So which one was it, out of all the ones they made? Which was the worst piece of shit in the bunch?
Blackmoor?
Gygax-era Greyhawk?
Tekumel?
Mystara?
Kara-tur?
Dragonlance?
Forgotten Realms?
Ravenloft?
2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk?
Al-qadim?
Hollow World?
Dark Sun?
Spelljammer?
Planescape?
Birthright?
I'm sure there's a few I'm missing in that list. Say which one you thought was a total waste of paper that the designers should be shot for having written.
RPGPundit
Kara-Tur always struck me as unpardonably boring. Asian fantasy has tons of potential, but the setting felt like it was written by folks who had only seen a handful of ninja movies. No depth there at all.
Quote from: RPGPundit;524197So which one was it, out of all the ones they made? Which was the worst piece of shit in the bunch?
Blackmoor?
Gygax-era Greyhawk?
Tekumel?
Mystara?
Kara-tur?
Dragonlance?
Forgotten Realms?
Ravenloft?
2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk?
Al-qadim?
Hollow World?
Dark Sun?
Spelljammer?
Planescape?
Birthright?
I'm sure there's a few I'm missing in that list. Say which one you thought was a total waste of paper that the designers should be shot for having written.
RPGPundit
Most of the settings i played extensively, i enjoyed. I played plenty of Ravenloft, Planescape, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Mystara, and Birthright. The one that never thrilled me was Kara-Tur for some reason. Masque of the Red Death, which was a cool idea IMO, wasn't executed as well as it could have been (particularly the supplements--a bit on the dry side). So even though there are aspects of it i enjoyed, and i even ran a few good campaigns using it, i think the books themselves were weaker than they could have been. I liked Al Qadim, but didn't play it as much as the others (just hard to get players on board-which may say something about the setting). Also Spelljammer was kind of cool, but i had something of a love-hate relationship with it. We had great spelljammer campaigns, but it was always the one i was least excited to begin.
Quote from: misterguignol;524198Kara-Tur always struck me as unpardonably boring. Asian fantasy has tons of potential, but the setting felt like it was written by folks who had only seen a handful of ninja movies. No depth there at all.
The modules were not very impressive either as I recall.
I think i could happily run a game in any of them tbh. More options = good.
TSR's settings were mostly guilty of being horribly boring rather than outright bad. Even their attempts at darker fantasy, like Greyhawk in From the Ashes and Birthright felt flat. One time, I thought Birthright was the worst of the bunch because that was where I gave up on official 2e products, but it was just the last straw.
All right, let me choose one: Dark Sun 2nd edition. It took the best setting TSR staff created and ruined it with a series of changes that destroyed the ideas that made it such a success in the first place.
Maybe not a total waste of paper, but in terms of usability, the 3E/3.5E Forgotten Realms was absolutely horrible with groups of players that were FR "canon lawyers".
Maztica was pretty piss poor from what i remember.
The 3/3.5e Forgotten realms books were awesome for world info but yeah they sucked ruleswise.
Quote from: Melan;524206TSR's settings were mostly guilty of being horribly boring rather than outright bad. Even their attempts at darker fantasy, like Greyhawk in From the Ashes and Birthright felt flat. One time, I thought Birthright was the worst of the bunch because that was where I gave up on official 2e products, but it was just the last straw.
All right, let me choose one: Dark Sun 2nd edition. It took the best setting TSR staff created and ruined it with a series of changes that destroyed the ideas that made it such a success in the first place.
I never understand this opinion. To me Birthright is a fantastic setting that takes the near gonzo-ness of the default D&D setting (expressed through it's rules and monster books) and gives it reason and purpose. It added a cool dimension to the game through the mass combat rules and blood rules, and contains LOADS of potential for adventure and gaming, from the level of local/commoner style all the way up to rulers/world-changing style. As always, I'm not knocking your opinion, and you're, of course, entitled to it. Just don't understand it :(
I was never a fan of Dragonlance as a setting. The novels just made it too meta-plotish. It's the same reason I don't like gaming in Star Wars or LotR most of the time. However, I'm not sure I would label it the way Pundit is asking.
I wouldn't really paint any of TSR's setting with that brush personally. I do agree that they can be mildly bland, but I've never minded that, and IMO the blandness can actually potentially make them more useful as RPG products because then the GM and players can bring their own awesome, like my groups did with Birthright, Dark Sun (the least bland, hand down) and Greyhawk.
Quote from: ggroy;524208Maybe not a total waste of paper, but in terms of usability, the 3E/3.5E Forgotten Realms was absolutely horrible with groups of players that were FR "canon lawyers".
Yeah, it might have been the canon lawyer I played with, but I ended up having a really bad gut reaction to any mention of Forgotten Realms. Anytime I come across a major city with super perfect magical defense mechanisms, I also wonder how the heck they convinced any magic-users(or even a group of them) to spend the XP to make those things. Some of the things I'd imagine would take even a group of epic-level wizards back to level 1. It's just unreal, and doesn't gel with the 3e magic item creation rules at all.
Sigmund: I see it as a case of great concept, shoddy execution. They had something going, but the writing in the books is so bland, the initially interesting ideas so neutered it felt like a colossal disappointment. (From what I've read, TSR's self-censorship considerably toned down the setting from the original submission.)
I don't deny there is a good deal of subjectivity involved in my perspective. Birthright was really the last in a series of TSR products that disappointed me and made me quit gaming. There were worse offenders, BR just happened to be the last.
SpellJammer is kind of neat (I have the original boxed set) but in some ways it strikes me as a missed opportunity. The art is made of suck and they really should have avoided using the typical fantasy races. The latter point could probably be argued for dark sun as well, but the re-imagining of the races helps alleviate the samey-samey problem (except maybe in the case of elves, who should just have been jettisoned from DS, imo). Furthermore, the presentation of DS could have been better, much better. it's still really cool. Aside from Darlele's early GH map, that's all the experience I have with TSR settings.
Quote from: Melan;524206All right, let me choose one: Dark Sun 2nd edition. It took the best setting TSR staff created and ruined it with a series of changes that destroyed the ideas that made it such a success in the first place.
I was going to say Kara-Tur, but I think you're right: Not only did it destroy the setting, but it pushed the idea that the novels were more important than the game.
Dragonlance. All of the others, I can see how to remove or play down the bad bits and get to the good ideas at their core. Dragonlance, on the other hand, has so many annoying comic relief elements and bad plot choices baked right into it's design that it would be more effort to ignore or rewrite them than it would be to start with a blank slate. Even Dark Sun makes it easier for you to ignore all the metaplot stuff if it's not to your taste.
Dragonlance should have been awesome. Instead, TSR saddled it with all kinds of odd rules and made it suck.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;524239I was going to say Kara-Tur, but I think you're right: Not only did it destroy the setting, but it pushed the idea that the novels were more important than the game.
I was going to say Dragonlance, but have to agree there. I'll add my vote to Dark Sun 2nd edition.
Quote from: (un)reason;524241Dragonlance. All of the others, I can see how to remove or play down the bad bits and get to the good ideas at their core. Dragonlance, on the other hand, has so many annoying comic relief elements and bad plot choices baked right into it's design that it would be more effort to ignore or rewrite them than it would be to start with a blank slate. Even Dark Sun makes it easier for you to ignore all the metaplot stuff if it's not to your taste.
I almost said Forgotten Realms for being a bunch of boring metaplot wankery, but then you mentioned this and I remember Kender.
Kender suck. Everything about Kender suck. And their players are all uniformly some of the most annoying fucking people in the world, and seem to insist on basically playing a Kender wherever they go, no matter the game. I'm convinced that Changeling: the Dreaming exists as a game so that White Wolf at the time could attract Kender players, because every fucking CtD fan I've ever met is also a Kender fan.
Dragonlance gets worst prize solely for Kender alone.
Quote from: J Arcane;524245Kender suck.
Yes. And I believe it comes from being faithful to the novels.
Quote from: misterguignol;524198Kara-Tur always struck me as unpardonably boring. Asian fantasy has tons of potential, but the setting felt like it was written by folks who had only seen a handful of ninja movies. No depth there at all.
I'd have to agree with this.
My favorite Settings:Blackmoor, Gygax-era GreyhawkBoth are significant to me because of their historic value. Both were cutting edge in their day and I love the original FFC (Blackmoor) and Folio (Greyhawk) products. This was the era when they provided a skeletal frame for a setting and an imaginative GM filled in the rest.
Decent Settings: Tekumel, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Dark SunAll of these were clever in titheir own way. Tekumel was very in-depth and a neat blend of scifi and fantasy. Dragonlance brought back dragons and tried to bring in a romantic literature feel. (Girls liked it, and I have always had several girls in my gaming group.) The original Ravenloft modules were edgy and fresh, although the full setting got boring in a hurry. Dark Sun had an empahasis on psionics, broke the stereotype for elves/dwarves/hobbits, and had some really cool artwork.
Not very useful settings: Mystara, Forgotten Realms, 2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk, Al-qadim, Spelljammer, BirthrightMystara and Forgotten Realms tried to fill in too many details and crushed the creativity of the GM. From the Ashes took a great world and crapped on it. Al-qadim was a different setting but not different enough to be worthwhile. Spelljammer and Birthright were cool concepts but never developed enough to be worthwhile.
Terrible settings: Kara-tur, Hollow World, PlanescapeKara-tur was a poor look at oriental culture. Hollow World just didn't do it for me. Planescape had dumb monsters although the basic concept was decent enough.
Of that list? Hrms. Hard to decide between Forgotten Realms, Kara-Tur and Dragonlance.
I played enough FR to give it a fair go, and it had honestly neat elements, ruined by both their approach to it, and their handling of it via metaplots.
Now good? Dark Sun 1E, Planescape, Birthright, and Mystara. Could have been better yes, but good overall. Especially for giving the Gm's a place to start.
Greyhawk varies, I know it gets a lot of love, but it never clicked for me.
Al-Qadim was awesome. Period.
There was also a mini-setting which had some neat ideas but didn't pan out: Jakandor. Two peoples (humans) different beliefs vying for control of an island. One magical necromancers with a Oriental/Aztec "feel", the other Barbarians blown in by their Goddess with a Viking/Celt "feel" (yet both were there own thing.)
No fantasy races, just those two. They had very differing beliefs and approaches to living. One remnants of a dead empire, the other barbarians trying to struggle up to civilization from barbarism. One felt magic was "cheating" and the other used it for nigh everything that bound their civilization--and tampering with magic brought about a disease that began wiping them out. One the Barbarians were immune to...
Fun little place for conflict. But not "D&D" tropes, not really. IT should have been for any other game system. Albeit it allowed occasional dungeon crawls it lacked nearly all of the monsters, and reasons to "adventure" that D&D expected. Something other settings managed to keep in part.
Dragonlance is the loser. Not because it was the herald of a stylistic change (although it does bear that sin), but because it bears a greater sin by far: there's almost nothing worth stealing from it, because it's 99.5% hackneyed high fantasy tropes. Which, in fairness, is what made it good at its job at the time.
But other than "these guys explode and shit when they die" and "goddamn empire of faux-Roman minotaurs", there's nothing in there at all worth even looking at.
Despite not playing the rules I bought into several of those lines to mine for ideas... Kara Tur, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape... they all had stuff I could make some use of... but the one Dragonlance book I bought was a barren husk of useless twaddle.
Quote from: Nicephorus;524251Yes. And I believe it comes from being faithful to the novels.
Yeah. The point where Tasslehoff stopped being an interesting character and started becoming the ur-template for the entire kender species was unfortunate.
It's as if every single drow in existence was Drizz't Do'urden.
I love Oriental Adventures, but the modules never drew me in at all. Al Qadim looked promising as well, but everyone else was just meh about it. And I had no interest in planescape at all. My favorite was Gygax's Greyhawk, followed by Forgotten Realms.
Quote from: danbuter;524242Dragonlance should have been awesome. Instead, TSR saddled it with all kinds of odd rules and made it suck.
I never could figure out that if steel was the main currency and worth a ton, then what were all the weapons and armor made of? They couldn't be steel, otherwise people would loot a battlefield and retire like a king. The currency system was all kinds of fucked up because of that.
I'll second Maztica as being the worst setting, although it was part of Toril.
I'm going to be unfair here, but I'm feeling ornery.
In all but one of these settings, if a module's author or a DM wants to describe a noble warrior with a sword walking beneath the trees, he'll say something along the lines of "There's a noble warrior with a sword walking under the trees." In the wider context of fantasy, Tolkien might also give us four paragraphs on what type of tree it was, what colour its leaves were and the patterns and materials that make up the decoration on the sword's hilt, but the words "noble", "warrior", "sword" and "tree" would still be featured somewhere in there.
There's one setting on this list, one, where none of these words would actually appear. Instead, you'd have a Salayáni Tschótamba with a Srak-srí walking under the Pschi-Tsáyin. Guess which one it is.
I'm not saying it's the worst, it certainly isn't. It's absolutely brilliant. But at the same time, as far as I'm concerned, it is the closest to being unplayable, in the highly literal sense of "you're actually unable to play it".
I'm underwhelmed by most of the TSR settings. Some neat ideas and concepts, but often poorly executed, IMO.
I always hear, "2e had great settings," and scratch my head in puzzlement, because I sure don't see it. But some of those stinkers started in the late 1e period (e.g. Dragonlance).
I didn't think Dark Sun was that bad (cool concept), although I thought it would've been better if they'd divorced it from the standard races rather than trying to incorporate reinvented versions, which seemed gimmicky and forced. (I'm not sure what version of Dark Sun I read; I think it was the first one.)
I guess my pick would be Dragonlance; I can't abide it. I also think that after the "Known World" turned into Mystara and went into super-silly mode it started sucking really bad, too (which extends to Hollow World, I suppose -- another cool idea with bad execution).
Spelljammer imo, though Dark Sun and Red Steel were pretty bad as well.
I loved Ravenloft, Birthright, Planescape and Spelljammer and got a ton of play out of Forgotten Realms. Really liked Dark Sun, at least at first...
Dragonlance is the one setting that I have never been able to get to. In fact, the only time I have EVER liked it is during its reviled "Fifth Age" when they released it with the SAGA system, wiping out most of the major NPC players and making dragons absolutely TERRIFYING (and not because of Fear effects, but because They. Will. Kill. You.)...
I would play and/or run Fifth Age all day long, but the original Dragonlance has never done a thing for me (I already had my "basic" fantasy covered by Forgotten Realms at the time).
I don't really think any of TSR's products are actually bad. Some of them are simply mediocre rather than good. I resisted mentioning settings I thought were actually bad in another thread. After all, there is such a vast amount that has been published by so many publishers that it easier to just focus on what one finds is good.
Even so, I will mention the Star Frontiers default world, The Frontier Sector. It's not for D&D, but it was one of TSR's. It is completely superficial. I think the historical setting campaign guides in the HR series were awful treatments too.
There a few I just found disappointing, but I wouldn't actually call them bad, like From the Ashes, Blackmoor in the DA modules and Hyboria in the Conan modules.
Dragonlance.
Made some well-sold novels, but as a campaign setting it is a great example of why a storytelling approach does not work well for a role-playing game. Gully dwarves and kender are not only annoying at the game table, they are stupid plot complications best used in a story. Sure you could play as one of the Heroes of the Lance, but that is like saying that any character a Player makes is substandard compared to the GMPCs of Weis and Hickman.
Dragonlance, hands down. Biggest piece of shit was never written. It fails at every possible thing you can fail.
Picking a worst from the late era TSR settings is tough, they all sucked in some way or another.
Dark Sun-I really liked the idea, hated the execution.
SpellJammer- Again loved the idea, but anything that puts Tinker Gnomes in space deserves a special punishment. (and militaristic lawful elves wtf)
Ravenloft- Great module, but they couldn't leave well enough alone.
Planescape- The Outer Planes should be places of awe and terror, breathtaking in their literal other-worldliness. Planescape turned them into just another place to go with a stupid vocabulary to boot.
But the winner of suck started before 2e-
Dragonlance- Gully Dwarves, Kender, and Tinker Gnomes, every single one is a candidate for most annoying race of all time and their all packed into one setting. There are plenty of other bad things about Dragonlance but even if they didn't exist it would win based on that tri-fecta of crap alone.
Quote from: RPGPundit;524197So which one was it, out of all the ones they made? Which was the worst piece of shit in the bunch?
Blackmoor?
Gygax-era Greyhawk?
Tekumel?
Mystara?
Kara-tur?
Dragonlance?
Forgotten Realms?
Ravenloft?
2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk?
Al-qadim?
Hollow World?
Dark Sun?
Spelljammer?
Planescape?
Birthright?
I'm sure there's a few I'm missing in that list. Say which one you thought was a total waste of paper that the designers should be shot for having written.
RPGPundit
Forgot to put Forgotten Realms on your list. Al-Qadim and Kara-tur both had better material and weren't just another take on Greyhawk.
Cuz that's the worst piece of shit, in all editions. And the runner up is Birthright.
I gotta go with Dragonlance. Because, as has been noted, you can't even pick anything good out of it.
Dragonlance after they blew it up and rewrote it removing the gods.
Because the only thing worse than a setting built entirely around a bunch of NPCs and their iconic story is a setting that's made out of what's left when you take those things out.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;524348I always hear, "2e had great settings," and scratch my head in puzzlement, because I sure don't see it.
I think it might be fairer to say that 2e had great
ideas for settings, but they were regularly brought low by the fact that they tried to turn them into actual products under the design paradigm of 2e (story-orientation, self-censorship, etc.).
Quote from: Melan;524221Sigmund: I see it as a case of great concept, shoddy execution. They had something going, but the writing in the books is so bland, the initially interesting ideas so neutered it felt like a colossal disappointment. (From what I've read, TSR's self-censorship considerably toned down the setting from the original submission.)
I don't deny there is a good deal of subjectivity involved in my perspective. Birthright was really the last in a series of TSR products that disappointed me and made me quit gaming. There were worse offenders, BR just happened to be the last.
I get ya I suppose. The concepts appeal to me so much, the toned-down writing has never bothered me, since as i said, our group always brought the sparkle anyway. But I suppose I do see what you're talking about.
Quote from: Premier;524345I'm going to be unfair here, but I'm feeling ornery.
In all but one of these settings, if a module's author or a DM wants to describe a noble warrior with a sword walking beneath the trees, he'll say something along the lines of "There's a noble warrior with a sword walking under the trees." In the wider context of fantasy, Tolkien might also give us four paragraphs on what type of tree it was, what colour its leaves were and the patterns and materials that make up the decoration on the sword's hilt, but the words "noble", "warrior", "sword" and "tree" would still be featured somewhere in there.
There's one setting on this list, one, where none of these words would actually appear. Instead, you'd have a Salayáni Tschótamba with a Srak-srí walking under the Pschi-Tsáyin. Guess which one it is.
I'm not saying it's the worst, it certainly isn't. It's absolutely brilliant. But at the same time, as far as I'm concerned, it is the closest to being unplayable, in the highly literal sense of "you're actually unable to play it".
Yeah. I can see that being a problem with the presentation. Fortunately, it's not really necessary to understand the bulk of it. The Professor surely was enthusiastic about the languages, but that's not going to stop a sensible GM from having a warrior in the trees, even if he is more properly a gurek in the gapul-trees. The world may appeal to those most easily tempted to bust out the moonspeak, but there's no real reason not to think about it in plain English most of the time.
Quote from: Xanador;524385Dark Sun-I really liked the idea, hated the execution.
Setting aside the question of rules and stuff, the 4e presentation of the non-mechanical aspects of the setting is far better than that of the original release. FWiW the 4e version was put together by Rich Baker, who also wrote some great stuff for the original version e.g.,
The Valley of Dust and Fire.
Were I to run it today, I'd use the 4e fluff, B/X and house rule in some simple PC psionics. The 2e monster books are pretty cool.
Quote from: Premier;524345In all but one of these settings, if a module's author or a DM wants to describe a noble warrior with a sword walking beneath the trees, he'll say something along the lines of "There's a noble warrior with a sword walking under the trees." In the wider context of fantasy, Tolkien might also give us four paragraphs on what type of tree it was, what colour its leaves were and the patterns and materials that make up the decoration on the sword's hilt, but the words "noble", "warrior", "sword" and "tree" would still be featured somewhere in there.
There's one setting on this list, one, where none of these words would actually appear. Instead, you'd have a Salayáni Tschótamba with a Srak-srí walking under the Pschi-Tsáyin. Guess which one it is.
Hyél"ű Na'ayanár Mítá'rgyayiál Chiték'küüss-shéker*
________________
* "Glorious Hero of the Distinguished Straw Clan", a term which should be familiar to even the most lowly savant of the Mu'ugalavyá period.
Lá, so it is recounted.
I'm calling out the three of you so far going on about Tekumel's languages. The examples you gave are all pulled from your rich loamy imaginations. Swords and pretty much all weapons, nobles and other social classes, trees, etc. - they're all referred to in English. It's not like Harn where magicians are Shek-Pvar or whatever. In Tekumel, there is zero reskinning of ordinary things with exotic names. The non-English names are all proper nouns with no English equivalents.
Quote from: Melan;524468Hyél"ű Na'ayanár Mítá'rgyayiál Chiték'küüss-shéker
"People called Romanes they go the house"?
Quote from: ggroy;524208Maybe not a total waste of paper, but in terms of usability, the 3E/3.5E Forgotten Realms was absolutely horrible with groups of players that were FR "canon lawyers".
Note that the title says TSR settings.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Premier;524476"People called Romanes they go the house"?
Not exactly,
pazhú tusűm nyéü'gguál*.
______________
* "Accomplice who should be writing the campaign journal".
Quote from: JRR;524352Spelljammer imo, though Dark Sun and Red Steel were pretty bad as well.
Red Steel would have been fucking awesome, were it not for the red steel.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Blackhand;524400Forgot to put Forgotten Realms on your list.
Um, no. Its right there on the list, right after "dragonlance"; I did forget to put Taladas and Maztica, and Red Steel, though.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Premier;524476"People called Romanes they go the house"?
You win, sir.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Premier;524345In all but one of these settings, if a module's author or a DM wants to describe a noble warrior with a sword walking beneath the trees, he'll say something along the lines of "There's a noble warrior with a sword walking under the trees." In the wider context of fantasy, Tolkien might also give us four paragraphs on what type of tree it was, what colour its leaves were and the patterns and materials that make up the decoration on the sword's hilt, but the words "noble", "warrior", "sword" and "tree" would still be featured somewhere in there.
There's one setting on this list, one, where none of these words would actually appear. Instead, you'd have a Salayáni Tschótamba with a Srak-srí walking under the Pschi-Tsáyin. Guess which one it is.
Dude. Jorune is not on the list. It wasn't even published by TSR.
:D
Seriously, what's with Tékumel and the language canard. I own the books and I don't see this "ZOMG must know the language top play/run" anymore than you have to speak Japanese to run Sengoku, or Klingon to run Star Trek.
Quote from: Premier;524433I think it might be fairer to say that 2e had great ideas for settings, but they were regularly brought low by the fact that they tried to turn them into actual products under the design paradigm of 2e (story-orientation, self-censorship, etc.).
This is right, though. Lots of good ideas, bad execution, mostly owing to transmedia IP building (read: must sell novels) and Pat Pulling-compliant PG-rated presentation.
I actually like The Known World/Mystara (which started life as a bunch of B and X series adventure backdrops sewn together as a setting, and benefited from very little IP building or metaplot up until Wrath of the Immortals), Dark Sun (as presented in the original boxed set and initial supplements; fuck the Prism Pentad novels and metaplot), Birthright (a far better attempt at "high fantasy D&D" than heavy-handed, novel-centric, dracophiliac, kender-ridden Dragonlance) and Planescape ("let's take the crazy D&D cosmology created by a probably drug-addled Gygax in the 70s, and run with it"; a better gonzo setting than Spelljammer, too).
Even Dragonlance has a couple of good ideas in it, though (Taladas!). Forgotten Realms, like Dark Sun, is a much better setting if you stick to the gray box and the first few supplements. Greyhawk is one I can't claim a lot of familiarity with. Spelljammer has fantasy spaceships, which is pretty cool and all, but I could never wrap my head around what is it that PCs actually do.
Tékumel is on a league of its own,
hors concours really.
Quote from: The Butcher;524592...and Pat Pulling-compliant PG-rated presentation.
Overdone for sure, and that took away from the original game.
What about players, profanity, and cursing? Not because their characters are in any kind of distress, but because they think it's cool to be able to cuss and curse in-game?
Same for music these days. It's like the music must have explicit lyrics, or it won't make it onto the billboard charts.
Is it really relevant to the story? Is it even relevant for the gameplay?
As a GM, when is a good time to rule enough-is-enough, let's get on with the game-at-hand, instead of the meta-game one (or more) of the players at the table decided to create?
huh...so Amazing Engine settings (yes there were a couple gems in there) and Gammarauders are right out then.
I've always been underwhelmed by the 2e era TSR city boxed sets with their lovely maps. It's just the pretty little picture buildings don't really give a sense of a cramped and dirty medieval city I guess. I don't know, I wanted to like them and didn't.
More broadly the later, post Gygax, Greyhawk stuff always seemed to be trying to hammer a metaplot onto a sandbox. I don't mind a setting with a built in history and a flow but I hate it when a setting is tied to events in a series of novels that leave the PCs as second banana bit players.
But no, I never liked Dark Sun or the Forgotten Realms. Mystria always felt forced, contrived, and childish. I think there were good ideas here and there but the forced, laugh track, humor just undermined them.
Spelljammer made my head hurt. It's a personal thing, but the setting just looked too cheesy to enjoy. A friend of mine ran it for awhile and when he talked about the game it never really made me want to jump in and play. I mostly just thought that I'd rather play Traveler. Also elves and dwarves in space? Meh. That's probably the reason that I never got swept up in the Warhammer 40K frenzy along with my friends.
Of all the settings offered Al-Qadim was my favorite. Though I did have a friend who ran Blackmoor and it was a blast. I'm not sure if its because the setting was great or he was just a good GM.
Quote from: The Butcher;524592Seriously, what's with Tékumel and the language canard. I own the books and I don't see this "ZOMG must know the language top play/run" anymore than you have to speak Japanese to run Sengoku, or Klingon to run Star Trek.
I even broke out my copy of EPT yesterday evening just to double-check. It is still one of the most clearly written RPG books out there. All that experience writing textbooks must have helped; the prose is crystal-clear with an undercurrent of dark humour, and the weird stuff is explained very carefully not to overwhelm the reader.
Quote from: David Johansen;524597More broadly the later, post Gygax, Greyhawk stuff always seemed to be trying to hammer a metaplot onto a sandbox. I don't mind a setting with a built in history and a flow but I hate it when a setting is tied to events in a series of novels that leave the PCs as second banana bit players.
I don't know that there was really a metaplot as intended. It's just that they kept reinventing the setting and consequently moving the setting forward.
I actually really like the Carl Sargent After the Ashes stuff. It just sits poorly with the original Gygax Greyhawk atmosphere. What I would do if I wanted to run it now, is kick away the original Greyhawk, by changing all the names and removing the Gygaxianisms (and draw a new map too, but along similiar lines) to make a more coherent dark high fantasy setting that doesn't clash with the more sword and sorcery tone of Gygax's earlier setting. (And probably use it with a group not familiar with Gygax's Greyhawk)
Eberron.
The problem is that Spell Jammer is a Tunnels and Trolls setting.
The absolute worst T$R setting ever published is whichever one you like. The more you enjoyed that setting, the worse it actually is. Now go stand in the corner of shame.
Quote from: Spinachcat;524689The absolute worst T$R setting ever published is whichever one you like. The more you enjoyed that setting, the worse it actually is. Now go stand in the corner of shame.
The one you are occupying? Or is there another one?
All I have to say is Dragonlance is my all time favorite setting but that is directly attributable to the fact that it interesting and central organizations like the Solommic Knights and the Moons governing magic not the metaplot. It was the only setting where Dnd magic users make sense and trashes the generalist concept as it deserves.
Quote from: Marleycat;524692All I have to say is Dragonlance is my all time favorite setting but that is directly attributable to the fact that it interesting and central organizations like the Solommic Knights and the Moons governing magic not the metaplot. It was the only setting where Dnd magic users make sense and trashes the generalist concept as it deserves.
I did like the order of wizards aspect of the setting.
For the sake of fairness, I must mention that I have played in a few Dragonlance-based adventures which were perfectly all right. The secret: no metaplot, no kenders, and a slightly Vance-inspired tone (I know, completely antithetical, but that's just how it was - the GM liked Dragonlance and he liked the Dying Earth, so he decided these two great tastes will taste even better when mixed together). With that, it all worked fine, and the various DL-specific ideas added something to an otherwise normal AD&D mini-campaign.
Quote from: Melan;524710For the sake of fairness, I must mention that I have played in a few Dragonlance-based adventures which were perfectly all right. The secret: no metaplot, no kenders, and a slightly Vance-inspired tone (I know, completely antithetical, but that's just how it was - the GM liked Dragonlance and he liked the Dying Earth, so he decided these two great tastes will taste even better when mixed together). With that, it all worked fine, and the various DL-specific ideas added something to an otherwise normal AD&D mini-campaign.
That's exactly how it was when I played it. There was a Kender player but the player playing it was a superior roleplayer that usually played rogues and bards with the occasional wizard, or rarely a cleric power gamer she wasn't but she NEVER played nothing but straight like myself.
She taught me everything I know about how to play magic using classes without lording over everyone and still be effective and fun to play without holding back. Also she started me on my path of being a Mage girl in all things of course. I played a fighter/wizard in that campaign and only survived by following all the things I picked up from her on how to play a wizard. In game nobody thought I was a wizard, let alone being a Renegade. :D
It was Forgotten Realms with Dragonlance centric stuff added in to tell the truth but it rocked.:)
and flavored.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;524336It's as if every single drow in existence was Drizz't Do'urden.
He isn't?
Ha!
Out of my share of the settings that I purchased, I remember Birthright the least. Utterly forgettable is is definitely a special flavor of bad.
Quote...and Pat Pulling-compliant PG-rated presentation.
Mentioning Pat Pulling reminds me of just how terrible Dragonlance was.
When I was in 10th grade I once tried to play
Goldmoon's Song (sheet music included in a module -Jesus Buttfucking Christ!) on the piano. It was awful, and not just because I was a shitty piano player. My girlfriend walked in, saw what I was doing, asked if my dice told me which keys to play, rolled her eyes, called me a "homo" and walked out -In that order.
For just a brief moment I wished I could be one of the statistics in Pulling's bullshit newsletter.
As bad as Dragonlance was -and this goes for other Cleveland Steamers TSR unloaded on the chests of hapless gamers- I never really enjoyed any part of it enough to care that it sucked. My eight bucks were wasted, but I never suffered the indignity of seeing something I liked getting vandalized. Which leads me to...
Post-Gygax Greyhawk. I know that a number of the people who worked at TSR after Gygax was canned hotly deny that they were deliberately trashing the setting and characters he created. I also find the Grogtards who are more Gygaxian than Gygax himself repellant, and their conspiracy theories absurd and retarded. HOWEVER, looking through the Greyhawk material that came along after EGG tells me that as much as I hate to admit it, the Grogtards are on to something. It really
does look like TSR was toilet papering the neighbors' yard. If they weren't, they were so sloppy with the setting that they might as well have been vandalizing it.
In Gygax Greyhawk, the setting was somewhat static -giving PCs all sorts of options about what they could do. There was no plot and no story -only history before the PCs enter the picture. This gave PCs and DMs the option of GASP! playing a game (D&D is a game, remember?) letting the results play out and having THAT as your "story". There was also room for expansion, either off the map or in the vast wilderness that made up much of the sparsely-populated setting. Clever PCs could make their mark in the World of Greyhawk in their own way in their own time, even if they failed to accomplish their goals.
In
From the Asses, as Gygax himself called the revisions, the setting was turned into a collection of railroads like Grand Central Station. It was given plots and story arcs and all that other horseshit that creative gamers don't need and don't want. Screwing with characters like Robilar was just the exclamation point on a massive FUCK YOU! to Gary Gygax.
Settings that spawn (or are spawned by) game fiction invariably cause coniptions.
Quote from: One Horse Town;524740Settings that spawn (or are spawned by) game fiction invariably cause coniptions.
"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.
Quote from: Benoist;524747"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.
You're just a grumpyhead, I'll shall ignore you on this particular point and continue having fun in Dragonlance without all the metaplot and story drivel you point out.:)
Seriously I have a brain and can make a game or play in a setting my way regardless of what shit the writer's of said setting came up with. Better that than constantly writing settings myself, leaving me no time to play or run a game here or there.
Quote from: Marleycat;524750You're just a grumpyhead, I'll shall ignore you on this particular point and continue having fun in Dragonlance without all the metaplot and story drivel you point out.:)
Seriously I have a brain and can make a game or play in a setting my way regardless of what shit the writer's of said setting came up with. Better that than constantly writing settings myself, leaving me no time to play or run a game here or there.
Marleycat, dear lady, the problem many of us we have is not with the metaplot, though the metaplot sucked gorilla balls. The problem is that DL represents everything absurd and idiotic in fantasy, down to the last comma.
There you have kenders and gully dwarves. There you have the oh-noble-barbarian-that-are-cool-because-Native-Americans and shit. You have plenty of nauseating Christian themes shoved down your throat. You have guys saying "I wear a black robe because I AM EVIL HUR HUR HUR" which is to me the most retarded shit ever.
Frankly, metaplot is the lesser problem.
Serious question- Were they Christian themes or specifically Mormon themes? To some level they are the same, but Mormons have some idiosyncratic beliefs.
Quote from: Imperator;524763Marleycat, dear lady, the problem many of us we have is not with the metaplot, though the metaplot sucked gorilla balls. The problem is that DL represents everything absurd and idiotic in fantasy, down to the last comma.
There you have kenders and gully dwarves. There you have the oh-noble-barbarian-that-are-cool-because-Native-Americans and shit. You have plenty of nauseating Christian themes shoved down your throat. You have guys saying "I wear a black robe because I AM EVIL HUR HUR HUR" which is to me the most retarded shit ever.
Frankly, metaplot is the lesser problem.
I guess I'm just not so touchy about it. I like it for the political currents and the fact that the 3 way split in magic makes total sense to me. I don't use or care about the silly alignment system in Dnd. If I use alignment it's Palladium or Fantasy Craft style. Personal I separate and never use my IRL religious or political beliefs from Dnd style games, now White Wolf style games is a different story and parameters.
