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Well, I have had S&S on the brain lately.  I stumbled across a neat fan effort to revive the 1985 TSR Conan RPG called ZeFRS (http://www.midcoast.com/~ricekrwc/zefrs/).  The game is based on the old TSR master table system that is more famously used in Marvel Super Heroes.  This Conan RPG, which I had never even heard of before, turns out to be a fun little system for S&S action.  Check it out, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I have been running some S&S games recently (just had a nice session on Sunday where the PCs started in a burning fort being overrun by Picts and ended in ancient ruins being pursued by a supernatural beast) and I remembered I had written an article for a small fanzine on the genre's gaming potential a few years back and thought I'd share it.  I'd love to get some feedback on what folks think and if they have any other ideas about how to run good S&S games.  The article is pretty dated, so forgive any dead links or no mention of more recent games...  :D


Brief Description
The distinct sub-genre of fantasy literature that is known as Sword & Sorcery can be traced to the works of Robert E. Howard, and particularly his stories featuring the barbarian hero, Conan of Cimmeria. Published in many editions during the 1960s and 1970s, the Conan stories would play an important part, along with J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, in the amazing explosion of fantasy literature during those years.  The popularity of the fantasy genre would later spawn the first role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons.  Over the years Sword & Sorcery fiction has sometimes been described as “low” or “dark” fantasy, as compared to the “heroic” or “high” fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien, often unfavorably.  This is unfair.  Many of the later imitators of the classic Sword & Sorcery, the very unfortunate Gor series by John Norman in particular, left the impression that Sword & Sorcery was juvenile fantasy about pin-headed barbarians with swords and scantily clad women playing the role of helpless victim.  The best Sword & Sorcery fiction, however, is something quite different.  It is distinct from the fantasy of Tolkien and his imitators, and explores the human experience from a different, darker point of view.

Basic Expectations
   The majority of classic Sword & Sorcery fiction was in short story format, so they emphasized quick action.  In fact, the stories often started in the middle of the action already in progress (in media res).  The settings of the typical Sword & Sorcery stories are often grim places where life is cheap and questions of good and evil are purely academic.  Unlike heroic fantasy, whose action often revolves around protecting society from evil forces that would destroy it, in Sword & Sorcery society and civilization is portrayed as being at best flawed, and at worst is often the enemy that the protagonists must struggle against.  The typical characteristics of a Sword & Sorcery adventure are:

• It is action-oriented
• The action is on a very personal scale, not an epic scale
• The story usually revolves around only 1 or 2 main characters
• The hero may be amoral, or may have a moral code different than society
• The stories revolve around survival and personal goals, not great quests to save the world or to uphold society and the social order.  In fact, the stories often revolve around anti-social activities, like crime.
• Magic is very powerful but limited to a few (usually very evil) sorcerers and is rare (few or no magic weapons, etc.)
• Exotic locations (ruined cities, distant lands, etc.) and supernatural events

Character Archetypes
The protagonists of the Sword & Sorcery genre are often quite a bit darker than those of heroic fantasy works like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  They tend to be outsiders or social outcasts, rejected or looked down upon by the powers of the society they find themselves in.  Even Conan, who would become king of Hyboria’s greatest nation would still be seen as a barbarian usurper and resented by many of his noble subjects, and during his career was a petty thief, bandit chief and pirate.  Additionally, Sword & Sorcery protagonists are often more interested in pragmatic concerns of survival rather than questions of good or evil.  In fact, many of the most famous Sword & Sorcery characters, like Elric and Kane, are really anti-heroes, dealing with corrupting supernatural forces and suffering the tragic consequences of their lust for power.  Note that there are few magic-using protagonists in Sword & Sorcery, and those that do dabble in arcane things often pay a large price for the power that they acquire through supernatural dealings.  Some typical examples of Sword & Sorcery protagonists include:

• Outsider – This is the classic genre character of a barbarian in “civilized” lands, who often holds a code of behavior that is more admirable than the civilized people around them.  The greatest example of this type of character is, course, Conan, but also includes Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd, and Lin Carter’s Throngor.
• Criminal – Another stock character type of Sword & Sorcery, the criminal is a representation of the ultimately personal, some would say selfish, nature of the genre’s typical protagonists.  The Grey Mouser of Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories is an excellent example, although many other famous characters, like Conan, also were criminals at times in their careers.
• Doomed Champion – Characters like Moorcock’s Elric, Wagner’s Kane, and Moore’s Jirel are representative of another common archetype in Sword & Sorcery fiction, which is the powerful figure doomed by the power that they wield.  Usually the great power that these characters possess comes from tainted supernatural sources, such as demonic soul-sucking swords (Elric), or pacts with demons.  Ultimately, this power corrupts the characters themselves and leads to tragedy for them and those around them.

The Bad Guys
The difference between the protagonist and antagonist in a Sword & Sorcery story can sometimes be a fine distinction, particularly in the darker examples of the genre.  In general, though, the forces that are arrayed against the protagonist are intent of enforcing their malicious wills upon all around them, while the protagonist is at worst just intent on satisfying personal interests.   Some of the typical antagonists in a Sword & Sorcery adventure might include:

• Wizards – Evil wizards are a stock villain in Sword & Sorcery.  Examples include the Stygian sorcerers Thoth-amon and Natohk or the Kothian wizard Tsotha-lanti from the Conan stories.  These powerful men have been corrupted by the supernatural forces that are the source of their arcane powers and are thoroughly evil.  They are (usually) also still human, and are very vulnerable to a good sword blow.  Their magic is often very powerful, but limited by the complex rituals required to use it.
• Supernatural Foes – Another common antagonist in the Sword & Sorcery story is a supernatural foe.  Protagonists will often encounter unexplainable horrors and will have to combat them by any means.  From spirits to remnants of ancient evils, the world is filled with dark, uncaring forces beyond humanity’s understanding.
• Society – Often, the enemy that Sword & Sorcery protagonists took on was society itself.  One of the main themes of the genre was that society and civilization was often not worthy of preservation, especially when it is unjust.  Many of the stories of the genre revolve around the protagonist’s attempts to satisfy their personal goals, often at the expense of society in general, or a powerful social group or organization.
   
Adventures
Although the Sword & Sorcery stories had a big influence on the development of fantasy literature in general, and the fantasy role-playing games that developed from it, there are some challenges to running a “pure” Sword & Sorcery game.  One of the biggest challenges is the fact that fantasy RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons are typically played in groups structured along the heroic fantasy model of a large group of people, usually with a shared goal like a quest, rather than the individual protagonist or small group that are seen in Sword & Sorcery. The social nature of gaming groups means that it is often hard to keep the number of players down to keep the Sword & Sorcery feel without hurting some feelings.  One solution is to focus the action on a few “core” characters, while allowing other players to occasionally play as “guest stars”.  Another solution is to make the characters part of a single group, a mercenary unit or thieves’ guild for example, and still use the overall feel of the Sword & Sorcery genre by focusing on individual motivations and survival goals rather than epic quests.

The Sword & Sorcery story is also very different in tone than the typical fantasy role-playing game.  For example, the characters will likely not be in the mold of the average heroic fantasy hero; the noble knight or powerful magician.  In fact, they will likely be outsiders and social outcasts.  They adventures that they have will also not be similar to the heroic fantasy adventures of world-saving quests that we often see, but are grim and often selfish.  The adventures may end with no resolution or even in tragedy.  Finally, the role of magic in the game will likely be very different than many players are used to.  Magic is very dangerous and corrupting, and is usually reserved for non-player characters, like the evil wizard that has to be killed.  Additionally, magic artifacts will be rare and usually quite dangerous for the same reason, and there usually is a terrible price for the power that they provide a character.  Magic weapons, for example, which are a staple of the average fantasy role-playing game, are exceedingly rare in Sword & Sorcery, and exceedingly dangerous to use.  The best example of this is Elric’s demonic sword, Stormbringer, which on one hand gives him immense power, but on the other hand saps his life and makes him dependent on sorcery to live.

Famous Examples
   
From Books and Comics:

Robert E. Howard – Howard was an amazingly talented storyteller and is, without a doubt, the father of the Sword & Sorcery genre.  His most famous character was Conan, a barbarian who rose from being a thief to be a king, having fantastic adventures along the way.  Howard wrote about 20 short stories (mostly printed in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s) and one novel featuring Conan, and there were several unfinished or fragmentary stories that were later completed by other writers.  After Howard’s death at the age of 30 his literary estate eventually passed to the control of L. Sprague De Camp, who heavily edited some Conan stories, completed many of the fragmentary stories, and even rewrote other of Howard’s non-Conan stories to feature the barbarian hero. Unfortunately, the Conan property was not well managed and as a result, many poor pastiches were written which reduced Howard’s elemental and complex character into a clichéd muscle-bound simpleton with a big sword.  The good news is that recently the original, unedited versions of Howard’s stories are again available in print.  The first book of the collection, titled The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, is now available.  If you are serious about either running or playing in a Sword & Sorcery game, I can’t recommend the book highly enough.  It is, quite simply, some of the best fantasy written.  Additionally, Dark Horse Comics has recently begun publishing an excellent Conan series in which most of the stories are taken directly from Howard’s original work.

Fritz Leiber – Leiber is actually the first author to coin the phrase “Sword & Sorcery” to describe this sub-genre of fantasy, and his stories chronicling the adventures of the odd pairing of a large barbarian and a small thief, named Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, in the city of Lankhmar are among the best examples of Sword & Sorcery to be found.

Other Examples From Books and Comics:

Michael Moorcock’s “Elric” Series, Karl Edward Wagner’s “Kane” series, Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore’s “Jirel” series

From Movies, Radio and TV: “Conan the Barbarian”, “13th Warrior”, “The Beastmaster”

Games To Play

Conan D20 – Probably one of the easiest adaptations for Sword & Sorcery gaming, particularly if you already like the D20 system.  Even if you don’t plan on using D20, the game and its supplements are packed with very good information about Hyboria, the pre-historical world of Conan.   In particular, the main rulebook has an excellent section on creating adventures in the Sword & Sorcery style.  Also check out the supplement “The Road of Kings”, which is a gazetteer of the nations of Hyboria, and is almost entirely free of D20 system-specific detail for those who won’t be using the D20 rules.  You can check out the game on the web at http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/ (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/).

Sorcery and Sword – A supplement for Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer RPG.  The strength of this book is that it is an outstanding distillation of the genre for gaming purposes.  Even if you don’t plan to use Sorcerer for your Sword & Sorcery campaign, I would highly recommend that you buy and read this book.  It is an invaluable tool for planning such a campaign.

GURPS Conan – If you can find it on Ebay or on a dusty shelf of your local game store, this is definitely worth grabbing if you want to run a game set in Howard’s Hyboria.  The book provides a lot of detail on the many lands of Hyboria and provides adventure seeds for each, as well.  The only problem with the book is that it includes a lot of source material written by other authors (the infamous pastiches), some of which is of very dubious quality.

