Quote from: DangerNot to derail this too much, but is there any kind of bestiary out there yet for ZeFRS?  I've a hankerin' to sword and sorcerize (in grand, old, mighty-thews fashion) the Forgotten Realms setting and I would like an idea on how to go about setting up the bad guys/monsters.

Cool idea and a good question!

I have mentioned it at the ZeFRS Project forums that the biggest barrier to new players using it for actual games is the lack of an available beastiary, unless you happen to have a copy of the 1985 TSR Conan RPG.  And even if you do have the old game, the monsters and adversaries in it are pretty high powered and not at all suitable for putting up against beginning characters.

A fellow who goes by the handle Artikid has done an excellent one for ZeFRS (and he was kind enough to email it to me) but it hasn't been made generally available online yet.  I think that they are waiting to include it in the first issue of the Scrolls of the Red Brotherhood fanzine.  If you want to PM me, I can send it along to you as well.  It was *hugely* helpful to me in designing a decent game for beginning characters even though I did eventually also get my hands on the original TSR game in the meantime.

BTW, what do you think the Realms would look like as a S&S setting?  What kind of changes would you make and what kind of feel are you going for?  It would be quite a challenge to "de-epic-ify" FR...although you do have the makings of an depraved wizard who has lost touch with his humanity in Elminster.  A couple of tweaks and twists, and the Big El can be quite the S&S baddie, I think!


TGA

Thanks for the reply.

Now, the FR, as I see through squinty-like eyes, is nothing more than an enlarged version of the Hyborian age world.  And note, I'm generalizing a whole bunch here and obviously using Conan-esque references:

You got your wild barbarian types in the cold north.

You got your jungles and deserts to the south and there is all sorts of ancient ruins in these areas to boot.

The evil-magic kingdom (ie. Stygia) can be found in the Red Priests of, wha? Thay.

You got your pirates running around not only the coast on the west, but on the huge inland sea as well.

You not only have nation-spanning cabals at work, but you have a few powerful wizards mucking about as well (and who the hell knows what they are truly after).

Now, to S&S said setting, I'd cut the shit out of any and all magic.  Elves and dwarves may be there, but their presence would be very, very limited.  Monsters would be limited as well, with the "greenskins" acting very much like hyper-aggessive Picts and limited in geographic location.

Hmm...that's all I can think of off the top of my head, but you can see where I'm going.  I just like the idea of chopping up a sacred cow (the FR setting) into something a little less pretty.

Quote from: DangerNow, the FR, as I see through squinty-like eyes, is nothing more than an enlarged version of the Hyborian age world.  And note, I'm generalizing a whole bunch here and obviously using Conan-esque references:

You got your wild barbarian types in the cold north.

You got your jungles and deserts to the south and there is all sorts of ancient ruins in these areas to boot.

The evil-magic kingdom (ie. Stygia) can be found in the Red Priests of, wha? Thay.

You got your pirates running around not only the coast on the west, but on the huge inland sea as well.

You not only have nation-spanning cabals at work, but you have a few powerful wizards mucking about as well (and who the hell knows what they are truly after).

Hmmmm...I never really looked at the Realms in that light, but you got something there.  It is a bit Hyboria-ish in general layout, isn't it?  Both S&S and epic fantasy need their exotic places, eh?

Quote from: DangerNow, to S&S said setting, I'd cut the shit out of any and all magic.  Elves and dwarves may be there, but their presence would be very, very limited.  Monsters would be limited as well, with the "greenskins" acting very much like hyper-aggessive Picts and limited in geographic location.

I like it!  I think that you could do a good job making it more S&S in feel with the changes that you suggest.  Cutting the magic and demihumans way down would be a huge step in that direction.  You should probably get rid of the Shire...er, Dalelands or whatever as well.  

Also, the world-spanning cabals should be made darker in motive.  It has been a long while since I've looked at FR stuff and it was never particularly to my taste, but the Harpers (I think that is what they are called) should be made more sinister if they were organized by The Big El to destabilize societies and governments for some unknown purpose...they could be the Anarchists or Fenians of the setting.  Maybe the Red Wizards of Thay have used it as an excuse to declare a "War on Terror" to justify their absolute power, Elminster is using them as dupes in some strange grudge match that only wizards could understand, and the common people are just getting screwed with and scared.

I also think that you'd have to work on the idea of the gods interfering directly in mortal affairs that seem to be a big part of the Realms setting.  Just make the gods more inscrutable, harsher, and their actions a little random and kinda scary, and that might work out.  Or just skip it and have the gods be distant, uncaring, or just unfathomably hostile like most S&S settings.