If I run a DL game there are no Kender or Gully dwarves, but I run it 3e style where that stuff is basically removed.
Quote from: Benoist;524747"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.
Not denying the negative effects DL has had on gaming, I must say the early modules done by Tracy and Laura Hickman were full of extraordinary ideas. Even later, deeply flawed railroad-fests have things like the Skysea (a huge plain of glass in the middle of the desert), a tower where time has stopped and you can manipulate it to your liking, the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth (or whatsitsname) and more. That's great, great imagery, and playable if you know which parts you need to remove. Which, predictably, a lot of younger gamers didn't.
Great imagery does not salvage a module that fails conceptually.
Quote from: Marleycat;524750You're just a grumpyhead, I'll shall ignore you on this particular point and continue having fun in Dragonlance without all the metaplot and story drivel you point out. :)
You do whatever you want, but deep down inside, you know I'm right. That's why it bothers you. ;)
Quote from: Benoist;524779You do whatever you want, but deep down inside, you know I'm right. That's why it bothers you. ;)
Why do I feel like you're my older brother? (Even though I'm the oldest in my IRL family) . And the fact I'm probably your age to boot!
Whatever it's irrelevant to the fact that Dragonlance rocks socks. :)
Quote from: Marleycat;524783Whatever it's irrelevant to the fact that Dragonlance rocks socks. :)
Irrelevant to the fact DL sucks donkey balls? Sure! :D
Quote from: Benoist;524789Irrelevant to the fact DL sucks donkey balls? Sure! :D
That's it! It's war now. Be on the lookout, I am sneaky but scratch deep.;)
(http://www.arsenalrecords.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bio.jpg)
Cheesy movie promos? Hmm, this may take a little planning given I post from a phone. That's ok, that seems about even, no worries.:)
Quote from: Teazia;524772Serious question- Were they Christian themes or specifically Mormon themes? To some level they are the same, but Mormons have some idiosyncratic beliefs.
I never really noticed them (i wasn't a huge fan of the setting), but that stuff wasn't much of a problem for me as it never came into play when we actually played. The only thing about DL that bothered me were the railroaded modules (and if i recal the pcs in them were pre gens from the story which always struck me as weird). The stuff like gully dwarves, kender and tinker gnomes never really bothered me, nor did the black and white (and red) morality of the setting. The guy who ran it in our group was a very good GM so that probably colored my experience. He was probably the best free form gm i knew, and was great at running games where you had total freedom to do what you want yet cool and relevant things would still unfold. With DL i think the quality if the group matters a lot. I can see kender being a serious problem if you have someone using them as an excuse to be an a-hole or grab spotlight. In our group they always worked fine. It was a very PG setting for sure, but i dont mind PG settings.
Oh and regarding the sheet music, i never understood that. It seemed a little self indulgant on the writers' part and when i did try to play it on my guitar struck me like it was meant for a protestant pipe organ. I cant imagine that many people tried to play it. I think they did the same thing in their non tsr books as well.
Quote from: Teazia;524772Serious question- Were they Christian themes or specifically Mormon themes? To some level they are the same, but Mormons have some idiosyncratic beliefs.
As far as I remembered it, everything was Christian, no Mormon weirdness. And it was infuriating.
Quote from: Marleycat;524774I guess I'm just not so touchy about it. I like it for the political currents and the fact that the 3 way split in magic makes total sense to me. I don't use or care about the silly alignment system in Dnd. If I use alignment it's Palladium or Fantasy Craft style. Personal I separate and never use my IRL religious or political beliefs from Dnd style games, now White Wolf style games is a different story and parameters.
If I run a DL game there are no Kender or Gully dwarves, but I run it 3e style where that stuff is basically removed.
Cool.
Actually, I have to thank the Dragonlance adventures for one thing - they taught me how to strip just about everything out of a module but maps and shuffle around everything to actually make sense. :D
I ran the whole DL series under 1e AD&D, and, later in the series, converted into 2e AD&D. By their nature, the modules were linear because they were trying to emulate the plot of a story, and this felt railroad-y to the PCs. Another significant issue was the rules regarding dragons and their interaction with the DL setting: relatively low-level characters are challenged by dragons. However, the rules regarding dragons made this interaction very deadly for the PCs. The very first dragon encounter, Khisanth the ancient (!) black dragon in Xak Tarsoth, resulted in a near TPK for my rather large party (10+, IIRC).
Birthright, by wide margin.
Birthright, by wide margin.
Quote from: Settembrini;524876Birthright, by wide margin.
It's not the setting's fault that you don't understand it.
Quote from: Melan;524603I even broke out my copy of EPT yesterday evening just to double-check. It is still one of the most clearly written RPG books out there.
I'm just curious, which book are you looking at? It seems like there are so many different ones now.
Quote from: Marleycat;524750Seriously I have a brain and can make a game or play in a setting my way regardless of what shit the writer's of said setting came up with. Better that than constantly writing settings myself, leaving me no time to play or run a game here or there.
That's all good and true, but just because you can cobble something decent out of a published setting doesn't mean that, in its native form, that setting isn't a shitstorm of stupid.
If there's a good breakdown of the supposed Christian allegory stuff in DL out there on the web and one of y'all has a link to it, I'd be interested in reading it.
Quote from: VectorSigma;524883If there's a good breakdown of the supposed Christian allegory stuff in DL out there on the web and one of y'all has a link to it, I'd be interested in reading it.
I don't have a link, but here are the things I remember people talking about:
The return of Paladine: the Good News
The plains barbarians: lost tribe of Israel
Disks of Mishikal: Mormon Golden Plates
Fizban/Berem/ or Elistan: John Smith/Jesus
Tanis wanting Laurana and Kitiara: polygamy (this one makes me chuckle)
Quote from: VectorSigma;524883If there's a good breakdown of the supposed Christian allegory stuff in DL out there on the web and one of y'all has a link to it, I'd be interested in reading it.
I would too. Hickman alludes to it on it his website: http://www.trhickman.com/about-tracy/my-faith/
He also wrote an article (which I cant find right now) about ethics in fantasy rpgs and I think he addressed it there as well.
Quote from: Melan;524710For the sake of fairness, I must mention that I have played in a few Dragonlance-based adventures which were perfectly all right. The secret: no metaplot, no kenders, and a slightly Vance-inspired tone (I know, completely antithetical, but that's just how it was - the GM liked Dragonlance and he liked the Dying Earth, so he decided these two great tastes will taste even better when mixed together). With that, it all worked fine, and the various DL-specific ideas added something to an otherwise normal AD&D mini-campaign.
That's getting close, but not quite.
See, it's become a standard criticism of Dragonalance that it
scripted certain narratives. What's a lot less critiziced is what I find personally a lot more problematic: the
content of these narratives. In particular, the ethos which infuses the key NPCs and the pantheon.
To be precise. I recently reread Dragonlance Chronicles II and III after many, many years, and was shocked by the following.
1. The stupid sentimentalism. Characters cry all the time. For no reason, other than their being disappointed with themselves. There's no actual strength or character development, people simply migrate from one type of immaturity to another. There's no emotional maturity. The only way to be emotional is to display them, and display them in the most immature manner. Anything less and you qualify as 'cold' and 'unfeeling'. This is a frequent criticism the characters in the novel level at each other, by the way. It's a "lesson" of the setting.
2. The deeply warped understanding of love as self-sacrifice. Again, this oozes over with pathos. The entire Chronicles is bereft of a single functioning long term relationship, because couples gravitate from one type of immature relationship (not being able to be honest about it) to another (being sentimental etc etc). You can see a pattern here.
3. The very, very warped moral code that extreme goodness is blind. Supremely good characters, in the mortal realm and the pantheon, subscribe to the idea that good is best promoted by destroying, not evil, but people who occasionally display (traces of) behaviour which could be interpreted as evil or selfish. (Remember, if self-sacrifice is the ultimate form of love and goodness then any trace of self-concern must be EEEEEVIL.) This silliness breaks the setting literally in half. The most intelligent and wise beings in the cosmos have not advanced to a mature understanding of morality, of self- and other-concern, and flout the most primitive notions of integrity. Any 'moral development' they undergo is - surprise! - a transition from this type of immaturity to another: the idea that destroying people etc. who display evil tendencies is bad. Something you might tell a child for when he or she is 5 - that's the moral pinnacle of the setting, the upper bound of moral development.
Now, strip that out of Dragonlance, and you have ... very little left. The morally repugnant sentimentalism of the novels and the modules, of the characters (Sturm, Lauranna, ...) and the pantheon... there's nothing that remains except AD&D class+race combos. They are literally nothing but templates on which Weis and Hickman foist again and again tropes 1. to 3. Without the tropes there are no characters.
By extension, the only sense I can make of Dragonlance as an campaign world is a template against which players experience the same sentimental journeys in self-realization, journeys of the very nature outlined above: bumbling from one type of immaturity into another, but feeling (feeling!) more mature at the end, feeling to have come out of it with a more profound understanding of self and others.
Initiating these 'journeys of self-discovery' can be a success only with an audience that is emotionally and ethically immature enough to experience exposure to the Dragonlance cosmos as personal growth towards maturity when it is anything but. The fakeness of it all, the cheap sentimentalism and the naked grab at that audience' most immature urges, with no inclination to actually address them as adults or move them closer to actual adulthood - all this makes the Dragonlance enterprise, despite its ostensive pretension towards morality and maturity, the most deeply immoral and cynical thing ever attempted by TSR.
Sounds like a cosmology built upon Mt. Olympus during their Jr. High years.
Sadly the only exposure I've had of Dragonlance is currently reading Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. So far it's cute with some interesting world setting background. Several of the characters are annoying. But it's only page 40 as of yet.
Is there a cruel diaspora of Kender later in the setting? It might make for an entertaining all-Kender campaign in table masochism. I'll bring the tissues and shiny glass beads. Someone else will have to bring the Xanax and Thorazine.
Quote from: Simlasa;52487That's all good and true, but just because you can cobble something decent out of a published setting doesn't mean that, in its native form, that setting isn't a shitstorm of stupid.
True. But I change or ignore certain elements in any setting I run or play in. Every last one of them has some level of shit in them in my opinion.
Quote from: Opaopajr;524916...an entertaining all-Kender campaign in table masochism. I'll bring the tissues and shiny glass beads. Someone else will have to bring the Xanax and Thorazine.
I'll bring the flamethrower.
I suppose that Dragonlance would be the worst one that I actually owned (more precisely, I owned the first six or so modules).
The other two I own -- Gygax Greyhawk and the various Known World (Mystara) Gazetteers -- are both pretty good IMO (the quality of the gazetteers is mixed; some are brilliant, others lame).
Quote from: Benoist;524747"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.
At times I wonder whether Weis, Hickman, Greenwood, Salvatore, etc ... would have ever became published authors, if they never did any TSR novels.
It seems like some publishing imprints associated with IP franchises like games, tv shows, movies, etc ... (ie. TSR/WotC, Star Trek, etc ...), have some sort of implicit stigma attached to them. In some ways similar to how singers who became famous via American Idol, have a stigma associated with them that they are not "real" singers or that they are "lightweights".
Quote from: Windjammer;524888That's getting close, but not quite.
See, it's become a standard criticism of Dragonalance that it scripted certain narratives. What's a lot less critiziced is what I find personally a lot more problematic: the content of these narratives. In particular, the ethos which infuses the key NPCs and the pantheon.
To be precise. I recently reread Dragonlance Chronicles II and III after many, many years, and was shocked by the following.
This is an excellent post and echoes something I've always felt, even if I never found the words to express it. I agree with just about everything in it.
Being scripted is bad enough. Being scripted, and with a bad, horrible, no-good script is even worse. The already incredibly annoying über-NPC Companions are made a million times more annoying by their complete lack of humanity (meaning, capability of correlation with living, breathing human beings). Shit, My Little Pony's characters behave more like people than fucking Sturm or Tasslehof.
And don't get me started on Fizban. It's as if Elminster was also Jesus, and drawn by Disney.
Fuck you, Fizban.
I swear to God I'll never get how people gobbled up this shit, and asked for seconds too.
Quote from: The Butcher;524946I swear to God I'll never get how people gobbled up this shit, and asked for seconds too.
(Speaking for myself).
When I was a kid, I liked reading stuff about death and destruction. I also liked watched watching tv shows and movies with a lot of death and destruction. (As morbid as this seems).
Now that I think about it, in hindsight I didn't really pay much attention to whether the characters were one dimensional "cardboard" caricatures or if they actually had more depth. I suppose my thinking back then was that if the characters were going to end up being killed or arrested, does it matter whether they are one-dimensional?
For example, I use to watch the tv show "The Incredible Hulk" back in the late-1970's and early-1980's. Back then the only reason I liked watching the show, was to watch the Hulk destroying stuff. Awhile ago I was watching the episodes again (on dvd), and realized the show had a lot more depth and insight to the Banner/Hulk character. (When I was a kid/teenager, I never realized "The Incredible Hulk" was actually a drama show and not a cheesy mindless action tv show).
Quote from: The Butcher;524946This is an excellent post and echoes something I've always felt, even if I never found the words to express it. I agree with just about everything in it.
Being scripted is bad enough. Being scripted, and with a bad, horrible, no-good script is even worse. The already incredibly annoying über-NPC Companions are made a million times more annoying by their complete lack of humanity (meaning, capability of correlation with living, breathing human beings). Shit, My Little Pony's characters behave more like people than fucking Sturm or Tasslehof.
And don't get me started on Fizban. It's as if Elminster was also Jesus, and drawn by Disney. Fuck you, Fizban.
I swear to God I'll never get how people gobbled up this shit, and asked for seconds too.
Hell I never had a clue or even give a flying fuck it used the themes you and Windjammer are discussing, but at least I know why I like it. Those very themes resonate deeply with me and I am not a minority or weird fringe of the Dnd playerbase, I am your typical casual player.
Quote from: Windjammer;524888To be precise. I recently reread Dragonlance Chronicles II and III after many, many years, and was shocked by the following.
...
Sometimes one gets a different perspective when reading/watching something again as an adult, than when one was a kid/teenager.
More recently I was watching tv shows (on dvd) I haven't watched in decades, which I use to like a lot when I was a kid/teenager. Quite a few of these tv shows look almost outright silly with one-dimensional cardboard characters, through the eyes of an adult.
The stories and characters in tv shows like Knight Rider, The A-Team, Starsky & Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, etc ... seem to be mostly one-dimensional characters with the same types of stories (ie. get the badguys, destroy/stop something, etc ...).
When I was a kid/teenager, I never realized how generic and one-dimensional the characters and stories were. Back then, I just liked watching stuff being destroyed, explosions, high speed chases, cars being smashed up, badguys being killed, etc ...
I didn't read a lot of fantasy when I was a kid. I was more into sci-fi type stuff. Back then I liked reading stuff about futuristic cities, flying cars, laser weapons, nuclear bombs, space ships, etc ... Whether the characters had any depth or were just one-dimensional cardboard cutouts, I didn't really pay much attention. (I was mostly interested in the future visions and technology stuff).
Today when I read such stories again (or watching such tv shows again), it seems like it's either "technobabble" type stuff or just mindless futurism. Not quite as exciting to me these days.
Quote from: Marleycat;524954Hell I never had a clue or even give a flying fuck it used the themes you and Windjammer are discussing, but at least I know why I like it. Those very themes resonate deeply with me and I am not a minority or weird fringe of the Dnd playerbase, I am your typical casual player.
You're kidding, right? You like this type of moral hogwash that turns common sense upside down, shakes it to steal all it might be carrying of value, to then rape it, set it on fire and throw it through the window yelling "KEEEEWL!!" as it crashes in the moat down below?
It doesn't make sense. Even as a Disney-like moral tale,
it doesn't make sense. Maybe it's even
more insulting considered that way.
Come on. COME. ON. Now.
Quote from: Opaopajr;524916Sounds like a cosmology built upon Mt. Olympus during their Jr. High years.
Brad's description of Orson Scott Card's fiction fits Dragonlance just as well:
Sadly No! (http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/4439.html)QuoteThe prose reminds me of the stuff I wrote when I was 11 years old, just before I discovered the wonders of self-abuse.
Quote from: The Butcher;524946And don't get me started on Fizban. It's as if Elminster was also Jesus, and drawn by Disney.
Thank you.
And let's not forget about the ancient dragon ladies falling into luv with human studs. They get the strict
look from papa Paladin ('what have ya done, gal'), and then break into tears. Totally my understanding of century old beings: Al and Kelly Bundy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_9eyrod4uo).
Quote from: Elfdart;524974Brad's description of Orson Scott Card's fiction fits Dragonlance just as well:
Sadly No! (http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/4439.html)
Empire was awful, but i enjoy some of his earlier stuff.
Edit: i will say this about Empire though (spoiler warning)- killing the main character half way through the story was definitely a neat twist, but it was too bad the character was so two-dimensional you didn't care when it happened. Basicall the novel reads like a very bad season of 24.
Quote from: Marleycat;524954Hell I never had a clue or even give a flying fuck it used the themes you and Windjammer are discussing, but at least I know why I like it. Those very themes resonate deeply with me and I am not a minority or weird fringe of the Dnd playerbase, I am your typical casual player.
A story about love and self-sacrifice it may be. But it's a poorly written story, even by the relatively low writing standards of fantasy literature.
There's not a lot wrong with the themes themselves, it's the heavy-handed, immature treatment of these themes (complete with characters as human as a GI Joe doll) that we're talking about.
Hence, my comment: I still do not understand how is it that such a poorly written story, notwithstanding the universality of the themes at work, could be such a huge commercial hit.
Quote from: Windjammer;524888That's getting close, but not quite.
See, it's become a standard criticism of Dragonalance that it scripted certain narratives. What's a lot less critiziced is what I find personally a lot more problematic: the content of these narratives. In particular, the ethos which infuses the key NPCs and the pantheon.
To be precise. I recently reread Dragonlance Chronicles II and III after many, many years, and was shocked by the following.
1. The stupid sentimentalism. Characters cry all the time. For no reason, other than their being disappointed with themselves. There's no actual strength or character development, people simply migrate from one type of immaturity to another. There's no emotional maturity. The only way to be emotional is to display them, and display them in the most immature manner. Anything less and you qualify as 'cold' and 'unfeeling'. This is a frequent criticism the characters in the novel level at each other, by the way. It's a "lesson" of the setting.
2. The deeply warped understanding of love as self-sacrifice. Again, this oozes over with pathos. The entire Chronicles is bereft of a single functioning long term relationship, because couples gravitate from one type of immature relationship (not being able to be honest about it) to another (being sentimental etc etc). You can see a pattern here.
3. The very, very warped moral code that extreme goodness is blind. Supremely good characters, in the mortal realm and the pantheon, subscribe to the idea that good is best promoted by destroying, not evil, but people who occasionally display (traces of) behaviour which could be interpreted as evil or selfish. (Remember, if self-sacrifice is the ultimate form of love and goodness then any trace of self-concern must be EEEEEVIL.) This silliness breaks the setting literally in half. The most intelligent and wise beings in the cosmos have not advanced to a mature understanding of morality, of self- and other-concern, and flout the most primitive notions of integrity. Any 'moral development' they undergo is - surprise! - a transition from this type of immaturity to another: the idea that destroying people etc. who display evil tendencies is bad. Something you might tell a child for when he or she is 5 - that's the moral pinnacle of the setting, the upper bound of moral development.
Now, strip that out of Dragonlance, and you have ... very little left. The morally repugnant sentimentalism of the novels and the modules, of the characters (Sturm, Lauranna, ...) and the pantheon... there's nothing that remains except AD&D class+race combos. They are literally nothing but templates on which Weis and Hickman foist again and again tropes 1. to 3. Without the tropes there are no characters.
By extension, the only sense I can make of Dragonlance as an campaign world is a template against which players experience the same sentimental journeys in self-realization, journeys of the very nature outlined above: bumbling from one type of immaturity into another, but feeling (feeling!) more mature at the end, feeling to have come out of it with a more profound understanding of self and others.
Initiating these 'journeys of self-discovery' can be a success only with an audience that is emotionally and ethically immature enough to experience exposure to the Dragonlance cosmos as personal growth towards maturity when it is anything but. The fakeness of it all, the cheap sentimentalism and the naked grab at that audience' most immature urges, with no inclination to actually address them as adults or move them closer to actual adulthood - all this makes the Dragonlance enterprise, despite its ostensive pretension towards morality and maturity, the most deeply immoral and cynical thing ever attempted by TSR.
Quote from: Windjammer;524975Thank you.
And let's not forget about the ancient dragon ladies falling into luv with human studs. They get the strict look from papa Paladin ('what have ya done, gal'), and then break into tears. Totally my understanding of century old beings: Al and Kelly Bundy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_9eyrod4uo).
Great great posts, Windjammer. Spot on.
Quote from: The Butcher;524987A story about love and self-sacrifice it may be. But it's a poorly written story, even by the relatively low writing standards of fantasy literature.
There's not a lot wrong with the themes themselves, it's the heavy-handed, immature treatment of these themes (complete with characters as human as a GI Joe doll) that we're talking about.
Hence, my comment: I still do not understand how is it that such a poorly written story, notwithstanding the universality of the themes at work, could be such a huge commercial hit.
We were teenagers and our brains were not fully formed. No, seriously.
Quote from: Benoist;524962You're kidding, right? You like this type of moral hogwash that turns common sense upside down, shakes it to steal all it might be carrying of value, to then rape it, set it on fire and throw it through the window yelling "KEEEEWL!!" as it crashes in the moat down below?
It doesn't make sense. Even as a Disney-like moral tale, it doesn't make sense.
Maybe it's even more insulting considered that way.
Come on. COME. ON. Now.
Back when I played DL we never used the modules we just went in with the understanding that the character classes were slightly different. Point is back then I never paid any attention to whatever module was being run, if one was at all. Remember that I played more for my brother than any real interest of the game until far later.
I was trying to point out that Judeo-Christian values resonate deeply with me so maybe that's why I like DL unconsciously. Like I said I never even knew that stuff was in there until it was pointed out in this thread, never played the modules. About the only module I ever played was the Keep on the Borderland one without it being so altered as being unrecognizable like I do or any of the GM's I played with did with all the modules that were used.
QuoteA story about love and self-sacrifice it may be. But it's a poorly written story, even by the relatively low writing standards of fantasy literature.
There's not a lot wrong with the themes themselves, it's the heavy-handed, immature treatment of these themes (complete with characters as human as a GI Joe doll) that we're talking about.
Hence, my comment: I still do not understand how is it that such a poorly written story, notwithstanding the universality of the themes at work, could be such a huge commercial hit.
Just speaking for myself I am a sucker for sentimental sappy stock fantasy and other things. It's familiar and safe like an old shoe even if it's terrible. Somewhere in there may lie your answer I don't know but there it is.
Quote from: Imperator;524991We were teenagers and our brains were not fully formed. No, seriously.
Quote from: Marleycat;524995Just speaking for myself I am a sucker for sentimental sappy stock fantasy and other things. It's familiar and safe like an old shoe even if it's terrible. Somewhere in there may lie your answer I don't know but there it is.
Both of these probably explain it. Some of us were young and didn't know better, others just dig the formula no matter how cheesy its implementation.
Quote from: The Butcher;525010Both of these probably explain it. Some of us were young and didn't know better, others just dig the formula no matter how cheesy its implementation.
Definitely, for both cases.
(For the former, I elaborated on it in previous posts in this thread)
For the latter, I still like to occasionally read cheesy sci-fi/fantasy novels or watch cheesy space opera type tv shows, which fit into some generic predictable formulas.
Quote from: The Butcher;524987Hence, my comment: I still do not understand how is it that such a poorly written story, notwithstanding the universality of the themes at work, could be such a huge commercial hit.
DL is pure brain candy. Sweet, obvious, and a nice treat in between meals. I get it, it's not high-literature, but the market proves that plenty of people who like it for what it is.
Think of it this way:
- How can Harlequin keep publishing romance novels?
- How is it that The Asylum keeps making movies that are either clear B - C movie fare or outright ripoffs?
- Do you really think that pulp magazines were successful in their time solely because every story was equal to the quality of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, or any of the other writers that posters on forums like these wank over on a regular basis?
Everyone has their guilty pleasure.
Quote from: JamesV;525021- Do you really think that pulp magazines were successful in their time solely because every story was equal to the quality of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, or any of the other writers that posters on forums like these wank over on a regular basis?
In the case of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, etc ..., how much of the respect for them was due to their stories being the first to become popular, as opposed to anything to do with literary brilliance on their part?
Quote from: ggroy;525022In the case of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, etc ..., how much of the respect for them was due to their stories being the first to become popular, as opposed to anything to do with literary brilliance on their part?
And then there's that.
Ultimately, I'm pretty sure everyone has that one thing they like that their friends/family/acquaintances don't get, no matter how many times you try to explain it. As a matter of fact, they probably think it's the dumbest thing on Earth to like.
Dragonlance wasn't made for the old-school gamers. It was made for an entirely new market demographic. The sales of the Dragonlance RPG was supported primarily by the (non-rpg) readers of the books. This wasn't a group of the original gamers buying, it wasn't even a group of the 1s ed AD&D, or even 2nd ed AD&D gamers that drove these sales.
I remember reading one of the Dragonlance novels in the early 90's, and thought it was a blatant and not very well done rip-off of the Anne McCaffrey Dragonriders of Pern series (Which was a truly great science-fantasy setting). I never did run or play a game of Dragonlance.
It would have been good if TSR had tried to integrate the newer gamers with the older gamers, but that was all happening at about the same time the TSR legal dept. was pouring gasoline on the early fanbase and lighting it by sending cease and desist letters to the ardent supporters of the game that had set up gaming websites and who were offering supplementary indie material for D&D.
This was the time that the publishing Industry decided for some reason that they had the right to decide what D&D was to be, and become.
Didn't affect me much directly, as I was still running Rules Cyclopedia games then. Did like some of the Dragonlance artwork though, alot.
Quote from: GameDaddy;525033Dragonlance wasn't made for the old-school gamers. It was made for an entirely new market demographic.
Was there anything written for old-school gamers, besides maybe the "Gord the Rogue" novels written by Gary Gygax?
I would like to point out that while there is a lively discussion on the merits of DL, and some time was spent pointing out the flaws of later edition FR and Dark Sun, Birthright has barely come up.
The suckiest through sheer forgettability!
:hatsoff:
Quote from: GameDaddy;525033Didn't affect me much directly, as I was still running Rules Cyclopedia games then. Did like some of the Dragonlance artwork though, alot.
I think the art had alot to do with its popularity. Crticisms that it was immature or disney-like are I think well founded....however I always looked at it as a good PG fantasy setting (sometimes i do enjoy disney :)). I think that was the other thing that explains its popularity. It was very much a black and white , vaguely cartoonish line. I don't hold that against it (i do hold the modules against it). I could enjoy it the same way I can enjoy The Dark Crystal, Aladdin or Never Ending Story. But it was far from my prefered setting.
Quote from: The Butcher;525010Both of these probably explain it. Some of us were young and didn't know better, others just dig the formula no matter how cheesy its implementation.
I haven't read them since the fifth grade. I think I'll keep my memories of them rosy and hazy.
Quote from: JamesV;525039I would like to point out that while there is a lively discussion on the merits of DL, and some time was spent pointing out the flaws of later edition FR and Dark Sun, Birthright has barely come up.
The suckiest through sheer forgettability!
:hatsoff:
Maybe it hasn't shown up because this thread is supposedly about the worst ever. I'm sure that means we leave out the good ones.
Quote from: JamesV;525031And then there's that.
More generally, I don't have a good objective criterion for determining how much "literary brilliance" a particular piece of writing has.
For example, awhile ago I was reading some Lensman novels by Doc Smith. As far as I could tell, his writing didn't seem much better than reading a run-of-the-mill Star Trek novel.
The only judgement I have on any piece of fiction writing I read, is whether it keeps my attention or not. If I'm thinking "when is this going to end" about a particular piece of writing (or tv show/movie), then I know I'm largely wasting my time continuing further.
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;525045I haven't read them since the fifth grade. I think I'll keep my memories of them rosy and hazy.
More generally, at times I wonder whether it is better to leave the past in the past.
Watching old beloved tv shows, reading old beloved books, etc ... (from one's youth) again as an adult, can completely shatter one's old "rosy" memories of them.
The only reason I recently watched a lot of old tv shows again which I use to like a lot when I was a kid/teenager, was that I found the dvds in the bargain bin for $10-$15 a pop (or less). (ie. Impulse buys). At times I wonder whether I made the right decision, in hindsight.
Quote from: ggroy;525056More generally, at times I wonder whether it is better to leave the past in the past.
Watching old beloved tv shows, reading old beloved books, etc ... (from one's youth) again as an adult, can completely shatter one's old "rosy" memories of them.
The only reason I recently watched a lot of old tv shows again which I use to like a lot when I was a kid/teenager, was that I found the dvds in the bargain bin for $10-$15 a pop (or less). (ie. Impulse buys). At times I wonder whether I made the right decision, in hindsight.
Some things hold up though. A couple years ago I bought the Steve Jackson Sorcery! books I had as a kid and...man, those are still awesome. Lots of stuff in there for me to plunder for my current games and the art is as brilliant as I remember.
Quote from: RPGPundit;524550I did forget to put Taladas and Maztica, and Red Steel, though.
If you count Maztica, then you have to count The Horde. I don't expect any opinions, because I don't think anyone ever actually played it, but still, it's there. Might win the most forgettable award though.
Quote from: The_Shadow;524473It's not like Harn where magicians are Shek-Pvar or whatever. In Tekumel, there is zero reskinning of ordinary things with exotic names. The non-English names are all proper nouns with no English equivalents.
Nice... defending one setting by slamming another. Harn's specific nomenclature is the same as what you describe for Tekumel - proper names. A peasant is still going to refer to a wizard or magician, not a Shek-Pvar; that's what they and others call themselves.
For any of these settings, a skilled GM would be able to make something good from [your least favorite setting] and a poor one would be able to ruin [your favorite setting]. That has always been true.
Quote from: TheHistorian;525076If you count Maztica, then you have to count The Horde. I don't expect any opinions, because I don't think anyone ever actually played it, but still, it's there. Might win the most forgettable award though.
I have not played The Horde but I own it and would use it for a Campaign, or part of a Campaign in any case. It's a good environment. I'd need to bring the "D&D" back into the setting though, much like I'd need to were I to use OA/Kara-Tur as well.
Quote from: ggroy;525022In the case of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, etc ..., how much of the respect for them was due to their stories being the first to become popular, as opposed to anything to do with literary brilliance on their part?
I am loath to call these guys "brilliant". They were definitely gifted creators, though IMHO their actual command of the written word isn't always on par with the vistas they've conjured; they are very evocative at their best, but manage to slip into purple prose very easily.
The truth is, fantasy and SF represent such a very small fraction of all fiction, that we only have very few truly gifted wordsmiths, that I'd call "brilliant" writers. Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe are the only ones I'm really familiar with, that I'd use the term.
Quote from: The Butcher;525094I am loath to call these guys "brilliant". They were definitely gifted creators, though IMHO their actual command of the written word isn't always on par with the vistas they've conjured; they are very evocative at their best, but manage to slip into purple prose very easily.
The truth is, fantasy and SF represent such a very small fraction of all fiction, that we only have very few truly gifted wordsmiths, that I'd call "brilliant" writers. Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe are the only ones I'm really familiar with, that I'd use the term.
Is this a subjective assessment of the writing ability of these authors?
Or are there more precise objective criterion?
Quote from: ggroy;525095Is this a subjective assessment of the writing ability of these authors?
Or are there more precise objective criterion?
100% subjective. I ain't no expert at book learnin' an' sech.
There's actually a program that can supposedly analyze the "literary-ness" of a text by looking at and quantifying word choice, sentence structure, and sentence variation. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft scored pretty high when his work was fed through it.
Of course, it means absolutely nothing in terms of actual literary aesthetics.
Quote from: misterguignol;525097There's actually a program that can supposedly analyze the "literary-ness" of a text by looking at and quantifying word choice, sentence structure, and sentence variation. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft scored pretty high when his work was fed through it.
Of course, it means absolutely nothing in terms of actual literary aesthetics.
Wonder if anybody has ever tried writing a text filled with the equivalent of literary "technobabble", which can fool this program into producing a high "score".
;)
Quote from: ggroy;525098Wonder if anybody has ever tried writing a text filled with the equivalent of literary "technobabble", which can fool this program into produced a high "score".
;)
You know about the Sokal hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair), right?
Quote from: misterguignol;525099You know about the Sokal hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair), right?
Yes.
There's also the random "postmodernism essay" generator.
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
Even more hilarious, there's a program which randomly generates titles and abstracts of physics papers with the latest physics "technobabble".
http://snarxiv.org/
Quote from: ggroy;525100Yes.
There's also the random "postmodernism essay" generator.
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
I'm pretty sure I've had to grade papers made with that generator.
Quote from: misterguignol;525099You know about the Sokal hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair), right?
That reminds me of this one: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
Quote from: misterguignol;525102I'm pretty sure I've had to grade papers made with that generator.
Were they easy to detect?
The biggest displeasure in grading papers that I remember having to do back in the day, was figuring out which students were copying the answers from stolen copies of the instructor solution manuals and/or which students were copying from one another. (This was a common problem in many freshman and sophomore engineering courses).
Quote from: ggroy;525105Were they easy to detect?
The biggest displeasure in grading papers that I remember having to do back in the day, was figuring out which students were copying the answers from stolen copies of the instructor solution manuals and/or which students were copying from one another. (This was a common problem in many freshman and sophomore engineering courses).
Now they have paper mills, places where students can buy papers. When i first started looking for freelance writing gigs, i encountered a bunch of paper mills. They pay you to write "model" papers they can sell to students.
Quote from: ggroy;525105Were they easy to detect?
Yeah. And even if it's just a student writing nonsense critical theory jargon, the result is the same: I write, "You need to take your studies more seriously" and give the paper an F.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525106Now they have paper mills, places where students can buy papers. When i first started looking for freelance writing gigs, i encountered a bunch of paper mills. They pay you to write "model" papers they can sell to students.
Interesting thing about the paper mills: they are more than happy to give universities access to their papers for comparison purposes for a fee. So that's *really* easy to catch.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525106Now they have paper mills, places where students can buy papers. When i first started looking for freelance writing gigs, i encountered a bunch of paper mills. They pay you to write "model" papers they can sell to students.