AD&D 2nd Ed. “Lankhmar” Series – TSR’s licensed version of AD&D set in Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar.  The box set has some useful bits, like the maps of the city and an interesting concept of using “geomorphs”, which are generic maps of a small section of the city, which the GM and players can fill in with detail.  Another useful tool is the “Wonders of Lankhmar” supplement, which is a series of short adventure ideas.  Many of these can be easily ported to any Sword & Sorcery campaign, but some are less useful and more of the generic heroic fantasy variety.  If you plan to run a Lankhmar campaign, I would recommend tracking down them down.

Dragon Lords of Melnibone D20 – A D20 version of Chaosium’s Elric! RPG.  You may also want to check out Elric! or the earlier Chaosium game Stormbringer for additional setting information or if you are looking for an alternative to using the D20 system.

Barbarians of Lemuria – A simple, but interesting RPG is based on the Sword & Sorcery books of Lin Carter.  Although I personally don’t think that Carter’s works are the best examples of the genre, this game has some very good points and could easily be used for any Sword & Sorcery setting.  Even better, it is entirely free!  It can be found on the web at http://www.geocities.com/barbariansoflemuria/ (http://www.geocities.com/barbariansoflemuria/).

Internet Resources

The Robert E. Howard United Press Association (http://www.rehupa.com/) – This is a treasure trove of information about, and scholarly analysis of, Howard and his writings.

Bill King’s Sword & Sorcery Toolkit for D20 (http://www.trollslayer.net/toolkit/toolkit.html) – A good resource for Sword & Sorcery gamers who plan to use D20, and an interesting read regardless.

http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/swordsor.html (http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/swordsor.html) – An interesting short summary of the literary history of the Sword & Sorcery genre.

Michael Moorcock’s Official Website (http://www.multiverse.org/) – This is a good source of information about the Elric series of books.

The Barbarian Keep (http://www.barbariankeep.com/conan.html) – This is a good collection of information about Robert E. Howard’s most famous creation, Conan, in his various incarnations in print and film.

The Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian (http://www.dodgenet.com/~moonblossom/hyborian.htm) – A very useful collection of information about Hyboria, the setting created by Robert E. Howard.  Includes a gazetteer, an atlas and other information.

The Fritz Leiber Home Page (http://www.lankhmar.demon.co.uk/) – An overview of the writings of Fritz Leiber, and his Lankhmar stories in particular.

The Scrolls of Lankhmar (http://pages.tca.net/fewlass/Lankhmar.html) – An amazing collection of information about Fritz Leiber’s world of Lankhmar.

This was a good and insightful read, The Good Assyrian, and I agree with most of it. Unfortunately, I have said most of what I wanted to say about the sword&sorcery genre and its relevance to old D&D, so I probably won't write lengthy posts here. I do recommend this thread, though: Swords and Sensibility - the evolution of the tone of D&D (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18994). It is a fascinating discussion on how D&D's originally strong S&S element gradually fell by the wayside.

Now, a few specific points:

1) Sword&Sorcery and morality: one of the fundamental tenets of high fantasy is the victory of morality over evil. Protagonists emerge victorious because they are good people, willing to stand up for their ideals, and they are morally superior to their opponents. In sword&sorcery, this is not the case. Protagonists triumph by raw ability or cunning, and morals have little to do with it. On the other hand, there is also a strong subtheme of humanity versus inhumanity; heroes have deep character flaws, but these flaws are human - violence, lust, avarice and so on. Meanwhile, there are villains who have rejected their human nature and become monsters, like Hyboria's sorcerers or the treacherous Prince Yrkoon. Even so, Conan and Elric don't win because they are better people, but because they are more shrewd, better swordsmen, or because in their inhumanity, their opponents make basic errors. Remember that the early S&S writers were atheists, or at least their worlds didn't have a benevolent God to right wrongs.

Gaming application: although characters in fiction invariably triumph over all odds, this doesn't work so well in a tabletop RPG. If too much attention is paid to genre concerns, your campaign may be more faithful to the original stories in form, but, ironically it will not feel that way. The trick of presenting an uncaring world is to GM it impartially and mercilessly, without sentiment for the survival or well-being of the player characters. Modern game theory embraces the idea of empowerment, the concept that PCs should be special and merit special consideration. Don't do this. If they are to be special, it should be through their own actions against the hostile millieu. If you go through a folder of character sheets in the process, that will work for the campaign, not against it.

2) Sword&Sorcery and deities: continuing the theme of an uncaring world, if there were gods in S&S settings, they were noticably unhelpful. Either they were empty idols worshipped by delusional devotees, alien monsters who preyed on the sacrifices they were supplied with, or just not involved in the day-to-day doings of the religion. The Lords of Chaos and Law in Moorcock's novels are a rare exception – also, they are parts of a coherent cosmology, while in Howard, Leiber, etc., we find no traces of such.

Gaming application: this is a problematic area because the idea of the cleric class is thoroughly intertwined with the idea of fantasy roleplaying, even though its traditional role of healer/supporter is markedly at odds with the fiction. I know I have struggled with the issue, and thought about nixing clerics completely on multiple occasioons. Eventually, I worked out a compromise: my pantheon (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21189) is kind of a "humanised Cthulhu mythos" of petty and thoroughly unappealing, but strongly interventionist "living gods" - with physical presence and a materialistic outlook. Elements inspired by Runequest and Empire of the Petal Throne are boons and divination granted in exchange for sacrifices, religious functions/powers for non-clerics, entire clergies composed of  non-clerical members, etc. Others may think of different solutions.

3) The Sword&Sorcery you do not know: it is a good thing you mentioned Jirel, because it brings up a good point about S&S lit: most of it is damn obscure today. There has been a Howard renaissance as of late, and the more dedicated fantasy fans are at least passingly familiar with Vance and Leiber, but there is a lot of good material outside these figures. Abraham Merritt's lost world novels, Clark Ashton Smith's weird fiction, and attendant pulp genres - planetary romance and historical pulp - are all good possibilities for getting more reading material and inspiration. My recent discovery of Talbot Mundy and Harold Lamb, who wrote historical pulp, was a revelation almost on par with finding Conan for the first time, while Leigh Brackett's The Book of Skaith immediately became my favourite fantasy novel when I read it last year (actually, Leigh's The Sword of Rhiannon was the second fantasy novel I read - right after Tolkien's LotR). For those who are interested, here is a thread where I reviewed The Book of Skaith (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19587) and Mundy's Tros of Samothrace (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19587&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45). I am just reading Lamb's complete Cossack tales, and it is very good so far.

Gaming application: totally obvious - mine these books for inspiration. :D Especially good since most of your players will not know the basic material, so it will be more of a surprise.

Well, this is interesting. Because the Sword & Sorcery is very, very alive in D&D.
Why do I say that?
Because the most popular German game really is as romantic as some fear D&D to have become.
In Germany, many think of D&D as too macho and too dark, to much power & glory, not enough good/evil and morally acceptable characters.

And it´s sort of true: You might lament the influx of Tolkien tropes that watered down your S&S. But the S&S genes are right there in the rules, they don´t go away that easily.
Imagine a game that is not watered down S&S, but totally built upon fairy-tale romanticists wishful thinking.

In D&D, you still kill Demons and Driders in gory ways, and become a badass in the process or die. In DSA, you enforce minimum wage policy for the greedy baker´s emplyoees [no kidding!].

Quote from: SettembriniIn Germany, many think of D&D as too macho and too dark, to much power & glory, not enough good/evil and morally acceptable characters.

Not to distract from your pet peeve, but D&D has been _very_ strong on the good and evil dichotomy for a long time, departing from its original S&S roots. This became quite dominant once the Forgotten Realms established themselves as the biggest setting -- and Dragonlance takes it to 11.

(And being to strong on the morality aspects has actually been an argument against D&D by DSA players, but better not get there. Obviously people play differently down here in Bavaria. Crossing the Danube never was a good idea ;) )

Settembrini, Sosthenes: although it is not the politest thing to refer people to previous discussions, the cited Dragonsfoot thread was just about this - how D&D fandom' expectations, successful novel lines and designers abandoned the S&S model in favour of good versus evil, quest fantasy and watered down "Tolkienesque" blah. Today, some of the foundations are still there, but the building on top of them looks more similar to a castle in Disneyland than an old fortress meant for business.

I concede that when compared to other games, it may be a better fit. It certainly is the case with Hungary's dominant FRPG - which is all about Renaissance intrigue and skulduggery, not straightforward action.

I actually read the thread.
But S&S is the foundation for the castle, as you put it so nicely. I just wanted to point out, that of all places in contemporary RPG products, D&D has the least problems with a lack of S&S.
I daresay, 3.x took back the rules from the fat-fantasy crowd.
 
There was no Wilderlands or Tome of Horrors for AD&D 2nd Ed.
 
And even the Magazine called "Dungeon" produced stuff with evil Sorcerers, Slavery, Cities of Selfishness and Giant Toads for 3.x.
The D&D podcast reflected a lot upon the S&S literary sources like Leiber.
I think it doesn´t get any more mainstream than that.
 
Now, I really am thankful and impressed by your realization, that the longing for S&S, as well as the re-imagination of stuff like the Wilderlands is counter-reformatory in concept: unthinkable without the preceding movement and changed by it thoroughly. Nowadays the S&S crowd is way more intolerant and radical in thinking than the gonzo-creators of old were.
The craving to do D&D "as it really was meant to be", is eating up even Gygaxian Elements like Homlett, as the linked thread nicely shows. I can really live with the jumbled, organically grown mashup of Tolkien pastiche on the S&S foundation D&D products are nowadays. It´s what it is, it emerged. It´s natural, opposed to the ideas of purity.
The Disneyland castle seems to be an image from AD&D 2nd Ed. days. And that castle has been stormed and razed so many times by old-school purists and reactive tactical players of our days, it´s now merely a legend. It could even provoke an ideological-romanticist backlash, and that won´t be pretty, I fear. It would be divisive. The last thing we want?
So, I think the structure of modules and campaigns is of much bigger concern to our subculture than whether the Kingdom is basically a fun place to be or corrupted and built upon slavery. If everything is dark and moody, it´s just as boring, repetetive and derivative as the Forgotten Realms are. And stereotypical derivitism is the last thing we want, isn´t it?
 
 
@Sosthenes: At least Conan stories are very one dimensional in their morals. Conan is right, all others are wrong. Isn´t that the real problem for the romanticist crowd? Saying contemporary D&D is too unidimensional in it´s moral outlook is more a critique of the allegedly amoral nature of implicit D&D gameplay?

Damn you, Melan for pointing me to such a fascinating thread when I have to leave for work in a few minutes! :D  

I'll try to digest your points today and get back to this thread this evening.  I think that the crux of the dilemma is how to best emulate some of the key characteristics of the original S&S fiction under the restrictions imposed by the structure of roleplaying games, and the preferences of the players.


