible to such and such" with D&D. That is not what I have been saying. As such, saying "you can do such and such with D&D right now!" or "such and such has been done before!" doesn't really address any of my comments so far. I'm not speaking out a position of ignorance. When I say that D&D hasn't quite done what I want it to do, it means that even with all of the things brought up in this thread taken into consideration, D&D _still_ doesn't do the things I wish it did.




Then do them yourself and stop depending on the publishers.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Jul 21, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Your remedy is for everyone to experience level grinding? :cheeky:




Heh heh.  I don't remember CT having too much level grinding, but Ill agree on those other 2.  Once again, I put forth Suikoden.  It actually actively discourages level grinding -- the xp you get is greater the lower level you are.  A new character brought into a late game area can be within 2 levels of the other party members in half an hour or sooner.  If you continue to grind away, you eventually get a bare minimum amount of xp (5, needing 1000 to reach each level up).

Not saying D&D should copy that and let a level 1 guy that manages to survive a session of 5 CR 14 fights level up like crazy or anything.  But oftentimes the game does seem overly punitive on lower level people just trying to catch back up.  Possibly because character power seems to increase exponentially with level, not linearly, at least in 3E.

Oh, and in FFT's defense, it may have involved a lot of level grinding.  But my god, you actually got returns for it.  Not small minute little benefits.  The plot battles had enemies at fixed levels.  And every little action you did gave you both xp and job points to get new class abilities.  More so than in any other game I've played, a few hours of grind in FFT could turn a tough plot battle into a cake walk, which I enjoyed.    I used to pride myself on making a fight with only one enemy remaining last for 3+ hours if I needed it to, gaining 2-4 levels and probably maxing each character's job class in the process.  I usually stopped after 1 1/2 hours because it was so tedious.  But it was rather efficient.


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## Jack7 (Jul 21, 2009)

> Also, when so many of us tell those old meat-grinder stories, we're not talking about the success of our characters at the end, so much as we tell about our success as players in the end - and a good misfortune story is always more fun than some boring success story, anyway.




You gotta real point there. And early on there was little artificial division between character and player, as the idea developed later on.


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## mmadsen (Jul 21, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> We better all read _The Worm Ouroboros_ so we can be prepared for this event.



Well played, Gentlegamer.  Well played.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 21, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> What are those?



As I was saying before, I would like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for kinds of fantasy other than pure traditional medieval fantasy.

For example, D&D could have some options that would support something like the _Star Ocean_ series of videogames. These games are still all about characters running around fantasy settings killing monsters and taking their stuff, with the one difference that some of the characters happen to be have beamed down to the planet on an away mission for an organization similar to _Star Trek_'s Starfleet (a version of Starfleet where you can major in swordplay or sorcery). So, it would play a lot like traditional D&D, except characters might wander between planets, use beam weapons, or get caught up in a space dogfight. Comparisons to the _Phantasy Star_ series of videogames might also be appropriate.

Alternatively, a few options to emulate something like the _Wild ARMS_ series of videogames would be nice. Again, the _Wild ARMS_ games play a lot like normal D&D, except the characters all use firearms, there is a slight wild-west flavor, half the dungeons they go into are ancient spaceships, and demons know how to control nanotechnology. Actually, a great DM I used to play with told me he once ran a campaign that was very strongly inspired by the _Wild ARMS_ series. It would be nice if the game itself did a better job of supporting that.

Actually, the whole idea that a fantasy setting is in fact the product of some kind of post-apocalyptic future Earth is pretty common in some of the major source material for D&D. Vance's _Dying Earth_ and Terry Brooks' _Shannara_ books both feature that idea, as well as several others I could name. I mean, I quite clearly recall a scene in _The Sword of Shannara_ where the main characters are attack by a giant robot that was left over from the wars that destroyed the older civilization of Earth. The idea of "lost technology" that can be found and used is a pretty major idea across countless anime and videogames as well...

Generally, a few options within a PHB or DMG for guns, beam swords, cars, spaceships, robotic monsters, and various other trappings of modern and futuristic settings is all I really want.



> Also, do you see how people might consider it sufficient for D&D to do "its own thing", just as other games do other things -- including some (e.g., *Shadowrun*) that do Cyborg Orcs With Big Guns, Magic Spells And Mocha Lattes?



I don't think there is really a contradiction between D&D "doing its own thing" and letting it branch out into a few other genres of fantasy.

After all, as several other people (including you yourself, I believe) have quite strongly pointed out, the idea that such things can be found in D&D has dated back to the 1E days where you saw things like "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks". Why shouldn't there be more direct support for that kind of thing, then?

At the same time, D20 Modern and Alternity created numerous interesting and unique IPs related to modern and futuristic settings that, for some, are as memorable as anything seen in D&D proper. However, I don't really see the need to keep the separate from the ideas of D&D, when they could work side by side in the same ruleset. The fact that D20 Modern allowed D&D-style fantasy, a modern setting, and Alternity-inspired futuristic stuff to coexist shows that it isn't impossible.

Also, since you mentioned it, I want to say that Shadowrun is _not_ what I am looking for. If nothing else, Shadowrun is a case where the setting and the game are inseparable, and I have no interest in the particular brand of distopian modern-future fantasy mix-up that Shadowrun offers. I want something modular and flexible, that lets me create my own setting the way I want. What is more, Shadowrun is not D&D, which is both the biggest game on the block by an order of magnitude or two and the only tabletop RPG ruleset that I have ever cared to learn (well, 4E, 3E, 3E variants, and a little 2E and Alternity, so I guess a singular usage isn't quite appropriate...).

Still, I guess it is worth mentioning again that this whole discussion started out as my response to someone saying that D&D could be seen by people of my generation as the embodiment of all the fantasy videogames and such that we grew up playing. Simply because I can so easily name countless fantasy games which include guns, robots, spaceships, or whatever, that statement was false. I think people keep assuming that I am saying that D&D is somehow unplayable or unpalatable to me because it lacks those things, but I haven't said anything like that at all. I mean, it would be _nice_ if I didn't have to create stats for guns and such when it was necessary, and it would be really nice if I had a better baseline to work with in designing my own D&D variant based around Gundam-style mecha (and that it wasn't so _hard_ coming up with 4E-style classes thanks to all those accursed powers!), but I have never said that D&D is a bad game because of their absence. After all, I really enjoy D&D, and even though 4E is the only edition to be completely lacking modern or futuristic stuff so far, it is still my favorite edition.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 21, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Your remedy is for everyone to experience level grinding? :cheeky:



Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7 have no real level grinding to speak of. Final Fantasy Tactics had some level grinding, but only in direct proportion to the number of characters you wanted to use. If you stuck with a limited five character team, it is practically non-existent in that game. 



Gentlegamer said:


> If I may be forgiven for cross-posting, I'd like to post a link to a video game forum that touches on a similar theme (and may tie into some of the video game discussion in this thread):
> 
> I tormented my uncles kids with MEGAMAN 9



You know, I am 25 and _I_ am on the old end of that particular generation gap. The idea of finding Megaman 9 to be unplayably hard is completely alien to me...



Henry said:


> Speaking to the culture gap, I feel the same way, when a group of younger gamers starts throwing out *Rorune Kenshin*, or *Escaflowne*, or *Zenki,* or _(insert random collection of syllables here)._ I look at most Manga like most people look at Tolkien (not that Tolkien was a fave for me anyway), and the only manga I ever managed to enjoy was Cowboy Bebop - the English Dub is what sold it, and every other program I tried just lost me out the gate.



I don't want to be some kind of English nazi (even though I have the credentials), but if you are talking about the English dub of Cowboy Bebop, then you are talking about an anime, not a manga. "Manga" is the japanese word for comic book, "anime" is just short for animation, and these words are _not_ interchangeable, especially since something Escaflowne has both an anime and a manga version (as well as an anime movie and a second manga series), and these things are extremely different stories.



Achan hiArusa said:


> RLW came out a full year before the original Final Fantasy.



Err... so? That says less about whatever kind of connection they might have than anything mentioned in this thread so far. It doesn't change the fact that they don't have any direct connection whatsoever. The things that _Final Fantasy_ pulled from D&D are _very_ different than the D&Disms that appeared in _Record of Lodoss War_.

I mean, I could clearly argue how _Record of Lodoss War_ was almost certainly a major inspiration for Nintendo's _Fire Emblem_ series, but that argument would not be based on something so simple as which one came first...



> Oh, and please support your statements.  I want line item.  Just note you are talking to someone who did Vampire the Masquerade conversions to d20 long before Monte Cook ever thought of it.



Support what statements? That some of these things were not published under the name "D&D" and that there were differences in the rulesets between these different games? That Gamma World hasn't been officially supported by the makers of D&D in a long time? What exactly do I need to support regarding these statements? And what on earth do conversions between Vampire and d20 have to do with anything? You are seriously misunderstanding what I have been talking about.



> Then do them yourself and stop depending on the publishers.



You know, I really don't like this entire line of argumentation you are using. You are basically just saying that my desire to see the game change and progress in a certain way is somehow rooted in my own failings. That it is somehow wrong for me to ask that something show in the rules themselves. Honestly, with the line of argumentation you are using, you may as well ask why WotC even puts out books at all...

Actually, forget it. I already said what I wanted to say above. I don't want to say any more.


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## mmadsen (Jul 21, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> As I was saying before, I would like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for kinds of fantasy other than pure traditional medieval fantasy.



Agreed.  Of course, I'd like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for _pure traditional_ fantasy too.  After all, it's remarkably bad at emulating Tolkien's Middle Earth, Howard's Conan tales, etc.  A more modular system could do both.


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## Oni (Jul 21, 2009)

I will say it would be nice if WotC was a little more daring and actually did some settings that catered to more modern sensibilities in regards to fantasy.  Eberron is the closest they've come, but really it amounts to dipping their toe in the shallow end of the pool.  

I wonder how they'd do if they hired a few really good manga/anime artists/writers and did a setting unrepentantly different from the standard D&D fare, something that would be more at home in a j-rpg.  Personally I think it would be a runaway success if they didn't muck it up, the market with those taste is growing, not shrinking IMHO.  