Definitely.
Back in the day, I remember such essay mills were advertised in the classified ads in the last pages of publications like Rolling Stone Magazine. Sometimes they were advertised on bulletin boards on campus (before the ads were quickly taken down), or posted on telephone poles and public transit shelters near the campus.
Over the last decade or so, such essay mills simply migrated online.
For engineering type courses, these days one can find the solutions/answers online to just about every single question/problem from almost all major textbooks used for freshman and sophomore classes. For the more adventuresome, the instructor solutions manuals can be found on ebay or on numerous file sharing/storage sites.
Quote from: misterguignol;525107Interesting thing about the paper mills: they are more than happy to give universities access to their papers for comparison purposes for a fee. So that's *really* easy to catch.
The never ending "arms race". ;)
I remember several former colleagues still in academia (in engineering or the hard sciences), mentioning that they don't even bother with assignments anymore.
For some major textbooks, the publisher have a web service where the students can take a test/exam online. Though the catch is, that (allegedly) the numbers in the problems are generated semi-randomly and the order and choice of the problems + answers are also generated semi-randomly. So no two test/exam question papers are identical. (They're all multiple-choice exams). Harder to cheat in this case, unless the students figure out how to hack the web site.
My former colleagues end up having their students take several of these online multiple-choice exams every term, instead of handing out assignments or doing paper tests/midterms. (No need to hire any graders or teaching assistants, for this).
Quote from: misterguignol;525107And even if it's just a student writing nonsense critical theory jargon, the result is the same: I write, "You need to take your studies more seriously" and give the paper an F.
No doubt the student would claim the very act of submitting such a paper made a skewering commentary on postmodernist critical theory. It wasn't ineptitude, laziness or apathy, but a profound artistic and critical statement that soared right over your ivory-towered head! ;)
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;525124No doubt the student would claim the very act of submitting such a paper made a skewering commentary on postmodernist critical theory. It wasn't ineptitude, laziness or apathy, but a profound artistic and critical statement that soared right over your ivory-towered head! ;)
You joke, but something very like that happened once. Kid failed anyway.
Quote from: misterguignol;525126You joke, but something very like that happened once. Kid failed anyway.
Kids can still flunk university courses?
At some top tier universities, the students can't even fail courses anymore. (ie. The F grade is abolished). At worst, they get a D grade and a pass.
Quote from: ggroy;525131Kids can still flunk university courses?
At some top tier universities, the students can't even fail courses anymore. (ie. The F grade is abolished). At worst, they get a D grade and a pass.
In my classes they can. I actually have one of the higher failure rates in my department because a) my classes are challenging/my expectations are high and b) I'm willing to deal with the fallout whereas a lot of instructors aren't
Thread is making me really happy to not having any humanities classes this semester.
Quote from: misterguignol;525136In my classes they can. I actually have one of the higher failure rates in my department because a) my classes are challenging/my expectations are high and b) I'm willing to deal with the fallout whereas a lot of instructors aren't
Cool. Not many instructors like that left.
(Even some tenured faculty don't even bother fighting the system anymore, in regard to F grades and flunking students).
Before I left the ivory tower for good, I was overruled by the department chair on some F grades. (The dept chair changed them to D grades). These F grade students didn't show up at all for any lectures, didn't write any tests/exams, didn't hand in any assignments, etc ...
They were basically "ghosts".
Quote from: The Butcher;525096100% subjective. I ain't no expert at book learnin' an' sech.
REH may be dry at times, but when he's on, he's got it man. HPL is good with ambiance mostly, and Clark Ashton Smith's prose is IMO superior to both HPL and REH.
Quote from: Benoist;525147REH may be dry at times, but when he's on, he's got it man. HPL is good with ambiance mostly, and Clark Ashton Smith's prose is IMO superior to both HPL and REH.
Can you recommend some Howard, Benoist? Of the three, he's the one I'm least familiar with.
Quote from: Planet Algol;525137Thread is making me really happy to not having any humanities classes this semester.
Not just the humanities.
Engineering is just as abysmal these days too.
Oh, I'm well aware of that from trying to build systems that "engineers" have approved...
Quote from: misterguignol;525151Can you recommend some Howard, Benoist? Of the three, he's the one I'm least familiar with.
I love me some Solomon Kane for instance. If you like the idea of the swashbuckling, gun flinging Puritan travelling in a land filled with curses and magic, a strange man that is too righteous for his own good, and ends up in countless adventures in a variety of settings, you'll like this a lot.
I recommend reading the Del Rey compilation. It also includes drafts of unfinished stories, ideas and bits of poetry that give access to the bigger picture of REH's writing. It's not all brilliant, but there are some great keepers in there. If you bite into Solomon Kane, you'll be able to move on to Conan and Kull without problem, IMO.
Quote from: Benoist;525162I love me some Solomon Kane for instance. If you like the idea of the swashbuckling, gun flinging Puritan travelling in a land filled with curses and magic, a strange man that is too righteous for his own good, and ends up in countless adventures in a variety of settings, you'll like this a lot.
I recommend reading the Del Rey compilation. It also includes drafts of unfinished stories, ideas and bits of poetry that give access to the bigger picture of REH's writing. It's not all brilliant, but there are some great keepers in there. If you bite into Solomon Kane, you'll be able to move on to Conan and Kull without problem, IMO.
You know, that's exactly what I would like. Genius recommendation.
Quote from: ggroy;525022In the case of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, etc ..., how much of the respect for them was due to their stories being the first to become popular, as opposed to anything to do with literary brilliance on their part?
I think these people were brilliant. Truly brilliant. You compare the vast majority of pulp fiction with the sheer creative output these guys brought to the same table in the same time frame, and my God, that's devastating. Likewise, the legacy of these men in terms of influencing the way we think and dream about fantasy and horror is nothing short of flabbergasting, when you know where to look.
Nah. I think the term brilliance is perfectly appropriate. I don't believe in the tendency of people studying literature (as opposed to writing it) to over analyse everything, to make linear deconstructions of texts to prove an author was "really" thinking of this or that when he wrote this or that verse, or the supposed quality of alliterations and all that.
Yes, there are some things to be said in those fields that *are* valuable and interesting to consider from a craftsman's point of view, but if one thinks one writes thinking about all the ins and outs of the analysis some college graduate would give when reading it out loud years later... then one doesn't write much at all, as a matter of fact.
In the end, like mister G said, the actual brilliance of an author is only measured by your liking of his texts. How you embrace them and make them come to life in your head. If enough people find something there that makes them respond in kind and dream while reading... then you've touched something no college professor will ever be able to steal from you. That's brilliance, to me.
Quote from: Benoist;525168I don't believe in the tendency of people studying literature (as opposed to writing it) to over analyse everything, to make linear deconstructions of texts to prove an author was "really" thinking of this or that when he wrote this or that verse, or the supposed quality of alliterations and all that.
Reductionism and/or deconstruction does not always reveal more insight. This is the case even in mathematics or physics.
Quote from: Benoist;525162I love me some Solomon Kane for instance. If you like the idea of the swashbuckling, gun flinging Puritan travelling in a land filled with curses and magic, a strange man that is too righteous for his own good, and ends up in countless adventures in a variety of settings, you'll like this a lot.
I second that. Solomon Kane is the right thing to recommend to a Gothic-horror-loving gamer. :)
Seriously, reading misterguignol's Gothic gaming threads reminds of the stuff I did (and the stuff I could have done) running my Savage Worlds Solomon Kane game. Though he's no Gothic protagonist, the Puritan's adventures ooze with the trappings of Gothic literature.
But I wouldn't overlook Worms of the Earth. There's a Del Rey volume that has Worms of the Earth and assorted other stories (I'm pretty sure that they mention Worms of the Earth on the cover) that's a good buy, too.
Quote from: The Butcher;525272I second that. Solomon Kane is the right thing to recommend to a Gothic-horror-loving gamer. :)
Seriously, reading misterguignol's Gothic gaming threads reminds of the stuff I did (and the stuff I could have done) running my Savage Worlds Solomon Kane game. Though he's no Gothic protagonist, the Puritan's adventures ooze with the trappings of Gothic literature.
But I wouldn't overlook Worms of the Earth. There's a Del Rey volume that has Worms of the Earth and assorted other stories (I'm pretty sure that they mention Worms of the Earth on the cover) that's a good buy, too.
Solomon Kane kicks ass. And then some. MrGuignol, your Gothic threads are full of Kaneness.
Quote from: The Butcher;525272...
But I wouldn't overlook Worms of the Earth. There's a Del Rey volume that has Worms of the Earth and assorted other stories (I'm pretty sure that they mention Worms of the Earth on the cover) that's a good buy, too.
That tale is in the
Bran Mak Morn volume.
Interestingly,
Cthulhu Invictus assumes Howard's account of the Picts, etc., (including the Worms of the Earth) in its description of Britain. (Although Howard's tale takes place about two centuries after the default time of CI.)
Quote from: Benoist;525147REH may be dry at times, but when he's on, he's got it man. HPL is good with ambiance mostly, and Clark Ashton Smith's prose is IMO superior to both HPL and REH.
I agree. I read a lot of CAS last year, and found his stuff to be really great. His work has a sense of dark humour and whimsey that the tales of REH and (especially) HPL lack.
Quote from: The Butcher;525272I second that. Solomon Kane is the right thing to recommend to a Gothic-horror-loving gamer. :)
Seriously, reading misterguignol's Gothic gaming threads reminds of the stuff I did (and the stuff I could have done) running my Savage Worlds Solomon Kane game. Though he's no Gothic protagonist, the Puritan's adventures ooze with the trappings of Gothic literature.
But I wouldn't overlook Worms of the Earth. There's a Del Rey volume that has Worms of the Earth and assorted other stories (I'm pretty sure that they mention Worms of the Earth on the cover) that's a good buy, too.
I ended up getting two best-of REH (I figured that way I would get a mix of Kane, Conan, and Kull) and a Horror Stories of REH (which also contains Worms of the Earth). Thanks for the recommendations, guys! Looks like I've got some reading ahead of me...
Quote from: Imperator;525287Solomon Kane kicks ass. And then some. MrGuignol, your Gothic threads are full of Kaneness.
I figure whatever latent Kaneness is my games probably filtered in through Kane's influence on Warhammer...which is pretty central to my own Gothic Fantasy games.
Quote from: misterguignol;525296I figure whatever latent Kaneness is my games probably filtered in through Kane's influence on Warhammer...which is pretty central to my own Gothic Fantasy games.
Word.
Quote from: Windjammer;524888That's getting close, but not quite.
See, it's become a standard criticism of Dragonalance that it scripted certain narratives. What's a lot less critiziced is what I find personally a lot more problematic: the content of these narratives. In particular, the ethos which infuses the key NPCs and the pantheon.
I agree about your view of the novels (the only character who shows some backbone and moral development is Kitiara, and look where that gets her), but I was specifically discussing Dragonlance as a game setting. Can it be divorced from the moralising of the books, and can the interesting elements of the modules be divorced from the railroading? Yes, I think so, since we did it way back in 1993 (although part of that might have been the GM jus plain failing to get the novels' subtext). Would I do it today? No, I don't have an interest in it anymore.
I must confess that I still love the cover of
The Dragons of Autumn Twilight. It is one of the really, really rare Elmore paintings which work for me.
Also, for the record, Dragonlance was an immense financial success, so whatever its aesthetic qualities, people ate it up like candy.
Quote from: The Butcher;525094Quote from: ggroyIn the case of REH, Lovecraft, Doc Smith, etc ..., how much of the respect for them was due to their stories being the first to become popular, as opposed to anything to do with literary brilliance on their part?
I am loath to call these guys "brilliant". They were definitely gifted creators, though IMHO their actual command of the written word isn't always on par with the vistas they've conjured; they are very evocative at their best, but manage to slip into purple prose very easily.
The truth is, fantasy and SF represent such a very small fraction of all fiction, that we only have very few truly gifted wordsmiths, that I'd call "brilliant" writers. Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe are the only ones I'm really familiar with, that I'd use the term.
A lot of period pulp is just ink and dusty paper now. At one time, I downloaded a ton of them from the Black Mask Archive (defunct, but a lot of it is still found at Munseys (http://www.munseys.com/detail/mode/cat/12/Pulp_Fiction)) and tried to read the ones which sounded interesting. They were standard potboilers; maybe interesting for someone appreciating genre for its own sake, but dull as literature.
The reason we know REH, CAS, HPL, Asimov, Doc Smith and the others is because they were either much better than their contemporaries, or they wrote seminal works. I would put REH in the first group, although with the caveat that his non-Conan characters can be significantly more interesting, and Asimov firmly in the second in spite of his immense popularity. There are forgotten greats, who fell by the wayside because they didn't have anyone championing their work: it almost happen to REH andf HPL, and it
did happen to Harold Lamb (whose Khlit the Cossack stories are pure gold), Arthur O'Friel (
Tiger River is a great lost world story), or Arthur D. Howden-Smith (who is considered to be a second-rate writer, but whose
Grey Maiden, a series of short stories about the fate of a sword through the ages, is outstanding). Some authors wrote both great works and others which have aged badly: Talbot Mundy's
King -- of the Khyber Rifles, its prequel,
Guns of the Gods or the grandiose swords & sandals saga of
Tros of Samothrace deserve every bit of recognition they can get, while his Jimgrim stories (
pulp!!! with all the three exclamation marks) are dead boring in spite of their breakneck pace and huge explosions.
My third and last post on Dragonlance, to answer this question:
Quote from: The Butcher;524987I still do not understand how is it that such a poorly written story, notwithstanding the universality of the themes at work, could be such a huge commercial hit.
Quote from: Imperator;524991We were teenagers and our brains were not fully formed. No, seriously.
It's pretty straight forward.
Remember the terror of adolescence. It's having experiences you think only you are having, and not being able to talk about these openly; it takes time to open up to others and realize you are not alone. Usually this takes place in the company of people your same age, but not necessarily.
Dragonlance depicted
adult characters whose insecurities, self doubt, and immaturity mirrored pretty exactly that of its
teenage readership. And now there's something infinitely soothing for those teenagers to realize that they can after all relate to other people around them.
Cultural parallels:
- Steve Ditko's creation of a masked superhero who was not only younger than the other superheroes, but also experienced the same emotional, romantic, and societal insecurities as his readership ('does anyone like me?', 'will I ever find a job/place in the world?'). The end result rarely looked dignified, but it sure is commercially successful - just look at this scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNgMVFQNBI) (starting at minute 2:45), an only slight exaggeration of the movie.
- Nietzsche's observation about the Greek pantheon. Why did the Greeks invent it? To cope with life. Here's Hera and Zeus, physically and mentally infinitely more powerful than mortals, and yet they are having the most mundane of problems
just like the mortals - him cheating on his wife, she flying into a fit of rage, him dumping the girl, they making up, her sulking, rinse repeat. It's the genius of the Greeks, says Nietzsche, that they created their gods with all these weaknesses. Because that contained the soothing lesson that
even if you were infinitely more powerful, you'd still have the same problems. So you might as well stop bothering about the problems. (and questions like 'but what if I were richer/stronger/more beautiful?').
All that Weisman and Hick did was take that cultural trick and foist it on fantasy. I already said above how even the guys in the pantheon behave as if they were in a teenage soap. But it's even more pronounced with the mortal characters. Raistlin is the bestest wizard ever, but he feels as tiny and isolated as Peter Parker. Caramon is super muscley and good looking, but he has got big problems with girls, that sexy oaf.* Or Lauranna, that penthouse playmate, blond and tall, she can barely be a woman next to Kitiara. All this tells you: see, even these people are having your problems! No sexual confidence - and they're adults! So don't you feel lonely. Don't you feel you're a failure when even the adults are.
It's a terrible lesson, of course, because it can shield your petty little ego only so long from the truth that
actual reality does occasionally contain wholesome people, and that in the long run you're better off to become one of them.
*Drizzt fits of course the same category, as does Wulfgar's immaturity and insecurity towards Cattie-Brie: physically powerful characters who display teenage weaknesses (self doubt, whiny emos, ...). So DL is hardly alone in this regard.
WRT Howard recommendations, I like King Kull, a more philosophical Conan predecessor, whose stories are full of uncertainty about the nature of reality and the fleeting nature of power (also, serpent-men); James Allison, a crippled man in Texas who remembers his previous incarnations on his sick-bed; and his handful of Babylonian stories. Some of his Outremere stories (found in Lords of Samarkand) are also good, owing a lot to Harold Lamb; but the earlier ones are simply painful to wade through.
Quote from: Windjammer;525497My third and last post on Dragonlance, to answer this question:
It's pretty straight forward.
Remember the terror of adolescence. It's having experiences you think only you are having, and not being able to talk about these openly; it takes time to open up to others and realize you are not alone. Usually this takes place in the company of people your same age, but not necessarily.
Dragonlance depicted adult characters whose insecurities, self doubt, and immaturity mirrored pretty exactly that of its teenage readership. And now there's something infinitely soothing for those teenagers to realize that they can after all relate to other people around them.
Cultural parallels:
- Steve Ditko's creation of a masked superhero who was not only younger than the other superheroes, but also experienced the same emotional, romantic, and societal insecurities as his readership ('does anyone like me?', 'will I ever find a job/place in the world?'). The end result rarely looked dignified, but it sure is commercially successful - just look at this scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNgMVFQNBI) (starting at minute 2:45), an only slight exaggeration of the movie.
- Nietzsche's observation about the Greek pantheon. Why did the Greeks invent it? To cope with life. Here's Hera and Zeus, physically and mentally infinitely more powerful than mortals, and yet they are having the most mundane of problems just like the mortals - him cheating on his wife, she flying into a fit of rage, him dumping the girl, they making up, her sulking, rinse repeat. It's the genius of the Greeks, says Nietzsche, that they created their gods with all these weaknesses. Because that contained the soothing lesson that even if you were infinitely more powerful, you'd still have the same problems. So you might as well stop bothering about the problems. (and questions like 'but what if I were richer/stronger/more beautiful?').
All that Weisman and Hick did was take that cultural trick and foist it on fantasy. I already said above how even the guys in the pantheon behave as if they were in a teenage soap. But it's even more pronounced with the mortal characters. Raistlin is the bestest wizard ever, but he feels as tiny and isolated as Peter Parker. Caramon is super muscley and good looking, but he has got big problems with girls, that sexy oaf.* Or Lauranna, that penthouse playmate, blond and tall, she can barely be a woman next to Kitiara. All this tells you: see, even these people are having your problems! No sexual confidence - and they're adults! So don't you feel lonely. Don't you feel you're a failure when even the adults are.
It's a terrible lesson, of course, because it can shield your petty little ego only so long from the truth that actual reality does occasionally contain wholesome people, and that in the long run you're better off to become one of them.
*Drizzt fits of course the same category, as does Wulfgar's immaturity and insecurity towards Cattie-Brie: physically powerful characters who display teenage weaknesses (self doubt, whiny emos, ...). So DL is hardly alone in this regard.
Btavo, sir :hatsoff:
Quote from: JamesV;525039I would like to point out that while there is a lively discussion on the merits of DL, and some time was spent pointing out the flaws of later edition FR and Dark Sun, Birthright has barely come up.
The suckiest through sheer forgettability!
:hatsoff:
I disagree. I remember it quite clearly, and IMO it's probably the best TSR setting. I remember nothing about Spelljammer, but that's because Neither I nor my group were interested in it, but I could then hardly call it "sucky".
As for DL, I agree with most of the criticisms, but still can't condemn it too harshly because I never went to RPG material for moral or emotional depth or maturity. Honestly, what ruined DL for me was tinker gnomes and gully dwarves. I dislike them even more than kender.
Quote from: The Butcher;525094I am loath to call these guys "brilliant". They were definitely gifted creators, though IMHO their actual command of the written word isn't always on par with the vistas they've conjured; they are very evocative at their best, but manage to slip into purple prose very easily.
The truth is, fantasy and SF represent such a very small fraction of all fiction, that we only have very few truly gifted wordsmiths, that I'd call "brilliant" writers. Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe are the only ones I'm really familiar with, that I'd use the term.
I'd include Terry Pratchett.
Quote from: Sigmund;525552I'd include Terry Pratchett.
Terry Goodkind on the "horrible" end of the scale. It's like reading a fantasy novel written by Joseph McCarthy.
Anyone who claims Asimov isn't brilliant hadn't read The Gods Themselves. Thank you and good night.
REH never really made a pretence to be something more then entertaining pulp writer (and a great one at that). HPL gains great depth, if you make an assumption (perhaps incorrect, but that is how I always saw his works) that there's much more there that meets the eye - focusing mostly around the idea spelled out in Call of Cthulhu, that knowledge brings us unhappiness.
Quote from: Acta Est Fabula;525553Terry Goodkind on the "horrible" end of the scale. It's like reading a fantasy novel written by Joseph McCarthy.
I agree with you. Goodkind and Jordan are two who, for me personally, fall under the category of "What the fuck do folks see in these hacks?". They both have the distinction of being the only authors who's books I have been unable to even finish reading.
Quote from: Rincewind1;525554... that knowledge brings us unhappiness.
Which, of course, comes from Genesis.
Quote from: Sigmund;525558Which, of course, comes from Genesis.
Or that disobeying God brings us unhappiness :P. The ability to distinguish between Good and Evil is more like "Continue" then a curse - it allows a human a chance for salvation.
Except that salvation wouldn't be necessary if we hadn't been thrown from the garden for violating a rule that, by definition, we couldn't possibly have understood.
Quote from: J Arcane;525568Except that salvation wouldn't be necessary if we hadn't been thrown from the garden for violating a rule that, by definition, we couldn't possibly have understood.
Well, erm...exactly? The fruit is a test of faith - the Lord only demands that you obey his command (and there was only one at the time - do not eat the Fruit). If you obey, you will live happily in paradise. If you disobey, you will need to work for redemption - and work will be possible due to the fact that you could distinguish between good and evil. Eating the Fruit doomed humanity, but also granted it the chance for redemption.
Quote from: Rincewind1;525554Anyone who claims Asimov isn't brilliant hadn't read The Gods Themselves. Thank you and good night.
I have, and I maintain my claim. :)
Quote from: Rincewind1;525573Well, erm...exactly? The fruit is a test of faith - the Lord only demands that you obey his command (and there was only one at the time - do not eat the Fruit). If you obey, you will live happily in paradise. If you disobey, you will need to work for redemption - and work will be possible due to the fact that you could distinguish between good and evil. Eating the Fruit doomed humanity, but also granted it the chance for redemption.
If the Fruit provides the knowledge of good and evil, then that means by definition Adam and Eve didn't have it prior to it's consumption. Which means that when they ate the apple, they had no idea that they were doing wrong, because they didn't know what wrong was. The text supports this further with their behavior after consuming it.
They were punished for breaking a commandment, despite not having been given the ability to understand why breaking a commandment was bad.
Quote from: Melan;525577I have, and I maintain my claim. :)
Where else can we go then - matters of taste. The Gods Themselves blew my mind.
Quote from: J Arcane;525579If the Fruit provides the knowledge of good and evil, then that means by definition Adam and Eve didn't have it prior to it's consumption. Which means that when they ate the apple, they had no idea that they were doing wrong, because they didn't know what wrong was. The text supports this further with their behavior after consuming it.
They were punished for breaking a commandment, despite not having been given the ability to understand why breaking a commandment was bad.
Exactly. What they however had, was the freedom - freedom to disobey Lord's command as well. Which brought them pain.
If you listen to words of the Lord however, and obey His commands, everything will work out good.
Of course, this just adds to the problematic of LN Old Testament God "versus" LG New Testament God.
Quote from: Rincewind1;525583Where else can we go then - matters of taste. The Gods Themselves blew my mind.
Exactly. What they however had, was the freedom - freedom to disobey Lord's command as well. Which brought them pain.
If you listen to words of the Lord however, and obey His commands, everything will work out good.
Except they didn't know what "good" was. They, by definition, could not have known that having faith and following God's rule was "good" or that breaking God's rule was "evil" until after they already broke the rule. Sure God gave them freedom... just enough freedom to hang themselves. Gee, thanks God.... jerk-off. Glad i don't believe in it... I've never liked the "guy".
Quote from: Sigmund;525585Except they didn't know what "good" was. They, by definition, could not have known that having faith and following God's rule was "good" or that breaking God's rule was "evil" until after they already broke the rule. Sure God gave them freedom... just enough freedom to hang themselves. Gee, thanks God.... jerk-off. Glad i don't believe in it... I've never liked the "guy".
You are correct, but the problem is a bit greater (and since I had ran a tangent long enough, I'd allow you to continue riding TSR settings up and down ;)).
By definition, the orders of True God are good - because he is omnipotent and benevolent, and always orders the best for His children (even if we, because of our fallible minds, do not understand that).
In other words - if you disobey God, you commit evil. The test of loyalty is also a test of capability of humans to do evil, even without understanding of it.
Knowledge itself is meaningless here - either you trust the God, and deserve Paradise, or you commit evil.
However - we are not doomed, because the Fruit allows us to see between Good and Evil. Which allows us to distinguish between good knowledge (which brings us closer to God) and bad knowledge (which distances us from him).
Quote from: Rincewind1;525589You are correct, but the problem is a bit greater (and since I had ran a tangent long enough, I'd allow you to continue riding TSR settings up and down ;)).
By definition, the orders of True God are good - because he is omnipotent and benevolent, and always orders the best for His children (even if we, because of our fallible minds, do not understand that).
In other words - if you disobey God, you commit evil. The test of loyalty is also a test of capability of humans to do evil, even without understanding of it.
Knowledge itself is meaningless here - either you trust the God, and deserve Paradise, or you commit evil.
Well, I would question whether he's always benevolent... Hell and the Flood are two examples of what any rational person might consider at least a touch less than benevolent. The trouble with the whole theory is the assumption that folks with no knowledge of good and evil (in other words right and wrong) would be capable of realizing that loyalty is good. Especially when they have some snake talking up the virtues of the fruit. I understand what you're saying about disobeying God being evil, but they would not have... they didn't know what "evil" was. The entire lesson, IMO , is ruined by this flaw in the reasoning of the story. I feel I have no need for "redemption" because 1) I wasn't the one that ate the fruit (way to over-react God), and 2) even Adam and Eve would have been completed incapable of choosing the "correct" option because, according to the story, they had no capacity for distinguishing between good and evil until after they ate the fruit. They did nothing "wrong" because they were not given the tools to defend themselves from making the "wrong" choice.
Lets take this to another thread or PMs if we want to continue the discussion Rince... don't wanna derail the thread further.
Sorry ya'all for the derail up to this point.... unless we want to take the thread this way of course, but this really has nothing to do with the topic, so it might be better to start a new thread.
I'll ask Benoist to cut the thread perhaps then - I'd say that we could take this and actually discuss RPGs from that standpoint, or namely - is the Old Testament God LN or LG?
Quote from: Rincewind1;525602I'll ask Benoist to cut the thread perhaps then - I'd say that we could take this and actually discuss RPGs from that standpoint, or namely - is the Old Testament God LN or LG?
I agree it would be interesting :) I suspect you already know where I'd put him in D&D's alignment graph :D
Quote from: Sigmund;525605I agree it would be interesting :) I suspect you already know where I'd put him in D&D's alignment graph :D
I'd actually even add a problem if he's not LE (by some interpretations). That'd put Lucifer on the Chaos vs Law.
Quote from: Rincewind1;525608I'd actually even add a problem if he's not LE (by some interpretations). That'd put Lucifer on the Chaos vs Law.
There also is evidence that "Lucifer" and "Satan" are not the same being (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer) and that "Satan" is not actually inherently evil but he's actually more like the head prosecutor in God's "court" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan)
Quote from: Sigmund;525613There also is evidence that "Lucifer" and "Satan" are not the same being (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer) and that "Satan" is not actually inherently evil but he's actually more like the head prosecutor in God's "court"
Yeah. As well as Lucifer nor Satan are never mentioned as actual rulers of Hell (that's been pretty much Paradise Lost's invention, that got hardcoded into our culture).
There's a whole pantheon ready to go for RPGs in the Old Testament, if you make an assumption that perhaps Lord of the Host is either not 100% infallible, or that he is not LG.
Then again - compared to Carthaginian infant burning for Moloch...
Quote from: Rincewind1;525615Yeah. As well as Lucifer nor Satan are never mentioned as actual rulers of Hell (that's been pretty much Paradise Lost's invention, that got hardcoded into our culture).
There's a whole pantheon ready to go for RPGs in the Old Testament, if you make an assumption that perhaps Lord of the Host is either not 100% infallible, or that he is not LG.
Then again - compared to Carthaginian infant burning for Moloch...
Heh... ok, back to work for me!
First of all, this is a great thread. Thanks to everyone who's posted (and posting)!
Regarding Dragonlance. I stand by my former assessment, that it's badly written. However, I do understand how the authors may have appealed to certain key aspects of the adolescent psyche, as Windjammer so eloquently pointed out (which is certainly not the same as Imperator's "being immature" or my own "not knowing any better").
Regarding the pulp greats and literary "brilliance". You're all right, and this is probably a bit of residual conceit on my part (I blame it on hanging out with too many humanities majors :D). We are fighting over labels, though. Whether HPL is "more brilliant" or "less brilliant" than, say, Marcel Proust, probably doesn't even make sense as a question. I try to keep a balanced literary diet, though, and make room for all sorts of interesting books.
Nonetheless, I do stand by my former assessment, that certain writers (Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe) stand head and shoulders above even greats like REH and HPL, when it comes to the actual ability in making the English language your absolute devoted bitch.
Also, I agree with misterguignol's observation on Howard (i.e. the non-Conan characters tend to be more interesting); probably because Conan was hugely popular with the readers, driving the editor to demand more and more Conan stories. One can imagine that Howard wrote the later Conan tales because he needed the money, and the other characters and their yarns as inspiration seized him. (It's probably not that simple, though.)
And on the subject of Lamb, Howden-Smith and Mundy, I've read about all these authors somewhere (Grognardia?) and I've been particularly interested in picking up one of the Harold Lamb ("the American Dumas!") compilations for a while now (no idea which one, because all of them seem kick-ass, so I welcome recommendations).
Quote from: Rincewind1;525602I'll ask Benoist to cut the thread perhaps then - I'd say that we could take this and actually discuss RPGs from that standpoint, or namely - is the Old Testament God LN or LG?
Create a specific thread and link to this part of the conversation. I don't think it's necessary to cut the conversation here.
Quote from: Melan;525577I have, and I maintain my claim. :)
You... you.... Monster!!!
Quote from: Benoist;525162I love me some Solomon Kane for instance. If you like the idea of the swashbuckling, gun flinging Puritan travelling in a land filled with curses and magic, a strange man that is too righteous for his own good, and ends up in countless adventures in a variety of settings, you'll like this a lot.
I recommend reading the Del Rey compilation. It also includes drafts of unfinished stories, ideas and bits of poetry that give access to the bigger picture of REH's writing. It's not all brilliant, but there are some great keepers in there. If you bite into Solomon Kane, you'll be able to move on to Conan and Kull without problem, IMO.
Solomon Kane has the distinction of being the only REH character to appear in a movie that (a) was sorta kinda like the book and (b) didn't suck.
Quote from: misterguignol;525295I ended up getting two best-of REH (I figured that way I would get a mix of Kane, Conan, and Kull) and a Horror Stories of REH (which also contains Worms of the Earth). Thanks for the recommendations, guys! Looks like I've got some reading ahead of me...
Hey, when you get to it, let me know what you think of "Black Canaan", eh? It should be in the
Horror Stories of REH anthology.
Quote from: Géza Echs;525958Hey, when you get to it, let me know what you think of "Black Canaan", eh? It should be in the Horror Stories of REH anthology.
Will do. I'll read that one first in fact. I know it a bit by reputation; it'a all about voodoo and weird racial notions, right?
Quote from: Rincewind1;525602I'll ask Benoist to cut the thread perhaps then - I'd say that we could take this and actually discuss RPGs from that standpoint, or namely - is the Old Testament God LN or LG?
Isn't he more LE?
I mean he encourages, slavery, genocide, stoning people that don't agree with him, he asks his followers to sacrifice their children to him, he allows his follows to be tortured, molested and covered in boils just to see if they will crack and he encorages incest....
just sayin.....
Someone upthread asked about old-school D&D Novels - Andre Norton's Quag Keep (which was written after she played a few sessions of D&D with Gary when he visited her and her family just up the street a ways from me, albeit 36 years ago :P ).
It's an odd book that stands at a crossroads of "Wow this is really good", "ha...what?" and "ugh, this is terrible."
The sequel is shit. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
I'd have to say that to me, not counting the Taladas bit (which I consider a separate setting), Dragonlance has to be the worst TSR setting.
RPGPundit
Late to the party but...
Dark sun 2nd version. Was really... meh.
Karatur... very bland in odd ways that it shouldnt have been.
Red Steel. Interesting, but never really played up on and Birthright was Red Steel ramped up to the hilt. (They share very simmilar premises.)
Forgotten Realms. It has a weird blandness to it or a lack of spark somehow. Just never really got into that one.
Taladas. Just bleah. Didnt appeal at all for some reason.
Spelljammer.
Dragonlance at least had the book The Atlas of Krynn.
Oerth had a geodesic world, Spelljammer had some kind of weird atmosphere and gravity in space.
Any setting that has a book written by Karen Wynn Fonstad is golden imho, even with Gully Dwarf (and Kender were okay, it gave a class that no one wanted to play to young kids).
Quote from: TristramEvans;701139Spelljammer.
3e Spelljammer. What a botch.
Planescape. Take the awe and majesty of the gods and the outer planes and turn it into a bad Dickens parody.
Probably 2e Dark Sun. It suffers "game 2ndary to tie-in novels" disease Even worse than Draonlance does imo (doesn't help that the DS novels Are way worse than the DL ones - Mary Sue overdrive!!! - and pretty much ruin the setting). I mean DS was pretty cool and different and then ARGH!
For something else, there's Maztica. Seems very uninspiring.
I basically like the rest of the bunch that I know about (I never got my hands on Kara-Tur, Al-Quadim, or TSR era Greyhawk).
Add to that Metamorphosis alpha 2, not because it was a bad setting overall. But because of executive meddling it was not as good as it could have been.
And any iteration of Gamma World past 2nd ed.
Quote from: JeremyR;701168Planescape. Take the awe and majesty of the gods and the outer planes and turn it into a bad Dickens parody.