TGA

Quote from: Settembrini@Sosthenes: At least Conan stories are very one dimensional in their morals. Conan is right, all others are wrong. Isn´t that the real problem for the romanticist crowd? Saying contemporary D&D is too unidimensional in it´s moral outlook is more a critique of the allegedly amoral nature of implicit D&D gameplay?

I wouldn't say so. The problem here is manifold, as we have two groups of concerned players and two (alleged) problems with D&D.

Let's start with the latter issue. The "amoral gameplay" is obviously centered on the most simplistic form of dungeon-bashing, i.e. kill-and-loot games. This doesn't just concern critics, this is a big problem for lots of D&D players, too. Which is the main reason why most adventures and campaigns don't actually work like that, at least in my experience. Most have an ulterior motive, where the loot aspect is basically a game-within-the-game, just like optimizing your character with just the right item and class combinations is. Not many people I know play games just for that reason. It's just that old-school D&D seems to leave the surrounding moral arguments up to the Dungeon Master and just provides the tools. So this argument mostly comes down to hand-holding, DSA provides more non-mechanical structure than D&D does. Which is one of the reasons this might be worse in Germany, we kinda like being told what to think ;)

The simplistic good/evil nature D&D offers is a different point of view, not really related to criticism of dungeon gaming. It actually comes more in play in other scenarios that would be more suitable to the players complaining about this particular rule. The biggest issue is the alignment system, allegedly leading to cliched, adversarial play. IMHO a more recent development, as D&D  definitely started less morally distinct. Chaos vs. Law wasn't done very well compared to its Moorcockian origin, but it never dominated the game as much as LG vs. CE does since then. So in this issue, D&D has drifted from Sword & Sorcery, and the criticism you encountered is obviously aimed another way.

And finally, all the issues about morality are not as simple as one might think. The romantics _are_ an issue, but don't forget the relativists, who also complain about moral problems. Both are prone to criticise D&D.

(And both are right in a way. I'm not all too happy with the current implementation, but then I like shades of gray a lot)

EDIT: And sorry if this repeats anything from the Dragonsfoot thread. A certain Bavarian automobile company seems to have a very strict web filter ;)

Quote from: SettembriniNow, I really am thankful and impressed by your realization, that the longing for S&S, as well as the re-imagination of stuff like the Wilderlands is counter-reformatory in concept: unthinkable without the preceding movement and changed by it thoroughly.

I would say that preceding gave us old-timers the opportunity to get our staff (and point of view) out there in the form of the Wilderlands. From working with the other folks, I don't think our playing style had radically altered because of a reemergence of Sword & Sorcery we been playing like that for a long time. With the advent of d20 and the Internet this allowed a product like the Wilderlands to be created.

Quote from: SettembriniSo, I think the structure of modules and campaigns is of much bigger concern to our subculture than whether the Kingdom is basically a fun place to be or corrupted and built upon slavery. If everything is dark and moody, it´s just as boring, repetetive and derivative as the Forgotten Realms are. And stereotypical derivitism is the last thing we want, isn´t it?

I basically agreed. Pushed to an extreme any aspect of the fantasy genre can exhibit the same problems as any other aspect. The reason I built my game the way I did is to generate the most amount of adventuring possibilities/choices given the limitations of running and playing the game.  

What the exact shape of the game will take will ultimately depend on my players. It could be a sword and sorcery hackfest, intrigue and mystery, domain building, ethically challenged merchants (Traveller fans know what this is), all these are some of the choices the dozen or so PC Groups have done in my game.

By basing my world on a few fantastic premises (magic, monsters, gods, etc) extrapolating a semi-realistic world, and doing the prep so playes can roam; I feel is the best way of maxing the choices of adventuring.

If you do this while writing up a campaign world then I think you will find it feeling more swords and sorcery than not.

Don't know if this is relevant, but...

Over on ENWorld, in one of the Gygax Q&A threads, someone asks EGG about movies that would represent the games he GM'd. Now, that may seem off-topic, but if you read his response (http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3669664&postcount=749), and the subsequent discussion (and I apologize as the thread meanders all over the place) it does seem to provide some insight into EGG's view of S&S and how it related to the games he GM'd.  Which may have some bearing on how the design of D&D from back in the day represents, or doesn't, S&S.

My apologies if this is, in the end, not relevant.

Waaah, Gary doesn't like Conan! Now I'll have to burn my RC!

Quote from: SosthenesWaaah, Gary doesn't like Conan! Now I'll have to burn my RC!

I think he likes Conan as S&S, just not the movies. But I could be mistaken; I read that thread late last night worrying about more flooding...

The first Conan film was absolutely harshed by many hobby stalwarts when it came out, primarily for not adhering more closely to the written material.  Reviews in both Dragon and Pegasus panned the film, IIRC.  Little did they know how much lower Hollywood could sink!

Personally, Conan the Barbarian remains my alltime favorite film.  But when it came out I was an impressionable young lad, so I can understand the contemporary ubernerds having issues with the flick.

Quote from: James J SkachI think he likes Conan as S&S, just not the movies. But I could be mistaken; I read that thread late last night worrying about more flooding...

That's the way I understood it, too. Should have written it that way. But still, I read Howard's tales before and liked the film. On the other hand, I'm one of those who thinks stuff you know from the book is a bonus, not something that has to be expected. Especially with a story like Conan where the actual plot isn't _that_ important.

Neverwind Arnie, the big selling point of conan for me was the production. Great settings, absolutely uber-fantastic music. James Earl Jones with a mullet.

Quote from: jrientsThe first Conan film was absolutely harshed by many hobby stalwarts when it came out, primarily for not adhering more closely to the written material.  Reviews in both Dragon and Pegasus panned the film, IIRC.  Little did they know how much lower Hollywood could sink!

Personally, Conan the Barbarian remains my alltime favorite film.  But when it came out I was an impressionable young lad, so I can understand the contemporary ubernerds having issues with the flick.

I couldn't agree more. I think Conan the Barbarian was a great Howardian movie, even if it wasn't a faithful reproduction of a particular story.

Quote from: SosthenesThat's the way I understood it, too. Should have written it that way. But still, I read Howard's tales before and liked the film. On the other hand, I'm one of those who thinks stuff you know from the book is a bonus, not something that has to be expected. Especially with a story like Conan where the actual plot isn't _that_ important.

Neverwind Arnie, the big selling point of conan for me was the production. Great settings, absolutely uber-fantastic music. James Earl Jones with a mullet.

(http://img.search.com/b/b4/Conan6.jpg)
Thulsa "Mullet" Doom

Quote from: The Good AssyrianBarbarians of Lemuria – A simple, but interesting RPG is based on the Sword & Sorcery books of Lin Carter.  Although I personally don't think that Carter's works are the best examples of the genre, this game has some very good points and could easily be used for any Sword & Sorcery setting.  Even better, it is entirely free!  It can be found on the web at http://www.geocities.com/barbariansoflemuria/ (http://www.geocities.com/barbariansoflemuria/).

Thanks for the mention.

Quote from: Simon WThanks for the mention.

No problem, Simon!  :D  As I mentioned, I really liked the game for its simplicity and use of the ideas of "careers" that really fits the typical S&S protagonist.  The fact that you've made it available on the Internet for free is a big bonus, as well.  Thanks for doing that, btw.


TGA

Melan:  Wow, that thread on Dragonsfoot was impressive.  I have been struggling to devise ways to practically incorporate the feel of literary S&S for some time, with varying degrees of success.  

As has been pointed out it is made harder by the structural elements of most RPGs, particularly the Great Old One (D&D).  To be honest, I think that these elements, including such things as the concept of the adventuring party, good vs. evil, healing clerics, magic as technology, etc, are present precisely because they make roleplaying more accessible.  It is easier for most people to wrap their head around these ideas, create a viable playing group and have fun.  The elements of literary S&S are harder to translate into fun for a larger audience, I suspect.

Frankly, I also think that some of it is social in nature.  I have always struggled with the problem that it has been my experience that gritty S&S style games have worked best with small groups of players, or even better with just a single GM and player.  Now, I am totally comfortable with this setup (in fact many of my formative RPG experiences were one-on-one games, so I still harbor a preference for them), but it has turned out to be almost impractical in a social sense.  Trying to get a game together that includes some friends and excludes others has sometimes proved to be tricky.

So what practical advice can I give?  Well, I think that the following conditions would be best for a more pure S&S game:

1.  Small number of players.  One or two is best.  No more than four.  I ran a Conan game with five last Sunday and although we used the classic "you are all mercenaries" setup, I think that it will get stale quickly.
2.  Use a game system that is quick and decisive.  I don't personally think that more crunchy and "tactical" games (D&D 3.5 frex) are particularly suitable, but ymmv.  I have gotten a bit smitten by this ZeFRS game, so I may be using it more in the future for S&S inspired games.
3.  Use a bottom-up approach to setting, by which I mean don't sweat the big picture.  Just start the action in a burning fort on the frontier, in a desert sandstorm, or in the grimy streets of a crime-infested city and go from there.  Start with immediate threats to life and limb (rampaging barbarians, desert nomads, Toad-worshiping cultists) and then build a larger picture gradually.
4.  Leave some room for the PCs to be heroes.  The milieu may be cold and heartless, but if they get a chance to rescue the virgin from the Cult of the Spider God, it makes them feel better...:D

Just some thoughts.


TGA

Starting with The Good Assyrian's post and then going back to a few previous ones.

Quote1. Small number of players. One or two is best. No more than four. I ran a Conan game with five last Sunday and although we used the classic "you are all mercenaries" setup, I think that it will get stale quickly.

I have a different experience with S&S-themed D&D campaigns, and don't see group size as a hard limit. The key question is the willingness of the players to adopt a particular mindset and cast aside some of the strong preconceptions roleplaying games tend to instill. A lot of things which are not typical in generic fantasy. The shady protagonists/amorality thing is one, but there are others, such as assumptions about the game world, what can happen to your character in the campaign, etc. It is not even rules usually, just assumptions about using them a certain way.

Quote2. Use a game system that is quick and decisive. I don't personally think that more crunchy and "tactical" games (D&D 3.5 frex) are particularly suitable, but ymmv. I have gotten a bit smitten by this ZeFRS game, so I may be using it more in the future for S&S inspired games.

When I was using 3.0, it more or less worked, but I implemented a lot of house rules. Now that I am using a much lighter C&C/d20 light variant, the game goes smoother. But this may just be a personal preference, as in-print S&S systems show: Conan d20 and Iron Heroes are both heavier than base d20.

Quote3. Use a bottom-up approach to setting, by which I mean don't sweat the big picture. Just start the action in a burning fort on the frontier, in a desert sandstorm, or in the grimy streets of a crime-infested city and go from there. Start with immediate threats to life and limb (rampaging barbarians, desert nomads, Toad-worshiping cultists) and then build a larger picture gradually.

