Quote from: fonkaygarryA "modern" D&D would have very little resemblance to Gygax/Arneson's baby.  Lots of anime/wuxia craziness, an implied setting full of bishonen and ZOMG tragedy, few (if any) holdovers from the pulp period (unless you're talking third and fourth generation influence ala Kill Bill) and a lot of big eyes/kewl shit/goth heroines in the art direction.

...and I would burn it all!

Quote from: StuartAnyway, no I don't think the Latin angle / spell names would be something to keep hold of.  I *do* think the use of wands, potions, and the style of many of the spells and items are very good and feel more... "magical"... than something like Vance.

I will say that I not bothered with reading Vance because of D&D's magic. But then I never really got complete confirmation of how close it was. Which I guess is what I should ask right here. --- So?

I know Stephen King was mentioned earlier. He once wrote in one of his novels a bit about the concept of inivisibility spells, and it is an entry that has long stuck with me. I the idea was that trying to use magic to become truely invisibily was madness and had lead only to any number of sad ends for the magicians that attempted it. Instead to become "invisible" involved series of magics that basically involved convincing people to not notice you.

Now THAT is the kind of magic I like to see in a game. But it just doesn't fit well with the hack 'em down, slash 'em up, and blow 'em away mentality that is inhereted from the wargaming side of the RPG family.

Quote from: fonkaygarryKuro tightened his grip on Fye's shining mop of hair.  "Kuro-tan," gasped Fye, his strength failing him in the face of Kuro's crushing masculine power, "that hurts so much..."

Kuro jammed an elbow into the small of Fye's back, driving him to his knees.  "Too bad," he snarled, his voice thick and cruel, "'cause it's about to get a whole lot worse!"

Here we have a fine example of Seme & Slashfic sexual combat.  Kuro, using his "Aggressive Seme" class-specific attack, defeated Fye's "Ambiguity" defense in a contested roll, forcing him into the Uke ststus for the scene.

Taking advantage Fye's "Repressed Masochism" flaw, Kuro is able to use the damage from his grapple to increase the scene's Tension.  Unless Fye can summon up a lucky roll, he's going to be the one howling "クロ様，いたいよ！　でも、気持ちい。。。" when they reach Tension Break and the scene fades to black...
-----

And don't get me started on the advancement system.

WHAT!?
NO!!!
KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Quote from: blakkieI will say that I not bothered with reading Vance because of D&D's magic. But then I never really got complete confirmation of how close it was. Which I guess is what I should ask right here. --- So?

You're really missing out on something. The Dying Earth stories are very funny and imaginative. You have to cope with the style, but the stories are highly original, especially compared to the oodles of "chosen one" trilogies.

D&D magic is only very remotely based on the few tidbits you got to know from Vancian magic. In the original Dying Earth story Vance notes that spells are forces of their own and a mage can only contain a limited number in his brain. If I'm not mistaken, that number was definitely in the lower single digits. No different spell levels or any other such detail. This ain't a book with a deep mythology or magic system. If you get details in the Dying Earth stories, it's mostly to obfuscate

Some other bits got taken, i.e. the named spells ( , e.g. Mordenkainens Faithful Watchdog) or the ioun stones.

I looked at the Dying Earth game a little bit ago, finally working my way into what they system actually looks like (the books arrive plastic wrapped...) without actually buying the damn thing.

It does seem that the authors feel that combat isn't a big part of Dying earth, etc, and the mechanics seemed personality driven.

Which is weird to me, since I've only read a few of Vance's short stories set in dying earth. The ones I read had NO magic in them, and good ol' Cudgel beat the everliving shit out of most of a city in one of them (with manacles, he'd been captured or something).

There does seem to be some confusion in the fandom over what is, or is not, appropriately 'vancian' in that regards. :confused:

Of course, these might be the same people that say WHFRP isn't meant to support heavy combat.

I own the Dying Earth RPG. Its core mechanic is a bit quirky and more suited to the pratfall style of a Cugel adventure, but it's not that bad. Combat is basically treated as another means of discourse, handled by the same mechanism as a debate. To really enjoy it, you have to be slightly masochistic with your character. You'll play an asshole and get what you deserve. Just make sure that your fellow players get a little more.

I think it might be fun, but everyone has to be in the spirit for it. And Vancian dialogue doesn't translate, IMHO. So I'll probably be out of luck running a game in the near future...

You could easily do a Turjan campaign with any version of D&D. Not much would be lost of the style.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad

Okay, not literature, but there are Warcraft novels... and manga... too.