I never managed to phrase it quite so succinctly. I'll steal that line.
Dragonlance. I mean it has cool elements: Magic tied to the moons, Order of Stars Priests, the Knights....
And then it has things like Kender, Gnomes and Gully Dwarves, which might be amusing to some people but really don't work for me.
Never mind there are other problems, its just those items are most prevalent.
I dislike "silly only," races, features, etc.
Forgotten Realms is mostly forgettable, except in the hands of a good GM.
Whatever you might think of it, Dragonlance brought in a lot of new gamers, many of whom are still around. And many of them are female, for which I am grateful. Was it clumsy and ham fisted and arguing for bizarre morality? Yes! Heck they argued that evil was necessary and we should embrace it in the second trilogy. And as others have noted Dragonlance really resonated for teenagers.
It had some fantastic stuff in it: the flying citadels, the towers of high sorcery, the immortal sage guy and his library.
Of course it also gave us Kender and Tinker Gnomes. Gully Dwarves don't bother me as much because people don't want to play them, even if they're a little more offensive really.
One thing I can't ever understand is why Dragonlance got the AD&D treatment. It would have fit better with Basic. I suppose it's because the success of the novels was a bit of a surprise and Advanced products sold better.
The problem with Mysteria was that the Gazateers were pretty uneven. And the setting as a whole was very piecemeal. The two mega empires pretty much ruined the setting for me. Alphatia with its council of a thousand 36th level wizards and so on.
Quote from: Silverlion;701200Dragonlance. I mean it has cool elements: Magic tied to the moons, Order of Stars Priests, the Knights....
And then it has things like Kender, Gnomes and Gully Dwarves, which might be amusing to some people but really don't work for me.
Never mind there are other problems, its just those items are most prevalent.
I dislike "silly only," races, features, etc.
Forgotten Realms is mostly forgettable, except in the hands of a good GM.
I liked the "no clerics" element. Then they added clerics...
I liked the ever shifting alignment system. Core D&D should adopt that system.
I liked the magic based on moon phases. Neet idea that. Also could be adapted to core D&D.
Didnt like kender or tinker gnomes as they were very one-dimensional unless you rolled up some aberrant that was an actual person rather than a gag.
Past the first 6 books things just deteriorated. I am never reading the last books.
oh, and the cartoon was just awfull. (mostly due to budget problems Im told.)
Quote from: David Johansen;701234One thing I can't ever understand is why Dragonlance got the AD&D treatment. It would have fit better with Basic. I suppose it's because the success of the novels was a bit of a surprise and Advanced products sold better.
According to notes. Dragonlance started out as an AD&D campaign and the more robust system was better suited to a campaign setting. That and it sold AD&D books.
Dragonlance, not the worst. Irda, the three Gods of Magic and their Towers, Raistlin, Taladas; I really like Taladas. If you mean what happen to the setting when they killed everyone and some of those aspects off and brought in mega-dragons - then sure. That was a poor decision and led to an awful setting.
For me though the worse is Eberron, it has nothing that I would even consider redeemable. Shoehorned D&D races and it reads like a bad teenage attempt. I cannot understand how people like it or think it is novel. Surely there were better entries when it 'won' as a setting.
My memory is blurred (passage of time) but I loved the idea of Dark Sun, the actual playing of it was less than interesting.
Players: "What do we see?"
GM: "Sand."
Once you'd done a few sandstorms uncovering ruins in the desert, I was pretty bored of it.
Dragonlance I only have experience with thanks to the War of the Lance novels, a book I bought in one volume. Took bloody ages to read, and that put me off ever visiting the place ever again.
Spelljammer was another which seemed like a great idea, but ended up being a version of Star Trek with swords for us, finding strange new worlds and civilisations, going boldy where no man or hippo creature thing had gone before. We went back to generic fantasy world with Elmore people all about soon after that, and were content.
To be honest we mostly took the maps and did our own thing. Mystara was familiar to the players after a while, then it became our generic fantasy land for other fantasy rpgs too. Even though one of the players had every gazetteer (bought new when they came out, and before the current arm and a leg ebay prices market) we pretty much had our own ideas of every land and just used maps.
I don't see much point in bashing a campaign setting. Unlike monsters or classes that are assumed to be generally transportable between settings, the setting itself is easily taken or left. Personally, I dislike Forgotten Realms, but that's because it seems with the high number of ultra-high-powered characters running around, there really never seems to be a reason for the PCs to exist. If what they were doing was really important, Elminster would show up and take over for them.
But I don't play in Forgotten Realms for that reason. As a setting, though, I'm glad it exists. They spend a lot of time and effort on developing aspects of the setting. I could grab a race or culture if I wanted to and port it into my setting pretty easily. In that sense, most campaign settings have a lot of useful pieces that can be taken away, have the serial numbers filed off, and dropped somewhere else.
I don't buy a lot of setting specific material, but I do think that having lots of setting material is a really good thing.
The very best settings aren't compatible with each other. They have major differences that actually make the game play differently. For example, having a different basic magic system. Darksun achieves that. Obviously, I wouldn't expect a setting that does that to appeal to all gamers because its something like learning a new game (and not that I necessarily care much for Darksun). I just like it when a setting is willing to say 'this is how this works in this world' and actually take some creative liberties.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;701273I don't see much point in bashing a campaign setting. Unlike monsters or classes that are assumed to be generally transportable between settings, the setting itself is easily taken or left. Personally, I dislike Forgotten Realms, but that's because it seems with the high number of ultra-high-powered characters running around, there really never seems to be a reason for the PCs to exist. If what they were doing was really important, Elminster would show up and take over for them.
But I don't play in Forgotten Realms for that reason. As a setting, though, I'm glad it exists. They spend a lot of time and effort on developing aspects of the setting. I could grab a race or culture if I wanted to and port it into my setting pretty easily. In that sense, most campaign settings have a lot of useful pieces that can be taken away, have the serial numbers filed off, and dropped somewhere else.
I don't buy a lot of setting specific material, but I do think that having lots of setting material is a really good thing.
The very best settings aren't compatible with each other. They have major differences that actually make the game play differently. For example, having a different basic magic system. Darksun achieves that. Obviously, I wouldn't expect a setting that does that to appeal to all gamers because its something like learning a new game (and not that I necessarily care much for Darksun). I just like it when a setting is willing to say 'this is how this works in this world' and actually take some creative liberties.
I largely agree. The settings I liked, I used, but it was always nice knowing other settings were available and occassionally learning more about or trying them. If a setting didn't work for me, I felt no fury over its existence.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;701273I don't see much point in bashing a campaign setting. Unlike monsters or classes that are assumed to be generally transportable between settings, the setting itself is easily taken or left. Personally, I dislike Forgotten Realms, but that's because it seems with the high number of ultra-high-powered characters running around, there really never seems to be a reason for the PCs to exist. If what they were doing was really important, Elminster would show up and take over for them.
But I don't play in Forgotten Realms for that reason. As a setting, though, I'm glad it exists. They spend a lot of time and effort on developing aspects of the setting. I could grab a race or culture if I wanted to and port it into my setting pretty easily. In that sense, most campaign settings have a lot of useful pieces that can be taken away, have the serial numbers filed off, and dropped somewhere else.
I don't buy a lot of setting specific material, but I do think that having lots of setting material is a really good thing.
The very best settings aren't compatible with each other. They have major differences that actually make the game play differently. For example, having a different basic magic system. Darksun achieves that. Obviously, I wouldn't expect a setting that does that to appeal to all gamers because its something like learning a new game (and not that I necessarily care much for Darksun). I just like it when a setting is willing to say 'this is how this works in this world' and actually take some creative liberties.
I've tried alot of settings. Some clicked, some did not. And for others the ones that did not for me, did for them and vis-a-vis.
I enjoy seeing others views on what worked or did not and sometimes the reasons why. I like Dragonlance as a setting but can totally see why someone else might dislike aspects or the whole setting. For some odd reason Kender seems to be the make or break point for players. And as said, personally for me the one-dimensional nature just does not appeal.
The good ol' D&D half orc has more character dimension potential than a Kender ever will. The Half orc could be about anything they wanted to be. (within class restrictions) But the Kender was always going to be this fearless grab everything klepto.
Same for Ravenloft. The bleak hopeless underpinnings just never grabbed me as a player. But I liked the lean towards NPC interaction over hack-n-slash. and the were-raven race was neet.
Fucking Planescape. If it weren't bad enough that it's full of weird shit and you can't easily play a normal human in some planes, then there's the really annoying "argot" in which loads of stuff is written.
Personally I like the settings that add something or twist the D&D formula - Planescape (philosophy, theology, surrealism, urban adventure), Ravenloft (horror/Gothic monsters and atmosphere), Spelljammer (spaceships), Dark Sun (post-apocalyptic themes), Eberron (magic-as-technology), Birthright (domain management), Tékumel (science fantasy). Even though all of these settings might not be to every individual player's tastes, they're ambitious and attempt something, and provide a different way of playing D&D, a unique experience. There's a "point" to their existence, even if they're not universally enjoyed.
In contrast, the settings that fall flat for me are the ones that don't really do anything interesting, that take no chances and fail to innovate or provide any kind of original "take" on D&D - Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and most of Mystara being the blandest. Type IV's "Points of Light" setting (Nentir Vale or whatever?) exemplifies this trend to banal conformity. I tend to give Blackmoor and Greyhawk more of a pass because they really were there "first" and form the "default" D&D experience. But I've never found a really compelling reason why adventuring in the Realms or on Krynn is all that distinct or wildly preferable to playing in Greyhawk or just in the implied, informal, quasi-medieval setting of generic D&D.
I suppose I like settings that are unique, that mix up expectations and play with tropes and genres, rather than settings that feel like "more of the same," or a variation on the standard D&D theme.
EDIT: I should add that I think it's perfectly possible to run an enjoyable game using the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance or similarly generic settings, but I'd contend that such settings don't add that much in and of themselves - it's up to the DM to make them fun or not. In contrast, I could actually see the "interesting" settings being less fun for a group that wasn't onboard with their themes (like, if you find philosophical debate boring, surreal weirdness alienating, and prefer dungeon crawls to urban adventures you won't enjoy Planescape much; likewise, if you don't enjoy horror at all, Ravenloft is going to be a hard sell, and if post-apocalyptic settings don't turn your crank Dark Sun isn't going to work for you). I think that in the unique and quirky settings, though, the setting matters more. I like it when the setting matters, so I prefer the weird/unique/original settings.
Quote from: Steerpike;701305Personally I like the settings that add something or twist the D&D formula - Planescape (philosophy, theology, surrealism, urban adventure), Ravenloft (horror/Gothic monsters and atmosphere), Spelljammer (spaceships), Dark Sun (post-apocalyptic themes), Eberron (magic-as-technology), Birthright (domain management), Tékumel (science fantasy). Even though all of these settings might not be to every individual player's tastes, they're ambitious and attempt something, and provide a different way of playing D&D, a unique experience. There's a "point" to their existence, even if they're not universally enjoyed.
In contrast, the settings that fall flat for me are the ones that don't really do anything interesting, that take no chances and fail to innovate or provide any kind of original "take" on D&D - Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and most of Mystara being the blandest. Type IV's "Points of Light" setting (Nentir Vale or whatever?) exemplifies this trend to banal conformity. I tend to give Blackmoor and Greyhawk more of a pass because they really were there "first" and form the "default" D&D experience. But I've never found a really compelling reason why adventuring in the Realms or on Krynn is all that distinct or wildly preferable to playing in Greyhawk or just in the implied, informal, quasi-medieval setting of generic D&D.
I suppose I like settings that are unique, that mix up expectations and play with tropes and genres, rather than settings that feel like "more of the same," or a variation on the standard D&D theme.
Same here. I appreciated Planescape especially for its experimental nature, using techniques such as clique association (the approach OWoD applied most effectively and I believe was a large contributor to its success, though not its massive success which came from it happening to catch the zeitgeist of the 90s); the use of argot and slang to encourage the change of mindset for the residents of the setting (not 100% successful and not 100% popular, but I appreciated the effort. It was encouraging Roleplay at a time in the hobby narrative was being pushed hard); the stunningly unique DiTerlizzi art (again, not everyone's cup of tea, of course, but my taste buds found it delicious); even the ill-fated Travellers guide to the Planes on cd ( I own it. It's goofy yeah, but goofy in the same way as Erol Otus illustrations), wherein again I appreciated what they were trying to do, and if for even only 10% of the setting's audience it succeeded, I'd say its worth it.
Also, Planescape was playing with proto steampunk tropes long before it was cool. It was years ahead of even 3rd edition GURPs Steampunk.
I can see people not liking it. The more original a setting, the smaller an audience. And most of the audience Planescape appealed to were not people otherwise likely to be playing AD&D by that point. AD&D was still big dog, but White Wolf, FASA, Chaosium, Palladium, SJG and WEG were all still in thier prime. Planescape was obviously an attempt to attract new audiences (as was Dark Sun and, I guess Spelljammer, though I never really got a handle on what audience Spelljammer was aimed at). But Planescape didn't adopt the storytelling credo of White Wolf nor the crunchy bits orgy of Rifts, it was hyper-focused on role-playing. And I liked that.
Games haven't experimented much in that area since, except for a brief period at the birth of Indy online RPGs (Edwards on one end and retroclones on the other seems to have killed that brief trend for the time being).
Quote from: Kiero;701302Fucking Planescape. If it weren't bad enough that it's full of weird shit and you can't easily play a normal human in some planes, then there's the really annoying "argot" in which loads of stuff is written.
Yeah. The thieves cant+exaggerated cockney sort of dialect. Its really prevalent in the audio disc tour. Players Guide to the Outlands. Track 3, Automita. Though the campaign books are probably better, or worse examples. aheh.
It wasnt so much it was badly done... as it felt sometimes out of place. Its like stepping out of a D&D campaign and into Marry Poppins, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and Oliver Twist... with demons...
That was one small annoyance. Demons everywhere. Really. Its supposed to be a all encompassing setting but you couldnt get four paces without spotting another demon/fiend/batazau/whatever.
Then again the setting was a sort of "fuck you" to the lobby groups who forced the removal of demons and devils from the game.
Quote from: TristramEvans;701311Also, Planescape was playing with proto steampunk tropes long before it was cool. It was years ahead of even 3rd edition GURPs Steampunk.
There is allmost zero steampunk to Planescape. The modrons and Automota were clockwork robots. Red Steel tried it too with the clockwork PC race.
Nothing steampunk to them. Dragonlance on the other hand. Yes. Though mostly isolated to the Tinker Gnomes. But still it was an early forays.
I'd like to see more clockwork themed settings personally.
But getting tired of "steampunk" being applied to everything with a gear or a airship in it. Unless I missed something along the way, Mystarra is not a steampunk setting just because it has airships.
Quote from: Omega;701316There is allmost zero steampunk to Planescape. The modrons and Automota were clockwork robots. Red Steel tried it too with the clockwork PC race.
Nothing steampunk to them. Dragonlance on the other hand. Yes. Though mostly isolated to the Tinker Gnomes. But still it was an early forays.
I'd like to see more clockwork themed settings personally.
But getting tired of "steampunk" being applied to everything with a gear or a airship in it. Unless I missed something along the way, Mystarra is not a steampunk setting just because it has airships.
Planescape was proto steampunk in its aesthetics. I believe someone earlier mentioned it was like D&D crossed with Dickens (they made the comparison in antagonism, but for me that's a selling point). Steampunk not meaning " a bunch of stuff with gears", that interpretation comes later, rather science fiction adopting a Victorian aesthetic.
Quote from: TristramEvans;701320Planescape was proto steampunk in its aesthetics. I believe someone earlier mentioned it was like D&D crossed with Dickens (they made the comparison in antagonism, but for me that's a selling point). Steampunk not meaning " a bunch of stuff with gears", that interpretation comes later, rather science fiction adopting a Victorian aesthetic.
Victorian or Dickensian does not = Steampunk.
But yes. Planescape has a definite Dickensian feel to it whenever someone is speaking in the argot. And Sigil might as well be Dickensian London with demons for some of its depictions and descriptions.
Perhaps the problem is that it was a little overused. It feels like it pervades everything at times. Which it actually doesnt. But the dialect gets used near everywhere. I was starting to expect the demons and devils to start using it.
For others it worked fine.
Perhaps it is not so much that any setting is inherintly bad as it is that a setting does not live up to its potential, or the players expectations?
Or the setting is good. but there is that one darn thorn on the rose that keeps jabbing you?
Or because it was never completed. It started off neet. But then... what? Promised expansions never came? Areas left out of the core become gaping holes you either patch yourself, or skirt around?
Or... perhaps worst of all... The setting was perfectly fine. But the designers or company wont stop screwing with it.
Quote from: OmegaBut the dialect gets used near everywhere.
This is true in the books - but in actual play I've found it hard to get players to use the slang consistently. I run a regular TSR-era Planescape game and while I use the cant for some NPCs and provide players with a lexicon, the actual slang used is light-to-minimal.
Quote from: Steerpike;701326This is true in the books - but in actual play I've found it hard to get players to use the slang consistently. I run a regular TSR-era Planescape game and while I use the cant for some NPCs and provide players with a lexicon, the actual slang used is light-to-minimal.
I've found the same bit it doesn't bother me. I use it for NPCs a lot of players find it distracting to think of what to say in character and then translate it into argot and I think it's better to just let Roleplay flow naturally. After a while they'd start using berk of a few other random terms, and I thought this would be pretty normal for a new character first getting acclimated to a new culture anyways.
Quote from: Steerpike;701326This is true in the books - but in actual play I've found it hard to get players to use the slang consistently. I run a regular TSR-era Planescape game and while I use the cant for some NPCs and provide players with a lexicon, the actual slang used is light-to-minimal.
I suspect that was oft the case. Especially since there was not a comprehensive lexicon to really get into. You had a dozen or so words and some Dickensian speak. And players are notoriously hard to get to use variant languages. And TSR did put out one or two language articles over the years.
Quote from: TristramEvans;701340After a while they'd start using berk of a few other random terms, and I thought this would be pretty normal for a new character first getting acclimated to a new culture anyways.
That sounds quite a bit more natural for visiting PCs. Little harder if you allowed any native planar PCs though. Though of course not everyone used the slang so even there you could have a planar PC who has never been exposed to that and gradually picking it up.
That puts the onus of use on the DM and what they are comfortable applying or not.
I can't stand anything -punk, that includes steampunk, so it's probably no surprise I hated Planescape, then.
Quote from: Kiero;701388I can't stand anything -punk, that includes steampunk, so it's probably no surprise I hated Planescape, then.
How is Planescape steampunk? There was a faux-Victoriana vibe to
some of the art, I'll grant you.
Quote from: noisms;701396How is Planescape steampunk? There was a faux-Victoriana vibe to some of the art, I'll grant you.
Berk-punk.
Quote from: One Horse Town;701397Berk-punk.
Bar that, cutter.
Quote from: (un)reason;524241Dragonlance. All of the others, I can see how to remove or play down the bad bits and get to the good ideas at their core. Dragonlance, on the other hand, has so many annoying comic relief elements and bad plot choices baked right into it's design that it would be more effort to ignore or rewrite them than it would be to start with a blank slate. Even Dark Sun makes it easier for you to ignore all the metaplot stuff if it's not to your taste.
But the maps are awesome.
Quote from: Kiero;701388I can't stand anything -punk, that includes steampunk, so it's probably no surprise I hated Planescape, then.
I think the moment someone coined the phrase 'steampunk', the suffix -punk ceased to have any meaning.
Quote from: TristramEvans;701442I think the moment someone coined the phrase 'steampunk', the suffix -punk ceased to have any meaning.
Well, '-punk' only ever made any sense in the context of 'cyberpunk', and only vaguely even then.
Although, to be fair, if you were going to define cyberpunk as being a genre that was chiefly concerned with people who are alienated and cast adrift from societies with rapidly advancing technologies, then steampunk could mean sort of the same thing. The industrial revolution as analagous to cyberspace and biotech.
Yes, but steampunk tends to be more defined by its misplaced tech. Or a focus on the steam-tech side. Unfortunately rampant misude of the term progressively muddles things. Kinga like how RPG gets applied to things not even remotely an RPG.
Simmilar to how cyberpunk focuses on the cybernetics and cyberspace.
I am waiting for someone to call D&D swordpunk... deaths will ensue I am sure...
At its inception and in earliest uses steampunk was just a hip term for Victorians-flavoured SciFi. Gibson, Di Fillippio, etc , the vanguards of the genre, weren't overly focused on steam-based technology, that began to dominate the genre when it hit the home crafts and cosplay crowd at the turn of the century. Planescape is pretty clear example of Victoriana tropes being explored in a science fiction setting, hence me calling it 'proto-steampunk'. It was one of the forerunners of the later fad. And Wikipedia lists it as a steampunk rpg. Obviously it's one of those words that is a loaded linguistic bomb online these days, with the ongoing Definition and Classification Crusades still going strong, but Im not very picky honestly. I use descriptors that give an impression of a work's character. If Victoriana or Dickensian works better than steampunk for you, by all means use such instead
Combat heavy rpgs are splatterpunk. Social heavy rpgs are emopunk. Mechanics heavy rpgs are mathpunk.
I hope everyone has been thoroughly exhausted now. :)
Quote from: Opaopajr;701530Combat heavy rpgs are splatterpunk. Social heavy rpgs are emopunk. Mechanics heavy rpgs are mathpunk.
I hope everyone has been thoroughly exhausted now. :)
Nah, splatterpunk is where the PCs wear hockey masks...
Hollow World...
If I have to vote for one-thgouht it would be cool but neither me or my group could ever really get into the setting...
Quote from: TristramEvans;701442I think the moment someone coined the phrase 'steampunk', the suffix -punk ceased to have any meaning.
That's my view too. "Steampunk" is among the least -punk things ever.
BTW I read somewhere that the term "steampunk" was created as a joke...
Also, I don't see anything "steampunk"-y about Planescape other than Dickensian/Victorian slang. And since "steampunk" seems more of a romanticization/idyllic take on the Victorian Age than anything (prob'ly due to the home crafts/dress-up bunch mentioned above) I can't really see how "Dickensian" = "steampunk" really...
But then, I'm a Planescape fan. "Steampunk", not so much. As I once put it on TBP, I want that "genre" to "die". ;)
Quote from: The Ent;701581That's my view too. "Steampunk" is among the least -punk things ever.
BTW I read somewhere that the term "steampunk" was created as a joke...
Also, I don't see anything "steampunk"-y about Planescape other than Dickensian/Victorian slang. And since "steampunk" seems more of a romanticization/idyllic take on the Victorian Age than anything (prob'ly due to the home crafts/dress-up bunch mentioned above) I can't really see how "Dickensian" = "steampunk" really...
But then, I'm a Planescape fan. "Steampunk", not so much. As I once put it on TBP, I want that "genre" to "die". ;)
Well, technically, Dickensian tends to describe a prose style or method of characterization rather than a genre, and Victoriana was coined to describe a genre of historical fiction. When Steampunk came along it was a humorous affectation for Sci Fi that embraced the tropes and aesthetics of the Victoriana genre, which saw a bit of a renaissance at the time. Hence, lacking any other genre descriptor for a fantasy setting laden with elements of Victoriana, "proto-steampunk" seemed the most appropriate. I don't think I was too far off the mark, regardless of the steam-technology-themed interpretation of the Steampunk genre that's assumed dominance by the time it hit pop culture at large.
But this seems a very silly conversation. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, merely offered an explanation of why I liked Planescape.
Quote from: TristramEvans;701586Well, technically, Dickensian tends to describe a prose style or method of characterization rather than a genre, and Victoriana was coined to describe a genre of historical fiction. When Steampunk came along it was a humorous affectation for Sci Fi that embraced the tropes and aesthetics of the Victoriana genre, which saw a bit of a renaissance at the time. Hence, lacking any other genre descriptor for a fantasy setting laden with elements of Victoriana, "proto-steampunk" seemed the most appropriate. I don't think I was too far off the mark, regardless of the steam-technology-themed interpretation of the Steampunk genre that's assumed dominance by the time it hit pop culture at large.
Good points.
Quote from: TristramEvansBut this seems a very silly conversation. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, merely offered an explanation of why I liked Planescape.
No worries! :)
(Most conversations on rpg forums are silly anyway ;))
What about RPGA's Ravens Bluff and the Plateau of Chult? I only saw them at the trailing end of RPGA's demise. Chult looked interesting with the new half-kobold PC race. But never heard much of it after that.
Quote from: Omega;701592What about RPGA's Ravens Bluff
That would be the Forgotten Realms.
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;701632That would be the Forgotten Realms.
Chult's FR too, allthough Chult's located rather far from the Heartlands.
Quote from: Omega;701516Yes, but steampunk tends to be more defined by its misplaced tech. Or a focus on the steam-tech side. Unfortunately rampant misude of the term progressively muddles things. Kinga like how RPG gets applied to things not even remotely an RPG.
Simmilar to how cyberpunk focuses on the cybernetics and cyberspace.
I am waiting for someone to call D&D swordpunk... deaths will ensue I am sure...
The original Steam Punk Opener (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-8W-Sredo) (in color so as to not shock the young ones here)
When, 35 years later, I saw kids playing this theme as an RPG, it was amusing to say the least.
As someone who discovered (A)D&D through the 90s, I love, love, LOVE all the TSR settings (and then some). I think I was conditioned to.
Years later, I realize the setting "ADHD" robbed me of something very valuable: a long-term campaign based on my own personal fantasy "milieu". One that has grown organically from a hole in the ground next to a no-name town into a grand world of its own.
Instead of my campaign memories being one big, beautiful redwood, it is a forest of tiny, stunted saplings :(
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;701632That would be the Forgotten Realms.
Yes, but they were put forward as more or less their own isolated settings, especially Chult.
Quote from: Arduin;701678The original Steam Punk Opener (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-8W-Sredo) (in color so as to not shock the young ones here)
When, 35 years later, I saw kids playing this theme as an RPG, it was amusing to say the least.
Nah. Wild Wild West is not steampunk though. It is... Westernpunk combined with Spypunk and a little MadScientistpunk.
Closer would be something like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMOR4bs5wrk
So much punk, but nobody wears army boots nor mohawks :(.
Quote from: Rincewind1;701807So much punk, but nobody wears army boots nor mohawks :(.
Wasnt the 80s the mohawkpunk era? What about the Discopunk era?
Actually for a while in the 80s youd see alot more mohawks and army boots in fantasy art... Swordpunk comes full circle!
For me it was Spelljammer. I just really hated that setting. Totally subjective but, it just rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't play in all TSR settings though.
Quote from: Omega;701806Nah. Wild Wild West is not steampunk though. It is... Westernpunk combined with Spypunk and a little MadScientistpunk.
Steampunk: is a sub-genre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-genre) of science fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction) that typically features steam-powered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power) machinery,especially in a setting inspired by industrialized (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_society) Western civilization during the 19th century.
So, yes COMPLETELY Steampunk. In fact it was the first mass media Steampunk production.
Quote from: Rincewind1;701807So much punk, but nobody wears army boots nor mohawks :(.
Allow me to introduce my friend Magpie.
http://birdsbeforethestorm.net/bio/
Quote from: Nicephorus;524251Yes. And I believe it comes from being faithful to the novels.
That's because the novels sucked, my brother loved them and bought them. I tried to read the first one he bought, but couldn't get through the first chapter, it was just so damn boring from what I recall. Then he had the nearve to get the AD&D Dragonlance Modules and ran them, boy was that shit bad. I wanted to kill Kender at every chance I got, more so than if they were Orcs.
Quote from: flyingcircus;701904That's because the novels sucked, my brother loved them and bought them. I tried to read the first one he bought, but couldn't get through the first chapter, it was just so damn boring from what I recall. Then he had the nearve to get the AD&D Dragonlance Modules and ran them, boy was that shit bad. I wanted to kill Kender at every chance I got, more so than if they were Orcs.
The original novels takes one or two chapters to get rolling. It starts off like a standard adventurer tavern gathering. Setting the scene and introducing characters and backgrounds. That is fairly common in novels. Sometimes the writer likes to lay things out, who is who before getting to the action. The Hobbit is another example. Some read off the first chapter or two and are bored to death.
But yeah. Kender get alot of flack. Tinker Gnomes get alternating love hate as they overwrote gnomes thereafter. As said elsewhere. Its hard anymore to see a gnome in a setting that isnt tech or steam oriented. Sometimes overflowing into dwarves as some seem unable to tell the two apart. And Krynn gnomes essentially are dwarves at that point.
I think the real problem is that Kender are basically D&D's Jar Jar Binks / Scrappy Doo / Orko / Nelix. The annoying comic relief character that the guys who designed the story wheel insist is essential to a successful show but actually ruins it utterly.
That said, Dragonlance is a reasonable competent piece of formulaic genre fiction. I would argue there's nothing wrong with that. Did D&D's fans deserve better? Maybe but it also brought in many new fans. I'm not sure where it would have gone.
Actually in my recent GURPS games I've been tolerating an anime fox/girl assassin, maybe Kender aren't so bad.
Even so, the worst D&D race is the Fremlin from The Complete Book of Humanoids. Imagine an all male race of flying, invulnerable, Kender with no pants. Yes, they went there.
Quote from: flyingcircus;701904That's because the novels sucked, my brother loved them and bought them. I tried to read the first one he bought, but couldn't get through the first chapter, it was just so damn boring from what I recall.
I had the same experience. REALLY poor writing. I wouldn't go near the setting with a 10 parsec pole.
Quote from: Arduin;702283I had the same experience. REALLY poor writing. I wouldn't go near the setting with a 10 parsec pole.
The originals or the garbage remakes? Books and RPGs, though calling SAGA Dragonlance an RPG is being generous.
The first DL trilogy is rather bland yes, but the characters are mostly interesting. The second trilogy focusing on the twins was much better, my 15 year recollection is that it is "awesome."
This may or may not be the case, its been awhile.
Quote from: Omega;702396The originals or the garbage remakes? Books and RPGs, though calling SAGA Dragonlance an RPG is being generous.
The books from way back when.
Quote from: One Horse Town;524740Settings that spawn (or are spawned by) game fiction invariably cause coniptions.
That would be all of them - at one point or another there were novels for every single TSR campaign world.
I think the problem is that you guys are comparing Dragon Lance to The Dying Sun and Lord of the Rings. Which is unfair as these were great works by great authors.
Compared to some of the worse Hardy Boys books on the other hand, Dragon Lance is passable for what it is. Beyond that it was a successful product. Since it was conceived first and foremost as a product I will call it a success. It is what it was intended to be and does what it set out to do. Which wasn't to entertain, educate, or edify you but then, as I'm sure Jack Vance would tell you, there's not much money in that.
Quote from: David Johansen;702573I think the problem is that you guys are comparing Dragon Lance to The Dying Sun and Lord of the Rings. Which is unfair as these were great works by great authors.
I did no such comparison. It sucked all on its own.
No. I am comparing the original Dragonlance, which was pretty good overall to the 5th Age Dragonlance which was pretty awful. Both in books and setting.
Novel-wise the first 3 books and more or less the 2nd 3 books and kinda the first 3 anthologies stand up fairly well. Past that its a total hit and miss of the ones I have read.
In fact a fair number of the TSR era novels were not bad at all. But considering the sheer volume of novels put out between TSR and WOTC. You are bound to get some books that just do not work.
One of the problems TSR writers told me back then, and I had two as players in my games, was that there was interference sometimes from the execs. Usually to shorten the book to a certain page count which could end up with abrupt resolutions, etc. And in at least one case the book was not even written by the person who took credit on the cover.
Quote from: Omega;702579One of the problems TSR writers told me back then, and I had two as players in my games, was that there was interference sometimes from the execs. Usually to shorten the book to a certain page count which could end up with abrupt resolutions, etc. And in at least one case the book was not even written by the person who took credit on the cover.
You can't dangle that out there without naming names.
For adolescents the Dragonlance books are fucking brilliant and I won't hear a word said against them.
They're not great literature by any means, but that's because they're YA fiction, and those were the days when there were actual books written for teenagers, before "YA" came to mean "books for adults who don't want to admit they like reading fantasy books".
Quote from: noisms;702581For adolescents the Dragonlance books are fucking brilliant and I won't hear a word said against them.
They're not great literature by any means, but that's because they're YA fiction, and those were the days when there were actual books written for teenagers, before "YA" came to mean "books for adults who don't want to admit they like reading fantasy books".
Guess I was a teen who just happened to hate YA fiction taking me for a moron, both emotionally and intellectually. I'll take any classic when compared to the Dragonlance novels. Next to the guys I read when I was 12, i.e. Robert E Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, HP Lovecraft, JRR Tolkien and so many others, DL is crap. Honestly.
IMO, YMMV, BBQ, ETC.
Quote from: One Horse Town;702580You can't dangle that out there without naming names.
Tom Wham writing Iron Dragons when Rose Estes could not finish it. He mentioned it a year ago after I made some comments on the book. And its also explained on his web site.
QuoteSome years ago (that would be 1992) Darwin Bromley approached Rose Estes to do a pair of Fantasy books to go with a Fantasy railroad game he was working on. Somehow, I landed the game project, and then, it turned out that Rose didn't have time to write the book and the part her co-author contributed was unusable... So I found myself in the pleasant position of writing most of a fantasy novel and designing a companion game to go with it (It did, however, have only her name on the cover.)
Rose had written the first several chapters, so I took the story from there. And on the game front, Darwin & Peter had already done the "system" so I had strict rules I had to follow. My innovations included the the world itself, new terrain types, foremen, ships, the underground, and, a Tom Wham regular feature: geographically alphabetical names (something not possible in the real world.)
The first book came out and hit the market, but sadly, Mayfair took too long finishing the game and the dual marketing at the book stores was a flop. Consequently Baen cancelled the second book (upon which I had been working). I do still have a 30 page outline of Book Two.
Nice book by the way. He should try his hand more at writing.
Quote from: David Johansen;702573I think the problem is that you guys are comparing Dragon Lance to The Dying Sun and Lord of the Rings. Which is unfair as these were great works by great authors.
Compared to some of the worse Hardy Boys books on the other hand, Dragon Lance is passable for what it is.
Crappy works by crappy authors?
Quote from: TristramEvans;702670Crappy works by crappy authors?
Think you are mixing them up with Mel Odom?
(Sorry Mel! You are a nice guy and all but your RPG themed books tend to be bland and haphazard.)