[Not to say that the anime thing is the sum total of modern fantasy, I'm just kind of surprised they haven't done this already.]


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## bramadan (Jul 21, 2009)

What I find interesting is that in a thread on generation gap in DnD, noone mentioned original generation gap between people who saw DnD as a natural extension of table-top wargaming and those who saw it more as a story-telling device. 
In my opinion, the split between 1st and 2nd ed. reflected this division more then anything else.

Although I am not of Garry's generation I too have played table-top Napoleonic battles much before I ever heard of DnD and I can tell you that the urge to have Captain Perrier of the second Lancers - or some other miniature "hero" survive and appear again in the next game is very great. 

All those baffling multitudes of polearms, together with ridiculous AC system, to-hit tables and "hit points", they all are direct result of DnD's wargame parentage. (In medieval warfare one weapon group you really really care about are polearms). The fact that we are to this day playing DnD "Campaigns" and that our veteran players are "Grognards" are terminological reminders of those origins.

1st ed DnD then was inspired by wargaming in vaguely sword-and-sorcery milieu. 2ed intented to take the whole RP idea much further and was much more explicitly inspired by fantasy stories and enabling players to create/participate in those. 3rd and 4th in my opinion are both in a sense retro-editions, both trying in their different ways to recapture the memory of the 1st edition. In that sense, they are both much more wargamey then the average non-DnD RPG that one could find in today's market and considerably more like a wargame then like any video-game out there (including video games based on DnD). 

For better or worse, that nostalgic "feel" that defines DnD is inextricably linked to tabletop wargaming and has relatively little to do with the sort of story being "told".


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## Fallen Seraph (Jul 21, 2009)

Oni said:


> I will say it would be nice if WotC was a little more daring and actually did some settings that catered to more modern sensibilities in regards to fantasy.  Eberron is the closest they've come, but really it amounts to dipping their toe in the shallow end of the pool.
> 
> I wonder how they'd do if they hired a few really good manga/anime artists/writers and did a setting unrepentantly different from the standard D&D fare, something that would be more at home in a j-rpg.  Personally I think it would be a runaway success if they didn't muck it up, the market with those taste is growing, not shrinking IMHO.
> 
> [Not to say that the anime thing is the sum total of modern fantasy, I'm just kind of surprised they haven't done this already.]



I would like to see WoTC be more daring even with just modern western fantasy. It be wonderful to see influences like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in a D&D setting.


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## Oni (Jul 21, 2009)

Fallen Seraph said:


> I would like to see WoTC be more daring even with just modern western fantasy. It be wonderful to see influences like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in a D&D setting.




I could dig it.  Really, while I like some of the classic settings, they could do with getting beyond regurgitating the same old same old.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 22, 2009)

Fallen Seraph said:


> I would like to see WoTC be more daring even with just modern western fantasy. It be wonderful to see influences like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in a D&D setting.



I'll admit that I don't really know much about Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and their style of fantasy. Could you please elaborate? I'm curious.


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## Fallen Seraph (Jul 22, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> I'll admit that I don't really know much about Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and their style of fantasy. Could you please elaborate? I'm curious.



Well Gaiman does a wide gambit of stuff, but I think New Weird fits for him when it comes to his fantasy stuff. New Weird is definitely the case with Mieville, a nice definition of New Weird from Wikipedia:


> New Weird is a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy. New Weird has a visceral, in-the-moment quality that often uses elements of surreal or transgressive horror for its tone, style, and effects — in combination with the stimulus of influence from New Wave writers or their proxies (including also such forebears as Mervyn Peake and the French/English Decadents). New Weird fictions are acutely aware of the modern world, even if in disguise, but not always overtly political. As part of this awareness of the modern world, New Weird relies for its visionary power on a "surrender to the weird" that isn't, for example, hermetically sealed in a haunted house on the moors or in a cave in Antarctica. The "surrender" (or "belief") of the writer can take many forms, some of them even involving the use of postmodern techniques that do not undermine the surface reality of the text.


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## Bumbles (Jul 22, 2009)

Would that be covered by the D20 Modern fantasy setting?


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## Fallen Seraph (Jul 22, 2009)

Bumbles said:


> Would that be covered by the D20 Modern fantasy setting?



It can but it isn't something that neccesarily need exist in a modern setting. It is simply that modern ideas are taken into account and brought into fantasy. So have things like labour movements, communist parties, civil rights movements, scientific method, etc. But also doesn't hide away from the fantasy elements. Like you could have bizarre fantasy races taking part in riots and civil disobedience to seek equal rights and such.

It also tends to not be something that tries to stick strickly to certain tropes and goes beyond genres.


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## Henry (Jul 22, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> I don't want to be some kind of English nazi (even though I have the credentials), but if you are talking about the English dub of Cowboy Bebop, then you are talking about an anime, not a manga. "Manga" is the japanese word for comic book, "anime" is just short for animation, and these words are _not_ interchangeable.




That's wild -- I usually get called out for calling manga anime, rather than vice versa.  Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga?  When I say BESM, people wind up getting THAT confused with the RPG of the same name. Whether it's comic book, cartoon, whatever, all the mediums are characterized by that art style and their character archetypes, and every time I come up with one generic term for that style, it gets dissected into its component parts. If I can let slide people calling norse, greek, and celtic mythology "western," then I have little problem calling all that particular style of storytelling as "anime."  Heck, it amazed me recently that there's "boy" and "girl" anime and manga types.


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## Mark (Jul 22, 2009)

Henry said:


> Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga?





You're really leaving yourself wide open on this one, Henry.


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## Ariosto (Jul 22, 2009)

Wide-open is right! To a fan of Japanese work, American super-hero illustration might look like endless repetition of John Buscema (or something). I expect that there are in both cases about as many nuances to the educated eye, lost on the uninitiated -- as with (for example) ears and musical traditions.

I'm no _otaku_, but guess that _chibi_ might do, as it seems to be used somewhat loosely. "Super deformed" involves more comprehensively childlike proportions, I think ... but I am but little better informed than you.

I can certainly see, though, a big difference between the _Lone Wolf and Cub_ and _Blade of the Immortal_ Samurai series on one hand (and indeed between the two), and _Dragonball Z_ on the other -- and would not confuse any of the above with _Maison Ikkoku_.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 22, 2009)

Henry said:
			
		

> Whether it's comic book, cartoon, whatever, all the mediums are characterized by that art style and their character archetypes, and every time I come up with one generic term for that style, it gets dissected into its component parts. If I can let slide people calling norse, greek, and celtic mythology "western," then I have little problem calling all that particular style of storytelling as "anime."  Heck, it amazed me recently that there's "boy" and "girl" anime and manga types.




Yeah, it's kind of like calling Bugs Bunny and the Herculoids and the new Transformers movie and Watchmen and Superman comics from the 50's and the BioShock videogame all the same genre.  

It's not even all "Animation," as far as that goes -- a popular Japanese series can get a work-over into a live-action rendition, too (not unlike Watchmen, really). 

It's like most genre distinctions -- it breaks down if you get specific about it. Discuss "Indie Music," and you're likely to get some of the same kinds of discussions.

Ultimately, people mean different things when they talk about it. But where the rubber meets the road is essentially in an *Archetype*: a certain kind of character. This goes hand-in-hand with world design on the DM's side: certain kinds of worlds make certain kinds of characters. Fortunately, archetypes generally have almost nothing to do with rules or mechanics: I'm totally capable of playing a character who is like, say, Naruto, flavor-wise, in D&D, right now, and having a world that supports a character like that. It might not be entirely organic or reinforced, but it's totally possible, especially with some clever house rules. 

The dilemma is, of course, that what I want really is delicious IP-infringing solid rules for various tropes I see in Series X (Naruto or Avatar or Conan or LotR or whatever) so that I can get my homo habilis tool-using rush out of taking these elements and using them in a new way, with my buddies, doing something that none of us can entirely predict, taking them out of context, and putting them to new, re-mixed use. D&D, for most people, is kind of like one big fantasy mashup of their favorite magic & monster tropes, and giving support for that is rather difficult, especially while staying within one ruleset, given the diversity of the tropes that players want supported and the good chance that publishing something too close to those tropes is going to get you sued.  

The rules are perhaps the wonkier issue. Asking one ruleset to support survival horror alongside little-boy action anime is basically an impossible task, unless you're True 20 and you're noncommittal enough to be genre-neutral, but then you leave a big enough gap to the point where both of them feel the same when they really shouldn't. 

For example: I wouldn't be able to do something like recreate the Stanley expedition to find Livingstone very well in 4e. The tropes that made it interesting (disease, donkeys, wild animals, porters, tribute, racial tensions, supplies, water, the fact that everyone's human and mundane and prone to dying of mosquito bites) aren't very interesting in 4e D&D. To make something similar that would also be fun involves breaking a lot of 4e's fundamental rules (everyone's a big fat hero, you're a small team not a big expedition, you're supposed to get in big fights, not play it safe and avoid the hippos, etc.). If 4e were better at supporting that "wilderness expedition" style of game, it would be worse at supporting the big fat heroes on a small team getting in fights style of game. The two are incompatible within one ruleset. And if every ruleset has 300-900 pages of rules, well, who the heck wants to learn more than a ruleset or maybe two if you're into it?

This is one of the Big Problems of Tabletop Gaming. It's getting worse as the fantasy genre expands and blurs and becomes new things, versus the relatively narrow selection back in the 70's. It's hard to solve because you can't just publish a new game and have it solve all your problems. You almost have to create a game that is different at every table -- and that is supported with individual tables in mind. That doesn't sound like anything you can hang a business model on. 

