But what if I LIKE Anime/Video-game tropes in my D&D?

[Twiggly the Gnome]

And I still had celebrated lawn ornaments as a PHB race.

I then assume you're disappointed that celebrated cookie makers still infest it's pages.

 

[kennew142]

Confession time.

I'm a child of the 90's. I reached my teen years from 1990-2000 (exactly, as it were) and came into D&D in 1992. I vaguely recall the D&D cartoon, didn't read Tolkien or Moorcock till my 20's and my only connection to Howard is the Arnold "Conan" movies. Oh, and I never read Liebir

However, I grew up watching He-Man. I recall fondly hours lost to Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy and its sequels. I recall BEGGING my mom for the "Record of the Lodoss Wars" box set after watching one episode on Cartoon Network (MSRP: $120). My influences in fantasy mostly consisted of Anime, Video-game (mostly JRPGS) and Sci-fi like Star Wars. Its no shock I found and fell in love with D&D, since it promised me the ability to create my OWN fantasies in the same vein as those listed.

I'm a child of the 70s/80s. I graduated high school in 1984 and I was an avid reader of Tolkien, Moorecock, Howard, Lieber and Clark Ashton Smith, not to mention mythology, medieval folk tales, etc... Anime didn't come into full blossom until I was already out of school and in the army. I have never liked video games very well. That said ....

... D&D never emulated my vision of fantasy well. I saw heroic knights performs amazing martial attacks, wizards who flew and faced each other fire, lightning, and summoned beasts. Intricate, detailed stories full of love, betrayal, darkness and redemption. Sure, I played, and loved, D&D. However, D&D was its own brand of fantasy and never emulated the grand heroes, dastardly villains, and epic battles I saw in my view of fantasy.

Third edition moved the paragrim further toward my vision. My core books had heroes that looked cool, not like Ren Fest Actors. My wizards were the sleek, agile sorcerers of Bastard!, not the stogy old Merlins I'd been given. However, the rules didn't catch up completely. My wizards still took naps 1/3 into the dungeon, my fighters still moved 5' at a time. And I still had celebrated lawn ornaments as a PHB race.

Our D&D experience has been somewhat similar. I have never felt that D&D was very good at emulating anything other than D&D. It was just a better game than anything else out on the market. I experimented with HERO, Runequest, GURPS and World of Darkness, but kept coming back to D&D because it was better than any of those games. Heck, I even demoed GURPS at stores and conventions, representing the company as MiB.

Now, 4e is coming and D&D is evolving to fit MY version of fantasy is.

Same for me.

Its got demon-people and hellfire. Amoral fey and shadowrealms. It has fighters with awesome maneuvers using fantastical weapons and armor, and mages who sling spells all day (only pausing to refuel there "big spells"). It has nimble rogues dodging and weaving around huge elemental creatures. It feels less like Led Zeppelin and more like DragonForce. Its fast-paced, exciting, and (to beat the word to death) "cool".

In short, its what I've wanted out of D&D for better than a decade.

In my case it is more like three decades. Every new preview I've heard has made the game seem more likely to emulate my favorite type of fantasy as well.

Anyone else with me? Anyone else excited D&D is finally drawing inspiration from more modern and more worldly forms of fantasy traditions? Anyone else grow up on Final Fantasy and Everquest who is now excited their D&D games can evoke the same feel? Anyone happy that Squaresoft, Tokyo Pop and Blizzard have been added to list of inspirations next to Tolkien, Howard and Moorcock?

In short, anyone HAPPY about the move to add some anime and videogame elements into the old horse that is D&D?

I have posted repeatedly that D&D has (IMO) been crammed into a LotR shaped box for all of its existence. I want D&D to draw from the entire range of fantasy.

I'm with another poster who doesn't think that what I've seen of D&D 4e smacks too much of video games or anime. I believe it's drawing inspiration from these sources without being overwhelmed by them. D&D players should be able to play the style they want. You see anime, I see traditional fantasy (from before the D&D shaped box that much of modern fantasy has been crammed into).