Speaking of...
Another TSR setting. Free Lancers, the pseudo superhero RPG spin off from 2nd ed Top Secret. Interesting idea and some neet concepts. But felt a little lacking. Like there were bits missing.
Same goes for the amazing Engine RPG Kromosome with its biotech setting. But was better fleshed out than Free Lancers.
But that oft was the feel from the Amazing Engine series.
Magitech has some interesting ideas too. Neet Operation Chaos sort of extrapolation of what modern day earth would look like if D&D were its real past. Just did not feel like it played up on the concept enough.
And unfortunately same for Once & Future King. King Arthur in space. Though better fleshed out than Magitech.
And of course Metamorphosis Alpha which had the "oddly lacking" sensation and suffered from executive meddling as detailed in the book itself.
The other AE settings I have not seen.
Quote from: TristramEvans;702670Crappy works by crappy authors?
I stopped reading fantasy in the mid 80s largely because of the steaming pile of shit that was coming out of TSR.
There is no excuse for reading bad authors unless they are relatives.
There were some upsides to this haiatus
i) I had never heard of Drizzit until I came to this site
ii) When I got back into fantasy with Lies of Locke Lamora I was able to consume the first 3 SoFaI books over a week's holiday in Czech without having to wait 2-3 years between each one
iii) I was able to discover Joe Abercrombie the Blade itself in toto
I really do find it hard to fathom why people read trashy genre or spin off novels. I mean there are so many books by great writers why waste time with tut? God I even read the Davinci code because I was on holiday and it was to hand , sooo badly written that is a day of my life I will never get back...
Quote from: Benoist;702605Guess I was a teen who just happened to hate YA fiction taking me for a moron, both emotionally and intellectually. I'll take any classic when compared to the Dragonlance novels. Next to the guys I read when I was 12, i.e. Robert E Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, HP Lovecraft, JRR Tolkien and so many others, DL is crap. Honestly.
IMO, YMMV, BBQ, ETC.
Yeah yeah, you were incredibly intelligent, mature and discerning at that age, I'm sure.
You'll notice that at no stage did I say that the Dragonlance books are better than those "classics", although to be honest plenty of what Moorcock wrote is drivel, and probably more adolescent than Weiss & Hickman in its own way. The Corum books, for example, are perfect for 12 year olds, and very entertaining, but if you think they're classic literature you need your head examined.
Ironically, all the pulp fiction we consider classics now (Howard, Lovecraft) were consider the same level of crap as people consider the "gaming fiction" today, back in their time.
Quote from: JRT;702787Ironically, all the pulp fiction we consider classics now (Howard, Lovecraft) were consider the same level of crap as people consider the "gaming fiction" today, back in their time.
And most of it is crap. Lovecraft's a pretty mediocre writer at best. The ideas are occasionally great, which is why he's worth reading. Leiber, Moorcock and RE Howard are decent stylists but no great shakes - they're just entertaining storytellers. I think most OSR types hold them in such high esteem because they happen to be in Appendix N.
Quote from: noisms;702792And most of it is crap. Lovecraft's a pretty mediocre writer at best. The ideas are occasionally great, which is why he's worth reading. Leiber, Moorcock and RE Howard are decent stylists but no great shakes - they're just entertaining storytellers. I think most OSR types hold them in such high esteem because they happen to be in Appendix N.
I agree 100%. Most of the writing was published where it belonged. In cheap pulp mags...
Quote from: noisms;702782Yeah yeah, you were incredibly intelligent, mature and discerning at that age, I'm sure.
I don't know. I certainly wasn't the only one in my gaming circles who read books from these authors at the same age and thought the Dragonlance novels were total shit by comparison, if that's what you're asking.
As I recall the DL books were early in the run, very early, and so served as a training exercise in what to do and what not to do. The first few attempts of anyone at anything will be crap, even on part of people who eventually produce good work. The DL books are bad, but they are also early product from people learning the ropes.
Quote from: noismsLovecraft's a pretty mediocre writer at best. The ideas are occasionally great, which is why he's worth reading.
Lovecraft's style is pretty idiosyncratic, but some scholars and critics (me included) find him a master prose stylist. He was recently added to the Library of America, which publishes "America's best and most significant writing." Of course everyone's entitled to their own opinion - you might not enjoy Lovecraft - but he's accrued a huge deal of credibility and recognition since his pulp days, and not just in gaming circles.
Quote from: Steerpike;702833Lovecraft's style is pretty idiosyncratic, but some scholars and critics (me included) find him a master prose stylist.
In art that is meaningless. Except to the critics & "scholars" that is.
Quote from: ArduinIn art that is meaningless. Except to the critics & "scholars" that is.
Not sure why scholars is in quotation marks. By scholars I mean academic researchers who specialize in literature. S.T. Joshi is probably the best known Lovecraftian scholar but there are many others who research and publish on Lovecraft.
Style is certainly not meaningless in art. Lovecraft's prose can be gorgeously baroque, and a great deal of the atmospheric strangeness of his stories, the feeling of cosmic dread he conjures, and the nihilistic horror his monstrosities elicit is tied to his incredibly unique and unusual use of langauge. If you really think that literary style plays no role in literary art... well, I don't know what to say to that. You'd be wrong, though.
EDIT: You don't have to like Lovecraft, of course. Lots of critics and scholars have maligned him, and some still do. He is certainly not for everyone - I remeber you saying on another thread that you don't enjoy horror particularly, so perhaps he just doesn't work for you. All I'm saying is that there's now a vocal following of fans, readers, academics, critics who strongly disagree, so he won't be relegated to the rubish-bin of literary history. As Lovecraft himself says:
Quote from: H.P. Lovecraft...in spite of all this opposition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness.
Quote from: Steerpike;702839Not sure why scholars is in quotation marks. By scholars I mean academic researchers who specialize in literature.
Because it was undefined. But, as I stated, it isn't relevant. The artists under discussion created for the general public. It is there that the jury exists.
Popular reception is certainly one way to measure an artist's value. I that case, Lovecraft is spectacularly successful - one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. His impact on popular culture has been immense and he remains in print and widely read across the world. The man spawned a mythology.
It's worth noting, though, that Lovecraft, who liked to think of himself as a gentleman of refined tastes despite the considerable poverty in which he lived, would probably have preferred to be remembered as an important literary writer rather than a great and lastingly popular pulp writer (although he's now both).
Quote from: Benoist;702828I don't know. I certainly wasn't the only one in my gaming circles who read books from these authors at the same age and thought the Dragonlance novels were total shit by comparison, if that's what you're asking.
Quote from: noisms;702782Yeah yeah, you were incredibly intelligent, mature and discerning at that age, I'm sure.
I had similar experiences. Not to say there isn't a lot of books ostensibly aimed at young adults that are quite good: Prydain Chronicles, Watership Down, Treasure Island, those mystery books with Edward Gorey illustrations, not to mention the fairy tales and mythology anthologies I devoured. And quite a bit of fantasy that surpasses the genre: Gormenghast, Mythago Wood, Sandman, Gene Wolf's opus.
by the age of 13 I'd discovered pulp and splatter punk and those godawful Readers Digest Abridged Books that I was stuck with visiting my grandparents, and I remember discovering PK Dick at around that age. And my tastes were relatively discerning by that point. I found most fantasy published in the 80s rather depressingly bad, instilling a wariness that remains to this day, despite it being my favourite genre I'm extremely reluctant to pick up the majority of those trilogies/epics/sagas. So by the time Dragonlance came out, I was working my way backwards from Tolkien to Dunsany, Eddison, the Eldar Eddas...
I read the first two books of the Chronicles series, which did have quite gorgeous covers, but I don't remember much beyond thinking there was something really "Elfquest" about the writing (I'd not yet encountered Fanfic writing, but it had tropes, if you know what Im saying). And I remember gully dwarves with a seething hatred. I wasn't able to finish the second one. I found reading it a chore and was getting nothing out of it.
I'll forgive anything if its got enough imagination and passion behind it. It's why I can stand, even enjoy, Lovecraft. But for something called fantasy, those Dragonlance books seemed infuriatingly banal. I never looked twice at a novel associated with a D&D setting again (well, except to check out some of the cover art.)
In the 90s made one attempt to read one of the White Wolf books. Never again. Never, ever, again. If a book is good enough, it doesn't need an RPG tie-in to get published.
Quote from: Steerpike;702842Popular reception is certainly one way to measure an artist's value.
Yes, it is the most objective & relevant. Survey 1,000 random people and get their opinion. If they even know of said artist.
Way behind the curve here, but in responding to the OP, it has to be Spelljammer. I prefer Star Frontiers or Gamma World (1e) to that.
Quote from: ArduinYes, it is the most objective & relevant. Survey 1,000 random people and get their opinion. If they even know of said artist.
That's certainly one point of view, and there's a great deal of legitimacy to it. I don't think it's the only standard by which to measure art. I'd hazard, for example, that if you surveyed the public about Mozart's compositions and Lady Gaga's songs, most people would be able to name more Gaga songs than Mozart compositions. That doesn't necessarily mean that Gaga is a more significant or aesthetically or musically superior artist to Mozart, just that she's more popular at this particular moment in history. Attitudes and tastes and trends change shift, so tying aesthetic value solely to the popularity of an artist can be problematic. I think Mervyn Peake is a better writer than Stephanie Meyer, but he's not as widely read; does that mean I'm "wrong" in valuing Peake more? I don't think so, personally. That's not to discount popular opinion - it's important in any consideration of an artist's work, no question about it, and there's value to looking at an author's continuing reception.
If we evaluate Lovecraft by popular opinion, though, he's spectacularly successful. His works have not only influenced hundreds of authors and created an entire literary subgenre, they've been adapted in lots of different media (music, film, television, drama, pen and paper roleplaying, video games) and remain enduringly popular and well-read today. Go to any major bookstore and you're very likely fo find collections of his work in print. If we're going to use popular opinion as the criteria by which we judge a good writer, Lovecraft is a first-class writer.
Quote from: Steerpike;702833Lovecraft's style is pretty idiosyncratic, but some scholars and critics (me included) find him a master prose stylist. He was recently added to the Library of America, which publishes "America's best and most significant writing." Of course everyone's entitled to their own opinion - you might not enjoy Lovecraft - but he's accrued a huge deal of credibility and recognition since his pulp days, and not just in gaming circles.
Lovecraft had an absolute tin ear for dialogue and wrote many stories that are complete bilge. I like him, and have read all his stories, and of course he's significant because he was so influential. But he was in no sense a master prose stylist.
TSR was absolutely great for giving relatively new authors their first chances. Some started off a bit shakey. But even so over time they show marked improvements if given a chance. Loraine may have effectively killed TSR, but she was a godsend to some writers for the chances she gave people either through direct novels or via short stories in Amazing. Lots of different styles and themes.
Same can be said for any other companies book lines. Theres going to be hits and misses. Though personally I've yet to like any Warhammer book and most of the White Wolf novels tens to be rather blah to me on the literary level. Theme doesnt help much either.
Other people love em.
Same with RPG settings. Some people despise post apoc but love space opera, some like high fantasy but dislike low fantasy.
Quote from: noismsLovecraft had an absolute tin ear for dialogue and wrote many stories that are complete bilge. I like him, and have read all his stories, and of course he's significant because he was so influential. But he was in no sense a master prose stylist.
Oh, his dialogue is just
awful. His (human) characters are usually pretty thin, too. But his descriptions, the way he relays information, his atmosphere, and his pacing in his later stories - he excels at these things. His style rubs some people the wrong way, but it's very unusual and distinctive, and many argue that it's absolutely integral to his particular brand of weird/cosmic horror. Those who prefer minimalistic dialogue-driven prose tend to find Lovecraft absolutely aggravating; those who prefer lush, purple, atmospheric prose tend to enjoy him.
If people are interested in more discussion of Lovecraft, perhaps we should start a new thread?
If people want to debate the quality of Lovecraft's prose, i think that is best done in the Media and Inspiration forum.
A recurring problem seems to be that a setting may start off good. And then deteriorate over time. The kill point seems to frequently be at an edition change. But not allways.
Gamma World, Dark Sun. and Dragonlance come to mind from personal experience.
I've heard some mention Ravenloft in passing. But so far have not personally had a chance to look at more than my red box edition. (The one with the Tarokka deck) Think some of the irk was with the White Wolf version?
The planned revision to Star Frontiers saw enough resistance that it was discontinued. So only one book made it.
For non TSR settings, Others mention the whole White Wolf WOD change.
Traveller is one I've heard of but never seen. The odd edition with the rampant space computer virus AI? Not sure, been ages.
Quote from: Omega;702963A recurring problem seems to be that a setting may start off good. And then deteriorate over time. The kill point seems to frequently be at an edition change. But not allways.
I guess edition change is when you are most likely to get a new line manager or producer or editor brought in from outside. Or you wind trying to please your most vocal critics of prior editions, ignoring the 99.9999% of players who were quite happy with it and never said anything. (But marketing assures me that there is one guy on the internet who just hates it!)
My first exposure to Dragonlance was pretty negative. I had a DM who loved the novels and wanted to run the adventures identically. It wasn't fun. But as a setting, it had some things going for it.
Later, I read the novels. They were decent. While they wouldn't qualify as great literature they managed to cover the material and characterizations in an effective manner. It brought people into the hobby and it isn't hard to see why. Outside of the Weis/Hickman collaborations, they're markedly worse.
I remember liking some of the comics, because they had Minotaurs.
Settings tend to deteriorate the more defined they become. They are at thier strongest when serving as a springboard for individual GM's imagination, and conversely weakest when they become chronicles of famous NPCs (designer's PCs or spinoff media characters) and every corner of the world has been trodden by supplements.
Quote from: TristramEvans;702997Settings tend to deteriorate the more defined they become. They are at thier strongest when serving as a springboard for individual GM's imagination, and conversely weakest when they become chronicles of famous NPCs (designer's PCs or spinoff media characters) and every corner of the world has been trodden by supplements.
The Spinward Marches.
Quote from: jeff37923;703011The Spinward Marches.
Exactly. Traveller never got better.
I never had any use for Dragonlance or Birthright.
Quote from: TristramEvans;702997Settings tend to deteriorate the more defined they become. They are at thier strongest when serving as a springboard for individual GM's imagination, and conversely weakest when they become chronicles of famous NPCs (designer's PCs or spinoff media characters) and every corner of the world has been trodden by supplements.
Agreed. That's one reason why Planescape was good, in my view - it was mostly about flavour and inspiration rather than cataloguing every last centimetre of the Planes (for obvious reasons).
Quote from: Steerpike;702856That's certainly one point of view, and there's a great deal of legitimacy to it. I don't think it's the only standard by which to measure art. I'd hazard, for example, that if you surveyed the public about Mozart's compositions and Lady Gaga's songs, most people would be able to name more Gaga songs than Mozart compositions.
I don't think so. I asked 6 people I know. Not a single one could name a single "song" from Gaga. Nor had they heard any. 5 of them were able to name at least one work of Mozart. So in a very narrow demo she is better known. If you were to survey across all groups, in the Western world, you may find a similar result.
Fair enough. I just don't think the public opinion of the day is the only measure by which literature can be judged and evaluated. For example, there's something to be said for works that appeal to particular sensibilities and tastes rather than catering to the broadest possible demographic. I don't think it's fair to dismiss such works as inherently inferior just because their fanbase is more select or specific.
Quote from: Steerpike;703208Fair enough. I just don't think the public opinion of the day is the only measure by which literature can be judged and evaluated.
I agree. The less something is known, for what ever reason. The less reliable that method is. But, all else being equal, it will be probably the best way.
Quote from: noisms;702782Yeah yeah, you were incredibly intelligent, mature and discerning at that age, I'm sure.
You'll notice that at no stage did I say that the Dragonlance books are better than those "classics", although to be honest plenty of what Moorcock wrote is drivel, and probably more adolescent than Weiss & Hickman in its own way. The Corum books, for example, are perfect for 12 year olds, and very entertaining, but if you think they're classic literature you need your head examined.
What's with the assumption that 12 year olds/adolescents must necessarily like shoddy fiction? Are you actually suggesting that whilst it is possible to write interesting, moving, exciting and original books for 5-11 year olds and folk of 21 and up, folks in that awkward decade in between have to make do with crud?
In terms of the relative merits of Lovecraft, Moorcock and Howard, my take on it is this:
- Lovecraft had some daringly original themes when he was in his prime (though he did write his fair share of absolute trash), which make his stories of interest provided you can live with the limp prose.
- Howard's themes were, at best, pedestrian and unoriginal and at worst were offensively crazy and crazily offensive (if you read enough of his different fantasy series and figure out the recurring themes you find he constantly comes back to anthropological and ethnological ideas which were on the fringe in his time and are way out on a limb kookery today), but he does write some really exciting fight scenes, so if you want to read a story about a dude you may or may not find especially appealing hacking folks to bits he was a good pick back in the day (though there's a wide range of choices in such literature nowadays so if you don't want to deal with Howard's particular issues you really don't have to).
- When he puts his mind to it, Moorcock has both interesting themes and electric prose. However, when he's knocking something out quickly to pay the bills he produces tripe that's just as lukewarm and unpalatable as anyone else's tripe. Complicating matters is the fact that his back catalogue is extremely diverse (to pick three series at random, there's really no stylistic similarity between the Jerry Cornelius stories, the Elric saga and the Colonel Pyat novels) and also ridiculously huge - I'd say Moorcock's output trivially outstrips Lovecraft when it comes to word count and may give Howard (who was damn prolific himself during his short life) a run for his money - so unless you have a guide it's really hard to sort the wheat from the chaff with Moorcock's stuff.
So the best of Moorcock, for me, is more appealing than the best of Lovecraft and the best of Howard, though Moorcock has had the advantage of living substantially longer than either of the other two and also coming along after them and benefitting from standing on their shoulders. (And the less good Moorcock material tends to tread on the toes of the superior stuff - I think the Elric saga was much better when it was just limited to the original run of novellas plus Stormbringer, and the later additions to the series have been increasingly transparently about money and have little compelling thematic reason to exist). And all three are fallible mortals who shouldn't be used as the unwavering yardsticks of what's best in fantasy. (Does the fetishisation of Appendix N bug anyone else?)
Something occurred to me last night. While everyone may now hate the DL setting with zeal, it was a memorable setting and one which produced table-top books of art, an atlas, calendar, produced iconic characters and the like. Few other settings, if any, have produced the same range of secondary materials and memorable characters.
Quote from: GrumpyReviews;703607Something occurred to me last night. While everyone may now hate the DL setting with zeal, it was a memorable setting and one which produced table-top books of art, an atlas, calendar, produced iconic characters and the like. Few other settings, if any, have produced the same range of secondary materials and memorable characters.
Re: memorable characters - you have got to be fucking kidding me.
Re: general production of secondary materials: Forgotten Realms had more videogames, and said videogames are more widely celebrated today. (Hell, the Planescape videogame gets more critical kudos than any of the Dragonlance games these days.) Forgotten realms had a novel line of comparable size back at Dragonlance's height, and has long since dwarfed DL's output. Just about the only medium Dragonlance entered which Forgotten Realms hasn't enjoyed is a movie adaptation, and the Dragonlance movie was a barely competent animation which combined stuff cel-drawn stuff with horrible CGI which was so cheaply animated you could see the rendering computer stutter and slow down in complex scenes so it isn't exactly a feather in DL's cap. Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 both have franchises that have proceed masses and masses of secondary materials. And looking at post-1974 fantasy settings originating outside of gaming, Game of Thrones absolutely dwarfs Dragonlance in terms of secondary materials and mainstream exposure, as does Harry Potter, and you could make a good case for Terry Goodkind's stuff too simply because he was able to get a TV series made out of his work and Dragonlance never did.
Dragonlance was only a big fish in the comparatively small pond of gaming tie-in fiction, and even there Forgotten Realms always dwarfed it and (along with Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000) still dwarfs it today.
Quote from: Warthur;703602What's with the assumption that 12 year olds/adolescents must necessarily like shoddy fiction? Are you actually suggesting that whilst it is possible to write interesting, moving, exciting and original books for 5-11 year olds and folk of 21 and up, folks in that awkward decade in between have to make do with crud?
In terms of the relative merits of Lovecraft, Moorcock and Howard, my take on it is this:
- Lovecraft had some daringly original themes when he was in his prime (though he did write his fair share of absolute trash), which make his stories of interest provided you can live with the limp prose.
- Howard's themes were, at best, pedestrian and unoriginal and at worst were offensively crazy and crazily offensive (if you read enough of his different fantasy series and figure out the recurring themes you find he constantly comes back to anthropological and ethnological ideas which were on the fringe in his time and are way out on a limb kookery today), but he does write some really exciting fight scenes, so if you want to read a story about a dude you may or may not find especially appealing hacking folks to bits he was a good pick back in the day (though there's a wide range of choices in such literature nowadays so if you don't want to deal with Howard's particular issues you really don't have to).
- When he puts his mind to it, Moorcock has both interesting themes and electric prose. However, when he's knocking something out quickly to pay the bills he produces tripe that's just as lukewarm and unpalatable as anyone else's tripe. Complicating matters is the fact that his back catalogue is extremely diverse (to pick three series at random, there's really no stylistic similarity between the Jerry Cornelius stories, the Elric saga and the Colonel Pyat novels) and also ridiculously huge - I'd say Moorcock's output trivially outstrips Lovecraft when it comes to word count and may give Howard (who was damn prolific himself during his short life) a run for his money - so unless you have a guide it's really hard to sort the wheat from the chaff with Moorcock's stuff.
So the best of Moorcock, for me, is more appealing than the best of Lovecraft and the best of Howard, though Moorcock has had the advantage of living substantially longer than either of the other two and also coming along after them and benefitting from standing on their shoulders. (And the less good Moorcock material tends to tread on the toes of the superior stuff - I think the Elric saga was much better when it was just limited to the original run of novellas plus Stormbringer, and the later additions to the series have been increasingly transparently about money and have little compelling thematic reason to exist). And all three are fallible mortals who shouldn't be used as the unwavering yardsticks of what's best in fantasy. (Does the fetishisation of Appendix N bug anyone else?)
Who said anything about shoddy fiction or crud? I said Dragonlance books are entertaining. For what they are - fantasy adventure books for teenagers - they do a job.
And I'm suspicious of anybody who says that at the age of 12 they knew what "good fiction" or "great literature" was. At the age of 12 I'd already read The Lord of the Rings, quite a few Shakespeare plays, books like 1984 and The Lord of the Flies, but I was 12 years old so I found the Dragonlance books, Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf novels and Jurassic Park just as good, if not more so.
Finally, I agree with your assessment of those three writers. My main point was simply that there isn't really much difference between them and Weiss & Hickman, except for the fact that they happen to be in Appendix N and they sometimes deal with more "gritty" themes. Some of the stuff in Appendix N is great, but most of it is pulpy tripe, although enjoyable enough.
There's a real divide between a great product and great literature. I'm not sure they're mutually exclusive but I am sure that many teenage boys don't read well enough to appreciate Tolkien, Moorcock, or Lovecraft. Indeed, most teenaged boys wouldn't be able to read the last two author's names without sniggering.
Quote from: noisms;703636And I'm suspicious of anybody who says that at the age of 12 they knew what "good fiction" or "great literature" was.
"Knew" as in "self-analyze like critics in a literary review"? Fuck no.
"Knew" as in "this is whiny and boring and therefore shit, while this is action packed and cool to read with some really good passages - here, read this man"? Fuck yes.
Do you think 12 year-olds are retards?
Quote from: noisms;703636Finally, I agree with your assessment of those three writers. My main point was simply that there isn't really much difference between them and Weiss & Hickman, except for the fact that they happen to be in Appendix N and they sometimes deal with more "gritty" themes. Some of the stuff in Appendix N is great, but most of it is pulpy tripe, although enjoyable enough.
You what? Weiss and Hickman exclusively plough a rather shallow fantasy furrow and have never produced anything with an ounce of the gravitas or erudition of, say, Moorcock's
Mother London.
As others have pointed out, there's distinctions between great literature and great page-turners and the two categories can overlap (but often don't), but to say that there's little to no distinction between Weiss and Hickman on the one hand and Lovecraft and Moorcock (or, indeed, Vance and Leiber, or Wolfe and Le Guin, or McKillip and Norton for that matter) is either willingly overlooking the important contributions of the latter or vastly overhyping the significance of the former. (Not including Howard here because his work was far more squarely in the pulpy page-turner vein that is Weiss and Hickman's customary market than any of the other - Lovecraft, conversely, submitted his stuff to the pulps because he was a strange old bird who was producing material nobody else would accept, much as Clark Ashton Smith was.)
The setting for the D&D cartoon was pretty retarded. But the characters were awesome.
Quote from: David Johansen;703638There's a real divide between a great product and great literature. I'm not sure they're mutually exclusive but I am sure that many teenage boys don't read well enough to appreciate Tolkien, Moorcock, or Lovecraft. Indeed, most teenaged boys wouldn't be able to read the last two author's names without sniggering.
Depends on when. Today? Most HS grads can't even read at the level that was expected of 10 year olds when I was in school.
Quote from: Benoist;703641"Knew" as in "self-analyze like critics in a literary review"? Fuck no.
"Knew" as in "this is whiny and boring and therefore shit, while this is action packed and cool to read with some really good passages - here, read this man"? Fuck yes.
Do you think 12 year-olds are retards?
No, but I think that somebody who says that they read the Dragonlance books at the age of 12 and didn't think that they were action packed and cool to read with some really good passages is almost certainly lying or misremembering.
Quote from: Warthur;703644You what? Weiss and Hickman exclusively plough a rather shallow fantasy furrow and have never produced anything with an ounce of the gravitas or erudition of, say, Moorcock's Mother London.
As others have pointed out, there's distinctions between great literature and great page-turners and the two categories can overlap (but often don't), but to say that there's little to no distinction between Weiss and Hickman on the one hand and Lovecraft and Moorcock (or, indeed, Vance and Leiber, or Wolfe and Le Guin, or McKillip and Norton for that matter) is either willingly overlooking the important contributions of the latter or vastly overhyping the significance of the former. (Not including Howard here because his work was far more squarely in the pulpy page-turner vein that is Weiss and Hickman's customary market than any of the other - Lovecraft, conversely, submitted his stuff to the pulps because he was a strange old bird who was producing material nobody else would accept, much as Clark Ashton Smith was.)
Moorcock wrote a lot of stuff that is entirely in the same vein as the Dragonlance Books. He wrote some that is better, yes. But Corum? Hawkmoon? Come on.
Also, nice job slipping Vance, Wolfe, and Le Guin in there, when I hadn't mentioned any of them. No, Weiss & Hickman are nowhere near as good as those writers, although personally I find Le Guin boring.
Quote from: noisms;703692No, but I think that somebody who says that they read the Dragonlance books at the age of 12 and didn't think that they were action packed and cool to read with some really good passages is almost certainly lying or misremembering.
They might be simply compressing their memory. I loved DL at 12. Then at 14 I tried to read a new dragonlance novel and hated it, so I went back to read the old stuff and found it simple minded and bad.
To misquote Paul Graham: "The golden age of Dragonlance is 12".
Quote from: noisms;703692No, but I think that somebody who says that they read the Dragonlance books at the age of 12 and didn't think that they were action packed and cool to read with some really good passages is almost certainly lying or misremembering.
Or just didn't have the same tastes as you at 12 years of age. I know that might seem inconceivable.
Quote from: therealjcm;703697They might be simply compressing their memory. I loved DL at 12. Then at 14 I tried to read a new dragonlance novel and hated it, so I went back to read the old stuff and found it simple minded and bad.
To misquote Paul Graham: "The golden age of Dragonlance is 12".
Sure. I'm not arguing that I would sit down and read Dragonlance books
now. But I wouldn't read the Corum books now either.
Quote from: TristramEvans;703698Or just didn't have the same tastes as you at 12 years of age. I know that might seem inconceivable.
It doesn't seem inconceivable. It
is inconceivable. ;)
Quote from: noisms;703692No, but I think that somebody who says that they read the Dragonlance books at the age of 12 and didn't think that they were action packed and cool to read with some really good passages is almost certainly lying or misremembering.
Oh so I don't remember right OR I'm a liar now?
Well. Fuck you too, dude! :)
Quote from: Benoist;703720Oh so I don't remember right OR I'm a liar now?
Well. Fuck you too, dude!
With you I think it's more that you've got this OSR hard core persona that you have to live up to, and you're afraid it will be damaged if you admit you once liked Dragonlance. It's okay, Benoist. You can own up to it. Your megadungeon-creating credentials will still outweigh the fact your teenage self loved the Chronicles and Legends.
Quote from: TristramEvans;703645The setting for the D&D cartoon was pretty retarded. But the characters were awesome.
The setting was not bad. It was just geared to a younger audience while still sneaking in some more mature themes. The writers slipped past some fairly interesting locales and themes while still conforming to the "group think" mandate they had to follow.
The fleshed out characters also helped immensely. Even if they did not necessarily carry over much growth from episode to episode.
Quote from: noisms;703722(...)
What I'm getting is that you are assuming I'm either deluded, or a liar.
Cool. Thanks.
Quote from: noisms;703692No, but I think that somebody who says that they read the Dragonlance books at the age of 12 and didn't think that they were action packed and cool to read with some really good passages is almost certainly lying or misremembering.
Actually the Dragonlance books are oddly low on the action part. The majority of the tale is traveling, sneaking, escaping, and wheeling and dealing to garner allies. Whole chunks of combat take place effectively offscreen.
According to an article in Dragon that was intentional as the omitted parts were often revealed in the modules. Never seen the modules so cannot say how accurate or not that was in practice.
So a kid could easily read DL and find it an engaging travel adventure, or intrigue adventure and not consider it an action adventure hardly at all. Probably someone out there read it and thought it was a nice romance adventure.
Quote from: Omega;703736Actually the Dragonlance books are oddly low on the action part. The majority of the tale is traveling, sneaking, escaping, and wheeling and dealing to garner allies. Whole chunks of combat take place effectively offscreen.
According to an article in Dragon that was intentional as the omitted parts were often revealed in the modules. Never seen the modules so cannot say how accurate or not that was in practice.
So a kid could easily read DL and find it an engaging travel adventure, or intrigue adventure and not consider it an action adventure hardly at all. Probably someone out there read it and thought it was a nice romance adventure.
Dragonlance was a series of romance novels dressed up in an epic fantasy plot so teenager boys could read it without going ewwww before they even started.
The most pressing issue of the Chronicles, after all, was who Tanis should get it on with at the end.
Quote from: noisms;703692No, but I think that somebody who says that they read the Dragonlance books at the age of 12 and didn't think that they were action packed and cool to read with some really good passages is almost certainly lying or misremembering.
Two years ago I picked up a dragon lance novel to read to my then 7 year old daughter and she thought it was turgid rot, well her exact phrase was daddy this is really boring can we read the lion the witch and the wardrobe again.......
I think it depends totally on people.
As a 12 year old kid I found moorcock, lovecraft and howard dull becuase there was no characterisation and the fight scenes weren't enough to save it. I could read Zelazny with great characterisation and combat, or Gor (first 7-8 books) for great characterisation and combat and some nicely purloined anthropology I could read David Eddings for world spanning fantasy Epics.
Now Eddings and Norman are hadly great novelists. Each has a nice way of establishing a character in a couple of sentences and each has a nice was with action but Primo Levi they are not....
Late to the party but I. too, have never managed to "get" DL, whether as a setting or fiction. To me it just seemed like a rather forced effort to get dragons more into the forefront of a game that sounded like it should have been 50% devoted to them, but in reality only featured dragons less than maybe 5% of the time.
Admittedly I was fast leaving my teens behind at that time, so I probably didn't have the right mindset to appreciate it.
Quote from: Vile;703827Late to the party but I. too, have never managed to "get" DL, whether as a setting or fiction. To me it just seemed like a rather forced effort to get dragons more into the forefront of a game that sounded like it should have been 50% devoted to them, but in reality only featured dragons less than maybe 5% of the time.
Admittedly I was fast leaving my teens behind at that time, so I probably didn't have the right mindset to appreciate it.
No. That about sums it up in a nutshell. We see I think 2 dragons in the first book, maybee 1 more in the second and the whole dragon war take place mostly off screen in the 3rd. I assume some of this omitted stuff was in the modules.
Books 4-6 "Time of the Twins" I do not recall any dragons at all.
The anthologies were though better at actually showing... well... dragons...
so you aren't the only one that noticed the oddity.
Quote from: Benoist;703734What I'm getting is that you are assuming I'm either deluded, or a liar.
Cool. Thanks.
More like unbelievably po-faced.
Quote from: jibbajibba;703819Two years ago I picked up a dragon lance novel to read to my then 7 year old daughter and she thought it was turgid rot, well her exact phrase was daddy this is really boring can we read the lion the witch and the wardrobe again.......
I think it depends totally on people.
As a 12 year old kid I found moorcock, lovecraft and howard dull becuase there was no characterisation and the fight scenes weren't enough to save it. I could read Zelazny with great characterisation and combat, or Gor (first 7-8 books) for great characterisation and combat and some nicely purloined anthropology I could read David Eddings for world spanning fantasy Epics.
Now Eddings and Norman are hadly great novelists. Each has a nice way of establishing a character in a couple of sentences and each has a nice was with action but Primo Levi they are not....
Well, a 7 year old girl is never going to be interested in Dragonlance, just like a 7 year old boy is going to find a Jane Austen novel boring.
I read most of David Eddings' stuff but surely that was even worse than Dragonlance when it came to being thinly-disguised romance? The entire first novel of The Malloreon, as I remember, is just about how Garion and his wife aren't getting along and how they resolve it.
Quote from: Vile;703827Late to the party but I. too, have never managed to "get" DL, whether as a setting or fiction. To me it just seemed like a rather forced effort to get dragons more into the forefront of a game that sounded like it should have been 50% devoted to them, but in reality only featured dragons less than maybe 5% of the time.
Admittedly I was fast leaving my teens behind at that time, so I probably didn't have the right mindset to appreciate it.
They do a reasonably good job of building dragons up over the course of the first book or so, so when finally they make an appearance it feels like an event. I think the first time a dragon is encountered one of the characters gets his face melted off by its acid breath. Great scene for a 12 year old boy.
Quote from: noisms;703850More like unbelievably po-faced.