As the genre diversity increases, there is only two basic directions for D&D to go: More Inclusive (and more generic) or More Focused (and less useful for people who play in different ways). Neither one is really a direction that is going to increase your audience.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 22, 2009)

Henry said:


> That's wild -- I usually get called out for calling manga anime, rather than vice versa.  Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga?  When I say BESM, people wind up getting THAT confused with the RPG of the same name. Whether it's comic book, cartoon, whatever, all the mediums are characterized by that art style and their character archetypes, and every time I come up with one generic term for that style, it gets dissected into its component parts. If I can let slide people calling norse, greek, and celtic mythology "western," then I have little problem calling all that particular style of storytelling as "anime."  Heck, it amazed me recently that there's "boy" and "girl" anime and manga types.



If there actually was such a term, it would really make discussions like this a lot more clear. However, there isn't one. The best you can say is "anime/manga style art" or something like that, but even that gets messy.

For example, many people who are less interested in japanese videogames and such would likely call many kinds of videogame character designs to be "anime/manga style". For some cases, like in the Suikoden or Fire Emblem games, this is quite true. For other cases, like the Final Fantasy games, it isn't so clear. In many cases, many people would consider you ignorant or stupid if you claimed that the rather distinct style Square-Enix uses for its CGI cut-scenes was "anime-style". I have seen this happen dozens of times, myself.

One big problem with giving it all a big label, though, is that there really are immense differences in art styles you see in manga and anime. Trying to lump that all together is akin to trying to ignore the art style differences between Timmverse DC cartoons and Matt Groening's character designs. For example, two important japanese artists who have been involved in anime are Akira Toriyama and Yoshitaka Amano, and their art styles couldn't be more different (even though they have both done work for the same companies!). Actually, most famous manga artists have styles that are distinct enough that you can easily recognize their work on sight, without even knowing anything else about the image (or at least, you can tell that someone has been trying to copy a famous artist's style).

Anyways, I think it really is important to recognize that the differences between "shounen" (young boy), "shoujo" (young girl), "seinen" (adult man), and "jousei" (adult woman) manga and anime are all very real and important. The way a typical man is drawn in the average shounen manga is totally different than the way a typical man is drawn in the average shoujo manga (typically, that man would be a lot prettier in the shoujo manga). Not to mention the difference between shounen and seinen can be pretty dramatic (shounen manga has big-eyed characters who bleed when they get hurt, seinen has more realistic-looking characters who get graphically disembowled when they get hurt).

Actually, the "big-eyed, small-mouth" art style you are most likely familiar with is the cliché shounen style, but there are so many things that deviate from that style that it is hardly worth trying to lump all of anime and manga, or even anime and manga popular in the US, under its banner.



Ariosto said:


> Wide-open is right! To a fan of Japanese work, American super-hero illustration might look like endless repetition of John Buscema (or something). I expect that there are in both cases about as many nuances to the educated eye, lost on the uninitiated -- as with (for example) ears and musical traditions.



I'll admit that I can't tell super hero illustrations apart at all, even though I can recognize Kentaro Miura's works on sight and I know when some random american artist is just ripping off Tite Kubo's style.



> I'm no _otaku_, but guess that _chibi_ might do, as it seems to be used somewhat loosely. "Super deformed" involves more comprehensively childlike proportions, I think ... but I am but little better informed than you.



"Chibi" or "super deformed" doesn't work. Those terms relate to a particular kind of art (not even a style, more like the use of stick figures) in which proportions are exaggerated for a particular effect (usually comedy). It really isn't "super deformed" unless the character's head is the same size as the rest of the body, or close to it. Characters are often drawn more simplistically in "super-deformed" state compared to their usual designs, as well. You most often see this in comedy bonus material in the back of a manga volume.



> I can certainly see, though, a big difference between the _Lone Wolf and Cub_ and _Blade of the Immortal_ Samurai series on one hand (and indeed between the two), and _Dragonball Z_ on the other -- and would not confuse any of the above with _Maison Ikkoku_.



Definitely.

Alternatively... I think anyone would have a hard time confusing the style Kentaro Miura uses in _Berserk_ with the style used by CLAMP in _Magic Knights Rayearth_.


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## Clavis (Jul 22, 2009)

Henry said:


> That's wild -- I usually get called out for calling manga anime, rather than vice versa.  Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga?




A suggestion would be something like "Tezuka-style" or "Astro Boy". Osamu Tezuka (the creator of Astro Boy) is the man who pioneered that style of Japanese art, supposedly influenced by the animated films of Disney. Personally, I see echoes of Betty Boop in the style as well.


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## Hussar (Jul 22, 2009)

KM said:
			
		

> This is one of the Big Problems of Tabletop Gaming. It's getting worse as the fantasy genre expands and blurs and becomes new things, versus the relatively narrow selection back in the 70's. It's hard to solve because you can't just publish a new game and have it solve all your problems. You almost have to create a game that is different at every table -- and that is supported with individual tables in mind. That doesn't sound like anything you can hang a business model on.




Honestly KM, I think you nail it on the head.  Trying to do everything with one rule set is extremely difficult.  Even the so called generic rules are still limited by genre to some degree.  Savage Worlds is pretty generic in that you could do a very broad range of campaigns with is, but, it's still all about two-fisted action.  It'll do everything you want, so long as you want to have lots of action movie style gaming.  

Or, take GURPS.  It goes the other way.  It would be a great system to run your "Livingstone" campaign, but, high octane action?  With that combat system?  I don't think so.  

I'm not sure if this is really a problem to be honest.  I'd rather a game focused on doing something really, really well, rather than try to be everything to everyone and doing a piss poor job of most of it.


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## coyote6 (Jul 22, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Or, take GURPS.  It goes the other way.  It would be a great system to run your "Livingstone" campaign, but, high octane action?  With that combat system?  I don't think so.




Hey now. I ran pretty much nothing but GURPS High Octane Action for more than a decade, with 3e; I think 4e might be simpler still. Granted, there were rules options we used, point totals were high, and I incorporated/created/swiped some karma/luck/action point rules. But there were plenty of 4 PC vs. 25 ninja fights. 

But that's just evidence that systems are generally pretty flexible; it certainly isn't the default GURPS experience (though we didn't actually consciously set out to design that sort of game; it's just what we ended up with and evolved into). But I digress . . . some more!



TwinBahamut said:


> I'll admit that I can't tell super hero illustrations apart at all, even though I can recognize Kentaro Miura's works on sight and I know when some random american artist is just ripping off Tite Kubo's style.




Really? You can't tell Bill Sienkiewicz from Rob Liefeld from Alex Ross? I mean, I can understand not recognizing artist X if you don't read comics, and there are plenty or artists with similar styles. But there are also tons of artists with vastly different styles; it doesn't seem that different to me from reconizing that Ghost in the Shell is not quite the same style or same artist as Pokemon.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 22, 2009)

coyote6 said:


> Really? You can't tell Bill Sienkiewicz from Rob Liefeld from Alex Ross? I mean, I can understand not recognizing artist X if you don't read comics, and there are plenty or artists with similar styles. But there are also tons of artists with vastly different styles; it doesn't seem that different to me from reconizing that Ghost in the Shell is not quite the same style or same artist as Pokemon.



Looking at those galleries, I can _sorta_ tell them apart, but I'll admit it is rather difficult partly because they are all drawing the same kinds of things...

Of course, my comment was more a reference to my own ignorance of the medium and its artists than an actual criticism of comic book art. I don't read comic books, so all their art just kinda blends together...

A big difference, though, between American comic book art and Japanese manga art is that the connection between artist and subject matter is must stronger in manga. I bet there have been hundreds of artists who have drawn Batman, but only Akira Toriyama has ever drawn the art for _Dragonball_. As such, I think it leads to somewhat greater diversity of art styles in manga (since artists are not as shackled to drawing characters the same way that previous artists have), and it certainly makes it easier to remember who has drawn what.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jul 23, 2009)

I actually have a perfect picture regarding the anime/manga thing.

I once had someone claim that "ALL ANIME IS THE SAME," in a very rage-y fashion.  So I took some time editing pictures, and eventually just gave up and _found_ a picture that says everything I would need to.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2ypb6zm.jpg


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## Imaro (Jul 23, 2009)

This may seem sort of off topic, and it definitely refers to earlier posts in the threads, but when considering more recent fantasy books such as Perdido Street Station, Neverwhere, Stardust, etc. ... I've noticed a trend where most of the protagonists are not bad to the bone, killing machines but are in fact pretty sub-par in the killing department and tend to get by on other attributes of their characters.  

I guess when considering this aspect of more modern fiction (as well as certain myths and folktales where heroes rely on cunning, charisma, trickery or knowledge instead of a blade or fireballs) in contrast to Sword & Sorcery or even Classic High Fantasy I find D&D 4e doesn't tend to incorporate the tropes and stylings of more modern fiction (with the possible exception of some manga and some anime) or the aforementioned folktales and myths... and that it's default and supported playstyle kind of actively opposess it ...  I thought that 3e/3.5 was a general, if stumbling step in the right direction, but 4e seems to have dispensed with many of the proto-mechanics, trappings and ideas I had hoped would grow to allow these things as part of gameplay.  just wondering what other's oppinions are on this?


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## Fallen Seraph (Jul 23, 2009)

Imaro said:


> This may seem sort of off topic, and it definitely refers to earlier posts in the threads, but when considering more recent fantasy books such as Perdido Street Station, Neverwhere, Stardust, etc. ... I've noticed a trend where most of the protagonists are not bad to the bone, killing machines but are in fact pretty sub-par in the killing department and tend to get by on other attributes of their characters.
> 
> I guess when considering this aspect of more modern fiction (as well as certain myths and folktales where heroes rely on cunning, charisma, trickery or knowledge instead of a blade or fireballs) in contrast to Sword & Sorcery or even Classic High Fantasy I find D&D 4e doesn't tend to incorporate the tropes and stylings of more modern fiction (with the possible exception of some manga and some anime) or the aforementioned folktales and myths... and that it's default and supported playstyle kind of actively opposess it ...  I thought that 3e/3.5 was a general, if stumbling step in the right direction, but 4e seems to have dispensed with many of the proto-mechanics, trappings and ideas I had hoped would grow to allow these things as part of gameplay.  just wondering what other's oppinions are on this?



