Gaming Generation Gap

[amysrevenge]

Sin City, Wallace & Grommit, Indie Canadian cartoons, most of what's on Adult Swim, and Spongebob Squarepants.

lol

I was planning a list like this in my head, and it included both Sin City and Spongebob (my list finished off with Groo the Wanderer and Sandman as well, my two favourite comics if you can believe it).

 

[MichaelSomething]

Uhm... ok, so did you actually have an opinion on this as it pertains to 4e's bridging the generation gap with more modern-fictional sources?

Honestly, I haven't read modern fiction at all lately. So I don't know how 4E relates with modern-fiction.

I'm more into the internet (I seriously think I'm spending too much time on Enworld as it is), anime, and computer/video gaming. However, talking about the relationship between 4E and anime/video games is sort of like being a low-level 1E party walking into a Dragon's lair; it's just gets ugly.

Have you watched "Avatar: The Last Airbender?" The 4E DMG mentions the show as a possible source (for an elemental campaign, but I think that is pigeon-holing a very diverse show IMO). I really liked that show and think it would be a great resource for D&D.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I don't enjoy anime in general and have uttered that phrase although I don't think I've said it in rage. About the only picture in that sample that you need to tell me is from an anime is the first one in row three, the old man looking into the teacup. That looks like a western animation cell. Otherwise, the rest of the pictures all look like anime animation cells.

I have three things:

1) Define what makes them "from an anime"

2) The old man looking into the teacup is from Monster, both an anime and manga series :3

3) Avatar and the new-ish Teen Titans (Show, not comic). Are these anime?

All you've said is "Yeah they're all anime." Does that mean they all look the same, or do your recognize that almost all of those pictures differs from the others?

 

[Orius]

I actually have a perfect picture regarding the anime/manga thing.

I once had someone claim that "ALL ANIME IS THE SAME," in a very rage-y fashion. So I took some time editing pictures, and eventually just gave up and found a picture that says everything I would need to.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2ypb6zm.jpg

And while I can tell the different artistic styles apart in each image, I'd just label the whole thing as "anime", even though I know anime is technically animated films and manga is comic books (I'm assuming that image contains examples of both?). I'm not really into the stuff, so I just label it all together as Japanese popular art. Anime just rolls off the tongue better.

 

[Mark]

Wide-open is right! To a fan of Japanese work, American super-hero illustration might look like endless repetition of John Buscema (or something).

It might even appear so to a non-fan of Japanese work, for that matter. Never assume there are but two sides from which to view something.

 

[TwinBahamut]

You know, jmucchiello, I really feel like we are having two different conversations. What, exactly, do you think I am arguing? Because a lot of your replies to what I have said really don't make a lot of sense to me...

 

[jmucchiello]

You know, jmucchiello, I really feel like we are having two different conversations. What, exactly, do you think I am arguing? Because a lot of your replies to what I have said really don't make a lot of sense to me...

Read my prior response in order. It is a flow of realizing what you are saying and how it relates to the whole thread.

You are complaining that D&D doesn't support guns, future tech, and a few other things mixed into fantasy. You've made it clear this is not a deal breaker for you. You just wish D&D included (let's call it) more diversity. Originally I was telling you that guns and future tech can be faked using the existing rules and changing the skin of it: a gun is a bow; a transporter beam is a teleportation portal; space combat is aerial combat with some allowance for the fact that there's no gravity. You've since said you see that but it would still be nice to see it in print.

So I've come to the conclusion that if you want to see this stuff in print you should be sending emails to WotC customer support. Or you should wait 10 years. If guns and future tech mixed with fantasy is as prevalent as you say in "your generation's" fantasy. Then when "your generation" is in charge of D&D at WotC, that version of D&D will reflect "your generation's" sensibilities.

Ultimately, you ask "why can't D&D cater to my tropes?" And I my first answer was "because it does not occur to the current guardians of D&D that those tropes need special rules." The current guardians of "that which is D&D" either don't believe guns belong in D&D or (as I've conjectured) feel it is so easy to reskin bows as guns that it isn't worth printing anything about guns. Someday members of your generation of fantasy enthusiasts will take the reigns of "that which is D&D" and perhaps they will print such rules because, like you, they felt it would help a large enough segment of gamers to have such rules spelled out.

Have I made sense yet?

 

[Mercutio01]

I have three things:

1) Define what makes them "from an anime"

In the majority of them? The eyes. The others have distinct "looks" (the exaggerated perspective on the guy?girl? with the shotgun, the weird big blue cat thing). Honestly, even the guy looking into the tea-cup is something I would have pegged as Japanese animation. The only one that to my eye treads close to "western" animation is the guy with the video camera who looks like he's right out of GI Joe the cartoon.

3) Avatar and the new-ish Teen Titans (Show, not comic). Are these anime?

They share many elements with eastern animation. Indeed, part of the rationale behind Avatar was to capture the US cartoon market by emulating popular anime. Things like the understated mouth and overstated eyes, the exaggerated "laugh" that looks like a Muppet with its mouth open, movements that occur without an animated transition, and speed lines without a background are key hallmarks.

All you've said is "Yeah they're all anime." Does that mean they all look the same, or do your recognize that almost all of those pictures differs from the others?

I'm not the person you were asking, but I recognize the differences between them. However, I do also recognize that they are all from eastern animation houses.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ultimately, you ask "why can't D&D cater to my tropes?" And I my first answer was "because it does not occur to the current guardians of D&D that those tropes need special rules." The current guardians of "that which is D&D" either don't believe guns belong in D&D or (as I've conjectured) feel it is so easy to reskin bows as guns that it isn't worth printing anything about guns. Someday members of your generation of fantasy enthusiasts will take the reigns of "that which is D&D" and perhaps they will print such rules because, like you, they felt it would help a large enough segment of gamers to have such rules spelled out.

Have I made sense yet?

IMO, the idea of "the guardians of D&D" deciding what the game looks like is one of those things that isn't compatible with D&D in the next 10 or so years. WotC could sell every table exactly what they need. They just couldn't do it as a line of published books.

Things like the understated mouth and overstated eyes, the exaggerated "laugh" that looks like a Muppet with its mouth open, movements that occur without an animated transition, and speed lines without a background are key hallmarks.

It's interesting. The former two are very much animation universals. A lot of hay is made over, for instance, Bugs Bunny's "baby face": the proportions are all out of whack, because characters are cuter with bigger eyes and smaller mouths (except when laughing). Of course, the effect is more subtle on humans than it is on other things.

And the other stuff is definitely cultural difference. Japanese animation tends to be more accepting of the "surreal" elements (changing proportions), while American animation tends to ground itself. But you'll find wildly changing proportions in a good chunk of Canadian animation. Japanese anime is grounded in a very "cheap" style of animation without a lot of transitional cells and with cheap ways to depict motion that it keeps mostly out of convention and, well, because it's cheap, still in many shows. Reason being Japanese audiences kind of expect it, but American audiences don't have the same early animation experience with things like Astro Boy and Speed Racer, so they expect something different -- something a little more detailed, usually. But heck, check out the early 80's GI Joe and Transformers cartoons: full of cheap tricks that we might be totally used to, but that others would probably balk at.

There is a cultural difference in art style. But that difference is getting smaller. As far as D&D goes, none of those things are very applicable: art style isn't very relevant to what happens at the table.

 

[Aeolius]

Sorry... I'm 43, started in 1979 with Basic D&D, don't care for anime (though I do like Spongebob) mainly because I don't have time to watch a lot of TV, I think 4e isn't as fun as prior editions, and.... GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!