Gaming Generation Gap

[Fallen Seraph]

I'll admit that I don't really know much about Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and their style of fantasy. Could you please elaborate? I'm curious.

Well Gaiman does a wide gambit of stuff, but I think New Weird fits for him when it comes to his fantasy stuff. New Weird is definitely the case with Mieville, a nice definition of New Weird from Wikipedia:

New Weird is a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy. New Weird has a visceral, in-the-moment quality that often uses elements of surreal or transgressive horror for its tone, style, and effects — in combination with the stimulus of influence from New Wave writers or their proxies (including also such forebears as Mervyn Peake and the French/English Decadents). New Weird fictions are acutely aware of the modern world, even if in disguise, but not always overtly political. As part of this awareness of the modern world, New Weird relies for its visionary power on a "surrender to the weird" that isn't, for example, hermetically sealed in a haunted house on the moors or in a cave in Antarctica. The "surrender" (or "belief") of the writer can take many forms, some of them even involving the use of postmodern techniques that do not undermine the surface reality of the text.

 

[Bumbles]

Would that be covered by the D20 Modern fantasy setting?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Would that be covered by the D20 Modern fantasy setting?

It can but it isn't something that neccesarily need exist in a modern setting. It is simply that modern ideas are taken into account and brought into fantasy. So have things like labour movements, communist parties, civil rights movements, scientific method, etc. But also doesn't hide away from the fantasy elements. Like you could have bizarre fantasy races taking part in riots and civil disobedience to seek equal rights and such.

It also tends to not be something that tries to stick strickly to certain tropes and goes beyond genres.

 

[Henry]

I don't want to be some kind of English nazi (even though I have the credentials), but if you are talking about the English dub of Cowboy Bebop, then you are talking about an anime, not a manga. "Manga" is the japanese word for comic book, "anime" is just short for animation, and these words are not interchangeable.

That's wild -- I usually get called out for calling manga anime, rather than vice versa. Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga? When I say BESM, people wind up getting THAT confused with the RPG of the same name. Whether it's comic book, cartoon, whatever, all the mediums are characterized by that art style and their character archetypes, and every time I come up with one generic term for that style, it gets dissected into its component parts. If I can let slide people calling norse, greek, and celtic mythology "western," then I have little problem calling all that particular style of storytelling as "anime." Heck, it amazed me recently that there's "boy" and "girl" anime and manga types.

 

[Mark]

Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga?

You're really leaving yourself wide open on this one, Henry.

 

[Ariosto]

Wide-open is right! To a fan of Japanese work, American super-hero illustration might look like endless repetition of John Buscema (or something). I expect that there are in both cases about as many nuances to the educated eye, lost on the uninitiated -- as with (for example) ears and musical traditions.

I'm no otaku, but guess that chibi might do, as it seems to be used somewhat loosely. "Super deformed" involves more comprehensively childlike proportions, I think ... but I am but little better informed than you.

I can certainly see, though, a big difference between the Lone Wolf and Cub and Blade of the Immortal Samurai series on one hand (and indeed between the two), and Dragonball Z on the other -- and would not confuse any of the above with Maison Ikkoku.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Whether it's comic book, cartoon, whatever, all the mediums are characterized by that art style and their character archetypes, and every time I come up with one generic term for that style, it gets dissected into its component parts. If I can let slide people calling norse, greek, and celtic mythology "western," then I have little problem calling all that particular style of storytelling as "anime." Heck, it amazed me recently that there's "boy" and "girl" anime and manga types.

Yeah, it's kind of like calling Bugs Bunny and the Herculoids and the new Transformers movie and Watchmen and Superman comics from the 50's and the BioShock videogame all the same genre.

It's not even all "Animation," as far as that goes -- a popular Japanese series can get a work-over into a live-action rendition, too (not unlike Watchmen, really).

It's like most genre distinctions -- it breaks down if you get specific about it. Discuss "Indie Music," and you're likely to get some of the same kinds of discussions.