I somewhat disagree, while certainly they won't be sub-par in terms of killing in 4e. The opposite is also true in 4e you can pick any class and have some non-combat capabilities and not have to rely on other classes to do such things. In general too, I have just found 4e better for non-combat with less-Skills, Rituals, Skill Challenges. But that isn't there or here when talking specifically about classes.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I actually have a perfect picture regarding the anime/manga thing.
> 
> I once had someone claim that "ALL ANIME IS THE SAME," in a very rage-y fashion.  So I took some time editing pictures, and eventually just gave up and _found_ a picture that says everything I would need to.
> 
> http://i25.tinypic.com/2ypb6zm.jpg



I don't enjoy anime in general and have uttered that phrase although I don't think I've said it in rage. About the only picture in that sample that you need to tell me is from an anime is the first one in row three, the old man looking into the teacup. That looks like a western animation cell. Otherwise, the rest of the pictures all look like anime animation cells.


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## MichaelSomething (Jul 23, 2009)

Imaro said:


> This may seem sort of off topic, and it definitely refers to earlier posts in the threads, but when considering more recent fantasy books such as Perdido Street Station, Neverwhere, Stardust, etc. ... I've noticed a trend where most of the protagonists are not bad to the bone, killing machines but are in fact pretty sub-par in the killing department and tend to get by on other attributes of their characters.
> 
> I guess when considering this aspect of more modern fiction (as well as certain myths and folktales where heroes rely on cunning, charisma, trickery or knowledge instead of a blade or fireballs) in contrast to Sword & Sorcery or even Classic High Fantasy I find D&D 4e doesn't tend to incorporate the tropes and stylings of more modern fiction (with the possible exception of some manga and some anime) or the aforementioned folktales and myths... and that it's default and supported playstyle kind of actively opposess it ... I thought that 3e/3.5 was a general, if stumbling step in the right direction, but 4e seems to have dispensed with many of the proto-mechanics, trappings and ideas I had hoped would grow to allow these things as part of gameplay. just wondering what other's oppinions are on this?




Why am I not surprised that you brought this subject up?

Well people believe that 4E is the best option for such non-combat situations like a poetry contest, as shown in this poll I made.  

Then again, if you really want to run complex non-combat challenges,  you may want want to consider RPGs other then D&D.  

Of course, I think 4E (or any RPG) system can do what you want it to do if you're willing to work for it.  Even get the ladies.  BTW, you never thanked me for solving the lack of crunch to reflect your character's sexual capabilities.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 23, 2009)

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm not sure if this is really a problem to be honest. I'd rather a game focused on doing something really, really well, rather than try to be everything to everyone and doing a piss poor job of most of it.




The problem with that side of the coin is that what that game wants to do really, really well, is still only wanted at maybe 5% of the game tables out there. Probably, more than 50% of _those_ gametables houserule the thing to hades and back again. 

A game that does one thing really well basically fragments your potential market into competing lines, because people won't learn more than one or two game systems, or diminishes your market into a tiny tiny piece of the whole (which, itself, is pretty tiny). It's also true that the segments are getting smaller as the genre gets bigger: people love Anime-style fantasy, but won't play anything that smells like the nostalgia of 40-50 year olds reminiscing about LOTR. A different crowd follows the "fairy tale" feel of Gaiman, or the "reality through the distorted lens" of Meiville. A lot of people will read or watch both (I like everything on that list!), but what they won't do is read 600 pages of rules for playing RPG's in each of those styles, especially as getting a game together in the first place is such a tremendous challenge. 

The difficulty with this isn't necessarily an insurmountable challenge, but to confront it directly means to drastically change what the hobby looks like over the next decade or so. The real challenge is in finding a new system that works before the old system gives way from underneath you. 

D&D has done well primarily because it was the first, the most popular, and it has been able to balance other people's archetypes with its own fairly easily (the "d20 + mods vs. DC" core mechanic is, as True 20 showed, pretty flexible). That success has carried it for 30 years and could probably carry it a good deal farther, but like spamming the same attack over and over again, it looses it's effectiveness. We've seen essentially the same model four times in a row now. It's worked, but it can't stay this way forever, and I bet D&D is already feeling the groaning of its aged system, even as 4e tries to take the game in new directions.

I don't want to sound like one of those "THE SKY IS FALLING" Death of TableTop chicken little types, but the grain of truth in their wild speculation is that D&D can't keep doing the same thing and expect the same results as the world changes around it. The tabletop needs to adapt, and that is going to mean a lot of big changes. What the future looks like is hard to say, but it certainly isn't the same thing that the last 30 years have been. 

...and on the topic of my pokemans:


> I don't enjoy anime in general and have uttered that phrase although I don't think I've said it in rage. About the only picture in that sample that you need to tell me is from an anime is the first one in row three, the old man looking into the teacup. That looks like a western animation cell. Otherwise, the rest of the picture all look like anime animation cells.




I really wish I had the resources to make a collage of images from "western animation," because I wouldn't say that Sin City, Wallace & Grommit, Indie Canadian cartoons, most of what's on Adult Swim, and Spongebob Squarepants are the same thing at all, but you could probably find visual similarities. The truth is that all of them are closer to certain types of other nations' animation than they are to each other. Maybe the best example I can find is _The Animatrix_, that compilation of animated shorts based on the world of The Matrix. A lot of very diverse styles come together in that. 

That's not to remove culture from the equation, of course. There are real differences in art style between many Japanese animators and many American animators and even many Korean animators or Canadian animators (you can probably tell which animation bits were outsourced on many shows without a whole lot of guidance). Lots of difference of purpose and the like as well. 

"I don't like most anime" is kind of like saying "I don't like most comic books." It's quite possible you legitimately don't like some of the more common elements (say, heavily stylized "humans"), but the thing is diverse enough to make the categorical dismissal more than a little naive. 

And, anyway, to tie it back into the point above, everyone wants different stuff in their games. If D&D chooses one style, it'll alienate everyone else. If D&D tries to be diverse, it will tend to be generic and bland and un-inspiring. It's loose-loose. The only hope is to re-define the battlefield.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 23, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> As I was saying before, I would like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for kinds of fantasy other than pure traditional medieval fantasy.
> 
> For example, D&D could have some options that would support something like the _Star Ocean_ series of videogames. These games are still all about characters running around fantasy settings killing monsters and taking their stuff, with the one difference that some of the characters happen to be have beamed down to the planet on an away mission for an organization similar to _Star Trek_'s Starfleet (a version of Starfleet where you can major in swordplay or sorcery). So, it would play a lot like traditional D&D, except characters might wander between planets, use beam weapons, or get caught up in a space dogfight.




Okay, I must be crazy because I don't see anything that prevents you from creating a campaign and running it like this. It takes two seconds to define how beam weapons works. Transporters are already supported by magic items with unlimited use teleportation. Space dogfights are no different from aerial combat between large monsters. (There was even a d20 modern article in Dragon (while it was still print) involving space combat IIRC.)

I wish I could remember who posted it but a couple years back someone on these boards was describing a cool event in a game. A character died at an inconvenient time and the DM didn't want the players to pull out and head back to town so he could be raised. The plot made it hard for a replacement character to jump in. So in a flash of inspiration (or insanity) the DM took the player aside and said (paraphrased) "You wake up in the clone cell, the computer quickly briefs you on your mission and brings you up to speed on what was happening before you died. You find yourself at an airlock, exiting Alpha Complex. You walk out onto a terrraformed planet climbing up a small hill in front of you. As you reach the top you see the other operatives standing around the corpse of clone-1." Conflating classic Paranoia with D&D is a crazy concept. He's turned the adventuring party from fantasy archetypes to futuristic holo-deck style characters pretending to be fantasy archetypes. 



> Alternatively, a few options to emulate something like the _Wild ARMS_ series of videogames would be nice. Again, the _Wild ARMS_ games play a lot like normal D&D, except the characters all use firearms, there is a slight wild-west flavor, half the dungeons they go into are ancient spaceships, and demons know how to control nanotechnology. Actually, a great DM I used to play with told me he once ran a campaign that was very strongly inspired by the _Wild ARMS_ series. It would be nice if the game itself did a better job of supporting that.



Again, there is nothing inherently difficult about putting firearms into D&D. There were many campaign settings made by 3rd party publishers during the 3e era who included firearms in their games. Ancient spaceships have been in D&D since S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I'm still not seeing what more you need WotC to do to support a Wild ARMS campaign. A simple Dragon article on DDI for firearms covers it completely.



> Actually, the whole idea that a fantasy setting is in fact the product of some kind of post-apocalyptic future Earth is pretty common in some of the major source material for D&D. Vance's _Dying Earth_ and Terry Brooks' _Shannara_ books both feature that idea, as well as several others I could name. I mean, I quite clearly recall a scene in _The Sword of Shannara_ where the main characters are attack by a giant robot that was left over from the wars that destroyed the older civilization of Earth. The idea of "lost technology" that can be found and used is a pretty major idea across countless anime and videogames as well...




I've already mentioned that combining D&D and post-apocalyptic future is in the 1e DMG. In 4e fighting robots is dead simple. What is the difference between a manticore and a giant robot with missiles? So you have to add the "non-living" attribute to the manticore. That's it. Using the manticore stats as is and describing the monster as a robot should make the players think you have stats for a robot.

All of this is window dressing. Instead of saying, "You enter a damp cave. A patchwork of luminous fungus lights the rough rock walls that extend far into the distance," you could say, "You enter a metal corridor. Recessed lamps illuminate the smooth surface of the walls that extend far into the distance."



> Generally, a few options within a PHB or DMG for guns, beam swords, cars, spaceships, robotic monsters, and various other trappings of modern and futuristic settings is all I really want.



As I said, this could be covered in a single DDI article. I think you should be emailing WotC customer support asking them to include something like this in PHB3.



> Why shouldn't there be more direct support for that kind of thing, then?



No one said there shouldn't be more direct support. In fact the only reason there isn't direct support I would guess is the WotC designers are use to the idea that people can just make this stuff up themselves. You need to convince them that direct support for guns is wanted by their player base.