Well what you could do, instead of being an asshole about it and project all manners of motives into my posts, is ask instead. You prefer to make some pretty retarded assumptions, stupid shortcuts and fire into the crowd basically spewing what amounts to total nonsense, to me. You're turning into an internet flame warrior, and that's a waste of time and space.
We could start by separating the issue of the novels from the actual Dragonlance game setting. Then, what I thought about Dragonlance then, and what I think about Dragonlance now. And what I think of the people behind it, for that matter, since that might be relevant to actually make you realize that your assumptions are a load of crap.
The novels never appealed to me. I thought they were boring. I remember reading one particular DL book I actually liked, but that was years later, and I was already in Canada. I think it was the Test of the Twins, not sure. Point remains that to me, next to Moorcock (I love Elric, and Hawkmoon as well, by the way, still now) and Tolkien (my first attempt to read the LOTR stalled in the middle of book 1 of 6. Then when I started reading it again some three months later, I reached the Council of Elrond... and finished all six books in three days), the DL novels were not good.
I played the DL modules in a really cool game, and I cherish that memory. I came to like DL, or rather, the idea of the setting I had in my head at the time, as I would find out much, much later. One of my very first attempts at world-building was based on that idea I had in my mind of Krynn based on the Atlas of Karen Fondstad and the Dragonlance Adventures AD&D sourcebook. So in that sense, this idea of DL participated to my imaginative landscape today.
I once wrote that the 3rd ed Dragonlance setting disappointed me because I wanted the setting of the original DL, not the War of Souls and all that stuff. I wrote: "When I see any Dragonlance stuff out there, I'm sourly reminded this is NOT the Dragonlance I knew." This reminds me of that Greek orator in
I Claudius who asks the Herald where he learned to project his voice like that, to which the Herald responded "I was an actor, Sir, but I had to change carreers. The theater is not today what it was." And the orator answers: "I will tell you something... " He glances at him. "It never was, what it was."
Well. What I had only become to guess back then was that it never was the Dragonlance I thought I knew. It never was, what it was.
Today, I think Dragonlance, the game setting, actually did enormous damage to the D&D game by participating to the gradual change from the "exploration of dungeons and wilderness" game to the "heroic ren fair fantasy storyline emulator" that AD&D2 became. Sure, it was extremely popular at the time, and I liked playing in the original modules, though I now realize these weren't exactly run "by the book", but I can see how the game changed, and not for the best, in hindsight.
Still, that's not talking about the novels, which I thought were tedious and boring, even back then. We actually joked about it a few days ago with Ernie, because we talked about it in relation with Margaret Weis, who was really helpful after all the trouble Ernie went through and actually was giving us advice on some issue we had he and I. What I have indirectly experienced of her tells me she is a really, really nice person. I'd still have to tell her I didn't like the DL novels if she asked me what I thought.
So, there. See? You could have asked.
Quote from: noisms;703851Well, a 7 year old girl is never going to be interested in Dragonlance, just like a 7 year old boy is going to find a Jane Austen novel boring.
I read most of David Eddings' stuff but surely that was even worse than Dragonlance when it came to being thinly-disguised romance? The entire first novel of The Malloreon, as I remember, is just about how Garion and his wife aren't getting along and how they resolve it.
Well, at the age of 12 a reader varies a lot in what they will like.
But really...Eddings vs Moorcock, Lovecraft and Howard?
My head just exploded!
Quote from: Bill;703950Well, at the age of 12 a reader varies a lot in what they will like.
But really...Eddings vs Moorcock, Lovecraft and Howard?
My head just exploded!
HP Lovecraft vs Atomic Robo.
With some help by Charles Forte and Carl Sagan...
Quote from: noisms;703851Well, a 7 year old girl is never going to be interested in Dragonlance, just like a 7 year old boy is going to find a Jane Austen novel boring.
I read most of David Eddings' stuff but surely that was even worse than Dragonlance when it came to being thinly-disguised romance? The entire first novel of The Malloreon, as I remember, is just about how Garion and his wife aren't getting along and how they resolve it.
You say that but she loves killing things and taking their stuff :) Oh and usually eating them afterwards by turning into a tiger
The Mallorean is rubbish its basically a nostalgic attempt to recapture the Belgariad. The Belgariad is I would say one of the better fantasy epics. Eddings is able to give a crisp character protrait in a short paragraph. The dialogue sparks and there are some nice world building ideas.
Quote from: jibbajibba;704014You say that but she loves killing things and taking their stuff :) Oh and usually eating them afterwards by turning into a tiger
The Mallorean is rubbish its basically a nostalgic attempt to recapture the Belgariad. The Belgariad is I would say one of the better fantasy epics. Eddings is able to give a crisp character protrait in a short paragraph. The dialogue sparks and there are some nice world building ideas.
There were some bits of The Mallorean I remember liking, but I read it
ages ago, so I may be misremembering. One is this scene where the main characters are riding through a forest and these zombie-like beings are attacking them in constant waves, until eventually one of the wizard characters conjurs up this kind of sphere of immunity, so they all spend the night under this invisible magical dome while crazed zombie things try to break through but can't. I thought that was really well done.
Quote from: Bill;703950Well, at the age of 12 a reader varies a lot in what they will like.
But really...Eddings vs Moorcock, Lovecraft and Howard?
My head just exploded!
I'm not entirely sure Eddings is all that different to Moorcock or Howard in terms of ability. Moorcock had much, much more interesting ideas, which is what separates his wheat from Eddings' chaff, perhaps.
Lovecraft I would say is the best of those on offer, because his work is actually philosophically interesting and sometimes highly evocative. He does it rarely, but now and then he writes stuff that is genuinely almost transcendental.
Quote from: noisms;703693Moorcock wrote a lot of stuff that is entirely in the same vein as the Dragonlance Books. He wrote some that is better, yes. But Corum? Hawkmoon? Come on.
That's precisely what I was talking about when I said that Moorcock's bibliography is a) huge and b) extremely variable. (In particular, the Corum and Hawkmoon stuff were both series Moorcock knocked out quickly for easy money, and he's been very open about that.)
The point I was making is that Moorcock, Lovecraft, and most of the others I cited at their best
absolutely trounce Weis and Hickman at their best. And why would you spend time on inferior work unless you were very enamoured of the author in question?
Quote from: Warthur;704128That's precisely what I was talking about when I said that Moorcock's bibliography is a) huge and b) extremely variable. (In particular, the Corum and Hawkmoon stuff were both series Moorcock knocked out quickly for easy money, and he's been very open about that.)
The point I was making is that Moorcock, Lovecraft, and most of the others I cited at their best absolutely trounce Weis and Hickman at their best. And why would you spend time on inferior work unless you were very enamoured of the author in question?
How do you know in advance if what you are reading is Moorcock when he can be bothered turning it on?
Taking your argument to its logical conclusion would result in only ever reading Shakespeare, Dickens, Proust and Tolstoy because it is a fair bet that at their best they are better than other writers and you have a reasonable inkling of that in advance.
Finally, when you are 12 Weis & Hickman at their best may be better than even a great writer at his best. I bet if I'd read the Viriconium stories at age 12 I would have wondered what on earth the point of them was.
When I was in middle and high school, I was seriously reading a novel every night. There are only so many masters of writing around, so I've read some stuff that is all over the chart quality wise, and some of it is very enjoyable even if it isn't quality literature.
Quote from: noisms;704142Finally, when you are 12 Weis & Hickman at their best may be better than even a great writer at his best. I bet if I'd read the Viriconium stories at age 12 I would have wondered what on earth the point of them was.
I actually read the Timescape paperback edition of "The Pastel City" at 10 or 11, and I reacted to it entirely as an adventure story. But that is probably the only Virconium story that works at the level a kid could enjoy.
Quote from: therealjcm;704163I actually read the Timescape paperback edition of "The Pastel City" at 10 or 11, and I reacted to it entirely as an adventure story. But that is probably the only Virconium story that works at the level a kid could enjoy.
Yeah, I can see that, although can you imagine reading "In Viriconium" at that age? It may be one of the greatest pieces of fantasy ever written, in my view, but it just isn't for 12 year-olds. And to be honest, even though "The Pastel City" sort of works as an adventure story, as a pure adventure story that adolescents might enjoy I think it probably works less well than meaningless but entertaining stuff-and-nonsense like "A Princess of Mars", the Corum stories, or the Dragonlance novels.
There are plenty of other examples in the canon of great fantasy literature too, of course.
Quote from: noisms;704172Yeah, I can see that, although can you imagine reading "In Viriconium" at that age? It may be one of the greatest pieces of fantasy ever written, in my view, but it just isn't for 12 year-olds. And to be honest, even though "The Pastel City" sort of works as an adventure story, as a pure adventure story that adolescents might enjoy I think it probably works less well than meaningless but entertaining stuff-and-nonsense like "A Princess of Mars", the Corum stories, or the Dragonlance novels.
True enough, I was a ferocious little reader, but oddly picky. Even at a very young age the Tolkien clones and "better by the pound" fantasy series left me cold. So I wound up reading a lot of the old classics before I was really ready to understand them, along with pure entertainment of varying levels of quality.
QuoteThere are plenty of other examples in the canon of great fantasy literature too, of course.
Definitely. The Once and Future King is a great story, a great book, and works for young kids, adolescents and adults. It makes me a little sad that I have friends who won't read it because they don't like the Aurthur stories.
There is admittedly a place for popcorn books, books that read like action movies and should come with a side of buttery popcorn. Michael Crichton is like that to me. Not terribly deep, usually bloated with action and suspense, and left sorta "over it" afterwards, but not a bad ride for the cost.
But not in my locovore, free-ranged, artesian beans, non-chain café. I mean, what will the baristas think?
:hand:
But I'm sure we can all agree Tom Clancy was phoning it in for years and his materiel readouts posed as novels were starting to suck, right?
:p
Quote from: Opaopajr;704241There is admittedly a place for popcorn books, books that read like action movies and should come with a side of buttery popcorn. Michael Crichton is like that to me. Not terribly deep, usually bloated with action and suspense, and left sorta "over it" afterwards, but not a bad ride for the cost.
But not in my locovore, free-ranged, artesian beans, non-chain café. I mean, what will the baristas think?
:hand:
But I'm sure we can all agree Tom Clancy was phoning it in for years and his materiel readouts posed as novels were starting to suck, right?
:p
I've only read "The Hunt for Red October" and "Clear and Present Danger". I tried reading "Against All Enemies" a few years ago and it was bloody awful - unreadable tripe.
The worst, unreadable tripe I read was when I tried reading the first book in the Left Behind, what is it now, decalogy?
I may hate Finnigan's Wake terribly, but this stuff was trying to be coherent, everyday writing. It was even worse than WW Gangrel clan novel in ham handed plot, easily the worst of the interwoven clan novel lot. And its spastic flux between explosive, jocular dialogue and just plain ol' Michael Bay over-saturation (like, "zOMG, it's the end of the world! guess I shouldn't have committed adultery. Oh shit, here comes an explosive crisis!" *boom*) would make a Battletech novel blush.
I couldn't help myself to play "let's count the typos!" and stopped somewhere after twenty from the first few pages. We're talking under 5 pages few. A truly frightening book, far worse than most horror, as I realized there's obscene money pouring into these yahoo venues to artificially inflate sell rate and propagation.
The movie was even scarier. Not even funny-but-exhausting bad like the modern Atlas Shrugged pt. 1. Just humorless, where-the-fuck-are-the-psycho-motherfuckers-funding-this-shit? bad. And it had Kurt Cameron trying to be all earnest and shit, with nary a banana public service announcement in sight.
:mad:
Quote from: Opaopajr;704324The worst, unreadable tripe I read was when I tried reading the first book in the Left Behind, what is it now, decalogy?
I may hate Finnigan's Wake terribly, but this stuff was trying to be coherent, everyday writing. It was even worse than WW Gangrel clan novel in ham handed plot, easily the worst of the interwoven clan novel lot. And its spastic flux between explosive, jocular dialogue and just plain ol' Michael Bay over-saturation (like, "zOMG, it's the end of the world! guess I shouldn't have committed adultery. Oh shit, here comes an explosive crisis!" *boom*) would make a Battletech novel blush.
I couldn't help myself to play "let's count the typos!" and stopped somewhere after twenty from the first few pages. We're talking under 5 pages few. A truly frightening book, far worse than most horror, as I realized there's obscene money pouring into these yahoo venues to artificially inflate sell rate and propagation.
The movie was even scarier. Not even funny-but-exhausting bad like the modern Atlas Shrugged pt. 1. Just humorless, where-the-fuck-are-the-psycho-motherfuckers-funding-this-shit? bad. And it had Kurt Cameron trying to be all earnest and shit, with nary a banana public service announcement in sight.
:mad:
So...not a fan?
Quote from: The_Shadow;704559So...not a fan?
Well, I decided not to get into the series after all.
Quote from: RPGPundit;524197So which one was it, out of all the ones they made? Which was the worst piece of shit in the bunch?
Blackmoor?
Gygax-era Greyhawk?
Tekumel?
Mystara?
Kara-tur?
Dragonlance?
Forgotten Realms?
Ravenloft?
2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk?
Al-qadim?
Hollow World?
Dark Sun?
Spelljammer?
Planescape?
Birthright?
I'm sure there's a few I'm missing in that list. Say which one you thought was a total waste of paper that the designers should be shot for having written.
RPGPundit
Gygax-era Greyhawk
Spelljammer. Completely moved away from D&D.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;704588Spelljammer. Completely moved away from D&D.
Into space.:rolleyes:
Honestly, while Dragonlance and Planescape were bad, I think the worst was probably Kara-tur; it was just a whole collection of dubious stereotypes.
You can't even really complain that it was early days, because it happened like 10 years after Tekumel which certainly wasn't stereotypical (though it might have gone too far the other way, into unrecognizeable).
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPunditHonestly, while Dragonlance and Planescape were bad...
Any reason in particular Planescape isn't to your taste? I know some people find the obssessive symmetry annoying, or don't like the sort of surreal Cockney quality of the Sigilian cant (and, of course, there are purists who find the whole gonzo mythological approach too alien compared to standard/vanilla D&D i.e. Greyhawk and the Realms). Just curious, as it's on of my all-time favourites.
I think it's hard to be too down on Kara-Tur since stereotypical 'Asian' with fantastic elements is exactly what people wanted (just like standard D&D evolved as stereotypical 'European' medieval with fantasy elements.
People wanted samurai, bushido codes, Chinese Emperors, mongol hordes etc, and not only did they want them to exist only as they did in the imagination, they wanted them to all exist simultaneously despite their differences in culture, geographic region, and real-world temporal relation.
Rather than blame the setting for being shallow, blame everyone who wanted to be a Ninja.
I think you're absolutely right, but I don't think those things made Kara Tur suck less.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;705575Rather than blame the setting for being shallow, blame everyone who wanted to be a Ninja.
I don't leave them out of my hate. Them and their close relatives in Clan Wolverine.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;705575I think it's hard to be too down on Kara-Tur since stereotypical 'Asian' with fantastic elements is exactly what people wanted (just like standard D&D evolved as stereotypical 'European' medieval with fantasy elements.
People wanted samurai, bushido codes, Chinese Emperors, mongol hordes etc, and not only did they want them to exist only as they did in the imagination, they wanted them to all exist simultaneously despite their differences in culture, geographic region, and real-world temporal relation.
Spot on.
In short: people wanted Legend of the Five Rings.
I'm playing a L5R d20 game right now and well, what can I say? Not a fan of the approach. Feels bland and dumbed-down. And the clan-splats, merciful Buddha, the clan-splats can fuck off straight to the Ten Thousand Hells for all I care. The only part I really like is the over-the-top, quasi-WFRPish oni and their Shadowlands enclave.
What I need is a game where a deadly ronin, a righteous sohei, a wise yamabushi and a despicable yakuza (and maybe even a far-traveling Chinese sorcerer or monk, or an Okinawan pechi seeking to hone his kobudo) team up and go save a village from malicious tengu, or child-snatching oni, or even an angry kami. Were I a more enterprising sort of gamer I'd get a crack at an OSR East Asian-inspired game complete with sandbox setting. But that would require watching more chanbara and reading more katana porn than I possibly could on my current schedule.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;705575Rather than blame the setting for being shallow, blame everyone who wanted to be a Ninja.
I suppose it was a big thing during the 1980s and 1990s. At my game table everyone wants to be a frickin' Samurai. I got odd looks for wanting to play a Sohei. And sohei were pretty badass. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Dhei)
Quote from: The Butcher;705585. Were I a more enterprising sort of gamer I'd get a crack at an OSR East Asian-inspired game complete with sandbox setting. But that would require watching more chanbara and reading more katana porn than I possibly could on my current schedule.
Well there's
Ruins and Ronin and the hexcrawl made for it in Nod magazine. :)
Quote from: The Butcher;705585What I need is a game where a deadly ronin, a righteous sohei, a wise yamabushi and a despicable yakuza (and maybe even a far-traveling Chinese sorcerer or monk, or an Okinawan pechi seeking to hone his kobudo) team up and go save a village from malicious tengu, or child-snatching oni, or even an angry kami.
That game does exist. (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Japan/)
Quote from: therealjcm;705580I don't leave them out of my hate. Them and their close relatives in Clan Wolverine.
I blame Murder Hoboism more than Ninja's or Wolverine.
I'd take Wolverine clones and ninjas any day over the Highlander Trenchcoat katanas of the 90s
Quote from: TristramEvans;705884I'd take Wolverine clones and ninjas any day over the Highlander Trenchcoat katanas of the 90s
Wolverine would be pretty much at home in the highlander setting.
Ninjas...never really identified with them myself.
Quote from: Bill;706087Wolverine would be pretty much at home in the highlander setting.
Ninjas...never really identified with them myself.
80s. Everything had to have a damn ninja in it. Transformers had a ninja episode!
Quote from: Omega;70626780s. Everything had to have a damn ninja in it. Transformers had a ninja episode!
If you were a kid growing up the 80s, ninjas were a special kind of awesome.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;706281If you were a kid growing up the 80s, ninjas were a special kind of awesome.
When used in moderation. But after a while it was WTF Ninja. You know somethings wrong when Daredevil and Batman become ninja students. For a while before that it was Samurai or Martial arts.
OA came out before the whole genre became more cliche. 5-10 years later and it might have done worse. Depending on timing.
Quote from: bedrockbrendan;706281if you were a kid growing up the 80s, ninjas were a special kind of awesome.
Ninjas are totally sweet. REAL ULTIMATE POWER!
Quote from: Raven;706284Ninjas are totally sweet. REAL ULTIMATE POWER!
Power Rangers Ninja Force...
And I am surprised there has not yet been a straight up sentai themed RPG. Or maybee I've just been lucky... BESM doesnt count.
Quote from: Omega;706287Power Rangers Ninja Force...
And I am surprised there has not yet been a straight up sentai themed RPG. Or maybee I've just been lucky... BESM doesnt count.
They did do one here in Brazil, a few years back, because sentai shows were huge in the 1980s for some reason. The game sucked.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;706281If you were a kid growing up the 80s, ninjas were a special kind of awesome.
The only ninjas I like are Shadowstorm from Gi Joe because he wore WHITE.
And Batman.
Quote from: Steerpike;705574Any reason in particular Planescape isn't to your taste?
It banalizes the Planes.
Analises them too.
Quote from: Bill;706390The only ninjas I like are Shadowstorm from Gi Joe because he wore WHITE.
And Batman.
:rant: IT'S STORMSHADOW, NOT SHADOWSTORM, GAWD.
The GI Joe comics probably had way too many ninjas by the end of it, though.
Quote from: RPGPunditIt banalizes the Planes.
Ah, I see. You prefer the Planes to be visited rarely to heighten their sense of wonder? Keep them difficult to reach and you make them special? I can see that as a legitimate criticism. I personally enjoy the juxtapositions of the quotidian and the sublime, the mundane and the bizarre, that Planescape plays with, but I can definitely see why that wouldn't be to everyone's tastes. I do think it's possible to retain a sense of awe to the Planes even in Planescape, although it does pose challenges.
Quote from: Steerpike;707302Ah, I see. You prefer the Planes to be visited rarely to heighten their sense of wonder? Keep them difficult to reach and you make them special? I can see that as a legitimate criticism. I personally enjoy the juxtapositions of the quotidian and the sublime, the mundane and the bizarre, that Planescape plays with, but I can definitely see why that wouldn't be to everyone's tastes. I do think it's possible to retain a sense of awe to the Planes even in Planescape, although it does pose challenges.
About how I felt too about Planescape. At also didnt really feel like the outer planes. It felt like Spelljammer... with walking instead of cool ships. Each plane might as be an alien world.
Neet set up and ideas. but yeah. It turned the planes into Hikingjammer... :confused:
@Omega: I don't quite get where you find Hikingjammer because I thought one of the principles of Planescape was Sigil's doors would be your primary method of going from plane to plane.
That said, I do get the "banalisation" point in the sense that if you think that any trip to the planes should be special and exceptional and memorable, then the idea of playing an entire campaign set is a non-starter in the first place. I do find Planescape works better if you steer it away from traditionally D&D-ish fantasy and more towards high weirdness; although at that point it stops feeling like the D&D planes and starts feeling like its own thing, equally I actually find that helps because it separates the wondrous divine otherworlds that your D&D characters look up to from the weird multiplanar billion-timesteams parallel universe Jerry Cornelius weirdfest your Planescape characters are adventuring through.
Quote from: Paper Monkey;707300:rant: IT'S STORMSHADOW, NOT SHADOWSTORM, GAWD.
The GI Joe comics probably had way too many ninjas by the end of it, though.
Whatever his name is, you KNOW he is an awesome Ninja, because he wears WHITE.
Pfft, ninja racists
Quote from: Paper Monkey;707300:rant: IT'S STORMSHADOW, NOT SHADOWSTORM, GAWD.
The GI Joe comics probably had way too many ninjas by the end of it, though.
The ninjas were always there. It's just that by the end, they finally revealed their presence. There are two dozen at the moment, hiding inside your house.
Quote from: RPGPundit;707197It banalizes the Planes.
I think that's an exaggeration, but I understand the point vAND conversely how that was the point of Plan escape.
I think its best summed up by Matt Smith's Doctor:
"When you make all of time and space your backyard, you end up with...a backyard"
Plan escape was about role playing characters who lived in an environment that was far more fantastical than any D&D "prime material plane" world, but had a pragmatic, cynical attitude to it. The Berks who travelled to the planes were all full of wonder and awe, the planar were jaded. It was at once a commentary on D&D and on 90s angst-puppy games like VtM. It simultaneously embraced and subverted both. The highest level of technology assumed in play by 2e was late renaissance: the advanced culture of the planars was thus Victorian. One step in between the fantasized world of the past and the modern world of science. There were cliques and moppy Goths, but instead of being different types of creatures, it was philosophies. And you'll notice all of the philosophies are adolescent in nature. They're presented as pablums, the shallow coping mechanisms of people whô, having met gods, have lost faith.
However, despite all that, if the Planes themselves didn't nevoke any sort of wonder or awe from the players, if notthier characters, that's notafailure that can be put on Planescape- its solely the failure of a GM
Quote from: Warthur;707360@Omega: I don't quite get where you find Hikingjammer because I thought one of the principles of Planescape was Sigil's doors would be your primary method of going from plane to plane.
We rarely used Sigil and just walked around the ring where we could.
That seems... odd to me. You're not really meant to be able to walk from one plane to the other without using gates in Planescape and whilst I guess you could just use the gate towns in the Outlands, it seems odd not to use Sigil.
Were I to run Planescape these days I would definitely make sure to make the campaign Sigil-centric, because it helps retain at least some of the mystique of the Planes if the players spend most of their time in Sigil and only venture out to the wider planes in brief, occasional excursions.
Quote from: RPGPundit;707197It banalizes the Planes.
I think that is a valid complaint. The planes lose some of their mystery at least, in the planescape setting.
The right gm should be able to make Planescape work despite that.
I personally don't like the factions all that much, or the Dabu's, but I did like how they never tell you what exactly the Lady of Pain is.
Planescape is a mixed bag for me, but I have always enjoyed planar dnd games.
City of Brass, and the Nine Hells are my favorite places to visit.
Quote from: Steerpike;707302Ah, I see. You prefer the Planes to be visited rarely to heighten their sense of wonder?
Yes. I want it to be an inhuman realm of great danger and power, generally only suitable for high-level incursions. And not, say, a place full of punks and dudes saying 'berk'.
RPGPundit
Planescape is a great setting to cannibalize, but I never saw myself using it straight.
That said, Planescape: Torment is possibly the most artistic exploration of D&D's potential ever sold (though there are likely hundreds of home campaigns that surpass it).
Quote from: RPGPundit;707197It banalizes the Planes.
Dude, Planescape fucking
elevated the Planes....and gave us ideas for actually exploring it. It's the best treatment of the D&D cosmology yet.
Before Planescape, the Planes were just sorta....there, but were rarely used in detail before Planescape came around. Saying that Planescape "banalizes" the Planes, is like saying that Star Wars or Star Trek makes exploration of the universe seem trivial and lame. Does not compute.
The only real complaint I could possibly agree with is the annoying "Planar cant", or whatever you want to call it. That was waaaay overused, and needed to be seriously toned down. Beyond that, it's an awesome campaign setting.
Quote from: RPGPundit;708132Yes. I want it to be an inhuman realm of great danger and power, generally only suitable for high-level incursions. And not, say, a place full of punks and dudes saying 'berk'.
RPGPundit
It does seem like you're confusing Sigil with the Planes.
Sigil is the default setting of Planescape, created so its easy for PCs to adventure in the Planes, its not the Planes themselves.
No, there's a similar problem with the rest of the setting in Planescape, it emanates from "sigil" like a poison. It ends up turning the Planes into just another adventuring setting, when it should be the peak and culmination of a lengthy high-level campaign.
Both the Manual of the Planes that came before it and came after it do a much better job.
Quote from: RPGPunditNo, there's a similar problem with the rest of the setting in Planescape, it emanates from "sigil" like a poison. It ends up turning the Planes into just another adventuring setting, when it should be the peak and culmination of a lengthy high-level campaign.
I basically agree with this, except with the idea that the Planes "should" be the culmination of a lengthy high-level campaign - they certainly work in that role, but I don't think that's the
only function they can fulfill. Although the streetwise, urban fantasy sensibility is strongest in Sigil, it does permeate the setting as a whole to some extent. To me that's part of the charm - the mixture of the sublime and the seedy. There's a Kafkaesque quality to Planescape: everything plays by very weird, sometimes counter-intuitive rules (Limbo's changeability, Mechanus' arbitrary and draconian laws, the Mazes and the Lady of Pain, the associative logic of portal keys, the sprawling planar highways, the shifting of Gate-Towns according to their moral ethos, etc), and many of the denizens of the Planes have learned to exploit those rules to advance their own frequently esoteric agendas. To be Clueless in Planescape is to stumble into this surreal philosophical nightmare, thrust into a seemingly non-sensical reality. The more experienced characters are like William Lee in
Naked Lunch, wandering relatively unfazed from one bizarrerie to the next, jaded by so much omnipresent strangeness that nothing can rattle them for long. The whole milieu can be pretty alienating, I guess, but I like the kind of twisted quasi-mythic illogic of the thing. Played right it should feel a bit like a collaboration between Raymond Chandler and Lewis Carroll or something.
Quote from: Steerpike;709155I basically agree with this, except with the idea that the Planes "should" be the culmination of a lengthy high-level campaign - they certainly work in that role, but I don't think that's the only function they can fulfill. Although the streetwise, urban fantasy sensibility is strongest in Sigil, it does permeate the setting as a whole to some extent. To me that's part of the charm - the mixture of the sublime and the seedy. There's a Kafkaesque quality to Planescape: everything plays by very weird, sometimes counter-intuitive rules (Limbo's changeability, Mechanus' arbitrary and draconian laws, the Mazes and the Lady of Pain, the associative logic of portal keys, the sprawling planar highways, the shifting of Gate-Towns according to their moral ethos, etc), and many of the denizens of the Planes have learned to exploit those rules to advance their own frequently esoteric agendas. To be Clueless in Planescape is to stumble into this surreal philosophical nightmare, thrust into a seemingly non-sensical reality. The more experienced characters are like William Lee in Naked Lunch, wandering relatively unfazed from one bizarrerie to the next, jaded by so much omnipresent strangeness that nothing can rattle them for long. The whole milieu can be pretty alienating, I guess, but I like the kind of twisted quasi-mythic illogic of the thing. Played right it should feel a bit like a collaboration between Raymond Chandler and Lewis Carroll or something.
Very well put. Would sig it if it were possible.
Quote from: RPGPundit;708132Yes. I want it to be an inhuman realm of great danger and power, generally only suitable for high-level incursions. And not, say, a place full of punks and dudes saying 'berk'.
...without having the slightest clue as to what the word actually means in real English. *sigh*
Quote from: Steerpike;709155I basically agree with this, except with the idea that the Planes "should" be the culmination of a lengthy high-level campaign - they certainly work in that role, but I don't think that's the only function they can fulfill. Although the streetwise, urban fantasy sensibility is strongest in Sigil, it does permeate the setting as a whole to some extent. To me that's part of the charm - the mixture of the sublime and the seedy. There's a Kafkaesque quality to Planescape: everything plays by very weird, sometimes counter-intuitive rules (Limbo's changeability, Mechanus' arbitrary and draconian laws, the Mazes and the Lady of Pain, the associative logic of portal keys, the sprawling planar highways, the shifting of Gate-Towns according to their moral ethos, etc), and many of the denizens of the Planes have learned to exploit those rules to advance their own frequently esoteric agendas. To be Clueless in Planescape is to stumble into this surreal philosophical nightmare, thrust into a seemingly non-sensical reality. The more experienced characters are like William Lee in Naked Lunch, wandering relatively unfazed from one bizarrerie to the next, jaded by so much omnipresent strangeness that nothing can rattle them for long. The whole milieu can be pretty alienating, I guess, but I like the kind of twisted quasi-mythic illogic of the thing. Played right it should feel a bit like a collaboration between Raymond Chandler and Lewis Carroll or something.
Which is stupid. If I wanted to play "Naked Lunch: The RPG" I'd run Over The Edge, which does that much better.
Planescape isn't clever. Its a shallow person's attempt to act clever.
Quote from: Steerpike;709155To me that's part of the charm - the mixture of the sublime and the seedy. There's a Kafkaesque quality to Planescape: everything plays by very weird, sometimes counter-intuitive rules.
That was my biggest take-away from Planescape and influenced how I ran Shadowrun. I loved Planescape, but the fact that it was set in the D&D planes was a distraction.
Quote from: RPGPundit;709205Which is stupid. If I wanted to play "Naked Lunch: The RPG" I'd run Over The Edge, which does that much better.
Planescape isn't clever. Its a shallow person's attempt to act clever.
Not being to your tastes is perfectly fine, but tastes are not objective. I don't understand the need to denigrate things that don't appeal to someone on an aesthetic level. I don't care for Indian mythology, just doesn't appeal to me, but that doesn't make Arrows of Indra "stupid". And "we already have OtE for that" is kinda a ridiculous statement.
Quote from: TheRPGPunditWhich is stupid. If I wanted to play "Naked Lunch: The RPG" I'd run Over The Edge, which does that much better.
Planescape isn't clever. Its a shallow person's attempt to act clever.
To each their own, of course. The avant-garde stuff is tempered by the fact that it's still recognizably a D&D cosmology mixed up with some other mythic source material. To some people (see the post above this one) that can be a turn-off.
I think the setting can be quite clever at times, depending on the GM. I mean you've got Factions representing philosophical positions running around in a decadent, mythic melting-pot that's basically Victorian London if it were inhabited by the cast of
Sandman ruled over by a figure culled from a Swinburne poem, and the stakes are the nature of reality itself. Personally, I think that a good GM can make that premise engaging on both an intellectual and an escapist level. The boxed sets and adventures vary in quality, but I'll take the lunatic incongruity of Planescape over the dullness of yet another quasi-medieval fantasy setting with Elves and Dwarves and stuff any day.
Pretty much all of the Amazing Engine settings. Each was interesting but each feels... lacking too. Especially Metamorphosis Alpha/Omega, Magitech, and Once and Future King.
The Alternity settings too came off as feeling incomplete. Though not as much as the AE ones. Star*Drive seemed to get the most fleshing out of the three, Alt Gamma World was the least.
Quote from: RPGPundit;709143No, there's a similar problem with the rest of the setting in Planescape, it emanates from "sigil" like a poison. It ends up turning the Planes into just another adventuring setting, when it should be the peak and culmination of a lengthy high-level campaign.
Both the Manual of the Planes that came before it and came after it do a much better job.
What's with the should be crap? D&D is for adventuring. The Manual of the Planes was boring. A retirement home for adventurers maybe?
As for worst setting? I couldn't say. There were ones I had zero interest in, like Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.
I find it unlikely that the Pundit has ever cracked a single Planescape setting book open.
Planescape does a pretty good job of showing just how powerful and versatile D&D can be. There's more than a tincture of 1990s White Wolfesque pretension to it, which is probably what rankles Pundejo so much, but like the White Wolf games it vaguely tries to ape, it's a fun game. I also get a whiff of China Miéville, but I'm not particularly well-read on Miéville so I can't really elaborate beyond a vague impression.
Nevertheless it can lead to some fun gaming that's not better or worse than the usual D&D premise, just different. It develops the Great Wheel cosmology into something coherent enough to serve as a springboard for what I've long perceived to be D&D's focal point -- exploration.
Some of the élan may be lost if you try a bait-and-switch with your group, but really. People playing Planescape should know what to expect. Pundejo's concern about "banalizing the planes", like his critique of White Wolf, sounds like armchair gaming to me.
Quote from: The Butcher;709324I find it unlikely that the Pundit has ever cracked a single Planescape setting book open.
Planescape does a pretty good job of showing just how powerful and versatile D&D can be. There's more than a tincture of 1990s White Wolfesque pretension to it, which is probably what rankles Pundejo so much, but like the White Wolf games it vaguely tries to ape, it's a fun game. I also get a whiff of China Miéville, but I'm not particularly well-read on Miéville so I can't really elaborate beyond a vague impression.
Nevertheless it can lead to some fun gaming that's not better or worse than the usual D&D premise, just different. It develops the Great Wheel cosmology into something coherent enough to serve as a springboard for what I've long perceived to be D&D's focal point -- exploration.
Some of the élan may be lost if you try a bait-and-switch with your group, but really. People playing Planescape should know what to expect. Pundejo's concern about "banalizing the planes", like his critique of White Wolf, sounds like armchair gaming to me.
