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I'd like to see that. Not because I doubt your assertion. I just think it would be cool to see.
I do too; I might just produce such a list.
Conan, IMHO, faces about the perfect mix of weird vs. mundane for a role-playing game.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
If you have too much fantasy, the fantastic becomes mundane and loses its appeal.
If this were true, lifelong fantasy readers, who've gorged themselves on the fantastic, would have given up on fantasy in favor of Jane Austen. For fantasy fans, the fantastic is unavoidably a bit mundane; chances are they've seen it before. This is an inherent problem with genre fiction, in a very real way the readership wants the work to be derivative (they want in to meet their expectations w/r/t genre conventions).
Again, if you have too much fantasy, but do it well, it's like triple-chocolate bread pudding (an actual desert at my favorite local restaurant). If you stick to more mundane material and do it poorly, it's like lunch at Applebee's.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
"Not everybody likes the same sort of games.
Everybody ought to play the sort of games they like.
It's not a stupid idea to sometimes try something you're not sure if you like or not.
Just because somebody likes or dislikes something you feel differently about doesn't make them (or you) stupid or a jerk.
Except Julie Andrews. If you dislike Julie Andrews, you're a jerk. And Golden Retriever puppies." --Barsoomcore
"There is a handsome and mysterious stranger in your future. He will try to kill you and take your stuff." --Sejs
If this were true, lifelong fantasy readers, who've gorged themselves on the fantastic, would have given up on fantasy in favor of Jane Austen. For fantasy fans, the fantastic is unavoidably a bit mundane; chances are they've seen it before.
That's not what I meant. what I meant was not that reading too much fantasy or thinking too much about fantasy would make anything fantastical seem mundane to you, but that a setting where everything and everyone is fantastic runs the risk of reducing the readers'/viewers'/players' awe and sense of wonder when they encounter new fantastic plots, items, locations, characters and so on.
__________________ In space, everyone can hear you pump the 12-gauge.
- Korgoth about Classic Traveller
... runs the risk of reducing the readers'/viewers'/players' awe and sense of wonder when they encounter new fantastic plots, items, locations, characters and so on.
My point was that it's fantasy fandom itself that reduces a players 'awe and sense of wonder'. What does it matter if the players encounter a steady diet of the fantastic in-game when they're all but guaranteed to have ingested a steady diet out of it? If they're the type to get jaded by that exposure it doesn't matter where it occurred; the harms already done, before they even begin playing. The risk is unavoidable.
Which is I think the focus should be on execution, not the general level of 'fantasticality'. We should be discussing exactly how to make the portrayal of men with swords fighting large apes thrilling.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
I wonder if it's an attention span issue. I know I'd be a lot more interested if I had to fight weird creatures more often then I fought regular people probably because my brain would shut down quickly with the same old thing. Of course, if the people were weird somehow that might mitigate it somewhat, but then that would be equivalent to unleashing another weird thing.
More gaming style than attention span IMO. I’ve never been a monster lover, hated gelatinous cubes, piercers and lots of others right from the start.
But then my brain starts asking questions like, what do those orcs eat? Or, what sort of hunting range does a dragon have? Or, how can that city survive without any surrounding farmland? (WFRP – I’m thinking of you on that last one!) My campaigns are more political ‘we’re in trouble again’ messes than let’s slay the BBEG. My players don’t complain. But we used to play traveller back in the day, and that was done in a fairly similar way.
__________________ Samantha is a qualified croupier, and often works at an exclusive Soho club where gamblers pay top money to play Roulette all day, and Poker all night.
I agree that the Conan and Mouser/Fafhrd stories have about the right mix of mundane vs. fantastic elements. The games I run typically involve more mundane opponents (classed NPCs, normal animals, and basic races like goblins, orcs, etc) than out there monsters like fire-spitting beetles, elemental archons, or bears that crap lightning. I tend to be pretty firmly in the simulationist camp when it comes to populating my world and internal consistency. Too much wahoo makes it hard to take the setting seriously, and makes you wonder why there are ANY mundane animals/creatures if they are far outclassed by the wahoo stuff that is apparently common (I'm noticing a lot of drakes in the 4e published stuff for example).