> Still, I guess it is worth mentioning again that this whole discussion started out as my response to someone saying that D&D could be seen by people of my generation as the embodiment of all the fantasy videogames and such that we grew up playing.



How old are you? Could this just be an issue of players of your generation just haven't fully integrated into the design and development groups at WotC? Maybe the support you want will happen automatically in 5-10 years when WotC has more writers and designers from "your generation". If this is truly a generational thing then you just need to wait for the generations to pass. Just remember this thread when some kid is posting the D&D doesn't do what he wants it to do based on the MMOs he's played on his cellphone.

"People try to put us... down."


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## Imaro (Jul 23, 2009)

MichaelSomething said:


> Why am I not surprised that you brought this subject up?
> 
> Well people believe that 4E is the best option for such non-combat situations like a poetry contest, as shown in this poll I made.
> 
> ...




Uhm... ok, so did you actually have an opinion on this as it pertains to 4e's bridging the generation gap with more modern-fictional sources?

Edit:  Or is your point still that  bridging this particular aspect of the gap is best handled by games that don't address it and instead leave creating any mechanics involved in it for the DM (novice or experienced) to create out of thin air?  

Instead of rehashing that old argument why not examine games based off more modern fantasy, such as the Buffy, Song of Fire and Ice, Angel, Dresden Files, Supernatural, etc. rpg's and how they address such things... and whether said design could perhaps add something to D&D... oh yeah, I forgot, if I want those type of mechanics I should go play those types of games right?


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## amysrevenge (Jul 23, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Sin City, Wallace & Grommit, Indie Canadian cartoons, most of what's on Adult Swim, and Spongebob Squarepants.




lol

I was planning a list like this in my head, and it included both Sin City and Spongebob (my list finished off with Groo the Wanderer and Sandman as well, my two favourite comics if you can believe it).


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## MichaelSomething (Jul 23, 2009)

Imaro said:


> Uhm... ok, so did you actually have an opinion on this as it pertains to 4e's bridging the generation gap with more modern-fictional sources?




Honestly, I haven't read modern fiction at all lately. So I don't know how 4E relates with modern-fiction.  

I'm more into the internet (I seriously think I'm spending too much time on Enworld as it is), anime, and computer/video gaming.  However, talking about the relationship between 4E and anime/video games is sort of like being a low-level 1E party walking into a Dragon's lair; it's just gets ugly.  

Have you watched "Avatar: The Last Airbender?"  The 4E DMG mentions the show as a possible source (for an elemental campaign, but I think that is pigeon-holing a very diverse show IMO).  I really liked that show and think it would be a great resource for D&D.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jul 23, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> I don't enjoy anime in general and have uttered that phrase although I don't think I've said it in rage. About the only picture in that sample that you need to tell me is from an anime is the first one in row three, the old man looking into the teacup. That looks like a western animation cell. Otherwise, the rest of the pictures all look like anime animation cells.




I have three things:

1) Define what makes them "from an anime"

2) The old man looking into the teacup is from Monster, both an anime and manga series :3

3) Avatar and the new-ish Teen Titans (Show, not comic).  Are these anime?

All you've said is "Yeah they're all anime."  Does that mean they all look the same, or do your recognize that almost all of those pictures differs from the others?


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## Orius (Jul 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I actually have a perfect picture regarding the anime/manga thing.
> 
> I once had someone claim that "ALL ANIME IS THE SAME," in a very rage-y fashion.  So I took some time editing pictures, and eventually just gave up and _found_ a picture that says everything I would need to.
> 
> http://i25.tinypic.com/2ypb6zm.jpg




And while I can tell the different artistic styles apart in each image, I'd just label the whole thing as "anime", even though I know anime is technically animated films and manga is comic books (I'm assuming that image contains examples of both?).  I'm not really into the stuff, so I just label it all together as Japanese popular art.  Anime just rolls off the tongue better.


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## Mark (Jul 23, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Wide-open is right! To a fan of Japanese work, American super-hero illustration might look like endless repetition of John Buscema (or something).





It might even appear so to a non-fan of Japanese work, for that matter.  Never assume there are but two sides from which to view something.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 23, 2009)

You know, jmucchiello, I really feel like we are having two different conversations. What, exactly, do you think I am arguing? Because a lot of your replies to what I have said really don't make a lot of sense to me...


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## jmucchiello (Jul 23, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> You know, jmucchiello, I really feel like we are having two different conversations. What, exactly, do you think I am arguing? Because a lot of your replies to what I have said really don't make a lot of sense to me...




Read my prior response in order. It is a flow of realizing what you are saying and how it relates to the whole thread.

You are complaining that D&D doesn't support guns, future tech, and a few other things mixed into fantasy. You've made it clear this is not a deal breaker for you. You just wish D&D included (let's call it) more diversity. Originally I was telling you that guns and future tech can be faked using the existing rules and changing the skin of it: a gun is a bow; a transporter beam is a teleportation portal; space combat is aerial combat with some allowance for the fact that there's no gravity. You've since said you see that but it would still be nice to see it in print.

So I've come to the conclusion that if you want to see this stuff in print you should be sending emails to WotC customer support. Or you should wait 10 years. If guns and future tech mixed with fantasy is as prevalent as you say in "your generation's" fantasy. Then when "your generation" is in charge of D&D at WotC, that version of D&D will reflect "your generation's" sensibilities.

Ultimately, you ask "why can't D&D cater to my tropes?" And I my first answer was "because it does not occur to the current guardians of D&D that those tropes need special rules." The current guardians of "that which is D&D" either don't believe guns belong in D&D or (as I've conjectured) feel it is so easy to reskin bows as guns that it isn't worth printing anything about guns. Someday members of your generation of fantasy enthusiasts will take the reigns of "that which is D&D" and perhaps they will print such rules because, like you, they felt it would help a large enough segment of gamers to have such rules spelled out.

Have I made sense yet?


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## Mercutio01 (Jul 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I have three things:
> 
> 1) Define what makes them "from an anime"



In the majority of them?  The eyes.  The others have distinct "looks" (the exaggerated perspective on the guy?girl? with the shotgun, the weird big blue cat thing).  Honestly, even the guy looking into the tea-cup is something I would have pegged as Japanese animation.  The only one that to my eye treads close to "western" animation is the guy with the video camera who looks like he's right out of GI Joe the cartoon. 



> 3) Avatar and the new-ish Teen Titans (Show, not comic).  Are these anime?



They share many elements with eastern animation.  Indeed, part of the rationale behind Avatar was to capture the US cartoon market by emulating popular anime.  Things like the understated mouth and overstated eyes, the exaggerated "laugh" that looks like a Muppet with its mouth open, movements that occur without an animated transition, and speed lines without a background are key hallmarks.



> All you've said is "Yeah they're all anime."  Does that mean they all look the same, or do your recognize that almost all of those pictures differs from the others?



I'm not the person you were asking, but I recognize the differences between them.  However, I do also recognize that they are all from eastern animation houses.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 23, 2009)

> Ultimately, you ask "why can't D&D cater to my tropes?" And I my first answer was "because it does not occur to the current guardians of D&D that those tropes need special rules." The current guardians of "that which is D&D" either don't believe guns belong in D&D or (as I've conjectured) feel it is so easy to reskin bows as guns that it isn't worth printing anything about guns. Someday members of your generation of fantasy enthusiasts will take the reigns of "that which is D&D" and perhaps they will print such rules because, like you, they felt it would help a large enough segment of gamers to have such rules spelled out.
> 
> Have I made sense yet?




IMO, the idea of "the guardians of D&D" deciding what the game looks like is one of those things that isn't compatible with D&D in the next 10 or so years. WotC could sell every table exactly what they need. They just couldn't do it as a line of published books. 



> Things like the understated mouth and overstated eyes, the exaggerated "laugh" that looks like a Muppet with its mouth open, movements that occur without an animated transition, and speed lines without a background are key hallmarks.




It's interesting. The former two are very much animation universals. A lot of hay is made over, for instance, Bugs Bunny's "baby face": the proportions are all out of whack, because characters are cuter with bigger eyes and smaller mouths (except when laughing). Of course, the effect is more subtle on humans than it is on other things. 

And the other stuff is definitely cultural difference. Japanese animation tends to be more accepting of the "surreal" elements (changing proportions), while American animation tends to ground itself. But you'll find wildly changing proportions in a good chunk of Canadian animation. Japanese anime is grounded in a very "cheap" style of animation without a lot of transitional cells and with cheap ways to depict motion that it keeps mostly out of convention and, well, because it's cheap, still in many shows. Reason being Japanese audiences kind of expect it, but American audiences don't have the same early animation experience with things like Astro Boy and Speed Racer, so they expect something different -- something a little more detailed, usually. But heck, check out the early 80's GI Joe and Transformers cartoons: full of cheap tricks that we might be totally used to, but that others would probably balk at.

There is a cultural difference in art style. But that difference is getting smaller. As far as D&D goes, none of those things are very applicable: art style isn't very relevant to what happens at the table.


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## Aeolius (Jul 23, 2009)

Sorry... I'm 43, started in 1979 with Basic D&D, don't care for anime (though I do like Spongebob) mainly because I don't have time to watch a lot of TV, I think 4e isn't as fun as prior editions, and.... GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!


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## jmucchiello (Jul 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I have three things:
> 
> 1) Define what makes them "from an anime"



I can't answer that. I just see something in them that reminds me of what little anime I've watched. I also would not know how to tell you what specific element of a piece of artwork is a Dali or an Escher but I would recognize the style when I saw it. The reason I can't put my finger on it is because I don't study these things. I'm not versed in the lingo.



> 2) The old man looking into the teacup is from Monster, both an anime and manga series :3



I don't know Monster from Sailor Moon (never watched either of these). But that particular cell lacked something and whatever that something was was the thing that signals the "this is anime" flag in my visual recognition circuits in my brain.



> 3) Avatar and the new-ish Teen Titans (Show, not comic).  Are these anime?



