[Forked Thread: How Important is Magic..?] 5 things you need to know

[Umbran]

I´ll try to adress this again: this thread is based on the idea that modern fantasy is more than a fad, and that including certain concepts that can be found therein into D&D is a good idead. The whole point of this thread is to contribute your own examples of modern fantasy and try to glean what makes them viable as positive influences.

In order for this thread to work, i asked that we forget for a time the strong, extremely well fortified and fan-defended influences in D&Ds core of fantasy.

For myself, I'll note that I specified modern urban fantasy - Hellboy, The Dresden Files, the various vampire romances, and such. Fantasy set in modern times - I feel there's a trope mismatch, such that fitting it in would be bad for the game.

There's any amount of fantasy written recently that isn't set in a modern urban setting that could be of use - stuff that isn't a stretch from the core strength of D&D. GRR Martin's Sword of Ice and Fire, for example, is written with fairly modern sensibilities, but is in a classic fantasy setting.

 

[Cadfan]

1. For the record, Sigil is so close to being New Weird that it would only take a small push to send it over the edge. Demonic and angelic deserters living in a city between the planes, where they've attained a sort of separate peace away from their eternal battle, in a city of doors ruled over by an enigmatic and brutal god like being? Yeah... Its got the premise down pat.

2. There are some things you can't lift from modern urban fantasy, but there are some things you definitely can. Attitude, for one. The Dresden books are great because they maintain a particular attitude that would translate really well into an urban fantasy in any era or technology level.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I would say the most common core aspect of lots of modern urban fantasy can be taken too. Now, not all are like this but a fair majority are. Where the supernatural is underground and hidden. I could easily see this being translated too, instead of urban legends it can be myths and legends proved to be real, etc, etc.

 

[Ariosto]

Just what is being proposed? Of what would this D&D that included or excluded certain things consist?

 

[I'm A Banana]

• Anime (take Naruto, take Pokemon, take Full Metal Alchemist, take BLEACH, take One Piece, take Cowboy Bebop, take Miyazaki, take AVATAR -- fantasy and episodic storytelling tropes are rife here)
• Video Games (take Fallout, take WoW, take BioShock, take Portal, take World of Goo, take Legend of Zelda, take GTA -- gameplay elements and pacing strategies are key)
• Movies (take superhero flicks, take Twilight, take LotR...in general, you can skip the books).
• Fairy Tales/Folk Tales/Religous Texts (there's something elemental about Red Riding Hood and Rumplestiltzkin, Gilgamesh, heck even the story of Jesus -- this is how people perceive "magic" in their world).
• Music (take Metal, take Folk, take Punk, take Rap, take them and learn their stories and their tropes, their heroes and their villains, their archetypes).

That's crazy broad, but, IMO, D&D should focus itself on getting these broad things right. The other stuff -- the exact races and classes, the level of "high" and "low" fantasy, the fantasy/sci fi split --- is easy and can come later. D&D needs to get at the core of what its unique experience is, what it does -- the social storytelling game -- before worrying about what that should look like (because what that should look like should vary between groups).

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I think one of the basic points of contention is in the definition of modern fantasy. I suggest looking toward fantasy movies of the last decade that have had very wide appeal and huge box office hauls. Others look toward specific relatively recent releases in genre fiction or anime, but I am seeing that there is not a consensus on which of these to look toward, nor even a consensus on what of this is popular or even widely known. If the goal is to draw more new gamers to the hobby, what is more likely to be recognized by a larger number of non-gamers? Is it best to have the core recognizable to most new gamers and have supplemental material available that targets people in more narrow camps?

See, again i think i did somehow not express well what i wanted to achieve with this thread. The core idea was to forget for a while things like "does this modern fantasy exist at all" or "is it worthwile to include in D&D" or "what exactly is modern fantasy" or "is it healthy for D&D to include modern fantasy tropes".

These are valid things to discuss. I just wanted to use Occams Razor, cut them off for a while, and talk about how I (or you) would include all kind of new stuff to D&D.

Of course, i admit that i was already fearing that the thread would be sidetracked by "justify / define / no! / whats that again?" comments.

Man, I just don't get this. It's like you want do define modern fantasy as "anything that has magic." Are there even limits or boundaries as to what modern fantasy is, given the limitiations you've put into the quoted post?