I have previously argued to this effect, until a friend of mine pointed out that Howard himself had written himself a sort of "world guide". Nevertheless, your point stands. Mosaic-like worldbuilding and exotic colour evoke a pretty strong S&S feel.

Quote4. Leave some room for the PCs to be heroes. The milieu may be cold and heartless, but if they get a chance to rescue the virgin from the Cult of the Spider God, it makes them feel better...

This is where my point about humanity/inhumanity comes in. Even if you are an amoral, jaded mercenary, the Cult of the Spider God is probably worse than you. :D On the other hand, I have had good experiences with campaigns where all players were running shady types, and it was all about the bottom line, so it is definitely possible.

Settembrini, a somewhat offtopic point:

QuoteNow, I really am thankful and impressed by your realization, that the longing for S&S, as well as the re-imagination of stuff like the Wilderlands is counter-reformatory in concept: unthinkable without the preceding movement and changed by it thoroughly. Nowadays the S&S crowd is way more intolerant and radical in thinking than the gonzo-creators of old were.
The craving to do D&D "as it really was meant to be", is eating up even Gygaxian Elements like Homlett, as the linked thread nicely shows. I can really live with the jumbled, organically grown mashup of Tolkien pastiche on the S&S foundation D&D products are nowadays. It´s what it is, it emerged. It´s natural, opposed to the ideas of purity.

You are right, yet in a characteristically Prussian manner, going overboard with your point. The quest for a more pure S&S game is not based on intolerance, rather recognised preferences which run contrary to established wisdom (this analogy could be extended to "old school" in general; there is certainly a lot of overlap). To some, it comes naturally, because it is what they grew up with, or it is what they have been doing forever. For others, it is a long process of discovery/rediscovery. This second group has to create its own form of play out of known elements, and it is done on two tracks:
1) What is Sword&Sorcery?
2) What isn't?
Both approaches are legitimate, and they can be followed at the same time, to various degrees. [edit]Most people are just doing the second, because they are already coming from a long-time background of gaming[/edit]. To those who aren't in search of a S&S campaign, the rejection of ingrained ideas may appear as intolerance, and of course, missionary zeal or snarky reactions to snarky dismissals (in the case of old school, the fucking "it is only nostalgia/rose coloured glasses" argument) leads to nasty flame wars and so on.

Identifying and excluding what you don't like is perfectly okay, much better than going with a group compromise that leaves you burned out. We have no social obligation to follow a certain model of gaming. In fact, doing that without questioning can lead to a lot of bitterness and less enjoyment. Every game aspect and element is open to criticism, and again, removal if it makes for a better experience for you. You write as if Gygax's works were sacrosanct and inviolable. Nonsense. They are just game material, and whether they fit into your game or not is your prerogative. I certainly don't like Hommlet and Yggsburgh, and have my reasons for this - first and foremost among them is the fact that I am not shooting for a Gygaxian campaign.

QuoteIf everything is dark and moody, it´s just as boring, repetetive and derivative as the Forgotten Realms are. And stereotypical derivitism is the last thing we want, isn´t it?

This, however, I agree with 100% and then some.

Quote@Sosthenes: At least Conan stories are very one dimensional in their morals. Conan is right, all others are wrong. Isn´t that the real problem for the romanticist crowd? Saying contemporary D&D is too unidimensional in it´s moral outlook is more a critique of the allegedly amoral nature of implicit D&D gameplay?

You are making the mistake that Conan "is" S&S, when he is just its most recognisable face. Certainly, Jirel of Joiry and Ffahrd are characters where this split is much weaker, if it exists at all.

I´m especially not implying that Gygax is sacrosanct. But then, if Gygax isn´t sacrosanct, there is no D&D "as it really was meant to be played".
The concept of purity has imploded with it.

Sosthenes:

QuoteLet's start with the latter issue. The "amoral gameplay" is obviously centered on the most simplistic form of dungeon-bashing, i.e. kill-and-loot games. This doesn't just concern critics, this is a big problem for lots of D&D players, too. Which is the main reason why most adventures and campaigns don't actually work like that, at least in my experience. Most have an ulterior motive, where the loot aspect is basically a game-within-the-game, just like optimizing your character with just the right item and class combinations is.

Yes, this dilemma has been one of the principal rallying points of D&D's detractors, and it is a shrewd observation that eventually, there emerged a sort of compromise which made collecting loot okay - you are doing it for a greater good, and it is no longer the numero uno source of XP (this is one of the most overlooked important rule changes between 1e and 2e). Similar concessions have been made regarding slaughtering humanoids - today, killing some orcs just doesn't cut it, because it makes us uncomfortable and evokes unpleasant images. I admit I have a problem with it as well. Interestingly, Sword&Sorcery provides a way out of this mess, in that it is not only you who are doing unpleasant things, but the whole world is built like that, and there is no moral contrast between the civilised "cowboys" and the savage "Indians". You just fall on different sides of the conflict, and your character does not pretend to be Lawful Good just because you are killing cavemen.

QuoteThat's the way I understood it, too. Should have written it that way. But still, I read Howard's tales before and liked the film. On the other hand, I'm one of those who thinks stuff you know from the book is a bonus, not something that has to be expected. Especially with a story like Conan where the actual plot isn't _that_ important.

Heh, interesting how that is. I don't care much for the story of the movie, and it is not literally faithful to REH's short stories. What it has in spades, however, is the right kind of imagery. I don't know of any other movie that did the "wastelands and ruins" thing of S&S literature so well; Thulsa Doom was perfect, the pilgrimage site was perfect, the sinful city was perfect... Nothing outside a few swords&sandals flicks comes close.

Quote from: SettembriniBut then, if Gygax isn´t sacrosanct, there is no D&D "as it really was meant to be played".

I am comfortable with that idea.

Settembrini, re. purity: that's true, but who's making an argument for purity? Melan is simply trying to get one specific playstyle right, which as he says was one among others in the amorphous era of early D&D. He's bringing something into sharper focus than it originally was--that's neither revisionist nor relativist, it's creative.

Well, that´s great!
So we are all in agreement. But the purity-nazis (as in soup-nazi) exist, and it needed to be spelled out.

We are all in the same boat here, it seems.

Quote from: SettembriniWe are all in the same boat here, it seems.

Yep!  

My personal quest to find ways to inject S&S themes in my gaming has more to do with the fact that I enjoy the original fiction and I think that some like-minded players might also enjoy it in their gaming.  It is not born of a need to force people to play The One True Way™.

We get enough of that already...;)


TGA

I really like your list of hints here.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian1.  Small number of players.  One or two is best.  No more than four.  I ran a Conan game with five last Sunday and although we used the classic "you are all mercenaries" setup, I think that it will get stale quickly.

Do you think a game with a large amount of players like the five player game you ran recently. Would get less stale or stay fresher longer (so to speak). If it was Fairly PVP heavy like in Pseudoephedrine's "Iron Heros for Bad People (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6783)" game?

Quote from: The Good Assyrian2.  Use a game system that is quick and decisive.  I don't personally think that more crunchy and "tactical" games (D&D 3.5 frex) are particularly suitable, but ymmv.  I have gotten a bit smitten by this ZeFRS game, so I may be using it more in the future for S&S inspired games.

Have you checked out "Broadsword"? I do believe the Evil DM had a hand in writing this. I have not had a chance to check it out. But the other products I have gotten from Deep7 have been good. The game uses the 1PG system. So it is definitely rules light.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian3.  Use a bottom-up approach to setting, by which I mean don't sweat the big picture.  Just start the action in a burning fort on the frontier, in a desert sandstorm, or in the grimy streets of a crime-infested city and go from there.  Start with immediate threats to life and limb (rampaging barbarians, desert nomads, Toad-worshiping cultists) and then build a larger picture gradually.
4.  Leave some room for the PCs to be heroes.  The milieu may be cold and heartless, but if they get a chance to rescue the virgin from the Cult of the Spider God, it makes them feel better...:D

Just some thoughts.


TGA

Yeah, Broadsword was the Evil DM and Jeff Hebert, the guy behind Hero Maker.  What I really like about the Evil DM's approach to S&S is that he may be a Howard purist, but he doesn't see Howard as the end-all and be-all of the genre.  I personally fall into that trap all the time.

i got MRQ relatively recently (thanks balbinus!) but haven't the chance to use it.  does anyone think that it would do S & S well?

Quote from: MelanI have a different experience with S&S-themed D&D campaigns, and don't see group size as a hard limit. The key question is the willingness of the players to adopt a particular mindset and cast aside some of the strong preconceptions roleplaying games tend to instill. A lot of things which are not typical in generic fantasy. The shady protagonists/amorality thing is one, but there are others, such as assumptions about the game world, what can happen to your character in the campaign, etc. It is not even rules usually, just assumptions about using them a certain way.

I don't think that it is a hard limit, but it has been my experience that it is increasingly difficult to maintain the S&S feel with larger groups of players.  I suspect that it has something to do with the focus being on personal rather than group identification in the smaller groups.  In a smaller group it seems that it is easier to explain why people are working together for mutual benefit without the structure of the epic fantasy quest or good vs evil conflict.  Actually, that is one of the greatest strengths of the epic fantasy model as adopted by later incarnations of D&D...it has a built in logic for groups to be together in the first place and to stay together.  In S&S you have to work at it more.

One of the solutions that I have been pondering (for a few years now as it was part of the original fanzine article) is to have all the characters be part of a group that shares a common interest but with plenty of room for personal agendas to emerge.  I was thinking about setting up a campaign based on the idea that all the PCs are associated with a "thieves' guild" that controls part of a Lankhmar-esque city.

Quote from: MelanWhen I was using 3.0, it more or less worked, but I implemented a lot of house rules. Now that I am using a much lighter C&C/d20 light variant, the game goes smoother. But this may just be a personal preference, as in-print S&S systems show: Conan d20 and Iron Heroes are both heavier than base d20.

Lighter systems are really just a personal preference for S&S action.  I think that quick and dirty resolution best fits the feel of the genre, but obviously you can do much worse than using D20 Conan, which I admire quite a bit.  I don't have any experience with Iron Heroes, so I can't say.  

Right now my system of choice would be ZeFRS (http://www.midcoast.com/~ricekrwc/zefrs/), but I have only gotten started with it recently so it needs some more shaking out before it is officially The One (for me at least).  As I mentioned in the article I also like Barbarians of Lemuria as well.

Quote from: MelanI have previously argued to this effect, until a friend of mine pointed out that Howard himself had written himself a sort of "world guide". Nevertheless, your point stands. Mosaic-like worldbuilding and exotic colour evoke a pretty strong S&S feel.

Good point.  That's how I think that I would handle the "thieves' guild" game.  I would start by using the very neat city geomorphs that were part of the old TSR Lankhmar RPG, each of which represent a few blocks of a generic city, and then start filling them in as the players explore the city, fight the Cult of the Spider God (there has to be one of those), fight rival guilds for control of the profits of criminal activities, commit a robbery, ect.  I think that it would lead to a setting that would grow organically and focus on very local, personal issues at first and only gradually grow to encompass struggles that involve the fate of the city itself, or larger issues.