Never seen these cartoons. Teen Titans is Marv Wolfman and George Perez or it doesn't exist in my universe. Based on limited images found on the web I would classify them as anime. Based on the wikipedia articles it seems that's what they were going for. (And the TT stuff makes my eyes bleed.)



> All you've said is "Yeah they're all anime."  Does that mean they all look the same, or do your recognize that almost all of those pictures differs from the others?



At one time, I read manga regularly. I've read Lone Wolf and Cub, Area 88, Akira, Mai the Psychic Girl and Lum. I was also into the manga influenced Ninja High School at the time. I haven't read any of them in over 10 years though. There is a stylistic quality that runs through them all and it carries over into anime. All the pictures in the jpeg have that stylistic quality. Obviously they come from many different stories by many different artist workshops. But "they are anime" all the same. Only the cell I pointed out seemed more western than Japanese.

No, all anime does not "look the same" but most share some qualities that I can't specify even if my brain notices it.


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## Mercutio01 (Jul 23, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's interesting. The former two are very much animation universals. A lot of hay is made over, for instance, Bugs Bunny's "baby face": the proportions are all out of whack, because characters are cuter with bigger eyes and smaller mouths (except when laughing). Of course, the effect is more subtle on humans than it is on other things.



The difference is, in characters like Yosemite Sam, everything is out of proportion.  He's short, wide, with a ridiculous handlebar mustache, but the facial features are, and here's the key, in proportion with the style of the character.






In anime (caveat, anime that I have watched or know of), the proportions are closer to standard reality with the disproportion most evidenced in facial structure.  Take Goku in this photo.  His body proportions are roughly correct.  But his head is too small, his eyes entirely too large, and you practically need a microscope to see his nose and mouth.







> There is a cultural difference in art style. But that difference is getting smaller. As far as D&D goes, none of those things are very applicable: art style isn't very relevant to what happens at the table.



Sorry for continuing the off-topic discussion.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 23, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> Teen Titans is Marv Wolfman and George Perez or it doesn't exist in my universe.



Old school.


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## Gentlegamer (Jul 23, 2009)

"Teen Titans is Marv Wolfman and George Perez or it doesn't exist in my universe."

 The Geoff Johns run a few years ago was pretty good.


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## kitsune9 (Jul 23, 2009)

Rechan said:


> The following is just an example of a greater point:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Actually my novels growing up would be Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. I didn't get into Moorcock, Tolkien, etc. Yet, I don't fit in the 25 under demographic by quite a few years. Reading wasn't something that was generally appreciated in my family (my grandmother on one side of family had no books whatsoever, my grandparents on my father's side had a few books if you wanted to fix your car, and so on with my family) and when I started working was when I started buying fantasy books.


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## WizarDru (Jul 23, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> INever seen these cartoons. Teen Titans is Marv Wolfman and George Perez or it doesn't exist in my universe.




Bob Haney's ghost will haunt you.  THAT is old school.  You kids and your New Teen Titans.  Sheesh.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 23, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> Bob Haney's ghost will haunt you.  THAT is old school.  You kids and your New Teen Titans.  Sheesh.



You're right. I think of the Wolfman/Perez Titans as old school because it's the version I grew up with. But yeah, nothing with 'New' in the title can truly be old school.


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## Aeolius (Jul 23, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> You're right. I think of the Wolfman/Perez Titans as old school because it's the version I grew up with. But yeah, nothing with 'New' in the title can truly be old school.




As opposed to The Real Ghostbusters , not to be confused with The Ghost Busters or Ghostbusters ?


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 23, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> Read my prior response in order. It is a flow of realizing what you are saying and how it relates to the whole thread.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...



Yes, that clears it up quite a bit. Thank you.

I suppose I have to agree. As things stand, I am unlikely to see D&D break out of a traditional fantasy mold. Maybe I _should_ just send them an email or something... I am sure that waiting 10 years would probably work, but I'm a bit too impatient for that.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 23, 2009)

Mercutio01 said:


> The difference is, in characters like Yosemite Sam, everything is out of proportion.  He's short, wide, with a ridiculous handlebar mustache, but the facial features are, and here's the key, in proportion with the style of the character.
> 
> In anime (caveat, anime that I have watched or know of), the proportions are closer to standard reality with the disproportion most evidenced in facial structure.  Take Goku in this photo.  His body proportions are roughly correct.  But his head is too small, his eyes entirely too large, and you practically need a microscope to see his nose and mouth.
> 
> Sorry for continuing the off-topic discussion.



You know what, I think I _really_ need to disagree with a couple of the points you make here.

I think you are flat out mistaken in saying that western animation faces have facial features in proportion while anime faces have small noses and mouths. In this case, I think it is a lot more fair to say that anime has fairly realistically proportioned noses and mouths (outside of exaggerated expressions, where mouth tend to get much _larger_ than what is realistic). Actually, there are more than a few famous anime characters with ludicrously huge noses, too, especially in older anime classics like _Astro Boy_ or _Cyborg 009_, or newer anime that is referencing those old classics.

On the other hand, I would say that many staples of western animation, like Warner Bros. animation, tend to draw characters with disproportionately huge mouths (in addition to very large eyes!). If you look at them, many Warner Bros. characters have cheekbones that look horribly swollen (much wider than the rest of their head) simply so they can fit their huge mouths on their faces.

To a certain extent, I think people tend to recognize anime not because it is stylized, but because it _lacks_ certain stylized elements that you see in western animation. Western animation is _defined_ by characters who are ridiculously misproportioned and highly stylized, whether it is the gigantic head and feet of Mickey Mouse, the tall bodies, big muscles, small heads, and beady eyes of classic superhero animation, or the characters with huge heads and noodle-like limbs from Tim Burton's clay animation like _The Nightmare Before Christmas_.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jul 24, 2009)

As others have said, the same stylizations you claim to be anime-only have appeared in a LOT of western stuff.  The problem with saying "Anime is this, western animation is that" is that the lines are blurred.  You can say Avatar was "anime," but it wasn't.  And you can say Monster is a western animated show, but it's not.

But the big, *big* problem, and the reason why so many people :| at "I hate anime" or, the much, much worse phrase, "that's too anime," is this.

*Anime isn't a genre.*

That's why if I ever hear someone say "That's too anime" regarding game mechanics, I can safetly ignore them as being ignorant and full of it.  It's the equivilant of opening the 4e PHB, looking at the elf, and going "Oh god that's just too literature for me."  Imagine how _bizarro_ that would sound.  "That's just too literature for me."  You'd say...well, possibly some rather impolite things.  But you'd be THINKING "How can something be too literature?  Literature isn't a genre!  It's a medium!  ANYTHING can be in literature!"  How many people here sigh and palm -> face when they hear someone say "I hate books?"


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## Primal (Jul 24, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> You know what, I think I _really_ need to disagree with a couple of the points you make here.
> 
> I think you are flat out mistaken in saying that western animation faces have facial features in proportion while anime faces have small noses and mouths. In this case, I think it is a lot more fair to say that anime has fairly realistically proportioned noses and mouths (outside of exaggerated expressions, where mouth tend to get much _larger_ than what is realistic). Actually, there are more than a few famous anime characters with ludicrously huge noses, too, especially in older anime classics like _Astro Boy_ or _Cyborg 009_, or newer anime that is referencing those old classics.
> 
> ...




I'd say what sets manga and anime apart from their Western counterparts (and note that I'm including manga-influenced comics such as manhwa and "pseudo manga" in this) are the distinct visual characteristics; not just big eyes and small mouths, for example, but also the visual language they use (such as twinkling eyes, or strong emotion often portrayed in a humourous and stylized  fashion -- or the clothes of the protagonist may convey a certain visual message about him/her that an "unenlightened" reader/watcher completely misses).


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## jmucchiello (Jul 24, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> *Anime isn't a genre.*



No one in this thread said that. So don't pull that into this thread. In this thread I said Anime is a style. There's nothing wrong with that. People also enjoy French Cinema and American Summer Blockbusters. They aren't genres either but they are definitely styles of filmmaking. So is Anime and it is definitely distinct from so-called Western Animation. The fact that we can say some western animators have adopted Anime style in their cartoons is nonsense unless you accept Anime as a style.


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## Primal (Jul 24, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> As others have said, the same stylizations you claim to be anime-only have appeared in a LOT of western stuff.  The problem with saying "Anime is this, western animation is that" is that the lines are blurred.  You can say Avatar was "anime," but it wasn't.  And you can say Monster is a western animated show, but it's not.
> 
> But the big, *big* problem, and the reason why so many people :| at "I hate anime" or, the much, much worse phrase, "that's too anime," is this.
> 
> ...




Well, for a librarian's perspective anime and manga *are* genres (and used as subject headings to identify genres), at least in many countries here in Europe. Manga is a genre within comics such as fantasy, science fiction, wuxia and new weird are genres (and a subgenre). And, as we know, manga has its own subgenres, too.

Anime and manga have distinct visual characteristics that can be identified -- in the wake of the pseudo manga, it may not be possible to identify the country of origin solely on the basis of the art alone, but a comic book can be identified as a manga based on the style.


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## Oni (Jul 24, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> There is a cultural difference in art style. But that difference is getting smaller. As far as D&D goes, none of those things are very applicable: art style isn't very relevant to what happens at the table.




I actually disagree with this.  The aesthetic presentation of a game or setting goes a long way toward setting the mood at the table.  I believe you could take the exact same set of information (setting and rules) and dress them up with different art (say old school D&D vs. anime) and it would make a noticeable difference how it was played.  The primary reasons are twofold.  First the presentation guides the selection process, People whose taste and stylistic preferences run a certain way will either be attracted or repelled by the product, so you could say that the art has a hand in selecting the mindset of the group that will be using the product.  Secondly the art will inform the tone of the game, it's a visual cue of what the players are meant to put back into it by way of setting expectations and reinforcing the innate preferences that guided the process of selecting the product in the first place.


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## Aeolius (Jul 24, 2009)

Oni said:


> I believe you could take the exact same set of information (setting and rules) and dress them up with different art (say old school D&D vs. anime) and it would make a noticeable difference how it was played.