TGA

Heh, you must have been reading my play book.

That, and I've been consuming Gibson, Shepard, Williams, and Abnett's Inquisitor stuff lately, which helps one get into the cyberpunkinsh "I got mine, you get yours, bitch" mentality.

The gods in my FR are there, but you have to play by their agenda and odds are they aren't going to be handing out shit for free.  We were made in their image after all, eh?  

And you are spot on in regards to the Harpers, et al.  Each group, while supporting their own goals, are subject to the whims of their creators / masters, but who is controlling them?!?

Whee!  Sign me up!

Necroed for continuing relevance.

My two copper:

One of my old 3.5 players, after some Wilderlands shennanigans said (w/o me asking) he was very impressed by the experience.

When asked what he meant, he went on to say that the size of the land (as conveyed by the GM, they got maps only later), the vast stretches of dangerous wilderness, the huddled atmosphere at the few cities, the decadence of the Green Emperor, the weirded out Gods and human stocks, the size of treasure and fantastic realism all contributed in an awe-inspiring atmosphere. And especially awe-inspiring he said: when they got hold of a Lyre of Building and made themselves saviors, architects and rulers of one of the Elphand Land communities.

I did not set out to create these feelings and thoughts in the players. I just did what I always do: take the setting serious as if everybody there was alive.

And I do not care whether this was true to S&S or not. But an experience it was, I can agree.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;463240Necroed for continuing relevance.

A worthy necro. TGA is consistently incisive.

My own two coppers : "genres" in fiction are the stuff of critics looking at works of art from a distance after they have been written. In and of themselves, "genres" are just shorthand to refer to "this or that kind of books".

Using them as some kinds of hard-line "in or out", "either/or" categories is retarded.

Quote from: Benoist;463299My own two coppers : "genres" in fiction are the stuff of critics looking at works of art from a distance after they have been written. In and of themselves, "genres" are just shorthand to refer to "this or that kind of books".

Using them as some kinds of hard-line "in or out", "either/or" categories is retarded.

This is right on the money.  That is exactly how genres are formed: after the fact, by people looking to make taxonomies of common conventions (themes, images, stylistic techniques, narrative structures, etc.)

The problem with "genres" is that they are rarely stable; a given book may belong to more than one genre precisely because it evidences the conventions of more than one mode of writing.  Generic categories such as "sword & sorcery" evidence this lack of stable categorization in obvious ways that seem to be largely ignored.

Quote from: Benoist;463299My own two coppers : "genres" in fiction are the stuff of critics looking at works of art from a distance after they have been written. In and of themselves, "genres" are just shorthand to refer to "this or that kind of books".

Using them as some kinds of hard-line "in or out", "either/or" categories is retarded.

Although I largely agree that using the literary idea of "genre" as a hard and fast rule to define RPG gaming is off base, I do think that it can serve as a useful tool in helping define "things that I like".  These can then be incorporated into RPG play in a conscious way.

I think that using the tools of literary analysis to understand what effects one wants out of RPG play (but not defining the method of play itself) has gotten a bad rap.  Probably because of storygames.  

As I mentioned, one of the most effective ways I have personally used to set the expectations of play is to point to the first Conan movie.  I think that shared expectations of what the experience should (in broad terms) be like, heightens the chance that the players will find the results satisfying.


-TGA

Quote from: Nicephorus;463273A worthy necro. TGA is consistently incisive.

Thanks!  I appreciate the vote of confidence and for Kyle's necro.  I have played a S&S inspired campaign (using Swords and Wizardry) since that thread was written, and I think that approaching it as I suggested then helped make it a successful one.  

When I have a bit of time I will post more on that experience, but it fit the broad model I outlined - 3 players, fast resolution rules, anti-establishment themes, lots of weirdness, and creepy magic users!


-TGA

This is one of the very few threads I have bookmarked.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;463360Although I largely agree that using the literary idea of "genre" as a hard and fast rule to define RPG gaming is off base, I do think that it can serve as a useful tool in helping define "things that I like".  These can then be incorporated into RPG play in a conscious way.

I think that using the tools of literary analysis to understand what effects one wants out of RPG play (but not defining the method of play itself) has gotten a bad rap.  Probably because of storygames.  

As I mentioned, one of the most effective ways I have personally used to set the expectations of play is to point to the first Conan movie.  I think that shared expectations of what the experience should (in broad terms) be like, heightens the chance that the players will find the results satisfying.


-TGA

I totally agree with this.

Genre is like a shorthand way of saying this game uses light-sabres and you won't need to track fuel or how to navigate a jump drive through N space, or this game will be about rogues and warriors tackling unspeakable creatures with their wits and their blades rather than Silver suited paladins rescuing damsels from towers or gnarled rangers hacking their way through massed ranks of orcs.

