Quote from: SHARK;1073005How did they manage to fuck up Dark Sun though, brother?

Quote from: Nephil;1073013They killed of most the bad guys, for one.

Yep. They "solved" the setting (and created new stuff for the players to deal with) but they bumped off The Dragon of Tyr, and IIRC most of the Sorcerer Kings. And were in the process of de-desert-ificating the setting. I can't confirm the details, because I lost interest and did my own thing.

Quote from: SHARK;1072817Well, it has been a fairly long-standing lament by many people of how D&D traditions through the various Monster Manuals often presented different creatures from mythology and folklore in a distinctly different manner from how such creatures are presented in the original source material. Occasionally, some have even lamented that such depictions by D&D were highly *Sanitized*.

Monsters, myths, plot devices, archetypes are almost always adapted to the RPG, and not the other way around. That confuses a lot of people that use RPGs as some kind of authentic source.  There are so many designers now that are so starved for fresh ideas that they will shamelessly 'leverage' whatever is popular on TV or even meme-of-the-day.  This sort of soured me on Pathfinder, when they seem to reflexively respond to Internet detritus like robots vs ninjas vs pirates or had to pinch out a product with the word 'Bastards' in the title when Tarantino came out with Inglorious Basterds.

Quote from: SHARK;1072970Greetings!

Yeah, I love D&D. I also understand that the game was perhaps originally created to be a machine-gun like hack-fest of mowing everything down and plundering the corpses.

That seems more like something the game devolved into over time. In early D&D the low level PCs really want to avoid getting into fights if at all possible.

Mind you, Keep on the Borderlands certainly looks like the intent is for PCs to go in there and kill everything, even though 1st level B/X PCs are incredibly badly equipped to do so. It feels like it was written for AD&D with a bunch of UA-style house rules to make PCs tougher. Horror on the Hill even moreso.

In terms of house rules for survival, one of the most common I've seen, especially for organized play (back the I was doing Living Arcansis, where the orginizers didn't allow you to replay modules even with a different character) was that PCs started with 3HD worth of hit points (no other benefits and you didn't get more hit points until you hit level 4).

With average hit points per die set at half+1 and max at level 1 (this was 3e) that meant that even a 10 Con wizard had 10 hp and a fighter with a 14 Con had 28 hp (more likely the wizard bought a 14 Con and had 16 hp... enough that only a confirmed crit with a good damage roll was going to kill them in a single hit).

Even with that buffer TPKs were pretty common, but it was generally because the party made really stupid choices (often fighting instead of figuring out another option) rather than just bad luck on a die roll.

Heck, 5e practically mainstreamed this rule with the "start at level 3" option (particularly since a number of key class features/choices also kick in at that level).

For my new Primeval Thule 5e game I'm giving the PCs max hp + full CON score at level 1.

Lets me get really brutal on them.

Years ago I started a blog to hash out my conception of planar adventures, but it grew to cover every random complaint I have with D&D or derivatives. Rules, world building, monster design, etc. My ideas have changed over time so there are lots of posts which operate with contradictory logic to others. I irregularly post about literary inspirations, including contrasts between game monsters and their literary origins.

Right now I have several different series of posts covering monsters like gorgons/medusa, minotaurs, giants, centaurs and so forth. The series on centaurs is probably my favorite because you can invent a bazillion centaur combinations. Human/horse, cyclops/donkey, frost giant/sleipnir, etc.

I also have a bunch grammar nazi posts where I complain about fantasy gaming and fiction ruining words by changing their meaning to something unrecognizable. Like, "lich" and "wight" had completely different meanings before Gygax came along. "Lich" means corpse, and is still used as such in compounds like lichfield and lichgate. "Wight" could refer to a bunch of different things ranging from elves to wretches, and still means that in the name "Isle of Wight" and neopaganism. "Alicorn" refers to a unicorn's horn, not a winged unicorn (although "ala-" is a latin prefix for winged). "Cecilia" was never a real word for octopus-mermaids until a random person posted it to Wikipedia without citation in 2008.

But I'm not just complaining like a stupid whiny brat, I also like offer suggestions for replacements and expansions. The word "lich" could easily refer to any undead, but a higher level undead sorcerer deserves a spookier name like "elder lich," "lich lord" or (redundantly) "elder lich lord" to indicate their higher status. A D&D wight could be called a "draug" or "mortwight", freeing up "wight" to use in non-undead monster names like "forge wight" or "color wight".

Comparative mythology is probably my favorite topic. Did you know that the word "ogre" is used in anthropology and translations to refer to man-eating monsters from all over the world? The Arabic ghoul, the Japanese oni, the Hindu rakshasa, the Algonquin baykok, etc are all refered to as ogres in anthropology and translations. Ogres are super diverse compared to D&D.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1073085Comparative mythology is probably my favorite topic. Did you know that the word "ogre" is used in anthropology and translations to refer to man-eating monsters from all over the world? The Arabic ghoul, the Japanese oni, the Hindu rakshasa, the Algonquin baykok, etc are all refered to as ogres in anthropology and translations. Ogres are super diverse compared to D&D.