Tolkien elves versus Elfquest elves?     (Personally, I prefer Elfquest elves)


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 24, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> That's why if I ever hear someone say "That's too anime" regarding game mechanics, I can safetly ignore them as being ignorant and full of it.



People don't really do that any more. Same with videogame-y, I've not seen either for quite a while. I feel a change in the air, I think anime is going back to meaning 'anime' instead of 'non-naturalistic' or 'oversized weapons and spiky hair' or 'bad'.

Anyway, these days we only talk about old school games. 'Nostalgia' is the new 'anime'.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jul 24, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> People don't really do that any more. Same with videogame-y, I've not seen either for quite a while. I feel a change in the air, I think anime is going back to meaning 'anime' instead of 'non-naturalistic' or 'oversized weapons and spiky hair' or 'bad'.
> 
> Anyway, these days we only talk about old school games. 'Nostalgia' is the new 'anime'.




Man I hear it _all the time_ when I'm down in SoCal


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## Bumbles (Jul 24, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> Tolkien elves versus Elfquest elves?     (Personally, I prefer Elfquest elves)




I recommend Keebler Elves.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 24, 2009)

Oni said:
			
		

> I actually disagree with this. The aesthetic presentation of a game or setting goes a long way toward setting the mood at the table. I believe you could take the exact same set of information (setting and rules) and dress them up with different art (say old school D&D vs. anime) and it would make a noticeable difference how it was played. The primary reasons are twofold. First the presentation guides the selection process, People whose taste and stylistic preferences run a certain way will either be attracted or repelled by the product, so you could say that the art has a hand in selecting the mindset of the group that will be using the product. Secondly the art will inform the tone of the game, it's a visual cue of what the players are meant to put back into it by way of setting expectations and reinforcing the innate preferences that guided the process of selecting the product in the first place




I was hoping someone would bite at that, 'cuz it gets us a little closer to something usefully on-topic. 

Your first reason I can broadly agree with. Marketing agrees with you there, too.  People will self-select based on their own aesthetic tastes, and most American males 18-24 probably won't pick up a bright pink PHB done with illos in the style of a gay-boy romance manga with lillies splayed all over the tables and charts. Likewise, kids these days probably won't pick up anything with big hair, throbbing muscles, chainmail bikinis, and multi-eyed piles of slime. It's not modern, current, or interesting. 

That's about art direction and, well, marketing, though, not so much about game design. Put fast cars, bikini models, and explosions on the cover of a Parcheesi set, and you'll sell at least a few. 

Your second reason is a little shakier, because "tone of the game" is highly imprecise. Parcheesi is parcheesi no matter how you dress it up; Star Wars Monopoly is still Monopoly, and still about currency management, not about killing Darth Vader. Replacing the top hat with a little metal Chewbacca doesn't change the fundamental rules or feel of the game, though it might change the banter at the table around the game ("My hotel on Hoth is an igloo!"). Drawing every character as if it were from a boy-love manga wouldn't change the fact that dwarves are tough and that eladrin can teleport. Though the audience might be surprised to find no mechanics for keeping your love a tightly-held secret and no GM advice for innuendo and symbolic lilly placement, even drawn in this style, 4e D&D would still be a game about beating up monsters on a minis field. It might attract a different audience (and thus evolve in another direction as fans demand different things), but the "tone," as it were, wouldn't change.


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## Mercutio01 (Jul 24, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> As others have said, the same stylizations you claim to be anime-only have appeared in a LOT of western stuff.



Whoa there horsey.  No one said "anime only."  I pointed the standard characteristics that mark "anime" as different from "western."  I didn't say there was no blurring.  Clearly there is.  However, you simply _cannot_ look at that picture of Goku or a picture of Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon or, hell, Ninja Scroll and not recognize that the majority of characters have grossly disproportionate noses and mouths to the sizes of their eyes and the rest of their faces. Indeed, in "How to Draw Manga" types of books one of _the_ most common style tricks is exactly that--eyes start lower on the cranium and are bigger than normal, noses are understated or sometimes non-existent, and mouths are often-times simple lines without lips, and usually leave little room for a defined chin structure.  I say this as I have one "How to Draw Manga" book sitting open on my computer desk.



> You can say Avatar was "anime," but it wasn't.



True, but it was "anime-inspired" as even the creators of the show have indicated.  Indeed, that was the entire point behind the animation style--to capture that market-share that American animation studios were losing to the Japanese.  Also, if you picked one random guy on the street and showed him 10 pictures, 5 "anime" and 5 "western" but one of the "western"s was Avatar and asked him how many "anime" and how many "American" cartoons were there, I'm willing to bet, more often than not, you would get answers of "6" and "4" respectively.



> *Anime isn't a genre.*



Someone noted that above, but I highly recommend you actually walk into a book store or comic book store and actually look around.  Invariably*, at least where I shop, all of the "anime" books will be on a shelf that says "anime/manga" and are separated from the other "graphic novels."  This is also true of movie stores like Best Buy.



*No, I'm not going to further qualify "invariably" because it has been completely invariable to me.  I have never shopped at any store in my 30 years that sold anime/mangas where the films/books were not shelved in a specific "anime" section.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 24, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> mechanics for keeping your love a tightly-held secret and... GM advice for innuendo and symbolic lilly placement



Roll on 5e.


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## Achan hiArusa (Jul 24, 2009)

There is an old GURPS meta-game where you pick three books (beside the main rulebook, okay now two main rulebooks) and you run it as a game:

Final Fantasy VII:  Fantasy, Martial Arts, and Cyberpunk
Final Fantasy VIII:  Fantasy, Magic, Ultratech 
Final Fantasy IX:  Fantasy, Steampunk, Steamtech
Final Fantasy X:  Fantasy, Atomic Horror, Ultratech
Final Fantasy XII:  Fantasy, Magic, Technomancer

Or that's the best I can think of off the top of my head.  If d20 is not doing it for you, try 3d6.


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## Achan hiArusa (Jul 24, 2009)

Mercutio01 said:


> Someone noted that above, but I highly recommend you actually walk into a book store or comic book store and actually look around.  Invariably*, at least where I shop, all of the "anime" books will be on a shelf that says "anime/manga" and are separated from the other "graphic novels."  This is also true of movie stores like Best Buy.




Oh, you mean the same bookstores that put Quantum Mechanics in the mathematics section or put the "Tao of Physics" in with serious physics textbooks.  Really.  

How much does Neil Gaiman really share with Rob Lefield in terms of the type of stories that he tells.  Not a whole lot, but both of them are in "comic books."

Anime is a medium, just like live action films are a medium, just like comics are a medium.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 24, 2009)

Primal said:


> I'd say what sets manga and anime apart from their Western counterparts (and note that I'm including manga-influenced comics such as manhwa and "pseudo manga" in this) are the distinct visual characteristics; not just big eyes and small mouths, for example, but also the visual language they use (such as twinkling eyes, or strong emotion often portrayed in a humourous and stylized  fashion -- or the clothes of the protagonist may convey a certain visual message about him/her that an "unenlightened" reader/watcher completely misses).



This really is much more of a manga thing than anything else... You see it a lot in manga and anime adaptations of a manga series, but it is very rare in most anime series that are not based in manga. It is indeed quite common, but it is not universal.

Also, I think something can be said about there being some equivalents to these visual characteristics in western animation, though they tend to take on different forms...

And I have no idea what you are going on about with the clothes thing. Clothes say a lot about characters in every from of entertainment, even purely text-based mediums. They don't mean anything more in manga or anime than they do on the street in the real world.



Mercutio01 said:


> Whoa there horsey.  No one said "anime only."  I pointed the standard characteristics that mark "anime" as different from "western."  I didn't say there was no blurring.  Clearly there is.  However, you simply _cannot_ look at that picture of Goku or a picture of Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon or, hell, Ninja Scroll and not recognize that the majority of characters have grossly disproportionate noses and mouths to the sizes of their eyes and the rest of their faces. Indeed, in "How to Draw Manga" types of books one of _the_ most common style tricks is exactly that--eyes start lower on the cranium and are bigger than normal, noses are understated or sometimes non-existent, and mouths are often-times simple lines without lips, and usually leave little room for a defined chin structure.  I say this as I have one "How to Draw Manga" book sitting open on my computer desk.



You know, I really don't like the assumption (or implication, or whatever you want to call it) in this post that "western" = "realistic" and "anime" = "disproportionate". You are basically arguing that anime is different from western animation based on the idea that anime has stylistic elements. This argument only makes any sense if you take the idea that western animation _doesn't_ have stylized elements as a given.

I basically agree that you can tell "anime-styled" forms of art and animation from "western" art and animation, but I think your arguments for doing so and your own perception of the differences are really flawed.

Actually, I think I will just say my thoughts outright right now. I think, as a whole, anime art tends to be more realistic than western art on average, and that generally western art tends to use more exaggerated and disproportionate features than anime art. People notice the difference between anime art and western art not because the eyes of characters are bigger in anime, but because everything else looks more normal, making the one remaining disproportion stand out a bit more.

Beyond the major points, though, I think your arguments are flawed simply because some of your "facts" are simply wrong. You talk about subdued noses, but some of the most famous characters in anime have noses almost as large as the rest of their heads. Look at the two main scientists from the manga/anime classic _Astro Boy_ if you want to see a good example of that (and this is a story from Osamu Tezuka, the man known as the "Father of Anime" and "God of Manga" whose style has pretty much defined all of anime-style art since).

As for the "big eyes" thing, well, this guy is a fairly important and widely recognized anime character, but I would hardly say that he has big eyes...


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## Hussar (Jul 24, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> /snip
> 
> *Anime isn't a genre.*
> 
> That's why if I ever hear someone say "That's too anime" regarding game mechanics, I can safetly ignore them as being ignorant and full of it.  It's the equivilant of opening the 4e PHB, looking at the elf, and going "Oh god that's just too literature for me."  Imagine how _bizarro_ that would sound.  "That's just too literature for me."  You'd say...well, possibly some rather impolite things.  But you'd be THINKING "How can something be too literature?  Literature isn't a genre!  It's a medium!  ANYTHING can be in literature!"  How many people here sigh and palm -> face when they hear someone say "I hate books?"