Yep.
Quote from: The ButcherThere's more than a tincture of 1990s White Wolfesque pretension to it...
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that old Lorraine Williams told the designers to write something that captured the feel of White Wolf's Vampire clans and the beleaguered designers rolled with the punches, hence the Factions. All things considered I think they turned out reasonably well. Some of them (Dustmen, Signers, Sensates, Doomguard, Ciphers) are better than others (the Free League are pretty boring, and the Harmonium end up just functioning as Sigil's cops).
Quote from: The ButcherI also get a whiff of China Miéville, but I'm not particularly well-read on Miéville so I can't really elaborate beyond a vague impression.
Planescape was published well before Miéville started writing, but Miéville is a huge gaming nerd and writes a lot of urban fantasy, so the comparison is very apt. I've read some interviews with him where he talks about the "city as dungeon" phenomenon and I know he's a collector of gaming bestiaries, and D&D specifically was a big influence on his stuff, especially the Bas-Lag stuff. New Crobuzon and Sigil have several similarities - both are quasi-Victorian metropolises full of arcane conspiracies, crime, urban decay, and weird monsters.
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;709319What's with the should be crap? D&D is for adventuring. The Manual of the Planes was boring. A retirement home for adventurers maybe?
Its a toolkit that lets you make the Planes awesome, rather than a second-rate White Wolf clone.
Quote from: RPGPundit;709589Its a toolkit that lets you make the Planes awesome, rather than a second-rate White Wolf clone.
Okay, relatively certain at this point you never read Planescape.
The Old World of Darkness and Planescape are interesting to compare. I disagree that Planescape is a "White Wolf clone" by any stretch of the imagination, but there are certain parallels: the urban fantasy feeling, the punk sensibility, the internicine political landscape. It's not nearly as uniformly dark, though, nor is it a horror setting by any means, but I do think that White Wolf had a definite influence on some aspects of Planescape.
I think what may put some off is the overall irreverence of the setting, the way it upends a lot of standard D&D tropes. Even though the Great Wheel bursts with Gods and spirits, many of those depicted in the setting are sardonic, cynical types who regard deities with suspicion and even disdain (most notably the Athar, but to a lesser extent the Bleak Cabal). Planescape subverts the cosmological/religious assumptions that D&D usually makes. Gods in D&D are usually either adored or feared; in Planescape their righteousness, their motives, and even their divinity itself are thrown into question. The Planes in vanilla D&D are usually mysterious, nigh-inaccesible realms that stand out against the mundane, quasi-medieval setting; in Planescape they're a place where people and creatures live and build cities and politick, and their very borders and boundaries and nature are malleable. Rather than the struggle between Good and Evil forming the crux of the conflict, as more mundane D&D settings frequently assume, Planescape is more interested in the clash between different epistemic and ontological points of view.
Yeah there's some obvious WW influence, which I outlined earlier in the thread I think (probably 2 weeks ago now); the use of "cliques" to quickly establish social standings and relations, the use of a unique lexicon to aid in characterization, etc. All optional role-playing aids for new characters. Even a bit of existential angst to appeal to Gen X.
Calling Planescape a WW clone is either ignorant or disingenuous hyperbole though.
Quote from: Steerpike;709336I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that old Lorraine Williams told the designers to write something that captured the feel of White Wolf's Vampire clans and the beleaguered designers rolled with the punches, hence the Factions. All things considered I think they turned out reasonably well. Some of them (Dustmen, Signers, Sensates, Doomguard, Ciphers) are better than others (the Free League are pretty boring, and the Harmonium end up just functioning as Sigil's cops).
Honestly the plansecape factions were all pretty stupid (faction that does real charity work is Chaotic Evil no fooling) but D&D moral philosophy has always been pretty stupid, so I'd like to belive the more stupid things were self-parody
Anyway some good definitely did come from Planescape because a lot of that stuff got folded back into the 3e DMG, and it was pretty cool.
Quote from: gamerGoyfHonestly the plansecape factions were all pretty stupid... but D&D moral philosophy has always been pretty stupid, so I'd like to belive the more stupid things were self-parody
It depends on how you play them, how the DM and players interpret them. The philosophical sophistication of the Factions isn't so complex as to make the setting opaque. It's quite possible to play them in such a way that they come off as little more than caricatures of their respective positions, cartoonish representations of the philosophies they represent, and there's certainly canon material that presents them in this broad light, but there are other sections that don't reduce them to parody. One thing that's sort of weird about Planescape is the interaction between the crudeness of the D&D Alignment system and the relative complexity of the Factions, though, and navigating that can be tricky.
Quote from: gamerGoyf(faction that does real charity work is Chaotic Evil no fooling)
Your info is actually incorrect here. None of the Factions have any single Alignment associated with them in any sort of consistent way. Even the Harmonium, who are supposed to represent Lawful Good in a lot of ways, end up sliding into Lawful Neutral territory sometimes - so much so they send a whole layer of Arcadia into Mechanus as a result of their indoctrination camps. The Chaosmen have Chaotic members, but they can be Chaotic Good, Neutral, or Evil. Likewise with the Lawful Guvners. The Mercykillers seem like classic Lawful Evil, but even they have some Paladin members. The Faction you're reffering to are the Bleak Cabal (I think they're the ones you're thinking of - they're the ones who do most of Sigil's charity work, certainly, setting up soup kitchens in the Hive and taking in orphans, vagrants, and the mentally ill), and they are by no means an "All Chaotic Evil" Faction by any stretch of the imagination. Their Factol is Chaotic Neutral, and they have members of most other Alignments except Lawful (as the existentialist faction, they find Law too obssessed with intrinsic meaning).
While we're on the subject of Planescape, has anyone ever run a campaign in Acheron for any length of time? The place fascinates me as a mini-setting in its own right.
Quote from: Steerpike;709609It depends on how you play them, how the DM and players interpret them. The philosophical sophistication of the Factions isn't so complex as to make the setting opaque. It's quite possible to play them in such a way that they come off as little more than caricatures of their respective positions, cartoonish representations of the philosophies they represent, and there's certainly canon material that presents them in this broad light, but there are other sections that don't reduce them to parody. One thing that's sort of weird about Planescape is the interaction between the crudeness of the D&D Alignment system and the relative complexity of the Factions, though, and navigating that can be tricky.
Your info is actually incorrect here. None of the Factions have any single Alignment associated with them in any sort of consistent way. Even the Harmonium, who are supposed to represent Lawful Good in a lot of ways, end up sliding into Lawful Neutral territory sometimes - so much so they send a whole layer of Arcadia into Mechanus as a result of their indoctrination camps. The Chaosmen have Chaotic members, but they can be Chaotic Good, Neutral, or Evil. Likewise with the Lawful Guvners. The Mercykillers seem like classic Lawful Evil, but even they have some Paladin members. The Faction you're reffering to are the Bleak Cabal (I think they're the ones you're thinking of - they're the ones who do most of Sigil's charity work, certainly, setting up soup kitchens in the Hive and taking in orphans, vagrants, and the mentally ill), and they are by no means an "All Chaotic Evil" Faction by any stretch of the imagination. Their Factol is Chaotic Neutral, and they have members of most other Alignments except Lawful (as the existentialist faction, they find Law too obssessed with intrinsic meaning).
I think that may be the problem and what Pundit is keying on.
The Planescape Factions serve no thematic purpose in a dimension of defined alignment sectors. Each is too alignment ambiguous to actually represent an alignment sector. Depending on how you view or play them or the descriptions.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;709628While we're on the subject of Planescape, has anyone ever run a campaign in Acheron for any length of time? The place fascinates me as a mini-setting in its own right.
That and the Blood Wars sounded like wargames waiting to happen. Blood Wars got its CCG. but eh. Acheron would have made an interesting wargame setting.
Quote from: Omega;709636I think that may be the problem and what Pundit is keying on.
The Planescape Factions serve no thematic purpose in a dimension of defined alignment sectors. Each is too alignment ambiguous to actually represent an alignment sector. Depending on how you view or play them or the descriptions.
The Factions served an entirely different purpose, from my PoV, namely to assist instant player identification and a starting point for their PC's motivations. I didn't see them as pursuing a thematic purpose, except insofar as that phrase could be applied to "the theme of the character one is creating".
Compare/Contrast to the use of Feats to "distinguish characters", from a system perspective rather than a setting perspective.
OTOH, in a game like Warhammer, Factions would be more comparable to choosing a guild for a character.
Within the setting itself, I saw Factions as "coping mechanisms" that characters chose to deal with the psychological and philosophical effects of living on/near the Planes.
Quote from: Shipyard LockedWhile we're on the subject of Planescape, has anyone ever run a campaign in Acheron for any length of time? The place fascinates me as a mini-setting in its own right.
I haven't run an extended game there but I did have a couple of sessions awhile back that were all on Acheron. One particularly memorable segment involved a Goblinoid settlement built on a series of small cubes connected by scrap-fashioned bridges. The strange nature of gravity on the Plane made this a very fun place to explore, requiring a lot of illustrations to give the players an idea of where they were (what face of which cube they were on and how the cubes were interconnected). There were also crude flying machines and giant birds and insects involved, and a lot of running around blowing up bridges while massed Hobgoblin archers rained arrows down on them. The whole thing eventually culminated in the PCs fleeing the Plane along a root of Yggdrasil with Goblin bat-riders in pursuit and Nidhogg the World-Serpent trying to catch them for a quick snack.
Quote from: OmegaThe Planescape Factions serve no thematic purpose in a dimension of defined alignment sectors. Each is too alignment ambiguous to actually represent an alignment sector. Depending on how you view or play them or the descriptions.
Yeah, it really plays with and sometimes problematizes Alignment, even while some Factions like the Guvners and Chaosmen are still associated with at least one axis of the Alignment spectrum. Frequently creatures of the same Alignment will find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict, though, and this to me is one of the joys of the setting. It's quite possible to have, say, a Lawful Neutral Doomguard, Dustman, Mercykiller, and Cipher who all have differing ideas about how reality behaves and how we should act in that reality, or to see Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil characters working together to further some goal of their Faction, like two Anarchists both out to tear down the system, but with different moral inflections. At it's best Planescape is like some mad mashup of the Moorcockian Cosmic Balance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Chaos) and something like Dungeons and Discourse (http://dresdencodak.com/2006/12/03/dungeons-and-discourse/) in this regard.
Quote from: The Butcher;709324I find it unlikely that the Pundit has ever cracked a single Planescape setting book open.
I owned the original boxed set when it came out, having been impressed with the design/look along with just about everyone else. I have also looked at some of the sourcebooks for it.
Its dreck. That isn't the HIGHER REALMS its not the place of the Gods, its just reduced to another greyhawk or FR. The fact that its not happening on a prime material plane is just circumstance.
That's the problem. When you're told "You are going to HELL", or alternately "You will ascend into Olympus!", you do not want it to be places that are mundane (by mundane, read "as mundane as some funky places you can find on a D&D material plane"). There's literally NO point in going to the higher planes anymore that makes it different or more special than going to, say, Waterdeep.
At least Spelljammer, which was not a great product, still managed to make their game about Space.
Planescape, on the other hand, turned the realms of the Gods, demons, and angels into just another Greyhawk.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;709813There's literally NO point in going to the higher planes anymore that makes it different or more special than going to, say, Waterdeep.
At least Spelljammer, which was not a great product, still managed to make their game about Space.
Planescape, on the other hand, turned the realms of the Gods, demons, and angels into just another Greyhawk.
RPGPundit
1: You got there for them hawt Tiefling babes obviously.
2: Hence why I called Planescape... Hikingjammer...
Spelljammer was not great. There was soooooo much more that could have been done with the system. Or at least done better. But. It at least spread out and did not overfocus on known worlds. And the ones that did focus tended to at least flesh out the unknown territory in the settings starsystems.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;709628While we're on the subject of Planescape, has anyone ever run a campaign in Acheron for any length of time? The place fascinates me as a mini-setting in its own right.
I have.
I am a big fan of Archeron. I call it Evil Vallhalla.
Each floating block is like a little realm.
The main tricky part for me was defining how death works there, especially for natives.
Its a great plane, and the blocks make it manageable in bite sized pieces.
The main challenge for natives is avoiding being invaded by other blocks, and scavanging resources.
I also have the plane prevent flying and teleporting between blocks. You have to either wait for them to bump, or leap towards one and hope like
Acheron you don't get crushed.
Quote from: RPGPunditPlanescape, on the other hand, turned the realms of the Gods, demons, and angels into just another Greyhawk.
Like I said, Planescape is about marrying and juxtaposing the mundane and the marvelous, so in one sense this is exactly right: Planescape makes the Planes accessible, and thus "reduces" them in a certain way.
But on another level the complete opposite is true, because Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms and all those old tired settings just replicate the same well-worn fantasy tropes again and again
ad nauseum: Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Orcs, your usual array of pseudo-medieval kingdoms and Earth-like geography, all the same tired Middle Earth stuff that's been overdone for decades. Planescape goes in
completely the opposite direction, substituting weird goat-centaurs and Astral zealots and demon-human hybrids and sentient polyhedrons and Chaos-obsessed frog-folk for the usual panoply of boring demi-humans. Instead of ye olde mountains and forests and plains and tundra Planescape has landscapes made of gears or roiling amorphousness or ooze or congealed hatred, palaces made from the spines of primordial fiends and towers built on the corpses of forgotten gods. Instead of the same old thatched-roof semi-European city it has a quasi-Victorian metropolis built inside a giant torus. Instead of done-to-death mages' guilds and thieves' guilds and cults it has militant philosopher cliques dedicated to esoteric ways of knowing.
So it's like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms insofar as it makes the Planes a place to adventure and visit without having to be a 17th level Wizard with a Gate spell. But in virtually every other aspect it is nothing at all like them.
I feel the need to say the somewhat obvious; I don't think you need to actually use planescape for a planar game. You can, but its entirely possible to do a planar game without it.
Quote from: BillI feel the need to say the somewhat obvious; I don't think you need to actually use planescape for a planar game. You can, but its entirely possible to do a planar game without it.
That's absolutely true, of course, although doing away with Sigil makes inter-planar travel much trickier. Generally planar adventure becomes the affair only of very high level characters and tends to consist of brief jaunts to single planes. What Planescape did is (1) flesh out the Planes themselves as adventuring locations and (2) outline how to run an entire campaign set in the Planes. I think what RPGPundit dislikes is (2) - he wants to the Planes to stay special, exclusive, alien, and mostly unreachable, I think. Where I think he's wrong is that by making them accessible they become indistinguishable from other fantasy settings (they don't) and that by mixing the banal with the bizarre you make everything boring and mundane (which isn't necessarily the case).
EDIT: I should point out that I have no problem with keeping the Planes remote and special - that's a fine approach. I just take exception to the idea that by making them a place to live rather than just visit they're totally ruined somehow, or that the very idea of low-level adventure in the Planes is, like, blasphemous.
Quote from: RPGPundit;709813Its dreck. That isn't the HIGHER REALMS its not the place of the Gods, its just reduced to another greyhawk or FR. The fact that its not happening on a prime material plane is just circumstance.
That's the problem. When you're told "You are going to HELL", or alternately "You will ascend into Olympus!", you do not want it to be places that are mundane (by mundane, read "as mundane as some funky places you can find on a D&D material plane"). There's literally NO point in going to the higher planes anymore that makes it different or more special than going to, say, Waterdeep.
I don't really have much of an attachment to the D&D cosmology and I'm OK with writers and DMs tweaking it however they want.
What is it that the setting does, exactly, that you feel robs the planes of their mystique? I mean, other than making them accessible right off the bat.
Quote from: The Butcher;709868I don't really have much of an attachment to the D&D cosmology and I'm OK with writers and DMs tweaking it however they want.
What is it that the setting does, exactly, that you feel robs the planes of their mystique? I mean, other than making them accessible right off the bat.
Well one thing it missed out on that I played up on in my own books was... well... this is where dead people go right? Well... what about all those people the PCs have offed? Yeah... that...
Going to the netherworld/planes was a study in pain in the ass as yhe PCs had a 50/50 chance of being jumped by irate villains they bumped off previously looking for a rematch. Or of they were headed for less hellish realms... Getting jumped by the various innocent bystanders and simple soldiers they forcefully shuffled off the mortal coil.
In Planescape PCs wandering to Acheron for example should be running into veritible hoards of orcs and goblins they mowed down previously.
Quote from: OmegaGoing to the netherworld/planes was a study in pain in the ass as yhe PCs had a 50/50 chance of being jumped by irate villains they bumped off previously looking for a rematch
This is really cool! Technically in Planescape in a few of the books it's mentioned that petitioners lose their memories when they die, but I've never liked that particular idea and pretty much ignore it. Consistency was not always one of the setting's strong suits, anyway (since the Planes are constantly shifting and belief can sometimes shape reality in the setting, this isn't necessarily as big a sin as it might be).
Quote from: Steerpike;709596The Old World of Darkness and Planescape are interesting to compare. I disagree that Planescape is a "White Wolf clone" by any stretch of the imagination, but there are certain parallels: the urban fantasy feeling, the punk sensibility, the internicine political landscape. It's not nearly as uniformly dark, though, nor is it a horror setting by any means, but I do think that White Wolf had a definite influence on some aspects of Planescape.
It was explicitly stated that Planescape was made with orders that the authors try to do something in the style of White Wolf's products, to try to appeal to that kind of crowd.
Its obviously not just a WoD product, I'm not saying that, but rather its an obvious attempt to rip off several of the world-defining and especially stylistic concepts of the WW line of products, done D&D style. Which makes it even more pathetic; its like when the Rolling Stones tried to do a disco album, it was a desperate attempt by a company utterly out of ideas to try to latch onto the 'big thing' of the time.
QuoteI think what may put some off is the overall irreverence of the setting, the way it upends a lot of standard D&D tropes. Even though the Great Wheel bursts with Gods and spirits, many of those depicted in the setting are sardonic, cynical types who regard deities with suspicion and even disdain (most notably the Athar, but to a lesser extent the Bleak Cabal). Planescape subverts the cosmological/religious assumptions that D&D usually makes. Gods in D&D are usually either adored or feared; in Planescape their righteousness, their motives, and even their divinity itself are thrown into question. The Planes in vanilla D&D are usually mysterious, nigh-inaccesible realms that stand out against the mundane, quasi-medieval setting; in Planescape they're a place where people and creatures live and build cities and politick, and their very borders and boundaries and nature are malleable. Rather than the struggle between Good and Evil forming the crux of the conflict, as more mundane D&D settings frequently assume, Planescape is more interested in the clash between different epistemic and ontological points of view.
Exactly. Its a direct and intentional SUBVERSION of the Archetypal nature of the Planes, stripping away everything majestic about archetypes, to replace it with 90s-era college-punk relativist sophomoric-rebellion; as if to say "nothing is allowed to be grand anymore, everything must be tainted and banal". And of course some of that was probably also a kind of resentment (much like the famous inclusion of the "Lady of Pain") on the part of game designers who found the corporation they were working for to have at that point stripped away everything they had thought was wonderful and majestic about the game they once loved and turned the dreamed job they had once fantasized about having into shit.
Its pathetic. Its like a second-string grunge musician giving the middle finger to a picture of Jesus to show off how "edgy" he is.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Steerpike;709609It depends on how you play them, how the DM and players interpret them. The philosophical sophistication of the Factions isn't so complex as to make the setting opaque. It's quite possible to play them in such a way that they come off as little more than caricatures of their respective positions, cartoonish representations of the philosophies they represent, and there's certainly canon material that presents them in this broad light, but there are other sections that don't reduce them to parody. One thing that's sort of weird about Planescape is the interaction between the crudeness of the D&D Alignment system and the relative complexity of the Factions, though, and navigating that can be tricky.
The D&D Alignment system (and the Great Wheel cosmology that spawns from it) is not "crude", its ARCHETYPAL.
And the factions aren't "complex" they're just sophomoric cynicism and an attempt to infuse relativism into the idea of platonic ideals.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Omega;7098421: You got there for them hawt Tiefling babes obviously.
I'm not going to deny that claim...
QuoteSpelljammer was not great. There was soooooo much more that could have been done with the system. Or at least done better. But. It at least spread out and did not overfocus on known worlds. And the ones that did focus tended to at least flesh out the unknown territory in the settings starsystems.
For sure. In a way, I think there's still a "spelljammer" to be made, to be done right, probably in an OSR context. Maybe starting from the base of something like Hulks & Horrors or Machinations of the Space Princess, but shooting it back to fantasy.
In a way, the biggest problem with Spelljammer is that it ended up too tied with the idea of using it to interconnect the various pre-existing settings, when what it should have had was awesome random-generation rules for new star systems and the stuff to be found there.
But alas, it was the 90s.
RPGPundit
Quote from: The Butcher;709868I don't really have much of an attachment to the D&D cosmology and I'm OK with writers and DMs tweaking it however they want.
What is it that the setting does, exactly, that you feel robs the planes of their mystique? I mean, other than making them accessible right off the bat.
It turns Divine Realms into kingdoms with politics, commerce, bureaucracy, agendas, that are all on a "human" level (that is, while perhaps they market in "souls" or "emotions" or "doodads" or whatever instead of wool and spices, at the end of the day its entirely comprehensible what's going on); it makes Planes into countries. HUMAN countries (even if the "humans" in question are goat-people or mechanical cubes or whatever).
It intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions. You shouldn't believe in grand larger-than-our-little-lives forces, you should believe in utterly human 'ideologies' instead. Its a cheap cynical subversion of the "religious" concept of the Planes in favor of first-year college ideas about "philosophy".
And of course the whole hip-90s-rebel vibe, where if you wear something shocking and go around saying 'fuck' (in this case replaced by "berk" due to TSR company-policy censorship) all the time then you must be really "deep" and more "real" than all those stupid people who are just "conformist sheeple".
RPGPundit
Yeah, nope. Descriptions of the individual planes are pretty much the same as those in AD&D's Manual of the Planes. No commerce mentioned. Plenty of archetypes; the word archetype is even used liberally. And "berk" isn't an expletive.
Quote from: RPGPunditIt was explicitly stated that Planescape was made with orders that the authors try to do something in the style of White Wolf's products, to try to appeal to that kind of crowd.
Yeah, I've heard this was basically the idea from on high. I like what TSR did with White Wolf's sensibilities better than I like White Wolf's take, though, personally - I'll take Planescape over the World of Darkness.
Quote from: RPGPunditThe D&D Alignment system (and the Great Wheel cosmology that spawns from it) is not "crude", its ARCHETYPAL.
And the factions aren't "complex" they're just sophomoric cynicism and an attempt to infuse relativism into the idea of platonic ideals.
I think this is where our philosophical differences probably come in. I think that Archetypes
are crude, and call me cynical, but I can't think of anything more "sophomoric" than Platonic idealism. During the second year of my undergrad no one could shut up about the Cave.
I'm much more interested in the subversion of archetypes than seeing them upheld. Good and Evil and Law and Chaos kind of bore me as absolutes. And the alternate certainly isn't just relativism, although there are relativists amongst the Factions. The Ciphers and Godsmen, for example, are very much derived from a Buddhist/Zen tradition (with maybe a little Hinduism mixed in here and there) and are very much about moral worth and harmony and balance of opposites. The Sensates are philosophical naturalists, hedonists, and empiricists, the Dustmen are pretty clearly Stoics of the Greek school, the Guvners are scientific positivists, the Fated are Objectivists, etc. They have values, real values; they don't all hold that everything's relative. I don't think this has to be cynical, either; the Godsmen and the Sensates, for example, are very upbeat and optimistic factions for the most part. Sure the Bleakers are gloomy disciples of Satre and Kierkegaard and the Athar are whiny atheist types but not everyone's a foulmouthed punk denigrating everything.
Speaking for myself, I find the Alignments a decent roleplaying tool (they're a great, quick way for a player to get into a character) but a very simplistic ethical and/or spiritual framework. They can be fun to mess around with but I enjoy seeing them "sullied," I guess.
Quote from: RPGPunditIt intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions. You shouldn't believe in grand larger-than-our-little-lives forces, you should believe in utterly human 'ideologies' instead.
I think this is the core of what I like about Planescape and what you don't. While I like Lovecraftian fiction - which does feature grand, all-powerful forces, though they're certainly not Platonic Ideals - I enjoy the way that Planescape makes the Gods and Demons and Devils and Law and Chaos all grungy and political and messy and, yes, kinda "human" in a certain very broad sense of the word (although Modrons don't act like any humans I know).
Corruptible might be a better one. It reads the D&D cosmology with suspicion. It recognizes that you can't separate power from politics when we're talking about sentient beings. I mean, I
don't think we should be impressed by larger-than-life "grand notions" of the religious sort; I think we should be suspicious of meta-narratives and beware the man behind the curtain.
Basically, I can see that if someone was really into upholding the D&D Alignment system and the set of moral absolutes/archetypes/ideas that it channels - as I think you are - then they would not enjoy Planescape; fair enough, I get that. Speaking for myself, I find the whole "Good vs Evil" archetypal myth thing sort of yawn-inducing, so I enjoy seeing it mixed up and complicated.
Quote from: RPGPunditin this case replaced by "berk" due to TSR company-policy censorship
Berk is a noun, not a verb, and refers to a fool.
"Pike it" (as in, shut up and/or go away) is probably the closest euphemism for "fuck" in Planescape. That and "sodding," but that's just British slang.
EDIT: I think we are increasingly in agreement about what Planescape
is and what it looks like, its features as a setting, just not about whether those traits are desirable or not. Interesting discussion though.
Quote from: RPDPunditit makes Planes into countries.
I agree - but they're not countries like Amn, Blackmoor, Gondor, or Narnia, they're countries along the lines of Annexia, Wonderland, and Leng... they're certainly not all little quasi-feudal monarchies or something, they're pretty darn weird.
Rincewind's Guide to Enjoying Planescape:
Step 1: Go to your nearest library and read Paradise Lost
Step 2: Pester your geek friends to borrow you Sandman.
Step 3: Change the setting to fit your vision
Step 4: Profit
The key to Planescape is that while the absolutes of alignments exist, their servants (or our perception of them, at least) may still be flawed. Then again, I've never bothered much with factions as described. The way I saw Sigil, it was The City from Thief, sitting in the middle of the Planes, with Magic the Gathering's approach to Planes (infinite planes, with Great Wheel serving as border planes of the universe), a universe where all myths and laws of alignments work, with players being an equivalent of a planar A - Team/Dogs of War, hopping in and out of various conflicts.
Honestly, I just wanted a setting when one session the players can fight a demon in Abyss, and the next session they're off in the Land of Chocolate trying to save Sultan of Toffee from being eaten by an invasion of Giants, who turn out to only do that because some asshole stole their golden egg laying duck. And to their characters, that was simply how life was. So I'd say that Planescape had a lot, to me at least, of wasted potential - the idea of taking the cosmology was good, the idea of plane - hopping was good, there just lacked that "coolness" factor, which I think'd be better than pseudophilosophical ponderings about, as noted, a 2400 year old philosophical concepts.
QuoteAnd "berk" isn't an expletive.
QuoteBerk is a noun, not a verb, and refers to a fool.
Berk is rhyming slang. 'Berkeley Hunt'. For those of you who are not familiar with it, [Cockney or East End (of London)] rhyming slang is usually a two word phrase that substitutes a single word that it rhymes with, and it is normal to further obscure the meaning to the uninitiated by not saying the whole phrase, hence it does not actually rhyme. To use a fairly recent addition to the canon as an example, Curry = Ruby Murray; in usage = "Ruby", as in, "after a few pints of cooking lager I always fancy a nice Ruby"
Berk = Berkeley Hunt = C**t.
So definitely a noun, not an expletive. Despite what is stands for its a mild and widely acceptable term in British English.
Quote from: RPGPundit;710424It intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions.
I think this is true but also intentional. At the same time, I also agree that it's best not to assume that Planescape is the sole, exclusive way to run the planes and there should be scope for a Planescape campaign which restores that sense of wonder.
I have been considering the following tweaks for my own D&D multiverse; how would you feel about this?
- The primary thrust of the campaign, at least at lower levels, isn't exploration of the Outer or Inner Planes - it's exploration of alternate Primes, with all of the occasional weirdness that implies. (Running into your Evil Alternate Self is a professional hazard of a planeswalker - and some unlucky ones even discover that their evil selves outnumber their good selves, which causes no end of crises of faith...)
- Sigil is explicitly not a part of the Outer Planes but a strange sort of interzone between the planes. The smart money is on it being a particularly odd alternate Prime, because the majority of its Doors open onto other Prime Material Planes and magic mostly works as you'd expect it to on the Prime in Sigil. There are portals to the Inner and Outer Planes, but the keys for those are substantially rarer and unlike the portals to the Primes they don't simply open for anyone who has the key - access to transcendent realms is still a difficult and rare thing.
- The majority of the weirdness of Sigil arises from the interaction of uncountable Primes, with influence from the transcendent realms existing but being more subtle.
- The primary squabbling of the factions is over access to the transcendent realms, with each faction having its own interpretation of What It All Means. Whoever controls the gate doesn't control the nature of the transcendent realms, which implicitly resists such easy summation, but they do control which people get to visit them via Sigil's portals - and, naturally, if you control the way people interact with the transcendent realms, by that token you control the zeitgeist of the Prime Material Planes.*
*Alternately, there is actually one true correct faction - the Guild of Crossed Axes, who believe that the cosmos is ordered as it is to reflect ultimate meta-conflicts between Law, Chaos, Good and Evil. Evidence for the Orthogonal Guild being correct includes the fact that the alignment axes don't actually change when one faction or the other gets the upper hand, whereas in conventional Planescape you'd really expect the whole Law/Chaos/Good/Evil thing to be more mutable if philosophy really did determine reality.
How would that sound to you?
EDIT TO ADD: It occurs to me that a big issue with Planescape is that it wants to do all that funky
Mage: the Ascension perception-and-belief-make-reality stuff with its whole "philosophers with clubs" idea, but it screws up a little by applying the concept to a multiverse where actually there are obvious objective truths which don't actually change. For instance, Gods can come and go based on who believes in them, fair enough, but Law and Chaos and Good and Evil are undying and the Outer Planes are directly tied in with them, right to the point where if a part of the Outlands gets sufficiently Evil it slips into the appropriate lower plane. That's clear, demonstrable, and empirically repeatable proof that Law and Chaos and Good and Evil are actual things in this cosmos, which implies an objective reality untouchable by the factions' philosophy. Were I to run Planescape my temptation would be to either embrace the postmodern entirely, ditch the D&Disms, and have the characters wandering through a cosmos which genuinely does remould itself to fit whichever faction(s) is/are currently on top on Sigil, or make it clear that the factions are to a large extent bunk, a reaction by jaded people who've had too much exposure to the majesty of the Outer Planes and spent too much time trying to work out what it means as opposed to accepting it for what it is.
Quote from: RPGPundit;710424It turns Divine Realms into kingdoms with politics, commerce, bureaucracy, agendas, that are all on a "human" level (that is, while perhaps they market in "souls" or "emotions" or "doodads" or whatever instead of wool and spices, at the end of the day its entirely comprehensible what's going on); it makes Planes into countries. HUMAN countries (even if the "humans" in question are goat-people or mechanical cubes or whatever).
So, kind of like Chinese mythology then. I am OK with that.
Quote from: RPGPundit;710424It intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions. You shouldn't believe in grand larger-than-our-little-lives forces, you should believe in utterly human 'ideologies' instead. Its a cheap cynical subversion of the "religious" concept of the Planes in favor of first-year college ideas about "philosophy".
I'm OK with you not liking what Planescape did to the planes. But suggesting they've been "sullied" and "less than they're cracked up to be" and that the setting is "cheap" and "cynical"? Geez. You sound like me coming out of the Abrams Trek movies, and that's not a compliment. ;)
Quote from: Rincewind1Step 1: Go to your nearest library and read Paradise Lost
Step 2: Pester your geek friends to borrow you Sandman.
Step 3: Change the setting to fit your vision
Step 4: Profit
Yes!
Quote from: Rincewind1The way I saw Sigil, it was The City from Thief, sitting in the middle of the Planes, with Magic the Gathering's approach to Planes
YES!
Quote from: WarthurThat's clear, demonstrable, and empirically repeatable proof that Law and Chaos and Good and Evil are actual things in this cosmos, which implies an objective reality untouchable by the factions' philosophy.
Said like a member of the Fraternity of Order!
You make a good point, though. There are absolutes in Planescape, they're just frayed around the edges and there's a lot of "wiggle room" to remake things according to belief; it's
also an objective reality that the Planes can be remade according to belief and/or willpower. On some level the mashup between the Moorcockian/Judeo-Christian morality thing and the postmodern perception-is-reality stuff is batshit insane, but what I like about Planescape are the incongruities and strange juxtapositions - Norse Gods rubbing shoulders with Yugoloth mercenaries, Devils drinking and debating with rogue robots, an imp that runs an extradimensional butcher's shop... like I said earlier, the bizarre and the banal. The moral/spiritutal/comsological contradictions are in some sense clearly a flaw, but they also provide another incongruity rich with dramatic tension. The interactions between representatives of the absolutes and those with agendas that aren't defined strictly in relation to those absolutes can get pretty interesting.
Quote from: The ButcherSo, kind of like Chinese mythology then. I am OK with that.
Not to mention Norse mythology, where the gods are caught up in all sorts of political struggles between different families of deities and/or giants that periodically switch sides in a mess of feuds, intermarriages, vendettas, and alliances, often displaying extremely "human" motives, from extreme pettiness to mischief to lust to drunken pride. Sure we can read characters like Loki and Thor as archetypes, but they're not
just archetypes, which is exactly Planescape's strategy. The Gods in Planescape are still the Gods, they're just also caught up in the weird vicissitudes of transplanar politics.
Or the Celtic myth cycles that are all about invasions, displacement, and political struggles for territory.
Quote from: RPGPundit;710423In a way, the biggest problem with Spelljammer is that it ended up too tied with the idea of using it to interconnect the various pre-existing settings, when what it should have had was awesome random-generation rules for new star systems and the stuff to be found there.
But alas, it was the 90s.
RPGPundit
That was definitely one thing it missed out on, a good tied in starsystem building system. But Star Frontiers lacked that as well.