I actually tried to run this very campaign a few years back, but it never got off the ground.  Maybe this thread is what I need to get my fire to do it back and round up some players! :D

Quote from: MelanThis is where my point about humanity/inhumanity comes in. Even if you are an amoral, jaded mercenary, the Cult of the Spider God is probably worse than you. :D On the other hand, I have had good experiences with campaigns where all players were running shady types, and it was all about the bottom line, so it is definitely possible.

Yeah, you have to work hard to outdo the Cult of the Spider God in the evil department! :p


TGA

GA, that Lankhmar project--that's how I did it back in the day. Deja vu all over again! Except that I, like everyone, was young and stupid, so the group had its share of Paladins, halflings, Druids and whatnot. Ahh, youth.

Quote from: RoninI really like your list of hints here.

Thanks!  I think that I would add:

5.  Make magic rare and squicky.  Players should be frightened when they cross paths with the crazy wizard who lives in the lonely tower outside of town, or when they come across an enchanted item.  There should be the understanding that it may not end well.
6.  It should be understood that the characters are adventurers for a reason, which is probably because they are too unstable to settle down and get a day job! :D Seriously, I think that the GM advice in the D20 Conan corebook had it right;  why would any sane person adventure for a living?!  Once they had looted the Temple of the Giant Toad God, why not retire?  Therefore, any ongoing campaign has to explain this aspect...the best explanation is usually that the characters have blown through all the money on ale and wenches and are dead broke at the beginning of every adventure!

Quote from: RoninDo you think a game with a large amount of players like the five player game you ran recently. Would get less stale or stay fresher longer (so to speak). If it was Fairly PVP heavy like in Pseudoephedrine's "Iron Heros for Bad People (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6783)" game?

I think that it would take some work to keep this particular group going for long, but that is a function mostly of the fact that several players generated characters that have very strong personal goals rather than any direct PVP conflict.  Frex:

1.  An Aesir berserker who was looking for a "good death" after being left for dead in a battle in which his father and older brother were killed,
2.  An Aesir "Ice Princess" whose family was killed by a Hyperborean wizard.  She has sworn revenge
3.  A scout/bowman from Khitai who is being hunted by a wizard who killed his family
4.  A Zingaran noble who lost his lands and is trying to raise an army to retake them
5.  An Aquilonian "Amazon" who has sworn an oath to love no man that could not best her in combat

Part of the reason that there was such a wide diversity of personal agendas was because the game was a playtest session for ZeFRS and I figured a variety of character types would be good.  We just assumed that everyone was in the same mercenary unit and went from there.  

I suspect that these five characters would be manageable for long-term play, especially if we had done a little bit of work during character building to make sure that there were enough connection between them to justify their adventuring together.

Quote from: RoninHave you checked out "Broadsword"? I do believe the Evil DM had a hand in writing this. I have not had a chance to check it out. But the other products I have gotten from Deep7 have been good. The game uses the 1PG system. So it is definitely rules light.

I have heard of Broadsword but haven't seen it.  It sounds like it would be a good choice for S&S action.


TGA

Quote from: Pierce InverarityGA, that Lankhmar project--that's how I did it back in the day. Deja vu all over again! Except that I, like everyone, was young and stupid, so the group had its share of Paladins, halflings, Druids and whatnot. Ahh, youth.

Cool!  

Alas, I was young and stupid as a youth, too...I would have done the same damn thing! :haw:


TGA

Quote from: The Good AssyrianWell, I have had S&S on the brain lately.  

Also worth checking out is The Eldritch Dark, a site with a whole lot of Clark Ashton Smith's short stories:

http://www.eldritchdark.com

Excellent discussion, both here and the one over at Dragonsfoot.

One aspect of the roots of S&S in D&D that hasn't really been commented on yet is the wide divergence in style and tone between the writings of the major authors mentioned above.  

While both Howard and Leiber can easily be placed within the sword and sorcery subgenre, their works are, quite often, radically different.  In part, Leiber seems to have conceived Fafhrd and Grey Mouser as the antithesis of Conan, as he suggests in the foward to Swords of Lankhmar:


"One of the original motives for conceiving Fafhrd and the Mouser was to have  a couple of fantasy heroes closer to true human stature than supermen like Conan and Tarzan and many another.  In a way they're a mixture of Cabell and Eddison, if we must look for literary ancestors.  Fafhrd and the Mouser have a touch of Jurgen's cynicism and anti-romanticism, but they go on boldy having adventures -- one more roll of the dice with destiny and death.  While the characters they most parallel in The Worm Ouroboros are Corund and Gro, yet I don't think they're touched with evil as those two, rather they're rogues in a decandent world where you have to be a rogue to survive..."


The last half of that last sentence is, perhaps, one of the best descriptions for the motivation and core being of your standard D&D character, but I digress...

That divergence between Leiber's and Howard's characters is part of what made D&D so vibrant.  That the game sought, perhaps not even intentionally, to accomodate both sorts of characters meant that the players weren't restricted to one approach, but could take either or even a third or fourth way outside of these two.

Factor in the influence of Vance's Dying Earth stories -- themselves somewhat related to swords & sorcery but quite divergent, what with the influences from Cabell (again!), Clark Ashton Smith and Ernest Bramah -- the often under-appreciated influence of Lovecraft, and the assortment of other sources, and you get a game that's almost entirely unlike anything that would be produced today.  In fact, I can only think of one recent game that takes a somewhat similar hodge-podge approach to incorporating its influences.


As an aside, I've never quite been able to play Clark Ashton Smith's place in all of this.  I don't know that he's quite a part of S&S as much as being an influence on S&S writers, both of his time, and later folks like Michael Shea.  I suppose that I could perhaps see the Satampra Zeiros stories as being within the context of S&S, and maybe one or two of the Zothique tales.  But otherwise, the style and intent of his stories seem to be something entirely different from S&S.  

Which isn't to say that he isn't someone to check out.  His work is absolutely fantastic, in both terms of its quality and its content, and would certainly be appropriately inspiration in a S&S game for background and color.

I'd classify Smith and even Lovecraft (for Unknown Kadath, which should be on the shelf of every S&S... no, fantasy enthusiast) as writers of weird fantasy. Good point on the variety of S&S fiction: I would throw Abraham Merritt into the mix, who wrote lost world tales - Dwellers in the Mirage being the best of them (it even has a malevolent octopoid deity named "Khalk'ru"), and even some stuff not always classified as fantasy: Leigh Brackett is considered a sword&planet or science fiction author, but her tales are very inspiring for a S&S game.

I have little experience with the pastiche (e.g. Otis Adalbert Kline and Moorcock's early Mars novels), but Paizo Publishing is expected to release some of these books starting this autumn, so it looks like I will have an opportunity to pick them up. (Granted, I would never buy the Jirel book with that cover (http://paizo.com/store/fiction/planetStories/v5748btpy7x8d), but then I can be a terrible snob sometimes :v:).

I believe that Gygax has cited Merritt's work as one of the key sources of inspiration for D&D.  Just a second, isn't there an appendix in the original Dungeon Master's Guide as to suggested reading?

Yeah, there is:


"The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt..."


Your mentioning of Leigh Brackett is a good one, as both her and Burroughs show up on Gygax's "Inspirational Reading" list.  So does Lin Carter's "World's End" series, which is this weirdo pastiche of Burrough, Brackett, Baum and Vance all at once.  Perhaps not the best written things ever, but there's sort of a delirious fun quality to the books.

Two disconnected observations:

1. No one's mentioned Brian MacNaughton yet (Throne of Bones), which IIRC Cali recommended at some point, and it was a very great recommendation. Howardian Lovecraft rather than Lovecraftian Howard.

2. Re. playstyles, a propos Vance: One more reason why trying to get S&S right isn't necessarily revisionist is the fact that it was only with the Dying Earth RPG that somebody finally got Vance right* (or Dying Earth, anyway), decades after EGG lifted the spell slot but little else from it. In short, the proper de-differentiation of styles is far from over.

*unless that Lyonesse RPG (in French, from Switzerland) is spectacular, which according to the estimable GBSteve it is.

What Dying Earth are you talking about? D&D is probably close enough to the original novel, less so for the first Cugel one. The last two were published after D&D. Turjan is rather close to S&S, it only gets weird after that...

I'm an S&S type guy myself, but what I don't agree with is putting it under a glass bowl, which in practice means hewing too close to Howard and refusing to deviate. It should be a living thing, and open to development and personal touches. Which is actually what happened early on in rpgs, with D&D, Stormbringer and others taking a lot of S&S tropes without feeling the need to "stay true to the genre".

So my home-brew setting designed for BRP has zero Tolkien and a lot of standard S&S elements, but I never say "this is a sword and sorcery world". I do make sure I mention to new players that there are no paladins, no elves or dwarves, and no good vs evil...although there are a lot of creepy cults.

Quote from: SosthenesWhat Dying Earth are you talking about?

Clearly, Cugel and Rhialto.

The Turjan material is weird in its own right, but that weirdness (ditto Lyonesse's) is much harder to verbalize.

Quote from: A Memorex for the KrakensOne aspect of the roots of S&S in D&D that hasn't really been commented on yet is the wide divergence in style and tone between the writings of the major authors mentioned above.  

While both Howard and Leiber can easily be placed within the sword and sorcery subgenre, their works are, quite often, radically different...

I agree, which is why I would contend that it would be best not to try to emulate any particular author's version of S&S too much, but rather shoot for the general feel of the genre.  Obviously, if you are playing D20 Conan,  Lankhmar, or any game that is set in a particular S&S setting you are trying to get a certain feel of the original source, but I think it may be wise not to lose sight of the fact that unless you find the right players who are equally absorbed in that particular setting it may be better to fudge a bit to make the game fun for everyone involved.

For instance, in the recent ZeFRS session I ran only two of the five players had ever read a Robert E. Howard story, so I started by saying "Who here has seen the first Conan movie?".  Five hands went up.  "This is going to be kinda like that."  I figure that unless the players have a broader familiarity with S&S literature it is best to assume that the first Conan movie is a pretty good indicator of what they expect to get.  And frankly, that is not a half bad expectation, even though it isn't particularly faithful to the original source.

I think that is why I am interested in doing my own S&S setting.  It can take a lot of inspiration from Lankhmar, but I can throw in other elements without a Leiber fan getting upset.  It also gives the players some room to shape the setting themselves a bit.

Quote from: A Memorex for the KrakensAs an aside, I've never quite been able to play Clark Ashton Smith's place in all of this.  I don't know that he's quite a part of S&S as much as being an influence on S&S writers, both of his time, and later folks like Michael Shea.  I suppose that I could perhaps see the Satampra Zeiros stories as being within the context of S&S, and maybe one or two of the Zothique tales.  But otherwise, the style and intent of his stories seem to be something entirely different from S&S.