PC, you are absolutely right.  100% completely and utterly right.

And it still doesn't matter.  Unfortunately.

When I did that Find the Anime challenge thread a while back (man, that's a couple of years ago now), some people decided that anime=anything that anime equalled anything with even the slightest bit of Japanese artistic influence.  In other words, pretty much any fantasy image from the last ten or fifteen years.

The term does have a very specific meaning, but, as you rightly point out, that's not what it's being used for.  It's what makes these discussions so incredibly difficult because the definitions shift like quicksand and as soon as you start actually using the proper definition of the word, you get labeled a grammar nazi.

See, I'd look at those pics you posted a ways back and call them anime as well.  At least close enough for me.  But, by and large, I refuse to use the term anime as a descriptor because I know that its meaning is so muddled and confused and carries so many connotations, that it's pretty much meaningless.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jul 24, 2009)

I feel the need to point out that the "god of manga" and forefather of Japanese animation was influenced by the exaggerated features of the works of the *quite* western Walt Disney.


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## Oni (Jul 24, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Your first reason I can broadly agree with. Marketing agrees with you there, too.  People will self-select based on their own aesthetic tastes, and most American males 18-24 probably won't pick up a bright pink PHB done with illos in the style of a gay-boy romance manga with lillies splayed all over the tables and charts. Likewise, kids these days probably won't pick up anything with big hair, throbbing muscles, chainmail bikinis, and multi-eyed piles of slime. It's not modern, current, or interesting.
> 
> That's about art direction and, well, marketing, though, not so much about game design. Put fast cars, bikini models, and explosions on the cover of a Parcheesi set, and you'll sell at least a few.




Yes, but who will you sell them to?  Most likely someone who interested in fast cars, bikini models, and explosions.  Now Parcheesi is really about the mechanics of the game, I submit that is not entirely the case in regards to rpgs.  That rpgs are more about creating an experience, and in this case that experience is more likely to include fast cars, bikini models, and explosions than not because that was part of the motivating factor in its purchase.  



> Your second reason is a little shakier, because "tone of the game" is highly imprecise. Parcheesi is parcheesi no matter how you dress it up; Star Wars Monopoly is still Monopoly, and still about currency management, not about killing Darth Vader. Replacing the top hat with a little metal Chewbacca doesn't change the fundamental rules or feel of the game, though it might change the banter at the table around the game ("My hotel on Hoth is an igloo!"). Drawing every character as if it were from a boy-love manga wouldn't change the fact that dwarves are tough and that eladrin can teleport. Though the audience might be surprised to find no mechanics for keeping your love a tightly-held secret and no GM advice for innuendo and symbolic lilly placement, even drawn in this style, 4e D&D would still be a game about beating up monsters on a minis field. It might attract a different audience (and thus evolve in another direction as fans demand different things), but the "tone," as it were, wouldn't change.




I would say my second reason is harder to quantify perhaps, but I do not believe it is entirely without merit.  I'm not sure your examples are very strong ones, because in such games the mechanics are the point of the game, where in a rpg the mechanics are a means to an end, a foundation to build something beyond the framework for resolution.  While I certainly agree that the mechanics used will have an impact on play and push it in certain directions, the expectations of the players of the nature of the game will also inform how they approach it.  If the artwork is dark and gritty and horror based the players will respond in kind, because that is expectation of play and the tone that has been set.  If the artwork is light and heroic it basically give the player permission to respond in kind.  Now depending how far the mechanics are from supporting the presented tone will strongly influence if that tone has legs or not, but I strongly feel that the initial presentation will influence how the game is attempted to be played and thus its effects will be felt at the table.


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## mmadsen (Jul 24, 2009)

I'm not sure what this tangent about anime/manga is adding to our understanding of the *gaming generation gap*, but I'll bite.


ProfessorCirno said:


> I feel the need to point out that the "god of manga" and forefather of Japanese animation was influenced by the exaggerated features of the works of the *quite* western Walt Disney.



For ages, American comics and cartoons featured two distinct styles, the *funny animal* style of Disney, Warner Bros., etc., and a more *representational style*, as in _Dick Tracy_, _Prince Valiant_, _Superman_, etc.

The well-known, if fuzzily defined anime/manga style strikes many people as an odd mix of _cartoony_ and _realistic_: representational landscapes and backgrounds -- often drawn in great detail -- and representational, if idealized physiques, mixed with "cartoony" faces -- the infamous big eyes and small mouth.


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## Primal (Jul 24, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> This really is much more of a manga thing than anything else... You see it a lot in manga and anime adaptations of a manga series, but it is very rare in most anime series that are not based in manga. It is indeed quite common, but it is not universal.
> 
> Also, I think something can be said about there being some equivalents to these visual characteristics in western animation, though they tend to take on different forms...
> 
> And I have no idea what you are going on about with the clothes thing. Clothes say a lot about characters in every from of entertainment, even purely text-based mediums. They don't mean anything more in manga or anime than they do on the street in the real world.




Well, I *think* I saw the clothes thing mentioned in one of the manga guides by Christopher Hart... I may be misremembering, though. Another funny thing... if I remember correctly, bleeding noses imply/refer to sex.


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## WizarDru (Jul 24, 2009)

mmadsen said:


> I'm not sure what this tangent about anime/manga is adding to our understanding of the *gaming generation gap*, but I'll bite.
> 
> For ages, American comics and cartoons featured two distinct styles, the *funny animal* style of Disney, Warner Bros., etc., and a more *representational style*, as in _Dick Tracy_, _Prince Valiant_, _Superman_, etc.




I wouldn't necessarily go that far.  Where does Li'l Abner fall, for example?  Once one of the most-read comics in history.  Some are easy, like Terry and the Pirates or Pogo (though their content was not so easily pinned down).  And I think Dick Tracy is a singularly bad example for 'representational', given the nature of his rogue's gallery.  I mean, lookalikes of those characters were happily at home with Daffy Duck.  A lot of comic strips tended to blend the styles.  Certainly stuff like Little Orphan Annie and Thimble Theater (later Popeye) weren't solidly in one camp or the other.

I think you're point is valid, though: anime did have its origins of blending the two styles together. Of course, so did the legendary Carl Barks, as well as several European artists (which probably at least partly explains why anime caught on in parts of Europe much earlier than elsewhere).

I think it would be disingenuous to say that anime doesn't have its own set of tropes and stylistic flourishes that bind it together in the same way as, say, the French New Wave or 80s rock videos.  What many anime enthusiasts feel, though is that many of the people claiming they hate anime _really don't know what many of those tropes ARE_ and find that the people calling something 'anime' or 'video-gamey' are sometimes ignorant of the incorrect usage.

Put another way: there are many people who know next to nothing about D&D, other than the vague meta-textual details they hear on TV or read in magazines.  So when you see a TV sitcom showing someone treating LARPing as if it's a pen-and-paper game or overhear someone talking about how only teenage nerds play D&D...it rankles.  This is the same kind of reaction as the 'too anime' label.  It feels imprecise to the level of parody or insult.  Especially when, in many of the cases it's applied, 'anime' doesn't really apply.  Hussar mentioned his art thread, which I remember.  The biggest 'anime influence' I recall came from two brothers who drew in a module for Paizo's Dungeon, who were clearly anime fans and drew in that style.  While a few showed some influence, most people traded pic for pic, blow for blow with examples from the original AD&D books and other sources, countering each 'see how it's anime' example given.


The only bearing of which on 'generational gaming' that I see is that some older gamers perceive an influence where, frankly, I don't see one.  Anime and D&D share common ancestors and I wouldn't be surprised if there was cross-seeding on both parts (see Lodoss War, for one), but I'd wager that D&D has had more influence on anime than vice-versa. 

From an author standpoint, I find that many of the gamers I know came to the fantasy genre AFTER playing D&D...but when many gamers my age came to Fantasy, D&D wasn't a GENRE UNTO ITSELF, yet.   There weren't dozens of TSR/WotC books, yet.  The Rankin-Bass Tolkien works, particularly the Hobbit, are more responsible for bringing me to D&D than anything else.  I would argue that, to gamers of my age (40+), Tolkien was the single biggest attractor.  In the late 60s/early 70s, Tolkien had a major resurgence in popularity...and two movies and a TV special didn't hurt.

But I found that many of the genre 'stars' were stuff we came to AFTER the fact, to broaden our interests, rather than before.  And many of us found we couldn't find or didn't like a good chunk of it.  (I tried Vance...but I Just. Couldn't. Do. It.)  YMMV.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 24, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> I would argue that, to gamers of my age (40+), Tolkien was the single biggest attractor.  In the late 60s/early 70s, Tolkien had a major resurgence in popularity...and two movies and a TV special didn't hurt.



It was the zeitgeist. Hippies, Frodo Lives!, Boris Vallejo, Marvel's Conan, D&D, heavy metal, prog rock, Roger Dean, unicorns on the side of vans, Cerebus the Aardvark. They all feed into one another.


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 24, 2009)

Primal said:


> Well, I *think* I saw the clothes thing mentioned in one of the manga guides by Christopher Hart... I may be misremembering, though. Another funny thing... if I remember correctly, bleeding noses imply/refer to sex.



To be more correct, a bleeding nose refers to a person having perverted thoughts, rather than sex itself. I think this goes more into the category of general Japanese cultural beliefs rather than anything connected to manga or anime in particular, though... It can be a hard distinction to make, but it is nonetheless a real one.


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## mmadsen (Aug 5, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> It was the zeitgeist. Hippies, Frodo Lives!, Boris Vallejo, Marvel's Conan, D&D, heavy metal, prog rock, Roger Dean, unicorns on the side of vans, Cerebus the Aardvark. They all feed into one another.



_Elf Quest_ definitely has that vibe.


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## Orius (Aug 6, 2009)

Huh. 

Sounds like a kickass game.


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