Quote from: RPGPundit;710424It intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions. You shouldn't believe in grand larger-than-our-little-lives forces, you should believe in utterly human 'ideologies' instead. Its a cheap cynical subversion of the "religious" concept of the Planes in favor of first-year college ideas about "philosophy".
RPGPundit
Part of this was that TSR was at the time way too self conscious of all the anti-D&D mother groups bitching about the players slaying demons and meeting gods.
So demons and devils and angels and all that got renamed and the outer planes became alien planets where its shown that they aren't really all that impressive. Just another jaunt, a ho-hum city of weird people.
Listen to the outlands CD, They might as well be describing Greyhawk or Faerun, etc. Just another hive of scum and villainy.
Sure you could strip all that off. But then that is 75% of the planescape material out the window. You could also play up the gods more, and some tried. But then you get the disparity between the setting outlook and that.
Does anyone remember Lankhmar – City of Adventure. It was a d&d setting based on Fritz Leiber's Fafnir and the Grey Mouser novels. The setting was awful to role play in. magic was so rare that the rules were all spell casting times went up one category. An instant spell took a round, a round spell took a turn to cast, and so forth. Its probably my least favorite setting.
Spelljammer was pretty bad too. It was ok when it first came out but then lost its charm. Its explanation of physics was comical.
Jungles of Chult and Maztica were ok as visiting locales, not so much for a whole campaign.
Birthright was a cool concept, bad execution.
Lankhmar was bad because its a low magic setting?
Quote from: Louchavelli;723736Spelljammer was pretty bad too. It was ok when it first came out but then lost its charm. Its explanation of physics was comical.
Its explanation of physics was a sloppy but mythically resonant and gutsy 'fuck you' to killjoy hard-science game lawyer wankery. I kind of admire it for that.
Quote from: TristramEvans;723739Lankhmar was bad because its a low magic setting?
Lankhmar was bad because it was decent setting for a novel, but the rpg never grasped the beauty of the setting. The magic deficiency merely exasperated how poorly they captured the setting.
This was during the days of 2nd edition and if memory serves me right, this product was released when TSR was on its decline.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;723757Its explanation of physics was a sloppy but mythically resonant and gutsy 'fuck you' to killjoy hard-science game lawyer wankery. I kind of admire it for that.
I can see your point. I was fine with the magical explanation of how things work and didn't focus too much on that. What made me laugh was how falling damage was explained. the example they used was a fighter loaded with hit points can jump off a mountain, land, and then get up and join a fight. They writers realized that didn't make sense and explained that it was written that way for the sake of easy rules for gaming.
We played it for a bit, but as said, it lost its charm after a bit.
Quote from: RPGPundit;524197So which one was it, out of all the ones they made? Which was the worst piece of shit in the bunch?
Blackmoor?
Gygax-era Greyhawk?
Tekumel?
Mystara?
Kara-tur?
Dragonlance?
Forgotten Realms?
Ravenloft?
2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk?
Al-qadim?
Hollow World?
Dark Sun?
Spelljammer?
Planescape?
Birthright?
I'm sure there's a few I'm missing in that list. Say which one you thought was a total waste of paper that the designers should be shot for having written.
RPGPundit
From that list, definitely Spelljammer for me.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;723757Its explanation of physics was a sloppy but mythically resonant and gutsy 'fuck you' to killjoy hard-science game lawyer wankery. I kind of admire it for that.
Dude, its fantasy. Of course it is going to be magic-based, mythically resonant, and have sloppy physics. Being a "gutsy 'fuck you' to killjoy hard-science game lawyer wankery" wasn't even a design consideration.
Wanna see totally wrong but internally consistant and therefore awesome Victorian steampunk style science? Check out GDW's old
Space:1889 game. Watch as insufferable prats choke on the ether and its uses. :D
Quote from: jeff37923;723820Wanna see totally wrong but internally consistant and therefore awesome Victorian steampunk style science? Check out GDW's old Space:1889 game. Watch as insufferable prats choke on the ether and its uses. :D
Why did Space: 1889 still have land armies, when you could just fly over (eg) Sudan in your Liftwood fliers and machinegun the fuzzy-wuzzies from on high? That was my problem with the setting - being able to deploy Liftwood fliers over land changes so much that the designers didn't seem to consider. I've thought of running it with Stargate type interplanetary tech; maybe restrict Liftwood to Mars only.
Lankhmar was fucking awesome! I ran a great campaign of it in the 80s. Loved it. We loved its low-magic vibe.
Quote from: S'mon;723853Why did Space: 1889 still have land armies, when you could just fly over (eg) Sudan in your Liftwood fliers and machinegun the fuzzy-wuzzies from on high? That was my problem with the setting - being able to deploy Liftwood fliers over land changes so much that the designers didn't seem to consider. I've thought of running it with Stargate type interplanetary tech; maybe restrict Liftwood to Mars only.
There were still land armies after the invention of the zeppelin or the airplane. You still need land armies.
Your real point is that it didn't do a very good job of exploring just what effect the presence of flying vehicles in the late 1880s would have had. Never mind space travel and colonies on other planets.
There would have been opportunity for all sorts of interesting exploration on those subjects. In terms of air power, it could have led to a world war.
In terms of alien colonies, it would have brought tremendous wealth to the great empires but also serious logistical problems. Would they have really been able to colonize Africa and Mars and Venus and keep India pacified, and hold back China, all at the same time?
Socially, would the discovery of entire alien races had seriously changed Victorian-era concepts of racism? There were people in the 1890s in real-life who believed that Indians needed to be given representation in parliament, they were laughed at; but maybe if there were also martians, and we needed to have a pacified and co-operative bunch of colonies on Earth in order to really exploit mars, just maybe they'd have ended up changing things around and altering their treatment of colonial humans, maybe even giving some of them full partnerships in the empire.
RPGPundit
Quote from: S'mon;723853Why did Space: 1889 still have land armies, when you could just fly over (eg) Sudan in your Liftwood fliers and machinegun the fuzzy-wuzzies from on high? That was my problem with the setting - being able to deploy Liftwood fliers over land changes so much that the designers didn't seem to consider. I've thought of running it with Stargate type interplanetary tech; maybe restrict Liftwood to Mars only.
Even if you have fliers, tanks, or what have you. You still need infantry. Infantry take and hold positions and objectives. If I remember correctly the setting the liftwood only really works on Mars. It slowly degrades because of whatever on earth. It degrades very rapidly on Venus.
Quote from: RPGPundit;724397There were still land armies after the invention of the zeppelin or the airplane. You still need land armies.
Your real point is that it didn't do a very good job of exploring just what effect the presence of flying vehicles in the late 1880s would have had. Never mind space travel and colonies on other planets.
Zeppelins and airplanes don't give the kind of solid fire platform a
floating ship does, or the ability to transport lots of soldiers over land. I would expect war would be completely dominated by the flying ships, far more even than modern warfare is air dominated.
But yes it's a particular issue for an 1880s setting. No Battle of Omdurman or Isandlwana is possible or necessary if the imperialists have flying ships and the natives don't. No "Dr Livingstone I presume?" if you can just fly over Darkest Africa, no need to trek through jungles.
Quote from: Ronin;724428Even if you have fliers, tanks, or what have you. You still need infantry. Infantry take and hold positions and objectives.
You might still use infantry & artillery to garrison settlements and associated fortifications. You would never deploy a field army. Many objectives of modern warfare - all "take that hill" stuff - become unnecessary when you have flying ships.
The setting's flying ships are not the same as modern airplanes & helicopters & zeppelins. They float indefinitely, can be heavily armoured, can be as large as you like.
Quote from: RPGPundit;724397Socially, would the discovery of entire alien races had seriously changed Victorian-era concepts of racism? There were people in the 1890s in real-life who believed that Indians needed to be given representation in parliament, they were laughed at; but maybe if there were also martians, and we needed to have a pacified and co-operative bunch of colonies on Earth in order to really exploit mars, just maybe they'd have ended up changing things around and altering their treatment of colonial humans, maybe even giving some of them full partnerships in the empire.
There were Indian members of Parliament in the 19th century - but representing British (UK) constituencies, of course. The French treat overseas colonies as Departments of France, I'm not sure it makes much difference in practice. If Britain had given India full voting rights, India would outvote Britain due to larger population, so that wouldn't happen.
Quote from: Ronin;724428If I remember correctly the setting the liftwood only really works on Mars. It slowly degrades because of whatever on earth.
I think it needs to be effectively unuseable on Earth. The problem is that it's the main source of interplanetary transport.
Quote from: S'mon;724474Zeppelins and airplanes don't give the kind of solid fire platform a floating ship does, or the ability to transport lots of soldiers over land. I would expect war would be completely dominated by the flying ships, far more even than modern warfare is air dominated.
But yes it's a particular issue for an 1880s setting. No Battle of Omdurman or Isandlwana is possible or necessary if the imperialists have flying ships and the natives don't. No "Dr Livingstone I presume?" if you can just fly over Darkest Africa, no need to trek through jungles.
There are allways reasons why one might not. Weather being the big one. Fuel being another. Also Africa is huge and the jungles can conceal alot from the air. Same as South America. Things you dont see till you nearly trip over them.
Quote from: Warthur;710451EDIT TO ADD: It occurs to me that a big issue with Planescape is that it wants to do all that funky Mage: the Ascension perception-and-belief-make-reality stuff with its whole "philosophers with clubs" idea, but it screws up a little by applying the concept to a multiverse where actually there are obvious objective truths which don't actually change. For instance, Gods can come and go based on who believes in them, fair enough, but Law and Chaos and Good and Evil are undying and the Outer Planes are directly tied in with them, right to the point where if a part of the Outlands gets sufficiently Evil it slips into the appropriate lower plane. That's clear, demonstrable, and empirically repeatable proof that Law and Chaos and Good and Evil are actual things in this cosmos, which implies an objective reality untouchable by the factions' philosophy. Were I to run Planescape my temptation would be to either embrace the postmodern entirely, ditch the D&Disms, and have the characters wandering through a cosmos which genuinely does remould itself to fit whichever faction(s) is/are currently on top on Sigil, or make it clear that the factions are to a large extent bunk, a reaction by jaded people who've had too much exposure to the majesty of the Outer Planes and spent too much time trying to work out what it means as opposed to accepting it for what it is.
I think one of the aspects of Planescape's fundamental charm is that it makes no fucking sense at all. I've often been tempted to ditch the D&D isms entirely, but I keep coming back to them, without them there's to much of the weird and mythic and not enough of the banal and familiar.
I've seen a lot of attempts to iron out the inconsistencies of the setting which end up draining it of life, rather like what the 4E team did when they ditched the great wheel for their own designed by committee cosmology.
I always felt the best approach to Planescape is to simply de-emphasise the points one doesn't like, something which is easy to do.
My take of the factions was always that they're real and they have power, but the parts of the factions who live in Sigil and think they run the factions are actually deluded in that regard, they're just mortal reflections of much more cosmic struggles. (Although if they could actually deliver Sigil for their faction that might change.) The Harmonium is really run from Ortho and Arcadia, the Doomguard is really run from it's fortresses on the edge of the negative material plane.
Quote from: RPGPundit;724394Lankhmar was fucking awesome! I ran a great campaign of it in the 80s. Loved it. We loved its low-magic vibe.
I agree. I had the 1e version, and had a great time with it. I thought it did a good job of modifying the AD&D rules to fit the setting, and it had a great swords-n-sorcery feel, IMO.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;724744I agree. I had the 1e version, and had a great time with it. I thought it did a good job of modifying the AD&D rules to fit the setting, and it had a great swords-n-sorcery feel, IMO.
Yes, this. I think that it was maybe the first D&D product I got where it was Official and where it changed the rules in significant ways. It turned me on to the fact I could do the same, that really anything was up for grabs.
Not to mention that along with Port Blacksand and Sanctuary, it cemented my love for city-based setting in grubby dark lawless metropolises.
RPGPundit
I should probably get Lankhmar if PDF is available - while I did not own the setting book, Leiber's works were of great influence on my vision of D&D in general.
While I don't want to say I hate it, Ravenloft and I have a difficult relationship. It never actually seems to work the way it's supposed to, and I interpret the 3rd edition book Heroes of Horror and the domains of dread element of 4e's cosmology as WotC attempts to revamp/reboot the best parts of that setting.
It doesn't help that it's my brother's* favorite setting by a considerable margin and he's constantly badgering me to run it again.
Oh, and I loathe undead these days.
* Not the one who's given up on tabletop.
Quote from: RPGPundit;524197So which one was it, out of all the ones they made? Which was the worst piece of shit in the bunch?
Blackmoor?
Gygax-era Greyhawk?
Tekumel?
Mystara?
Kara-tur?
Dragonlance?
Forgotten Realms?
Ravenloft?
2e-era "From the Ashes" Greyhawk?
Al-qadim?
Hollow World?
Dark Sun?
Spelljammer?
Planescape?
Birthright?
I'm sure there's a few I'm missing in that list. Say which one you thought was a total waste of paper that the designers should be shot for having written.
RPGPundit
With the caveat that most of these I never read or played since they were published long after I had moved on to other systems... I'd vote that the worst, most disappointing setting was Dragonlance. I liked some of the ideas which TSR began the series with: no gods, no dragons, a huge, epic campaign to be laid out. But then it all went south quickly. DL1 was alright but DL2 was 90% the DM reading text aloud. DL3 was damn near unplayable, others were just large collections of maps with little point. The music was useless. The DM couldn't dare let a PC die else it would screw up the story line. Just horrible in every way.
I think I was suckered into purchasing up to DL 7 or 8, then I stopped.
I know some people love the novels but its doubtful I'll ever care enough to try them.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;725605While I don't want to say I hate it, Ravenloft and I have a difficult relationship. It never actually seems to work the way it's supposed to, and I interpret the 3rd edition book Heroes of Horror and the domains of dread element of 4e's cosmology as WotC attempts to revamp/reboot the best parts of that setting.
It doesn't help that it's my brother's* favorite setting by a considerable margin and he's constantly badgering me to run it again.
Oh, and I loathe undead these days.
* Not the one who's given up on tabletop.
Technically one could run a Ravenloft game without any undead.
Quote from: Bill;725845Technically one could run a Ravenloft game without any undead.
Not if you count werewolves as undead ;).
Quote from: Rincewind1;725846Not if you count werewolves as undead ;).
I would consider them living creatures, but you could have Cthulhu-ish monstrosities, mad scientists, serial killers, witches, etc...and never use undead.
Quote from: Bill;725853I would consider them living creatures, but you could have Cthulhu-ish monstrosities, mad scientists, serial killers, witches, etc...and never use undead.
True, but undead are such a workhorse in that setting. Now their might be a certain artistic flair to excluding them*, but I'm not interested in that particular experiment, or Ravenloft itself at this point in my life. Of all the D&D settings I think it handled its "D&D-isms" with the least grace.
* Reminds me of how the
Planescape: Torment video game deliberately offered no swords for the main character to use, just to increase the exoticism of the goings-on.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;725883True, but undead are such a workhorse in that setting. Now their might be a certain artistic flair to excluding them*, but I'm not interested in that particular experiment, or Ravenloft itself at this point in my life. Of all the D&D settings I think it handled its "D&D-isms" with the least grace.
* Reminds me of how the Planescape: Torment video game deliberately offered no swords for the main character to use, just to increase the exoticism of the goings-on.
Admittedly I am biased toward Ravenloft. Its my second favorite dnd setting after Dark Sun.
Although my fondness for Ravenloft plummets when a player actively tries to become a Darklord.
Quote from: Bill;726098Admittedly I am biased toward Ravenloft. Its my second favorite dnd setting after Dark Sun.
Although my fondness for Ravenloft plummets when a player actively tries to become a Darklord.
Otherwise known as the "KULT Gambit".
"So, the route to ultimate power is through ultimate depravity, huh? Interesting, interesting. OK, next question: where is the nearest orphanage?"
I find a lot of those issues with Ravenloft, as with KULT, go away if you maintain enforce IC/OOC knowledge separation. Sure, the players know what a Darklord is and how to become one, but the PCs don't, and nor do most of the inhabitants of Ravenloft, the majority of whom probably aren't even aware they're stuck on a demiplane.
Quote from: Warthur;726145Otherwise known as the "KULT Gambit".
"So, the route to ultimate power is through ultimate depravity, huh? Interesting, interesting. OK, next question: where is the nearest orphanage?"
I find a lot of those issues with Ravenloft, as with KULT, go away if you maintain enforce IC/OOC knowledge separation. Sure, the players know what a Darklord is and how to become one, but the PCs don't, and nor do most of the inhabitants of Ravenloft, the majority of whom probably aren't even aware they're stuck on a demiplane.
Also, when you become a darklord, you automatically change to an NPC under the rules.
I don't think becoming a darklord is the problem so much as the process of trying to get there in the first place, if you see what I mean (since the players who pull this stunt tend to use it as an excuse to get as juvenile and edgy as possible).
Quote from: Warthur;726151I don't think becoming a darklord is the problem so much as the process of trying to get there in the first place, if you see what I mean (since the players who pull this stunt tend to use it as an excuse to get as juvenile and edgy as possible).
Sure, they could just be in it for the trip, and not concerned with playing an actual darklord...for me that is fine though. If someone fails powers checks that can be an interesting development but it is meant to be a double edged sword. So for every perk you get during the transformation, there is supposed to be a genuine cost. Also, someone going down that road, will tend to attract the van richten's of the world if they are leaving a trail of bodies.
I think this is an issue where the GM matters a great deal. If the GM is not playing the dark powers well, then it can get crazy, but if he is using powers checks as they are supposed to be used and playing the dark powers right, it works fine.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;726155Sure, they could just be in it for the trip, and not concerned with playing an actual darklord...for me that is fine though. If someone fails powers checks that can be an interesting development but it is meant to be a double edged sword. So for every perk you get during the transformation, there is supposed to be a genuine cost. Also, someone going down that road, will tend to attract the van richten's of the world if they are leaving a trail of bodies.
Again, I think you're missing my point - I'm not concerned about the game mechanical aspects of it in the slightest, I just find that the players who take that route tend to be showboaty showoffs and kind of boring.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;726155If someone fails powers checks that can be an interesting development but it is meant to be a double edged sword. So for every perk you get during the transformation, there is supposed to be a genuine cost.
I find that system to be a real drain on the GM. You have to come up with balanced thematically appropriate linked curses/powers that happen to scale with each failed check and match the player's actions, taking valuable time from other campaign considerations.
And another thing: That massive list of minor tweaks to various spells. I couldn't quite keep all that straight in my head in actual play.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;726163I find that system to be a real drain on the GM. You have to come up with balanced thematically appropriate linked curses/powers that happen to scale with each failed check and match the player's actions, taking valuable time from other campaign considerations.
It takes time to get used to, but if you run Ravenloft enough it becomes like second nature. However if you are stuck in the moment it occurs, you can take five to come up with something. In my experience players don't usually mind this if it is to come up with a fitting response to the failed powers check. It certainly isn't for everybody, but this was honestly one of the features of Ravenloft I felt really made the setting shine.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;726163And another thing: That massive list of minor tweaks to various spells. I couldn't quite keep all that straight in my head in actual play.
Well, these were all on the Ravenloft GM screen if you had it (if you didn't I believe there was a master list on the card stock). This part of the game never gave me any trouble. It was pretty easy to implement, especially since you could look at the player spell lists prior to play and check them against the changes.
Again, Ravenloft wasn't for everyone, but I thought it was a great setting. I always had a blast there as a player or GM.
Quote from: Imperator;524820As far as I remembered it, everything was Christian, no Mormon weirdness. And it was infuriating.
Cool.
Jeeze give it a rest already, so you're an atheist, so fuckin' what. Sell the book, don't read it, who da hell cares? Now,
Go home and cry to momma.
Quote from: flyingcircus;726179Jeeze give it a rest already, so you're an atheist, so fuckin' what. Sell the book, don't read it, who da hell cares? Now,
Go home and cry to momma.
The christian themes in DL never bothered me. There are christian themes in Chronicles of Narnia and in Lord of the Ring's as well, but you can read them and enjoy them without focusing on that (just like a believer can still enjoy the golden compass). With DL the value it gave someone like me, where d&d was taking a lot of heat from the religious right, was i could point to it as an example of how christianity and dungeons and dragons were not incompatible.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;726164It takes time to get used to, but if you run Ravenloft enough it becomes like second nature.
Perhaps this is a larger issue for me, never sticking with something long enough to achieve true mastery; I ran two medium-sized campaigns in Ravenloft, and if I'm honest I was getting much better at it by the end.
Still, I think the spell list would have been improved by having stuck to a few easy to apply general rules. The whole thing could be pared down by 60% without noticeable loss of flavor.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;726231Perhaps this is a larger issue for me, never sticking with something long enough to achieve true mastery; I ran two medium-sized campaigns in Ravenloft, and if I'm honest I was getting much better at it by the end.
I ran Ravenloft pretty much exclusively for most of the 90s so that probably led me to be pretty comfortable with most of these things. I was an unrepentant fanboy. At a couple of points i had two seperate Ravenloft campaigns running at the same time.
QuoteStill, I think the spell list would have been improved by having stuck to a few easy to apply general rules. The whole thing could be pared down by 60% without noticeable loss of flavor.
If it bothered you, then it bothered you, and i can see why you would want it paired down. Personally, i feel it added a lot having it, and i think the problem with general rules you can apply is they would become predictable to players (and the idea with the twists was really to surprise players a bit when they come over from different settings).
Out of curiosity were you using the black box, the red box or Domains of Dread? If simplicity is the goal, grabbing the black boxed set and Feast of goblyns (because it has the gm screen and the ravenloft character sheet) is the best way to go.
Where i think they could pair things down in the system is some of the rules expansions in later material and DoD. The powers checks steps in DoD (and i think in the red box as well if i am recalling correctly) got a bit convoluted. I liked that they hammered out the percentages for specific acts, that was useful (and again i think that was a red boxed set innovation) but the 13 steps was too much in my opinion. Also the fear-horror-madness rules got a little complicated too by then (though the choice to expand them made sense given the competition at the time).
Honestly, the Christian/Mormon elements in DL are very subtle. It would be very hard for anyone who isn't a mormon or very familiar with their theology to even realize that's what's going on there.
As a Mormon, I'd say "thin" rather than "subtle." As a reader, I honestly doubt Tracy Hickman has the craft neccessary to manage "subtle" in any case.
Quote from: David Johansen;726747As a Mormon, I'd say "thin" rather than "subtle." As a reader, I honestly doubt Tracy Hickman has the craft neccessary to manage "subtle" in any case.
Okay, what are the elements, anyway? I'm not familiar with the details of Mormonism.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;726163I find that system to be a real drain on the GM. You have to come up with balanced thematically appropriate linked curses/powers that happen to scale with each failed check and match the player's actions, taking valuable time from other campaign considerations.
And another thing: That massive list of minor tweaks to various spells. I couldn't quite keep all that straight in my head in actual play.
When in a pinch, draw from other systems. Those were designed for Gifts of Chaos, so they are usually double edged. When in doubt, roll twice and combine positive and the negative somewhat. http://www.slackratchet.com/rough2.htm
Quote from: flyerfan1991;726813Okay, what are the elements, anyway? I'm not familiar with the details of Mormonism.
Well, I suppose that the world is full of false priests worshiping false gods at the start and the true faith is restored is the big one.
There's the Disks of Mishkal as the restored scripture and people equate it to the golden plates Joseph Smith translated The Book of Mormon from.
Some people try to turn the very pedestrian Tanis, Laurana, Kitiara love triangle into a polygamy thing.
Except, Mormons regard The Holy Bible as scripture and other Christians as ernest worshipers of God. Joseph Smith didn't have to crawl a dungeon and fight a black dragon. And Tanis doesn't wind up with Kitiara and Laurana and neither would either of them settle for second place there.
Thin doesn't mean nonexistant, it means pretty minimal.
Quote from: David Johansen;726818Well, I suppose that the world is full of false priests worshiping false gods at the start and the true faith is restored is the big one.
There's the Disks of Mishkal as the restored scripture and people equate it to the golden plates Joseph Smith translated The Book of Mormon from.
Some people try to turn the very pedestrian Tanis, Laurana, Kitiara love triangle into a polygamy thing.
Except, Mormons regard The Holy Bible as scripture and other Christians as ernest worshipers of God. Joseph Smith didn't have to crawl a dungeon and fight a black dragon. And Tanis doesn't wind up with Kitiara and Laurana and neither would either of them settle for second place there.
Thin doesn't mean nonexistant, it means pretty minimal.
Okay, I'd not have guessed all that. I figured it closer to the standard restoration of the gods meme that you find throughout history.
Seriously, it was.
But some people see Dragon Lance as the point at which D&D jumped the shark and when they're looking to defend that position they don't look much farther than Tracy Hickman. You've got a whitewashed game and a creepy clean psuedo-Christian cultist to blame.
Really, I don't think it holds up well at all from inside Mormonism, Though I haven't read past the ninth book. And seven to nine were really just bits and pieces of the first six.
As for D&D jumping the shark, I'd go with 1e really, if the stories of the Blumes forcing Gary to pander to specific interest groups are true and his own house rules were better even back then.
Quote from: David Johansen;726834Seriously, it was.
But some people see Dragon Lance as the point at which D&D jumped the shark and when they're looking to defend that position they don't look much farther than Tracy Hickman. You've got a whitewashed game and a creepy clean psuedo-Christian cultist to blame.
Really, I don't think it holds up well at all from inside Mormonism, Though I haven't read past the ninth book. And seven to nine were really just bits and pieces of the first six.
As for D&D jumping the shark, I'd go with 1e really, if the stories of the Blumes forcing Gary to pander to specific interest groups are true and his own house rules were better even back then.
I only read the first nine myself, figuring that was the story with a few extra short stories thrown in for good measure. But I know some who read all of them (and I do mean ALL of them), and they loved the entire series. Never heard about Christian imagery out of them at all.
Well, it's specific to Mormonism and, like I say, very thin even then. Many Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christians in the first place so it's fringe enough to be easy to miss anyhow.
Nothing on the scale of Battlefield Earth's links to Scientology.
Quote from: David Johansen;726747As a Mormon, I'd say "thin" rather than "subtle." As a reader, I honestly doubt Tracy Hickman has the craft neccessary to manage "subtle" in any case.
Having spoken with Tracy in the 90s... Have to agree. Subtle they aint.
I have a very vague recollection that the cleric of the true faith in the party is from a culture with a kind of pseudo-Native American aesthetic, despite having very European features, which is reminiscent of Mormonism offering a history of the pre-Columbus Americas which is rather divergent from the historical consensus (Native American tribes being descendants of Israelites who made an epic trans-Atlantic voyage and whatnot).
Quote from: Warthur;726910I have a very vague recollection that the cleric of the true faith in the party is from a culture with a kind of pseudo-Native American aesthetic, despite having very European features, which is reminiscent of Mormonism offering a history of the pre-Columbus Americas which is rather divergent from the historical consensus (Native American tribes being descendants of Israelites who made an epic trans-Atlantic voyage and whatnot).
I thought it was just Larry diidnt draw & paint them very Native American-ish?
And the descriptions of the culture were vague enough they could have been African and who'd have known without the art or I believe mention of skin tone in the books?
Quote from: RPGPundit;725594Yes, this. I think that it was maybe the first D&D product I got where it was Official and where it changed the rules in significant ways. It turned me on to the fact I could do the same, that really anything was up for grabs.
Not to mention that along with Port Blacksand and Sanctuary, it cemented my love for city-based setting in grubby dark lawless metropolises.
RPGPundit
I should probably set a Swords & Sorcery game in Las Vegas.
JG
Quote from: flyingcircus;726179Jeeze give it a rest already, so you're an atheist, so fuckin' what. Sell the book, don't read it, who da hell cares? Now,
Go home and cry to momma.
Dude.
Quote from: Imperator;727816Dude.
Well it just irks me all the time, D&D is just rife with religion from christian to voodoo, with demons and devils in the books to Ishtar or Quetzalcoatl, Set, Thor & Ares but nobody gets bent out of shape unless Christianity is mentioned or hinted at (except when we use Demons, Devils or Angels in the game) but all the other shit is just fine, it's pretty damn two faced and ignorant if you ask me.
I have the solution, we all just quit playing any game that has anything to do with any religions at all, Hindi, Islam, Christianity, the Nordic, Egyptian, Celtic, Mezo-American, American Indians, Voodoo, etc, that includes their myths and monsters. So what would that leave us, hummmm.......... One damn boring RPG right! So get over yourselves, deal with it or quit playing the fuckin' games.
There end of my rant.
Quote from: David Johansen;726747As a Mormon, I'd say "thin" rather than "subtle." As a reader, I honestly doubt Tracy Hickman has the craft neccessary to manage "subtle" in any case.
By subtle I certainly didn't imply in the literary sense!
Only in the sense that if you aren't a mormon and are an average person (ie. not a specialist in the study of religions, an anti-mormon crusader, etc) you would never notice. I'd guess that 95% of the people who read the Dragonlance trilogy had no idea of its Mormon elements, much like most of the people who watched the original Battlestar Galactica, etc.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;728479By subtle I certainly didn't imply in the literary sense!
Only in the sense that if you aren't a mormon and are an average person (ie. not a specialist in the study of religions, an anti-mormon crusader, etc) you would never notice. I'd guess that 95% of the people who read the Dragonlance trilogy had no idea of its Mormon elements, much like most of the people who watched the original Battlestar Galactica, etc.
RPGPundit
Having been raised outside of Christianity, I had no idea that the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe had a heavy Christian theme until such was pointed out years later. I just enjoyed it as an adventure story that sparked my childhood interest in fantasy.
All it takes not to notice religious elements in a story is to be clueless about the religion.
I saw Lewis's apologism in his ridiculous tryptich that he repeated in LtWatW:
"She's either lying, insane, or telling the truth"
Just like when he tried to use that line of reasoning to prove that Jesus was the son of God, he never actually gave a compelling reason to eliminate the first 2 options (Lewis was a pretty bad apologist).
But that didnt bother me in the least.
No, what caused me to throw the book away in anger halfway through was when frelling Santa Claus showed up and handed out magic weapons.
Seriously, I'd walk out of a D&D game where that happened.
Quote from: TristramEvans;728652I saw Lewis's apologism in his ridiculous tryptich that he repeated in LtWatW:
"She's either lying, insane, or telling the truth"
Just like when he tried to use that line of reasoning to prove that Jesus was the son of God, he never actually gave a compelling reason to eliminate the first 2 options (Lewis was a pretty bad apologist).
Not to mention that he misses the fourth option: "Misunderstood/misreported". To go with his threefold you need to assume that the New Testament's writers both accurately reported what Jesus said and properly interpreted what he meant by it, which is a decidedly [citation needed] prospect.
Which isn't to slam Christians, just saying religion doesn't really lend itself to snappy logical proofs because funnily enough faith (or the lack thereof) doesn't reduce to a mathematical equation.
Quote from: Old One Eye;728649Having been raised outside of Christianity, I had no idea that the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe had a heavy Christian theme until such was pointed out years later. I just enjoyed it as an adventure story that sparked my childhood interest in fantasy.
All it takes not to notice religious elements in a story is to be clueless about the religion.
I was raised Roman Catholic, and never noticed the Christian theme until it was pointed out either.
All it takes to not notice the religious elements in a story is to not be looking for them. I read those books and saw the movies as fantasy movies. Obviously now, after it being pointed out, some things are obvious. But if you view it as a fantasy movie with no preconceived ideas about looking for religious elements, you probably won't notice them.
Quote from: TristramEvans;728652No, what caused me to throw the book away in anger halfway through was when frelling Santa Claus showed up and handed out magic weapons.
Seriously, I'd walk out of a D&D game where that happened.
Dude that was when the game got AWESOME! However, it was Father Christmas / Saint Nicholas, not Santa Claus. And it did happen in a story about modern children tranported to a polygot fantasy world that wasn't very old relative to our world. In the context of a world with a mishmash of fantasy creatures from various mythologies Father Christmas was certainly appropriate and in context.
But then, I'd use Santa Claus in a superhero campaign too. Or, perhaps, more appropriately Klaus from Badger because Santa as a Hells Angel with anti-air craft missiles mounted on his sleigh amused me. "Fing Canadian air force! I go through this, "Identify yourself. Haw haw, no really!" bs every year"
Quote from: TristramEvans;728652I saw Lewis's apologism in his ridiculous tryptich that he repeated in LtWatW:
"She's either lying, insane, or telling the truth"
Just like when he tried to use that line of reasoning to prove that Jesus was the son of God, he never actually gave a compelling reason to eliminate the first 2 options (Lewis was a pretty bad apologist).
But that didnt bother me in the least.
No, what caused me to throw the book away in anger halfway through was when frelling Santa Claus showed up and handed out magic weapons.
Seriously, I'd walk out of a D&D game where that happened.
Lewis was totally a Monty Haul DM.
jg
Quote from: TristramEvans;728652I saw Lewis's apologism in his ridiculous tryptich that he repeated in LtWatW:
"She's either lying, insane, or telling the truth"
Just like when he tried to use that line of reasoning to prove that Jesus was the son of God, he never actually gave a compelling reason to eliminate the first 2 options (Lewis was a pretty bad apologist).
But that didnt bother me in the least.
No, what caused me to throw the book away in anger halfway through was when frelling Santa Claus showed up and handed out magic weapons.
Seriously, I'd walk out of a D&D game where that happened.
In the 6th grade, after having played one free form rpg session and without even knowing that rpg books existed, I designed my own rpg based on Narnia because I thought an rpg would be better if it had some rules.
As such, Narnia will always have a warm place in my heart.
And golly did I make axes powerful. And the frog people too, because I liked the frog people for whatever reason.
Assuming you mean Marshwiggles, who while amphibians, aren't particularly frog-like beyond their webbed feet and hands, we'll it's because they're just plain awesome. Puddleglum, in particular, is the best character in the entire Narnia series.
I once had a Marshwiggle boatman ferry the PCs through a marsh. I've never seen such a scared party. This thin, grey figure in ragged clothing and a broad hat, with his thin, razor sharp teeth and shock of ragged hair, who talked all the time of the horrors of the marsh and how poor their chances were of ever coming back and what diseases and infestations they would likely suffer if ever they did return home.
Well I tell you, great C'thulhu himself has never frightened my players half so badly.
Marshwiggles are awesome and one of the best things about Narnia.
Especially when played by a certain actor!
Who?
Quote from: David Johansen;729027Who?
Tom "The Fourth Doctor" Baker, would be my guess.