Bohemian Ear-Spork
First Post
A simple question, spurred on by 4E's "Feywild" and my just haivng re-read Neil Gaiman's wonderful Stardust: How many of you have run and/or played in D&D games with an explicitly "Fairy-Tale" styled setting?
To be honest, I'm not 100% certain of what I mean by this. "I knows it when I sees it," isn't all that helpful, is it? I suppose that one way to think of it is to but "realism" and "versilimitude" on the back burner, in favor of mystery and magic and symbolism, and all that sort of pretentious nonsense. The sort of place wehre there's a new kingdom over (or sometimes under) every hill, an exotic place of strange peoples and bizarre customs.
You don't buy a magic sword by paying a lot of gold to a dealer in Sharn...you buy a magic sword by seeking out the Goblin Market, and paying with the song of a Siren, or a year of your life, or the memory of your true love's face.
Or, alternatively, you can recover it from a long-forgotten tomb, or pry it from the cold, dead (but still twitching) hand of the King in Rags and Tatters.
No one worries about the economy, or the crops, or any of that sort of thing. They happen, they exist, but they play no real part in the *game* because they simply aren't needed. Unless they are, of course. But as a rule, either the people are just well-fed *enough*, or they're suffering from a famine that can only be resolved by a bold hero or three.
I doubt that I'm making much sense here. It's all clear in my mind, but I tend to have a difficult time expressing my "vision" to others. But does anyone know the sort of thing that I mean? And have any of you played or run this sort of game?
To be honest, I'm not 100% certain of what I mean by this. "I knows it when I sees it," isn't all that helpful, is it? I suppose that one way to think of it is to but "realism" and "versilimitude" on the back burner, in favor of mystery and magic and symbolism, and all that sort of pretentious nonsense. The sort of place wehre there's a new kingdom over (or sometimes under) every hill, an exotic place of strange peoples and bizarre customs.
You don't buy a magic sword by paying a lot of gold to a dealer in Sharn...you buy a magic sword by seeking out the Goblin Market, and paying with the song of a Siren, or a year of your life, or the memory of your true love's face.
Or, alternatively, you can recover it from a long-forgotten tomb, or pry it from the cold, dead (but still twitching) hand of the King in Rags and Tatters.
No one worries about the economy, or the crops, or any of that sort of thing. They happen, they exist, but they play no real part in the *game* because they simply aren't needed. Unless they are, of course. But as a rule, either the people are just well-fed *enough*, or they're suffering from a famine that can only be resolved by a bold hero or three.
I doubt that I'm making much sense here. It's all clear in my mind, but I tend to have a difficult time expressing my "vision" to others. But does anyone know the sort of thing that I mean? And have any of you played or run this sort of game?
