If it's not real then why call for "realism"?

[Hussar]

Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.

Wow, I need to read a lot more pulp era fantasy. Other than Harold Shea, I don't know any of those names.

But, let's be honest here, ProfC does have a point.

 

[prosfilaes]

Wow, I need to read a lot more pulp era fantasy. Other than Harold Shea, I don't know any of those names.

But, let's be honest here, ProfC does have a point.

Charles Dexter Ward--and quite likely family, there's nothing saying his illustrious ancestor was born immortal.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.

I admitingly don't know the first two, as they're from the same series.

Vancian wizards? Come on, that practically just counts as "D&D wizard," but ok. Ok. I'll compromise. Let's made D&D wizards properly Vancian. They can have five spells memorized (at most), and they need access to a gigantic library that they've put together themselves to learn the spells.

What, no takers?

Atlantes isn't a D&D wizard. He never learned magic. He is a pagan sorcerer and illusionist who uses an artifact to trap others in a castle. He doesn't have a spell book and a pouch full of guano.

The sorcerer in Aladdin? You mean the man who uses trickery and charisma to get Aladdin to do his bidding, not magic? The one who never did any actual magic other then sealing a cave? That's incredibly far from D&D magic.

None of the above walked around and threw fireballs. D&D magic is bizarrely flashy when the vast majority of "magic" as presented in most books is definitively subtle. Hell, Odin was mocked because spellcraft was seen as cowardly and effeminate.

D&D wizards are their own self contained thing. So yes, again, fighters who accomplish the impossible? Those are more in line with myth and legend then wizards who fly around, turn invisible, turn into a hydra, and then throw fireballs.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.

Ged from Earthsea, bad guys in Conan, some of the characters in the Belgariad, the Time of the Dark (Hambly) just to name some other obvious ones.

 

[Plane Sailing]

This isn't even an old school vs new school thing. it's just that the new school follows what the game was always meant to be. WHen you crack open that 2e PHB, the examples for fighters are not militia or simple man with a sword. Beowulf, Perseus, Sigfried, Hercules - these are not characters who had to run back to their wizard before doing things, these were heroes that performed supernatural and incredible feats.

Let me express this edict now: when the rule of cool/mythology and verisimilitude clash, the former should always win.

Although those may have been given as examples in the PHB, Nobody I've ever played with wanted to be a player in greek or other myths. They wanted to play Sinbad, Conan or Aragorn.

Essentially extra-competent humans.

Funny thing is, we had lots of fun at that too.

It is just as wrong for you to say that mythology should always trump verisimilitude because of your preferences as it would be for me to say that verisimilitude should always trump mythology because of my preferences!

The key issue is only really whether a group who are playing D&D together (or anything else, for that matter) have a shared joint understanding of the kind of thing they are playing. It seems to me that some of the reaction against 4e was that it was percieved to be shifting D&D much more towards the mythological/cool side of things at every level, and those who flavoured their D&D as more Conan/Sinbad/Aragorn found it hard to reconcile those changes.

I'm not saying that there is any right or wrong in peoples preferences here, but noting that there are legitimately different game perceptions available to people

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

Wrong. A friend of my dad's was a paratrooper in WW2. His chute failed and he plummeted thousands of feet and landed flat of his back in a farmer's field. He got up and walked several miles to the nearest unit. His back was broken and he spent several months recuperating, but he DID walk away. You can say he got extremely lucky, but that's the point. Heroes get lucky all the time.

Great story!

Nope. Oh, certainly, it's rare, but people do walk away from it. Yes, it's the extraordinary for it to happen, but adventurers are extraordinary people.

I think the issue isn't that it is possible to survive it, but that it should be not just a regular occurrence but in some situations an optimal choice!

Side note: my favourite literary survival of a fall is when the Gray Mouser is knocked off a mountain top in a duel. fafhred gets on a flying beastie and zooms down to attempt to rescue him and finds the Mouser falling in a diving position, "just in case there was some water at the bottom". Luckily F rescues him.

Cheers

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Although those may have been given as examples in the PHB, Nobody I've ever played with wanted to be a player in greek or other myths. They wanted to play Sinbad, Conan or Aragorn.

Essentially extra-competent humans.

Funny thing is, we had lots of fun at that too.

You're, um, actually agreeing with me. Read my other post about the origins of heroism ;p

It is just as wrong for you to say that mythology should always trump verisimilitude because of your preferences as it would be for me to say that verisimilitude should always trump mythology because of my preferences!

I sorta felt it went without saying that this was in my opinion.

The key issue is only really whether a group who are playing D&D together (or anything else, for that matter) have a shared joint understanding of the kind of thing they are playing. It seems to me that some of the reaction against 4e was that it was percieved to be shifting D&D much more towards the mythological/cool side of things at every level, and those who flavoured their D&D as more Conan/Sinbad/Aragorn found it hard to reconcile those changes.

Uh.

Is this the same Conan that survived being crucified, the same Sinbad who carried the Old Man of the Sea atop his shoulders for several days, and the same Aragorn who single handedly drove away ringwraiths at the young age of 86?

Because those aren't exactly low level, low fantastic characters.

I'm not saying that there is any right or wrong in peoples preferences here, but noting that there are legitimately different game perceptions available to people

Cheers

The issue is that all your examples agree with me.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Ged from Earthsea, bad guys in Conan, some of the characters in the Belgariad, the Time of the Dark (Hambly) just to name some other obvious ones.

Earthsea as I recall actually created the idea of the wizard protagonist, so I'll give you that.

Conan bad guys? As I recall, they were clerics. They got their dark powers from Set and by being shifty racist caricature of other ethnicities.

I have not red Belgariad, but I recall hearing that it - like most fantasy after D&D came out - is heavily influenced by D&D.

I hadn't even heard of The Time of the Dark, but I don't think the 80's count as a time of myth and legend

 

[Plane Sailing]

You're, um, actually agreeing with me. Read my other post about the origins of heroism ;p

Fair enough!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Conan bad guys? As I recall, they were clerics. They got their dark powers from Set and by being shifty racist caricature of other ethnicities.

I have not red Belgariad, but I recall hearing that it - like most fantasy after D&D came out - is heavily influenced by D&D.

I hadn't even heard of The Time of the Dark, but I don't think the 80's count as a time of myth and legend

Agreed that the line between clerics and wizards is pretty blurry in Conan. I'm thinking of the Yara in "Tower of the Elephant" and Khemsa in "Seers of the black circle" here though, as they seemed more traditionally wizardy.

The Belgariad is essentially a 'troupe' novel, the key idea of magic in it is that you need the will and the word to make something happen, and small things are easier than big things; there are not many wizards because it is quite easy for them to accidentally kill themselves while learning how to do magic well. Bel-something and Polgara are the main good guy wizards, there are some bad guy wizards too. The main troupe includes knock-offs of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser amongst others Not very D&D style magic though.

The dating of fantasy books is an interesting topic in these discussions - I'd be happy to limit my discussion to books which appeared before D&D did, in order to avoid RPG pollution, as it were!

Cheers