I am a huge CAS fan myself (thanks for the link btw, Paka), and I would be hard pressed to categorize his works as well.  Weird fiction is the closest I could come, but as you said, some of the Zothique tales (I am thinking of "The Charnel God") come close to what I would call S&S.  God, all of his work can be used to inspire S&S settings, though.


TGA

Quote from: MelanI'd classify Smith and even Lovecraft (for Unknown Kadath, which should be on the shelf of every S&S... no, fantasy enthusiast) as writers of weird fantasy. Good point on the variety of S&S fiction: I would throw Abraham Merritt into the mix, who wrote lost world tales - Dwellers in the Mirage being the best of them (it even has a malevolent octopoid deity named "Khalk'ru"), and even some stuff not always classified as fantasy: Leigh Brackett is considered a sword&planet or science fiction author, but her tales are very inspiring for a S&S game.

Melan:  Thanks for the reading suggestions.  I will try to find these books and give them a read.  As for the Paizo cover for the Moore paperback, it is pretty cheesy, isn't it?  I suppose that it is one of the hazards that has to be endured by the S&S reader.  I was lucky enough to come across a hardback collection of the Jirel stories some years ago.  The cover art was better...:D


TGA

Not 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.

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 (http://zefrs.proboards101.com/index.cgi) 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! :p


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

Quote from: RPGPundit;463404That's pretty much how I'm considering the Realms in my current campaign, yes.

RPGPundit

So Pundit, from what I have read it doesn't seem that your current campaign is directly inspired by Sword and Sorcery fiction, but how does ol' Elminster fit in to your game, if at all?

One of the coolest parts in my opinion of the discussion of toning down the high fantasy elements of the Realms was the cool stuff you can do with the Big El if he doesn't have to fit the Greenwood mold of Gandalf clone.


-TGA

I dunno. I woul dlike to be convinced by the very respected Good Assyrian. But when I read that the conscious lit-emu approach resulted in a City without a name or map, but a lot of consciously inserted themes and morality plays, I wonder if this is what I would like to participate in as a player.
Now Melan, he's got his world named, mapped and everything else. Also, Gygax et al.
But undefined cities and "themes". Sorry dude, I might be misreading you, or suffer from paranoia. But if somebody asked me about the evils lit-emu mindset potentially brings to GMing, I feel inclined to point right here then.

What is fucking wrong with just playing the world you like? I cannot understand this at all it seems. And as the error must lie with me, I stop trying to fight this phenomenon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mDh64INAf8).

Quote from: Settembrini;463525I dunno. I woul dlike to be convinced by the very respected Good Assyrian. But when I read that the conscious lit-emu approach resulted in a City without a name or map, but a lot of consciously inserted themes and morality plays, I wonder if this is what I would like to participate in as a player.

And that's all cool.  Maybe it wouldn't be the game for you and I respect that.  But that isn't the point, is it?  Rather, my point is that you can use these tools, like many others, to create a game that you and your friends *will* enjoy.  By making conscious decisions about what you want in a game.

Quote from: Settembrini;463525Now Melan, he's got his world named, mapped and everything else. Also, Gygax et al.
But undefined cities and "themes". Sorry dude, I might be misreading you, or suffer from paranoia. But if somebody asked me about the evils lit-emu mindset potentially brings to GMing, I feel inclined to point right here then.

LOL you *may* be suffering from paranoia.  There were maps and names.  The Red Loon Tavern had a very detailed map, including of the gambling den in the basement.  I used the excellent geomorph maps from the old TSR Lankhmar rules to fill out the different sections of The City.  And the city had a name - The City - as in Eis Ten Polin.

Point anywhere you like, but I suspect that you are finding storygames bogiemen everywhere you look.

Quote from: Settembrini;463525What is fucking wrong with just playing the world you like? I cannot understand this at all it seems. And as the error must lie with me, I stop trying to fight this phenomenon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mDh64INAf8).

I was playing in the world I liked, which happened to be one of my own creation in that case.  But playing in a world created for me?  Nothing wrong with that either, or course!  I do it all the time.  Tekumel, BattleTech, I could name more.  But conversely, why are you so hung up of this point?  It seems odd to me to rail against people using their imaginations to find the things that they enjoy in this most imaginative of hobbies.

-TGA

To contribute something substantial, here is how we have done it:

1) I did not aim for genre purity, nor old school purity (is old school a genre or an approach? Hmmmm...) While focus is good, reductionist approaches that try to lay down exact boundaries end up being more trouble than they are worth - not to mention encouraging petty sophistry. So the approach was fairly eclectic, accommodating S&S, weird fantasy, planetary romance, traditional D&D and even a few "off" elements (how did some ideas in the surreal duels from Revolutionary Girl Utena end up in the campaign? Because they did, although Utena is pretty much anti-S&S, and utterly divorced from my usual likes - but the imagery and structure of those swordfighting vids became quite inspiring for some otherworldly elements)

2) There was a solid framework to build on in the Wilderlands model. This has had an influence on not only the way to build and manage the environment, but the rules solutions as well. I started from my WL campaigns, and thought about how it may be done differently - with less elfie-welfie, quarter-sized maps (on a 20 km per hex scale, though), and a sort of 20th century avant-garde feel.

3) I did not compromise D&D's gameplay to reach the ideal type of a S&S story (again, for most people, this ends up being "Conan", and S&S is more than that); rather, I went the other way to fit S&S elements, ingredients and concepts into D&D gameplay. The result was a game that was generally very accessible and straightforward, with very fluid transitions between adventure types (dungeoneering, complex problem-solving in open-ended scenarios, city investigation/intrigue, hex-crawling [mostly island-hopping] and extra-planar). Someone could have jumped right in with some D&D experience.

4) Concrete rules changes: a lot of it is summed up in Sword&Magic: Adventures on Fomalhaut (http://fomalhaut.lfg.hu/2011/01/17/sword-and-magic/), so highlights only where I departed from D&D's base assumptions, partly by taking the WL rules additions to their logical conclusions:

• human racial/cultural groups (horse nomads, amazons, scheming decadents etc.) instead of demi-humans: this pretty much removed the tolkienisms from the game
• starting characters at 3rd level, allowing characters to use any skill their class would have access to: resulting in well-rounded, competent individuals, who are, OTOH, not invulnerable even after they gain a few levels. This removes the "low level D&D" segment of the gameplay, which can be very entertaining, but not what I was shooting for.
• fighter subtypes with S&S-centric options (Fighters, Archers, Sailors, Amazons and Barbarians).
• the Illusionist class as a legitimately powerful option. Post-1e D&D has dropped them in favour of specialist Wizards, removing a very S&S-appropriate character type. Here, they shine, and their illusions are actually scarily effective.
• divorcing religion from the Cleric class. This is pretty big, and was actually inspired in part by RQ in addition to the WL. Varying levels of character commitment to eccentric and fallible faiths, appropriate rewards and priests who are members of the other classes loosens a lot of the "wandering Christian preacher" associations while retaining the Cleric as a viable option. The logical step to achieve a "purist" S&S variant might have been to do away with the Cleric entirely - if I had to remake D&D from the ground up, I would do that - but I did not want that.
• XP rules: using a variant of Arneson's XP for spent gp rules, rewarding squandering money in hedonistic excess went pretty good.
• In general, the importance of PC wealth was de-emphasised. Sometimes, they were filthily rich and could buy themselves potent magic items; at other times, they were penniless and had to live by their wits alone. The decision to start all beginning characters with basic necessities + 2d6*10 gp worth of equipment regardless of level (with the potential for some interesting extra on higher levels), and to create adventures that weren't reliant on gear, was an important, although initially unconscious way to achieve my goals.
  

All in all, though, I must once again say, the goal was not to "un-D&D" D&D to be all S&S all the time; rather, to build on D&D's strengths to achieve a suitable S&S experience. And I think we have succeeded pretty well (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=34856).

Quote from: The_Shadow;128254I'm an S&S type guy myself, but what I don't agree with is putting it under a glass bowl, which in practice means hewing too close to Howard and refusing to deviate. It should be a living thing, and open to development and personal touches. Which is actually what happened early on in rpgs, with D&D, Stormbringer and others taking a lot of S&S tropes without feeling the need to "stay true to the genre".

So my home-brew setting designed for BRP has zero Tolkien and a lot of standard S&S elements, but I never say "this is a sword and sorcery world". I do make sure I mention to new players that there are no paladins, no elves or dwarves, and no good vs evil...although there are a lot of creepy cults.

Yeah, my secondary ruleset is pretty much built to take on this vibe.  

• All human racial types,

• Very Bronze age (weapons ARE Bronze, with dulling rules, as steel is mysterious and rare).

• The temples are actually competing prophets of the gods (The Auger of the Serpent, the Profound Man, The Furies of the Flame, or the Speaker of the Dead).

• Low HP and made to run fast. (Fighting men start with 4-10HP, gain 2-5 per level after, and they are the highest.)

• Specifically influenced by some of the authors mentioned, there is a strength needed to use certain weapons...

Wealth and the need for it and the scarcity of it has been emphasized.  Beginning characters often are undersupplied, and much of the world is barey sustaining themselves.

I did not mention to my early playtests about the S&S, just the bronze age.  It is interesting that the first guy to run a rogue said he felt like the Grey Mouser.

Differentiation: Enlightened Roleplaying is on the left. Pure Lit-Emu to the right. 4e/DitV and other abominations are a deep hole. When enlightened RPG'ing is looked at from far away, it looks like lit-emu. If looked to close at, it looks like an abomination.

In the spirit of rpg.net, have a "WTF?" point, Settembrini.

Quote from: Melan;4635641) I did not aim for genre purity, nor old school purity (is old school a genre or an approach? Hmmmm...) While focus is good, reductionist approaches that try to lay down exact boundaries end up being more trouble than they are worth - not to mention encouraging petty sophistry. So the approach was fairly eclectic, accommodating S&S, weird fantasy, planetary romance, traditional D&D and even a few "off" elements (how did some ideas in the surreal duels from Revolutionary Girl Utena end up in the campaign? Because they did, although Utena is pretty much anti-S&S, and utterly divorced from my usual likes - but the imagery and structure of those swordfighting vids became quite inspiring for some otherworldly elements)

I think that your point about genetic purity is a good one.  I would not want to imply that I think that if you want to have a S&S vibe in your game that it requires any kind of genre purity.  I think that it is a matter of measure.  Even my games that shoot for a strong S&S feel have all sorts of other personal touches, inside jokes between my players and I, and influences.  Most of the fantasy games that I have enjoyed have been a healthy mixture of different ideas and tastes.

I think that purity tests are a pretty lame concept for this hobby.