However, I also love 4e and the way it treats monsters and NPCs. 4e really supports my playing and DMing style in a way no other version of D&D has. I can whip up a "classed" NPC in a couple minutes now, rather than 20-30 min as in 3e. Also, monsters do more interesting things now, and are MUCH easier to run. And the occasional wahoo monster from the MM I use REALLY stands out as being something weird and dangerous. I look at the MM not as a be-all-end-all collection of monsters, but as a reference to give me ideas and draw inspiration from. In that regard, the 4e MM is a huge success- I've come up with more really interesting critters since reading the 4e MM than I have in the previous eight years, especially in regards to unusual things 4e critters can do in combat (their "schtick" if you will).
__________________ Gothmog
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"I feel like I've been mauled by Jesus." -Frye, Futurama.
Little wisps of flame that dart around a fire mage's garden of rocky trees and crystal flowers. They sing pleasantly, and when he needs to cover his escape, grow to giant size and spring around like a giant flaming burst hazard.
Awesome.
Quote:
Crystalborn Shockmice
A little scampering fuzzy sparkly thing, which in swarms will Van de Graaf anything standing nearby and shoot lightning.
Awesome.
Quote:
Dragonborn Bladeflickers
A stocky 9-foot lizard-woman who spits poison and is also a gatling gun but with knives.
I'm going to lead off with a quote from Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories":
By the forging of Gram cold iron was revealed; by the making of Pegasus horses were ennobled; in the Trees of the Sun and Moon root and stock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory.
I think this sums up my attitude pretty well. The best fantasy, to me, is grounded in reality; most of the fantasy elements are not thrown in at random, but chosen to either heighten or subvert attributes which the realistic elements already possess.
For instance, I really loved the dire animals of 3E. A dire bear was still recognizably a bear. As such, it could partake of all our real-world knowledge of bears - both actual physical bears, and all the mythology surrounding them. Bears are already big and scary; this one was bigger and scarier. It didn't shoot lightning out its rear end and it didn't fly. It was just a bear with its bearness turned up to 11.
Or take undead. Dead bodies are creepy. They're cold. They frighten us on an atavistic level. They spread disease and make us sick.
So undead are really creepy. Their touch carries a lethal chill, and they inspire supernatural terror. They infect us with diseases like mummy rot; they sicken us by sucking the life out of us. Once again, undead are dead bodies with their deadness turned up to 11.
(Of course, there's another element of undeath that draws upon our real-world knowledge of corpses; in this case, however, it is the deliberate breaking of real-world rules that makes them effective. Dead bodies don't move around, and we all know this. So when a dead body gets up and starts shambling toward us, that's a profoundly unnatural thing, and we feel the impact of that unnaturalness.)
Horses are fast; pegasi are so fast they can fly. Bulls are tough and heavy and solid; gorgons are so tough and heavy and solid, they're made of iron and can turn things to stone. Big strong men are hard to put down; trolls are so hard to put down, they regenerate.
So, I tend to like monsters which fit that "like the real world, but more so" pattern. If something is going to get wacky special powers, those powers should heighten its existing attributes most of the time.
Not every monster has to fit the pattern, of course. There's nothing about snakes or lizards that suggests they ought to have wings or breathe fire. There's nothing about octopi that suggests they ought to suck out your brain. There's nothing about Jell-O cubes which suggests that they ought to ooze stickily through dungeon corridors, engulfing and devouring every... well, actually, you know what? Forget that last example. But I feel these monsters ought to be extraordinary and exciting, a step up from the less fantastical perils that adventurers normally face.
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Last edited by Dausuul; 1st October 2008 at 07:47 PM..
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
"Not everybody likes the same sort of games.
Everybody ought to play the sort of games they like.
It's not a stupid idea to sometimes try something you're not sure if you like or not.
Just because somebody likes or dislikes something you feel differently about doesn't make them (or you) stupid or a jerk.