Ultimately, people mean different things when they talk about it. But where the rubber meets the road is essentially in an Archetype: a certain kind of character. This goes hand-in-hand with world design on the DM's side: certain kinds of worlds make certain kinds of characters. Fortunately, archetypes generally have almost nothing to do with rules or mechanics: I'm totally capable of playing a character who is like, say, Naruto, flavor-wise, in D&D, right now, and having a world that supports a character like that. It might not be entirely organic or reinforced, but it's totally possible, especially with some clever house rules.

The dilemma is, of course, that what I want really is delicious IP-infringing solid rules for various tropes I see in Series X (Naruto or Avatar or Conan or LotR or whatever) so that I can get my homo habilis tool-using rush out of taking these elements and using them in a new way, with my buddies, doing something that none of us can entirely predict, taking them out of context, and putting them to new, re-mixed use. D&D, for most people, is kind of like one big fantasy mashup of their favorite magic & monster tropes, and giving support for that is rather difficult, especially while staying within one ruleset, given the diversity of the tropes that players want supported and the good chance that publishing something too close to those tropes is going to get you sued.

The rules are perhaps the wonkier issue. Asking one ruleset to support survival horror alongside little-boy action anime is basically an impossible task, unless you're True 20 and you're noncommittal enough to be genre-neutral, but then you leave a big enough gap to the point where both of them feel the same when they really shouldn't.

For example: I wouldn't be able to do something like recreate the Stanley expedition to find Livingstone very well in 4e. The tropes that made it interesting (disease, donkeys, wild animals, porters, tribute, racial tensions, supplies, water, the fact that everyone's human and mundane and prone to dying of mosquito bites) aren't very interesting in 4e D&D. To make something similar that would also be fun involves breaking a lot of 4e's fundamental rules (everyone's a big fat hero, you're a small team not a big expedition, you're supposed to get in big fights, not play it safe and avoid the hippos, etc.). If 4e were better at supporting that "wilderness expedition" style of game, it would be worse at supporting the big fat heroes on a small team getting in fights style of game. The two are incompatible within one ruleset. And if every ruleset has 300-900 pages of rules, well, who the heck wants to learn more than a ruleset or maybe two if you're into it?

This is one of the Big Problems of Tabletop Gaming. It's getting worse as the fantasy genre expands and blurs and becomes new things, versus the relatively narrow selection back in the 70's. It's hard to solve because you can't just publish a new game and have it solve all your problems. You almost have to create a game that is different at every table -- and that is supported with individual tables in mind. That doesn't sound like anything you can hang a business model on.

As the genre diversity increases, there is only two basic directions for D&D to go: More Inclusive (and more generic) or More Focused (and less useful for people who play in different ways). Neither one is really a direction that is going to increase your audience.

 

[TwinBahamut]

That's wild -- I usually get called out for calling manga anime, rather than vice versa. Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga? When I say BESM, people wind up getting THAT confused with the RPG of the same name. Whether it's comic book, cartoon, whatever, all the mediums are characterized by that art style and their character archetypes, and every time I come up with one generic term for that style, it gets dissected into its component parts. If I can let slide people calling norse, greek, and celtic mythology "western," then I have little problem calling all that particular style of storytelling as "anime." Heck, it amazed me recently that there's "boy" and "girl" anime and manga types.

If there actually was such a term, it would really make discussions like this a lot more clear. However, there isn't one. The best you can say is "anime/manga style art" or something like that, but even that gets messy.

For example, many people who are less interested in japanese videogames and such would likely call many kinds of videogame character designs to be "anime/manga style". For some cases, like in the Suikoden or Fire Emblem games, this is quite true. For other cases, like the Final Fantasy games, it isn't so clear. In many cases, many people would consider you ignorant or stupid if you claimed that the rather distinct style Square-Enix uses for its CGI cut-scenes was "anime-style". I have seen this happen dozens of times, myself.