I'm not insulted/angered/emotionally turned off by the quoted post, but man, it seems quite limiting as to how we can "appropriately respond" while at the same time expanding "modern fantasy" to just about the whole world of literature and movies.

Anime?
Steampunk?
Would starship troopers fit?
WWII demons and technology (as per Hellboy)?


It's like you've asked "how do we add guns to D&D and still call it D&D?"

When the answer was: you don't. If you add guns/lazers/lightsabers/etc. it then has crossed a line and ceases to be D&D.


While it's clear from other threads that D&D is not a single monolithic entity with defined boundaries, it is still a realm/genre that has edges. They are wispy, but there are clearly things that are beyond those edges. Add just one of those items...ok, make orcs Klingons...and it doesn't cease to be D&D. But add in the borg, a guy named DATA who is a cyborg, warp drives, space ships, and such...and it isn't modern fantasy. It also isn't D&D.


I fear, at least from my own perspective, that you've asked a completely reasonable question and then put strictures around it that make it impossible to answer.

I asked that posters who want to contribute should try to "not care" about what could happen to D&D for a while, and just brainstorm away. Talk about what interests you in modern fantasy, rip it out and stuff it into D&D. Create a monster - worry about the repercussions later. Again, i knew that i would get a sizeable amount of "but we shouldn´t do that to D&D!" - just not that many.

Dunno really. With the quality of cinematographic and visual effects topping a high and constant standard impressing people with a hit for more than a season becomes harder and harder. IP development based on plot development seems to be more important. In other words archetypes do not seem to impress anymore as they used to for the long run.

And the appeal of stuff like heroes, lost, twilight or Harry Potter seem beyond D&D. Xena was linkable but stuff like Xena do not seem to impress anymore. In the market anime is not what it used to be. Neither fantasy novels are not what they used to be.

The problem with your question here is that it wants to link the gonzo aspect of D&D based on archetypes to something more conventionally developed regarding modern cultural consumption. I do not see how this makes any actual sense. But I am all ears if you can elaborate more to help me make some sense out of this.

Again (i´m using the word alot, eh?): i do not want to discuss if doing that is good/worthwile/bad/treason etc. Neither about "what makes modern fantasy great" or "is modern fantasy great". I just wanted to add modern fantasy tropes to D&D and watch what kind of creature is spawned. I envisioned a kind of collaborative brainstorm where everybody invokes his favourite politically incorrect thing to add to D&D for fun. Didn´t happen, it seems.

To iterate again: if you do not see the sense of adding all kinds of weird stuff to D&D just for kicks, i will not try to convice you. Liking that was basically a prerequisite for participation.

I think it's dishonest to use Gary Gygax's name to justify 4E. He didn't support it, and IMO with good reason. IMO, rather being the leader in defining genre that it once was, it is now something of a confused cypher, losing contact with the mythological resonance and strong archetypes it once had. I think the difference might be that he chose his sources and influences wisely, and didn't put such contrived material into the implied setting.

Yeah, well, i do not know how to adress this... I mean, my OP asked explicitly to forget tradition for the duration of this discussion... Uh. Well, i better stop trying, eh?

 

[Harr]

I'd say the Baldur's Gate series of computer games.

The whole of my group and myself are veterans of the whole series, having played and loved both 1 and 2 and both expansions through to the end. Regardless of BG being different D&D rules or any of that, we agree that playing 4e has taken us back to that place where playing those games was so fun and so rewarding.

I even went so far as to run some old-school type games with C&C and then with straight 3.5, and even though I thought the C&C game was SO much more smooth, and so many more interesting things happened, and we had much more action etc., on later polling the group it was unanimous, they just think 4e did a better job and was more fun overall in capturing the "Baldur's Gate feeling".

The group's BG experience was also largely responsible for everybody immediately taking like fish to water to the game's "cooperative team tactical combat" slant, there was never even any shadow of a question that the team needed to be built as a unit and to work with each other in the most effective ways. I know people can disagree that that is "the focus" of 4e but for us it made the learning curve smooth as butter.

Take from that what you will, I have no real preference either way between 4e, 3.5 or retro-clone, and those are my real-life experience and results.