Quote from: Melan;4635643) I did not compromise D&D's gameplay to reach the ideal type of a S&S story (again, for most people, this ends up being "Conan", and S&S is more than that); rather, I went the other way to fit S&S elements, ingredients and concepts into D&D gameplay. The result was a game that was generally very accessible and straightforward, with very fluid transitions between adventure types (dungeoneering, complex problem-solving in open-ended scenarios, city investigation/intrigue, hex-crawling [mostly island-hopping] and extra-planar). Someone could have jumped right in with some D&D experience.

I concur in that I started with D&D at the base of the game that I wanted to run, and instead focused on adding the elements into gameplay, as you said.  I did use what is my experience is a more flexible version of D&D (OD&D clone) because I wanted to houserule quite a bit, but not specifically for any genre feel, but more on personal preferences - so a slightly re-imagined thief class, some changes to beginning hit points, an initiative system, etc.

Quote from: Melan;463564

• starting characters at 3rd level, allowing characters to use any skill their class would have access to: resulting in well-rounded, competent individuals, who are, OTOH, not invulnerable even after they gain a few levels. This removes the "low level D&D" segment of the gameplay, which can be very entertaining, but not what I was shooting for.

I handled this issue by giving 1st level characters max hitpoints and then randomizing from that point forward.  In hindsight and in light of coming across the suggestion of starting players out at 3rd level in several places since, I would seriously consider that as an alternative.  My main goal was to make the beginning characters a little tougher on average than the typical D&D beginners.  I would be concerned that the characters would get too tough pretty quickly for most low-level challenges.  And since my idea was to focus on human opponents and unique "horrors" as opponents, this could be an issue.  What was your experience with the PC power curve starting at 3rd level?  What kind of challenges did you use at the higher levels?

Quote from: Melan;463564

• divorcing religion from the Cleric class. This is pretty big, and was actually inspired in part by RQ in addition to the WL. Varying levels of character commitment to eccentric and fallible faiths, appropriate rewards and priests who are members of the other classes loosens a lot of the "wandering Christian preacher" associations while retaining the Cleric as a viable option. The logical step to achieve a "purist" S&S variant might have been to do away with the Cleric entirely - if I had to remake D&D from the ground up, I would do that - but I did not want that.

I struggled with that too.  In the end I just played the cleric class straight.  In practice there were some awkward interactions between the system and the world, like just how does a detect evil spell work in a situation without traditional defined D&D alignment.  This required some interpretation, and I would rethink it before playing a similar game in the future.  But the cleric class itself was not an issue for me.

Quote from: Melan;463564

• XP rules: using a variant of Arneson's XP for spent gp rules, rewarding squandering money in hedonistic excess went pretty good.

I opted for (as it turned out) the very clumsy mechanic cribbed from D20 Conan in which the players blew half their treasure between adventures on stuff (wine, women, and song or donations to the temple or whatever).  It kinda sounded ok on paper but never worked out well.  The players kinda resented the ham-handed effect, and it didn't really accomplish my goal of creating the feel of hard-luck adventuring.  I think that the Arneson xp approach would be a much, much better way to handle it and empower the players to make their own choices.

Quote from: Melan;463564

• In general, the importance of PC wealth was de-emphasised. Sometimes, they were filthily rich and could buy themselves potent magic items; at other times, they were penniless and had to live by their wits alone. The decision to start all beginning characters with basic necessities + 2d6*10 gp worth of equipment regardless of level (with the potential for some interesting extra on higher levels), and to create adventures that weren't reliant on gear, was an important, although initially unconscious way to achieve my goals.

That is the feel I wanted to, and barring very deterministic approaches (I recall the old TSR Conan game had a table pick system that players choose from at the beginning of each adventure for the sum total of their worldly possessions), I think your way to accomplish that was a good one.

Quote from: Melan;463564All in all, though, I must once again say, the goal was not to "un-D&D" D&D to be all S&S all the time; rather, to build on D&D's strengths to achieve a suitable S&S experience. And I think we have succeeded pretty well (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=34856).

All I can say is that your campaign looked freakin' awesome, and I wish that I didn't live like 5000 miles away from it...

-TGA

Quote from: LordVreeg;463594Yeah, my secondary ruleset is pretty much built to take on this vibe.  

• All human racial types,

• Very Bronze age (weapons ARE Bronze, with dulling rules, as steel is mysterious and rare).

• The temples are actually competing prophets of the gods (The Auger of the Serpent, the Profound Man, The Furies of the Flame, or the Speaker of the Dead).

• Low HP and made to run fast. (Fighting men start with 4-10HP, gain 2-5 per level after, and they are the highest.)

• Specifically influenced by some of the authors mentioned, there is a strength needed to use certain weapons...

Wealth and the need for it and the scarcity of it has been emphasized.  Beginning characters often are undersupplied, and much of the world is barey sustaining themselves.

I did not mention to my early playtests about the S&S, just the bronze age.  It is interesting that the first guy to run a rogue said he felt like the Grey Mouser.

Sounds like some good stuff!  And since my *other* fantasy itch yet to be scratched is Bronze Age fantasy...consider some of these ideas snagged!  :)

How would you describe your ideas on Bronze Age fantasy?  How would they differ from Sword & Sorcery?  I have some thoughts on the matter and would like to hear your point of view.

For one, I think that I would say that it is more about mythic heroism rather than the anti-hero of S&S.  More Gilgamesh than Grey Mouser.  So the heroes would be more likely representing civilization pushing out against the darkness of the unknown rather than pursuing mercenary interests.

-TGA

Quote from: Settembrini;463611Differentiation: Enlightened Roleplaying is on the left. Pure Lit-Emu to the right. 4e/DitV and other abominations are a deep hole. When enlightened RPG'ing is looked at from far away, it looks like lit-emu. If looked to close at, it looks like an abomination.

I see...is the implication that even though my game had some similarities to what you call Enlightened Roleplaying it is still an abomination on closer examination because it did not fit your idea of gaming purity?  If so, I think that it an uncharitable characterization.  


-TGA

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;463653I see...is the implication that even though my game had some similarities to what you call Enlightened Roleplaying it is still an abomination on closer examination because it did not fit your idea of gaming purity?  If so, I think that it an uncharitable characterization.  


-TGA

I was no timplying anything re: your gaming. I think I have a handle on how some people run their stuff, but currently would not feel able to categorize your style from afar. I feel secure in saying Melan is one of the most enlightened RPG-persons around the web.

What I can say is that absolutes are unstable, but "enlightened" is different from middle ground/balanced, although it incorporates elements of everything, the matter of degree and point of including something of everything is hugely different from "middle ground" rhetoric.

And this will the last thing I say on this thread. My stakes in "S&S or not" are so low, I feel a little ashamed that I wasted anybody's time on a subject that is of so low interest to myself. Apologies.

Quote from: Settembrini;463661I was no timplying anything re: your gaming. I think I have a handle on how some people run their stuff, but currently would not feel able to categorize your style from afar.

I sincerely thank you for that courtesy, Sett.  I may have misread the point your were making in that post.

Quote from: Settembrini;463661I feel secure in saying Melan is one of the most enlightened RPG-persons around the web.

On this point we can agree.  I consistently find that Melan's points are very valuable and thought provoking for me.

Quote from: Settembrini;463661What I can say is that absolutes are unstable, but "enlightened" is different from middle ground/balanced, although it incorporates elements of everything, the matter of degree and point of including something of everything is hugely different from "middle ground" rhetoric.

This is an interesting statement.  I realize that you have decided to bow out of this thread, but it is I am interested in what you mean by this - I think I get your point and am inclined to agree if I am reading it right.  Perhaps we can talk about it another time.

Quote from: Settembrini;463661And this will the last thing I say on this thread. My stakes in "S&S or not" are so low, I feel a little ashamed that I wasted anybody's time on a subject that is of so low interest to myself. Apologies.

Understood.  No apologies necessary.  It wasn't a waste of time in my book.


-TGA

Quote from: Settembrini;463525I dunno. I woul dlike to be convinced by the very respected Good Assyrian. But when I read that the conscious lit-emu approach resulted in a City without a name or map, but a lot of consciously inserted themes and morality plays, I wonder if this is what I would like to participate in as a player.
Now Melan, he's got his world named, mapped and everything else. Also, Gygax et al.
But undefined cities and "themes". Sorry dude, I might be misreading you, or suffer from paranoia. But if somebody asked me about the evils lit-emu mindset potentially brings to GMing, I feel inclined to point right here then.

What is fucking wrong with just playing the world you like? I cannot understand this at all it seems. And as the error must lie with me, I stop trying to fight this phenomenon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mDh64INAf8).

The way I see it playing "Swords & Sorcery" in practice meas "setting the campaign in the kind of world that Swords & Sorcery tends to depict." So if you play a campaign set in Nehwon you are going to tend to have more of a Swords & Sorcery game than if you play one set in Krynn.

So if we have two different campaign settings and,

Setting A contains

An alliance between the Good peoples.
Kings ruling with divine right
Benevolent wizardly advisors
A world-wide secret society protecting the innocent from darkness
Magic that nurtures and shields a green and pleasant land
Wise and friendly dragons

and Setting B contains

Whores
Opium Dens
Wizards whose mind and body are deformed by magic
Decadent cities where money is king
Corrupt politicians
Mutants and man-apes

If you are playing in Setting B you probably already have more of a Swords & Sorcery setting and whether you're using D&D or Runequest for your rules is secondary. Obviously the boundaries are not well defined and Middle-Earth has Grima, a corrupt politician just as Hyboria has Epimetrius, a wise wizard. But if you look what is prominent in a setting, or in RPG terms, what the PCs are likely to run into, it's not that hard to get the sense of things. What's in the campaign's "Monster Manual" so to speak has a lot to say about it.

But I do think worlds can contain "themes" in a sense and remain perfectly playable RPGs. If every NPC in a position of political power is a motherfucker then "authority always corrupts" is a theme. If the rightful heir to a throne always has what it takes to rule then "the divine right of kings" is a theme. Even if you have "most" and "usually" instead of "every" and "always" you still have a theme.

It can also work like this - If you think S&S is characterized by "no matter how tough you are death still comes cheap" you can use rules where the best fighter is 3 times as good as the average fighter and being outnumbered causes mad penalties while if you think it is characterized by "skill at arms is paramount" you can use rules where the best fighter is 20 times as good as the average one and being outnumbered by weaker foes is less dangerous than meeting one foe above your skill. Or if you think it is characterized by "if you come at the king you best not miss" you could give a huge edge to the master but use an over the top critical chart because you never know.

Remember that plenty of people throughout history are of the opinion that this world we are in ourselves where we eat fries and watch TV is governed by providence or karma as well so that's a "theme" you arguably have in the real world and I don't think it's equivalent to original sin if you have something going on in the rules that is not purely wargame derived or grounded in physical laws.

Quote from: Settembrini;463661And this will the last thing I say on this thread. My stakes in "S&S or not" are so low, I feel a little ashamed that I wasted anybody's time on a subject that is of so low interest to myself. Apologies.