One big problem with giving it all a big label, though, is that there really are immense differences in art styles you see in manga and anime. Trying to lump that all together is akin to trying to ignore the art style differences between Timmverse DC cartoons and Matt Groening's character designs. For example, two important japanese artists who have been involved in anime are Akira Toriyama and Yoshitaka Amano, and their art styles couldn't be more different (even though they have both done work for the same companies!). Actually, most famous manga artists have styles that are distinct enough that you can easily recognize their work on sight, without even knowing anything else about the image (or at least, you can tell that someone has been trying to copy a famous artist's style).

Anyways, I think it really is important to recognize that the differences between "shounen" (young boy), "shoujo" (young girl), "seinen" (adult man), and "jousei" (adult woman) manga and anime are all very real and important. The way a typical man is drawn in the average shounen manga is totally different than the way a typical man is drawn in the average shoujo manga (typically, that man would be a lot prettier in the shoujo manga). Not to mention the difference between shounen and seinen can be pretty dramatic (shounen manga has big-eyed characters who bleed when they get hurt, seinen has more realistic-looking characters who get graphically disembowled when they get hurt).

Actually, the "big-eyed, small-mouth" art style you are most likely familiar with is the cliché shounen style, but there are so many things that deviate from that style that it is hardly worth trying to lump all of anime and manga, or even anime and manga popular in the US, under its banner.

Wide-open is right! To a fan of Japanese work, American super-hero illustration might look like endless repetition of John Buscema (or something). I expect that there are in both cases about as many nuances to the educated eye, lost on the uninitiated -- as with (for example) ears and musical traditions.

I'll admit that I can't tell super hero illustrations apart at all, even though I can recognize Kentaro Miura's works on sight and I know when some random american artist is just ripping off Tite Kubo's style.

I'm no otaku, but guess that chibi might do, as it seems to be used somewhat loosely. "Super deformed" involves more comprehensively childlike proportions, I think ... but I am but little better informed than you.

"Chibi" or "super deformed" doesn't work. Those terms relate to a particular kind of art (not even a style, more like the use of stick figures) in which proportions are exaggerated for a particular effect (usually comedy). It really isn't "super deformed" unless the character's head is the same size as the rest of the body, or close to it. Characters are often drawn more simplistically in "super-deformed" state compared to their usual designs, as well. You most often see this in comedy bonus material in the back of a manga volume.

I can certainly see, though, a big difference between the Lone Wolf and Cub and Blade of the Immortal Samurai series on one hand (and indeed between the two), and Dragonball Z on the other -- and would not confuse any of the above with Maison Ikkoku.

Definitely.

Alternatively... I think anyone would have a hard time confusing the style Kentaro Miura uses in Berserk with the style used by CLAMP in Magic Knights Rayearth.

 

[Clavis]

That's wild -- I usually get called out for calling manga anime, rather than vice versa. Does anyone have a generic term for that asian big-eyes-small-mouth style of art that dominates anime and manga?

A suggestion would be something like "Tezuka-style" or "Astro Boy". Osamu Tezuka (the creator of Astro Boy) is the man who pioneered that style of Japanese art, supposedly influenced by the animated films of Disney. Personally, I see echoes of Betty Boop in the style as well.

 

[Hussar]

This is one of the Big Problems of Tabletop Gaming. It's getting worse as the fantasy genre expands and blurs and becomes new things, versus the relatively narrow selection back in the 70's. It's hard to solve because you can't just publish a new game and have it solve all your problems. You almost have to create a game that is different at every table -- and that is supported with individual tables in mind. That doesn't sound like anything you can hang a business model on.

Honestly KM, I think you nail it on the head. Trying to do everything with one rule set is extremely difficult. Even the so called generic rules are still limited by genre to some degree. Savage Worlds is pretty generic in that you could do a very broad range of campaigns with is, but, it's still all about two-fisted action. It'll do everything you want, so long as you want to have lots of action movie style gaming.

Or, take GURPS. It goes the other way. It would be a great system to run your "Livingstone" campaign, but, high octane action? With that combat system? I don't think so.

I'm not sure if this is really a problem to be honest. I'd rather a game focused on doing something really, really well, rather than try to be everything to everyone and doing a piss poor job of most of it.