Except Julie Andrews. If you dislike Julie Andrews, you're a jerk. And Golden Retriever puppies." --Barsoomcore
"There is a handsome and mysterious stranger in your future. He will try to kill you and take your stuff." --Sejs
I'm going to lead off with a quote from Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories":
By the forging of Gram cold iron was revealed; by the making of Pegasus horses were ennobled; in the Trees of the Sun and Moon root and stock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory.
I think this sums up my attitude pretty well. The best fantasy, to me, is grounded in reality; most of the fantasy elements are not thrown in at random, but chosen to either heighten or subvert attributes which the realistic elements already possess.
I agree 100%, well put.
G.
__________________
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Jar Jar Binks would actually not have so annoying if the direction hadn't assumed everyone would think he was awesome. There are several points after a Jar Jar line where there's an extended pause in which absolutely nothing of consequence happens, and they only make sense if you assume that this is to compensate for the entire audience laughing so hard they can't hear or see straight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Gneech
Did you read the definition of "lasersharking"?
Lasersharking is a whole 'nother ball of wax. The problem with lasers and sharks is that they don't actually go together. Sharks breathe in water, lasers diffuse in water, so the lasershark is either suffocating or boiling. Also the shark is a pinnacle of fluid motion to bite your face off and there's really no room in there for an obvious "fire the laser" cue.
It's like how all Ecco the Dolphin's ranged attacks are basically all sonic booms but with sonar, they make sense in terms of actions a dolphin can take.
Lasersharking is a whole 'nother ball of wax. The problem with lasers and sharks is that they don't actually go together. Sharks breathe in water, lasers diffuse in water, so the lasershark is either suffocating or boiling. Also the shark is a pinnacle of fluid motion to bite your face off and there's really no room in there for an obvious "fire the laser" cue.
It's like how all Ecco the Dolphin's ranged attacks are basically all sonic booms but with sonar, they make sense in terms of actions a dolphin can take.
Yes well ... um ...
*pause*
I like pie!
-The Gneech
__________________ gneech.com -- My writing, comics, and art, including NeverNever, The Suburban Jungle, and the Brigid & Greg Fictionlets.
"Not everybody likes the same sort of games.
Everybody ought to play the sort of games they like.
It's not a stupid idea to sometimes try something you're not sure if you like or not.
Just because somebody likes or dislikes something you feel differently about doesn't make them (or you) stupid or a jerk.
Except Julie Andrews. If you dislike Julie Andrews, you're a jerk. And Golden Retriever puppies." --Barsoomcore
"There is a handsome and mysterious stranger in your future. He will try to kill you and take your stuff." --Sejs
I agree that the fantastical is only fantastical insofar as there is a mundane against which it can be highlighted.
I like to use normal critters (if the setting permits) such as wolves, bears, etc. Even in the dungeon one can still highlight the texture of stone, the smell of spices or rot, and other "mundanities" in order to highlight the alienness of those things which break the expected continuity of sensation.
A cave bear (or 'dire' bear if you wish) is interesting mainly because it's even bigger and tougher than regular bears. If all the bears in your world are cave bears, then the message is "all bears are ginormous". If this bear is a cave bear, then the message is "this bear is ginormous".
I think the point about "lasersharking" is a good one. Obviously, the shark of Jaws would have been more powerful in the story if it had a laser cannon on its head, and cybernetic walker arms so it could come up on land, and a metal tail that spun like a buzzsaw and chopped people up. But it would have been less engaging than 'merely' the giant shark, because it would place the audience at such a distance from the creature... the idea has no plausibility and so its terror is less visceral.
Now, I'm not saying that there's no way to escalate your tone to the point where a lasershark (or a cyberlaserbuzzsawshark) could be introduced... but unless you're playing Encounter Critical (where you would be reproached for not using a cyberlaserbuzzsawshark, because it's a comedy) you're probably better off trying to make the game world something the players can relate to, rather than laugh at.
__________________ "I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"
For the record, they should be yellow with black stripes and make a noise like "Pika! Pika!" 
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