That's fine. For what it's worth I basically agree with the idea from the other thread that it's about contents as opposed to about form or structure. But I do think you veer wildly into paranoia about "lit-emu" when most players are basically talking about content already.
(In the interest of transparency, I mostly run D&D. I also like Runequest and have had good success with the S&S mode with both.)

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;463651Sounds like some good stuff!  And since my *other* fantasy itch yet to be scratched is Bronze Age fantasy...consider some of these ideas snagged!  :)

How would you describe your ideas on Bronze Age fantasy?  How would they differ from Sword & Sorcery?  I have some thoughts on the matter and would like to hear your point of view.

For one, I think that I would say that it is more about mythic heroism rather than the anti-hero of S&S.  More Gilgamesh than Grey Mouser.  So the heroes would be more likely representing civilization pushing out against the darkness of the unknown rather than pursuing mercenary interests.

-TGA

I am not sure how much of a difference there is; I think the Bronze Age stuff can be a subset of S&S.  BuT I certainly agree that it is more mythic, though so far at the lower levels, the difficulty attaining wealth has surprised some of the players.  
There is a difference in that I enjoy having priests of the various cults as PCs, as well as scholars using magical theorems.  But the themes of vast lands, ancient civilizations, strange beliefs, wierd rituals, and the opinioon that the gods have a hand in everything are pretty well in the space shared of a Venn Diagram...

Quote from: LordVreeg;463809I am not sure how much of a difference there is; I think the Bronze Age stuff can be a subset of S&S.  BuT I certainly agree that it is more mythic, though so far at the lower levels, the difficulty attaining wealth has surprised some of the players.  
There is a difference in that I enjoy having priests of the various cults as PCs, as well as scholars using magical theorems.  But the themes of vast lands, ancient civilizations, strange beliefs, wierd rituals, and the opinioon that the gods have a hand in everything are pretty well in the space shared of a Venn Diagram...

I agree with you on the idea of Bronze Age fantasy as a subset of S&S and sharing some similarities.  I was so excited by the prospect of discussing Bronze Age fantasy that I started a separate thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=20281) just to discuss it!  I noticed that there was a link already posted to a Bronze Age fantasy game of yours.  I have already taken a look at it for inspiration.  Great stuff!

I think where it would naturally diverge from the iconic S&S of Howard and Leiber is the issues of the prominence of magic (and PC magic users), divine magic, and the PCs' relationship to authority and society.  There is plenty of overlap on that Venn Diagram though - degenerate cultists who worship Serpent Men would totally sweet in both contexts for example!


-TGA

Quote from: Cole;463719The way I see it playing "Swords & Sorcery" in practice meas "setting the campaign in the kind of world that Swords & Sorcery tends to depict." So if you play a campaign set in Nehwon you are going to tend to have more of a Swords & Sorcery game than if you play one set in Krynn.

Thank you for saying so succinctly the message I was trying to convey!

Quote from: Cole;463719But I do think worlds can contain "themes" in a sense and remain perfectly playable RPGs. If every NPC in a position of political power is a motherfucker then "authority always corrupts" is a theme. If the rightful heir to a throne always has what it takes to rule then "the divine right of kings" is a theme. Even if you have "most" and "usually" instead of "every" and "always" you still have a theme.

I agree with this.  I also would say that the idea of "theme" can be abused and become repetitive and boring if it is used as cudgel by the GM to make some point.  After all it is a game and should be fun.  I think that is where the player buy in is so important.  I happened to have players who grooved on the darker themes of S&S like I did, so that to them was part of the fun.  We shared similar expectations of what the game was going to likely be like.  The fact that there only 3 players helped with that, and also coincidentally helped with the more personal S&S feel to the game.

I have other friends who almost certainly not have enjoyed these elements as much, so they didn't play.  I would play something else with them that we could all agree was to our shared tastes.  I also don't think that "Sword & Sorcery all the time" is what I am shooting for either, even though it is clearly my preferred mode for fantasy roleplaying.  I am flexible enough to enjoy other kinds of games, as well.

Quote from: Cole;463719It can also work like this - If you think S&S is characterized by "no matter how tough you are death still comes cheap" you can use rules where the best fighter is 3 times as good as the average fighter and being outnumbered causes mad penalties while if you think it is characterized by "skill at arms is paramount" you can use rules where the best fighter is 20 times as good as the average one and being outnumbered by weaker foes is less dangerous than meeting one foe above your skill. Or if you think it is characterized by "if you come at the king you best not miss" you could give a huge edge to the master but use an over the top critical chart because you never know.

I would say that system doesn't matter nearly as much as content.  I happily used OD&D because it was comfortable and stripped down for fast resolution.  It fit our needs. Now, that doesn't mean that I think that all system are created equally.  I think some mechanics set a tone that are more appropriate for some feels than others.  In your example, you get a much different relationship with combat with OD&D and, say GURPS.  I have used both extensively in my gaming, and for different reasons and for different effects.

Quote from: Cole;463719That's fine. For what it's worth I basically agree with the idea from the other thread that it's about contents as opposed to about form or structure. But I do think you veer wildly into paranoia about "lit-emu" when most players are basically talking about content already.
(In the interest of transparency, I mostly run D&D. I also like Runequest and have had good success with the S&S mode with both.)

I think that we are on the same page on this.  I am interested in game content and think that too much talk about system emulation all too often tends to dissolve into unproductive territory.

-TGA

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;463524So Pundit, from what I have read it doesn't seem that your current campaign is directly inspired by Sword and Sorcery fiction, but how does ol' Elminster fit in to your game, if at all?

One of the coolest parts in my opinion of the discussion of toning down the high fantasy elements of the Realms was the cool stuff you can do with the Big El if he doesn't have to fit the Greenwood mold of Gandalf clone.


-TGA

Elminster hasn't appeared in the campaign as of yet.  He has been mentioned, once; one of the characters (a mage) has heard rumours that Elminster might be the current Archmage, the one magic-user chosen of Mystra to be her champion in the world, but this is only rumoured as the identity of the Archmage is kept secret.  Elminster is not particularly famous, being known only to be a wizard of some ability that lives somewhere in the dalelands.

OOC, I'm not going to reveal the truth in this post because some of my players could be reading, but basically Elminster could be anything from a 1st-20th level magic user (or maybe not, maybe he's a mountebank, or just a sage with no spell abilities at all), and he may or may not be the Archmage; his name might in fact be a deliberate red herring thrown out there to spread misinformation.

In fact, I don't particularly expect Elminster to be very important in any particular way in my campaign, at least not for a very long time; the PCs have no particular connection to him, and they are not in the dales nor seem to have any plans to be anytime soon.  In the city they're in, the most powerful magic-user known to live there is a 13th level mage that is not particularly famous for anything (outside of being a half-demon and the head of Tantras' very tiny mages' college).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;463921Elminster hasn't appeared in the campaign as of yet.  He has been mentioned, once; one of the characters (a mage) has heard rumours that Elminster might be the current Archmage, the one magic-user chosen of Mystra to be her champion in the world, but this is only rumoured as the identity of the Archmage is kept secret.  Elminster is not particularly famous, being known only to be a wizard of some ability that lives somewhere in the dalelands.

OOC, I'm not going to reveal the truth in this post because some of my players could be reading, but basically Elminster could be anything from a 1st-20th level magic user (or maybe not, maybe he's a mountebank, or just a sage with no spell abilities at all), and he may or may not be the Archmage; his name might in fact be a deliberate red herring thrown out there to spread misinformation.

In fact, I don't particularly expect Elminster to be very important in any particular way in my campaign, at least not for a very long time; the PCs have no particular connection to him, and they are not in the dales nor seem to have any plans to be anytime soon.  In the city they're in, the most powerful magic-user known to live there is a 13th level mage that is not particularly famous for anything (outside of being a half-demon and the head of Tantras' very tiny mages' college).

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Thanks for the info on your take on Elminister.  Sounds like a fun game!


-TGA

Here is how I personally defined swords & sorcery for my own Auran Empire campaign setting.

Aesthetic: Adventurers seek fame, power, and loot. Nobles live in luxury while slaves toil in misery. Human cities teem with vice and villainy. Virgins are sacrificed to chthonic cults. The characters may be scavengers and vagabonds feasting off civilization's corpse, or they may choose to be heroes fighting to do what good they can, but they are never "chosen ones" called to quest. Good is not certain to win, and indeed the odds are stacked against it

Era: The era is historically akin to the age of Late Antiquity just before the Roman Empire slipped into the Dark Ages. Opulent long-standing empires are shattering in a tidal wave of violence. Exotic realms inspired by Indo-Persian, Arabic, and African cultures offer a wide palate of adventure. It is not the Middle Ages and the tropes of the Middle Ages (knights in shining armor, chivalric orders, and so on) are not strongly present.

Pagan Religion: The gods did not create the world, nor are they omnipotent or omniscient; and they fight each other to control the world, not to redeem it.  As such, religion is a powerful force, but does not dominate society the way it did in the Middle Ages.

Alignment: The setting assumes a perpetual struggle between Law and Chaos, but not in a sense of "good" and "evil". Law represents humanity and its works; Chaos represents inhumanity and its alien works. To have an alignment is to have chosen a side in this perpetual struggle. Most people, choosing no side, are Neutral, although most Neutral humans enjoy the protection of Law. (To paraphrase George Orwell, Neutral humans sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because Lawful heroes stand ready to do violence on their behalf.)  Human vices, such as greed, lust, and vanity, are widespread and common; the true enemies are characterized by inhuman vices, insanity, wanton destruction, cannibalism, necrophilia, and so on. Evil is all-too-human, but chaotic is something both less and more than human.

Heroic Morality, Not Modern Morality: "With great valor comes great reward." Like Achilles and Beowulf, and unlike Spider-Man, heroes seek out fame and fortune. A beautiful wife, chests of gold, magnificent weapons, and grants of land are considered by all to be the rightful rewards for great deeds of valor. Wealth is a positive value, a symbolic measure of a man's worth.

There Is No Destiny: Fate is adrift, and the outcomes of the world depend on the will of men and the whims of chance. Gods and heroes can seek to influence the outcome but there is no assurance of a happy ending. In game terms, PCs can and do die.

Weird Science: Ancient civilizations from long-forgotten eras had advanced in scientific knowledge beyond what is known to the setting. Ray-guns, death rays, floating packs, grenades, and laser-swords can be found in rare and out of the way places.

Monsters were Mostly Created: While some creatures, such as dragons and unicorns, are natural to the world, most monsters, including giant vermin, undead, all aberrations, and all evil and monstrous humanoids, were created, by mad wizards and evil priests, as slaves, pets, and soldiers. As such they are innately unnatural and should be destroyed. PCs need have no moral qualms about killing orcs, undead, and so on.

Thanks for the bump, this was a good read.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;464285Thanks for the info on your take on Elminister.  Sounds like a fun game!


-TGA

Thank you! And for the record, he never did show up in the campaign.  Not a single "important" Realms NPC did.  You don't need them.

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