Edit -> Hm, ok yeah I guess I misunderstood the purpose of the OP even though I thought I read it over pretty well. I thought I read something like "What video games are good to have played to appreciate 4e" Sorry :/

 

[Keefe the Thief]

And to show what i really wanted to achieve with the thread, i´ll use an example.

What D&D could steal from Persona

Stolen from Wikpedia:
Shin Megami Tensei is a console role-playing game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the sixth installment in the Persona series.

Persona 4's gameplay melds traditional console role-playing game and dating simulation elements. The game is played over the course of a school year for the Protagonist. Outside of key events, the Protagonist will attend school, then has the option of either interacting with other students or characters to improve Social Links, spend time at a part-time job or other activities to improve their basic statistics and earn money, or join with other characters to enter the "Midnight Channel", an alternate reality that the Protagonist and other characters can access by passing through television screens and where the game's combat occurs. The player can only perform one or two of these activities each day. Persona 4's timeline is driven by the disappearance of characters from the real world into the Midnight Channel; the player must watch the weather forecast and plan on saving these missing people by the end of a string of rainy days, otherwise the game will be over. Thus, the player must balance the various tasks to improve their strength in combat to be able to rescue the missing character by that time.

While in the Midnight Channel, the player explores randomly generated dungeons each dungeon's theme based on the latest victim's fear or secret encountering Shadows and finding treasure while he searches for the missing persons. Combat is based on traditional turn-based combat. The player has the option of assigning tactics for the other party but can also control these characters.

What could be stolen for D&D:

- Setting the campaign in a city would be good, then depicting one social environment in which the core gameplay takes place. This kind of play depends heavily on NPCs, so you need a lot of them. Didn´t one of the Waterdeep book have a fully-detailed adventurers quarter with many NPCs?

- Using Personas: your PCs physical body doesn´t get stronger in the conventional sense. XP is used to increase the power of your Persona, which does the brute of your fighting in the dungeon reality. Basically, every PC has two "sides": a socializing side for using in relationship-building and for recrouting NPCs to your cause. And a mystical Persona you summon to do battle.
Getting people with strong Personas, merging Personas with others to create new Personas is a core part of the game. This is why socializing is so important: find people that help you along in your quest, find people with strong Personas to recruit.
There are many ways how you could represent the Personas mechanically - i think i would use "culture packages" (race + stats/skills for socializing) and "class packages" (your Persona & its powers).

- This would also neatly separate two parts of play: RP-heavy play in "the city" and combat-heavy play in "the dungeon". This would allow for two kinds of XP-System: RP-XP and Combat-XP are used to increase two separate sets of stats.
Perhaps you could use D&Ds stats and cut them in two: Physical are "Persona-" Stats, Mental are "Socializing-" Stats?

- Dungeons are "out there": Dungeons exist, but they are situated in a realm beyond the normal world. Perhaps its a City-of-doors-solution, perhaps you send your soul & persona into the Abyss while sleeping. Treasure-hunting and experience-gainging is happening as usual.

- In the City, the party creates their own network of relationships, dependencies, finding allies and enemies. Much here is roleplay, but this part of the game is supported with a full rulesystem which is not more nor less complex than the combat side of the game.


Etc. pp.

Btw, i hope i didn´t come over rude or impatient.

 

[Harr]

Keefe, I'd say that would be make for an excellent and original campaign setting, But I don't see how D&D itself would need to be changed into it. It would work fine as an Eberron-type campaign book on top of the game.

 

[jmucchiello]

Keefe, I'd say that would be make for an excellent and original campaign setting, But I don't see how D&D itself would need to be changed into it. It would work fine as an Eberron-type campaign book on top of the game.

I think this (finally an example from the OP) explains why some of us are confused. I highly suspect that for any given "modern" fantasy trope that is "outside D&D", someone, somewhere has already been there, done that.

Brooding Noir-style city adventures -- check.
Vampires (traditional, angsty, they're cool) -- check, check, check.
X-files "they aren't out there, they're here/conspiracies" -- check.
My character is me transported somewhere -- check.
Avatars a la Persona -- check (Yeah, I've seen avatar-style play, both spirit/possession based and telepresence/mecha based).
Anime/Manga -- semi-check (only because that's like saying D&D covers books, I know)
Urban Arcana -- check. (This was one of the settings for d20 modern from Wizards!)

The quotes from OD&D are telling indeed.