Yes. Monster definitions are usually a lot more loose than the ones used in RPGs, because RPGs usually have to define a monster in a more concrete fashion for gaming purposes. Except for the Mad-Lib random monster things that some RPGs have.
I don't have a huge, in depth base of knowledge about mythology, but I did read old version of fairy tales and folklore, and it's pretty apparent that the monster names are more like descriptors than actual species.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1073089Yes. Monster definitions are usually a lot more loose than the ones used in RPGs, because RPGs usually have to define a monster in a more concrete fashion for gaming purposes. Except for the Mad-Lib random monster things that some RPGs have.

I don't have a huge, in depth base of knowledge about mythology, but I did read old version of fairy tales and folklore, and it's pretty apparent that the monster names are more like descriptors than actual species.

Within RPGs, not all games use the cookie-cutter approach of the Monster Manual.

Some games handle monsters essentially like human NPCs. For humans, the GM can use a template for a set of bandits, but there isn't the idea that all humans or all bandits conform to this - and the next set of bandits might well have different stats. The same can apply to ogres - where each individual ogre will have a concrete set of stats, but there isn't necessarily the idea that "ogre" is a species with a standard stat block. This was true in a lot of the Hero System, GURPS, and FATE games that I've played in - plus Ars Magica, Amber, Monster of the Week (PbtA), and others.

Quote from: jhkim;1073110Within RPGs, not all games use the cookie-cutter approach of the Monster Manual.

Some games handle monsters essentially like human NPCs. For humans, the GM can use a template for a set of bandits, but there isn't the idea that all humans or all bandits conform to this - and the next set of bandits might well have different stats. The same can apply to ogres - where each individual ogre will have a concrete set of stats, but there isn't necessarily the idea that "ogre" is a species with a standard stat block. This was true in a lot of the Hero System, GURPS, and FATE games that I've played in - plus Ars Magica, Amber, Monster of the Week (PbtA), and others.

Sure enough, which is why I used the word "usually". There's plenty of room for a more adaptive useage of monster names. Some RPGs don't, and they're none the worse for their choice to define a troll as a giant rubbery green monster that regenerates and eats everything it sees.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1073114Sure enough, which is why I used the word "usually". There's plenty of room for a more adaptive useage of monster names. Some RPGs don't, and they're none the worse for their choice to define a troll as a giant rubbery green monster that regenerates and eats everything it sees.

Not worse off, but I think they needlessly limit their options. Trudvang, Spiderwick, Trollhunters and such have a huge variety of trolls that are perfect for D&D adventures.

Quote from: Lynn;1073034or had to pinch out a product with the word 'Bastards' in the title when Tarantino came out with Inglorious Basterds.

Hey, that was a big step for them on their SJW-friendly re-calibrated edgy-meter.

One of the most eye opening contrasts to me was that mythic giants lack consistent size. For that matter, so do many mortals.

Pantagruel could fit into a courthouse yet harbored a nation in his teeth. Welsh hero Bran waded (not swam) the Irish Sea yet fit into a mortal chieftain's hall. The cyclops Brontes wed and had giant children with the sea-nymph Liana who fit in his palm. One of a set of ten Chinese brothers, while not a giant, could swallow the sea.

Did their size actually change or are they simply not subject to the laws of geometry?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1073568One of the most eye opening contrasts to me was that mythic giants lack consistent size. For that matter, so do many mortals.

Did their size actually change or are they simply not subject to the laws of geometry?

Their size was just right for the tale that was being told. Magical/Mythic beings don't follow the same rules as us poor mortals. If the story said the giant waded across a sea and then squeezed into the chieftain's hall, then that's what happened!

Quote from: spon;1073612Their size was just right for the tale that was being told. Magical/Mythic beings don't follow the same rules as us poor mortals. If the story said the giant waded across a sea and then squeezed into the chieftain's hall, then that's what happened!

Greetings!

So true! LOL! Good point, Spon. Lots of weird powers and abilities that various beings in mythology had. Not constrained to mortal limitations at all!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: spon;1073612Their size was just right for the tale that was being told. Magical/Mythic beings don't follow the same rules as us poor mortals. If the story said the giant waded across a sea and then squeezed into the chieftain's hall, then that's what happened!

Quote from: SHARK;1073663Greetings!

So true! LOL! Good point, Spon. Lots of weird powers and abilities that various beings in mythology had. Not constrained to mortal limitations at all!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Isn't that what I just said? Not subject to the laws of geometry? I mean, like, the god Euclid makes exceptions for immortals or something? (AFAIK there was never a deity of space and geometry, so Euclid is the only name I can devise.)