Warcraft would never have existed without D&D.  The lead designers are all massive D&D fans, and a massive chunk of the abilities and spells in WoW are lifted straight out of D&D, as are the classes.  

Oddly enough, their fandom was a lot of the reaosn why the D&D adaptation of WoW was a mess.  They wanted to stick too closely to D&D, even moreso than WoW itself does, so it winds up being an incoherent disaster.

There's a Dying Earth lite free pdf over on dyingearth.com that samples the game nicely FWIW.

The Dying Earth books were written in stages, often years/decades apart. The early Dying Earth short story collection is quite different from the later novels in tone, more gritty and nihilistic. Closer to Clark Ashton Smith with the protagonist often dying or getting nowhere. That was AFAIK the main fodder for D&D, not the later more whimsical journies.

This is modeled in the Dying Earth RPG by having three levels of power / play styles. The lowest is more getting beaten up or squirming your way out of a bind. The highest is zap 'em dead high mage stuff.

Didn't Gygax once mention that Cugel was a big influence on the rogue archetype for him?

Quote from: SosthenesDidn't Gygax once mention that Cugel was a big influence on the rogue archetype for him?

Sounds right. Cugel's certainly quite the charming thieving @#$@$.

The Use Magic Device could point in Cugel's direction, though the Gray Mouser might also qualify...

Quote from: blakkieI'd hazard a guess that it was at the least because it was popular with the creator.

Col., do you recall Gary answering this question on ENWorld over the years? Why the mix of influences that were chosen?  Was it for functionally mechanical reasons? Flavour of what he was interested in? Or perhaps a little bit of what he thought his friends would be interested in and would thus be willing to play/pay?

I've never seen him address anything like this. It'd be a good question to ask him. He's been scarce lately due to illness, though, so there's no telling when he could be asked.

Quote from: Casey777There's a Dying Earth lite free pdf over on dyingearth.com that samples the game nicely FWIW.

The Dying Earth books were written in stages, often years/decades apart. The early Dying Earth short story collection is quite different from the later novels in tone, more gritty and nihilistic. Closer to Clark Ashton Smith with the protagonist often dying or getting nowhere. That was AFAIK the main fodder for D&D, not the later more whimsical journies.

This is modeled in the Dying Earth RPG by having three levels of power / play styles. The lowest is more getting beaten up or squirming your way out of a bind. The highest is zap 'em dead high mage stuff.

Of course, the cover art does SO MUCH to tell you it's all a whimsical debate club sort of game.... :rolleyes:

I haven't had the time to do more than skim the main book, but so far I can see it disappearing into a box and never making it to the table, regardless of the pedigree of the designers. (Laws, Snead... sounds good, looks pretty, tastes like rotten cardboard fished from the gutter during cat mating season)

But we will see once I've had more time. I been busy.

IF D&D were to be designed today, hmmm.

These are the influences I'd say would go into it. And I still think it would come from someone with a table-top gameing background. So it would be...

Someone who has:

A Warhammer type game wargaming background. Yeah I said it! Warhammer type games would have existed without D&D, especially due to Tolkiens popularity, especially recently.

Tolkien again, he is still popular - races - magic - medievalesqe society.

Reading the harry potter books for magic, which would be blended with tolkien for the magic system.

Other BIG influences - Black company novels - David Gemmel - Steven Brust - George RR Martin.

Maybe some Pratchett - Mckiernan - Brooks - or Jordan, Although they're all such blatant Tolkien rip-offs I doubt they'd contribute anything origional.

Possibly some Conan (the movies boosted awareness) even though it can be hard to find the origional stories.

Little or no Lieber, Vance, or Moorcock, not well represented in booksores, (little to none). Mckiernan - Brooks - Jordan, are far more popular authors these days.

Movies - LOTR, Conan, 13th Warrior, kingdom of heavan, Braveheart! And a few B movies - Beastmaster, Sword and the Sorcerer, Red Sonja.

NO - anime/magna . Someone coming from a table-top "wargaming" background would just not be into that crap.

I feel it might some type of an adaptation of say a Mordheim type skirmish game, as that is the type of "wargame" mose likely to lead into an rpg.



.

Without D&D Pratchett and Brust would probably not have gotten into writing fantasy stories. Pratchett's Discworld was a D&D homebrew setting originally, Rincewind Terry's character in a game back home, and The Luggage a treasure item/monster the DM inflicted on Terry for coming up with Rincewind in the first place.