 

[Satori]

My favorite book in 3.x so far is "Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords", and the Warlock is one of my favorite classes.

I enjoy the "Per Encounter" system of these two sources.

From what several 4E sources are claiming, that book and class inspired 4E.

Hence, I'm looking forward to 4E because they took a favorite aspect of mine and developed a game catered to it.

However, I have also failed to see the "Anime" link you claim...but whatever. If 4E better lets you play the game YOU want, then I'm stoked for you.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Obviously you aren't a true D&D player, Remathilis.

I'm a child of the 80s, but I'm really looking forward to 4e. I like the various MMO and anime elements, and I like how the feel of the game hearkens back to some of the old S&S classics.

Mechanically, I'm looking forward to the streamlined system and more minis. Indeed, with 4e I'm really looking forward to some kickass combat utilizing minis.

 

[The Little Raven]

Final Fantasy VII

This makes me think you haven't actually played this game through, since the plot is far deeper than anything presented in Lodoss War (a pretty standard D&D campaign) or REH stories (usually not much deeper than ing, fighting, and a touch of American racism in it's depiction of blacks). We're talking about a struggle for identity (What defines who you are? Your memories? Your actions? Your past? Your present?) tied together with a struggle to save mankind from itself (ShinRa) as well as from outside forces (Jenova, acting through Sephiroth; Sephiroth representing the "sins of the father").

And then, of course, there are anime like Grave of the Fireflies and Voices of a Distant Star, which focus on character development and relationships way more than most fantasy that has been written.

 

[Ranger REG]

In short, anyone HAPPY about the move to add some anime and videogame elements into the old horse that is D&D?

A few. But if I see a 3-foot halfling lugging a 7-foot greatsword over his shoulder with one hand, I'd walk away from the table.

I prefer pre-CG wuxia elements, whether it is Superninja or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I then assume you're disappointed that celebrated cookie makers still infest it's pages.

I think your icon looks a lot more like a Keebler elf than a standard sidhe-type "eladrin" looks in R&C...

 

[mmu1]

Anime doesn't resonate with me at all. Someone on these boards once put it very well - "It's on the wrong cultural frequency."

It seems as if it was made by aliens - the characters look human, but everything is subtly wrong and makes no sense. Sometimes it's simply impenetrable, other times they try to set the stories in a setting based on Western cultures and their take on it is so bizzare it's evident that our world doesn't make sense to them either.

I don't say it as an insult - it's quite possible that the defect is mine - but I sometimes don't get how people can live in the same society I do and be engaged by that stuff on some deeper level. I can totally get why the same part of the brain that enjoys an action movie would go "Wee! Shiny mechs, scary monsters, bouncing, anatomically-implausible boobies! Ooh, tentacles!", but I quickly get bored with that sort of thing in my old age, without something I can relate to to hold my attention.

So, uh, no, if 4E embraces the anime feel, that's one less game for me to play, too. I don't think it really does that, though, as much as it simply embraces instant gratification and tries to appeal to a younger audience.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

This makes me think you haven't actually played this game through, since the plot is far deeper...

I did play Final Fantasy VII all the way through, and I remember being monumentally disappointed with the ending. What an unsatisfying end to all my hours of labor spent breeding chocobos, defeating Weapons, etc. I sucked the marrow out of that game and it left me feeling empty. I've never understood why it's so popular.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't think anything in 4e is directly influenced by anime or manga. A handful of elements we've seen are directly influenced by videogames.

Mostly what people mean by anime or videogamey is non-naturalistic, more OTT. 4e will be that, judging by the art and the more gamist mechanics, though, paradoxically it will also be truer to its literary source material in some ways.

Movies, fantasy art, comic books, heck the whole of western pop culture, has been moving in that direction since Star Wars was a mega-hit.

And that, to my taste, is a good thing.