We use it for cinema, you want to go and see a super hero movie tonight, nah theirs this pulp noir thing I really fancy..... why not games.

Quote from: Danger;129009Now, the FR, as I see through squinty-like eyes, is nothing more than an enlarged version of the Hyborian age world.  And note, I'm generalizing a whole bunch here and obviously using Conan-esque references:

You got your wild barbarian types in the cold north.

You got your jungles and deserts to the south and there is all sorts of ancient ruins in these areas to boot.

The evil-magic kingdom (ie. Stygia) can be found in the Red Priests of, wha? Thay.

You got your pirates running around not only the coast on the west, but on the huge inland sea as well.

You not only have nation-spanning cabals at work, but you have a few powerful wizards mucking about as well (and who the hell knows what they are truly after).

That's pretty much how I'm considering the Realms in my current campaign, yes.

RPGPundit

In the spirit of disagreeing with both sides in the epic clusterfuck of the parallel D&D and S&S thread going on right now, I would say that:

1.  You can easily use D&D to run games with a S&S feel, and
2.  You can use the concept of genre to define what you want out of a roleplaying experience

I know this because I have done it.

As an aside, what the hell is this seeming need to have some sort of ideological purity about how we talk about RPGs?  I know that the storygames people must have touch some people around here in that bad way, but really, we can't talk about genre emulation without being exiled?

Using the idea of genre to define the expectations of a game is nothing outrageous, nor new.  When each of us decides to include elves and magic users in our new campaign, we are doing it.  As for systems and such emulation, I would contend that unless you are running a real-world physics engine (Phoenix Command, perhaps?) *all* RPGs reflect expectations that cannot be mapped to real life experience.  Like motherfucking elves.  These expectations have their origins largely in literary (and film) sources.  So why the hostility towards examining those expectations to make our gaming experiences better?

Let's take this into the realm of practical examples.  So, it should come as no surprise that I like Swords & Sorcery inspired fantasy.  It speaks to the deeply cynical streak in me.  I have some pals who dig it too.  So we got together on a weekly basis for almost a year and played D&D (Swords & Wizardry to be exact).  In this campaign we all had similar expectations of the kind of themes and action that would be present, and we all had a good time.

The game was successful, I am convinced, because there was a coherent and defined framework to it.  That framework happened to be the characteristics of the S&S literary genre as I see them, and for which I got buy in from the payers. There were only three players, which helped with that and set the more personal tone I was shooting for.  We were using OD&D (one player was even a cleric - imagine that!) and that worked just fine for us.  The other players were a scoundrel (my own houseruled thief class) and an elf (transformed into a Melnibonean-esque concept).  They were all to some extent other self-absorbed people looking out for numero uno, and all were outside of the structures of power and social acceptance.  You had a con man, an alien outsider who was treated with superstitious dread by most humans, and a priest of the god of gamblers and thieves.

The players spent their time in the seedy districts of a large city that bore some (maybe a lot) resemblance to Lankhmar with some Renaissance Venice and Florence thrown in.  I started with the barest of sketches of what the city was actually like and we just went from there.  I knew I wanted a Cult of the Rat God, and I knew I wanted profane magic users who meddled in affairs too horrifying to contemplate, so the first adventure was them being hired by a local burgher to rescue his winsome daughter kidnapped by a necromancer's apprentice for sale to, you guessed it, the Cult of the Rat God.  The only detailed part of the city at first was the tavern they hung out in while they waited for trouble to find them.  

They went on to run into or afoul of thieves' guilds, the local constabulary, the Cult of the Rat God, the temple of law and order, the temple of the god of luck (one of the PCs was a devotee), a malevolent mutherfuckin wizard who served as their patron for some weird jobs (named Emerikol the Chaotic, natch), a master hunter, an Ice Bear, and finally a Mind Flayer.  And through it all the city which was the center of most of the action was just referred to as "The City".

Now, we can talk about whether D&D is the perfect game to play these kind of themes (probably not), but the game is so much less important in my experience than the themes of the actual pay - you know, what the people do around the table.  The brainstorming ideas, the interaction with NPCs and each other, and the ultimate decisions and goals of the players.  In a word, the fun.  

The obsession with the "evils" of genre emulation in game systems is misplaced.  The important part of genre emulation comes in the expectations of play, not the system.  I am not overwhelming hostile to systems that have elements of genre emulation in them and have cheerfully used them before - as I said, if you have elves in your game system, you have it whether you want to admit it or not - but that seems to me to be missing the point.

-TGA