Doesn't this part of your post...
...contradict this one?
No. ??
This whole sword & sorcery from the 20s and 30s was your insertion into the discussion. My point had nothing to do with it at all. I was making a point about fantasy in vogue in the late 60s, 70s and 80s and contrasting that with fantasy in vogue now.
??
You were the one who started talking about "fantasy overall" and it's "impact on gaming."
Yes I was. So? That doesn't mean I was talking about fantasy in the 20s or 30s.
??
Again, I disagree. While both forms of fantasy were very much in vogue around that time, it's specious to claim that one was "on the wane."
I don't think so. In fact, if you're going to claim that my perception is specious and expect me to take it seriously, I'd like to see something along the lines of growth and new publications of old-fashioned sword & sorcery style fantasy.
I can remember a handful of titles here and there. But that was not normative for the genre at that period, as I remember it.
To date, I've yet to find anything to do with Conan that wasn't by Howard has very little feel of the original Conan material.
Totally agree with you there.
It ultimately amounts to something along the lines of ten fairly specific points of a much larger game. I honestly don't see how anyone could call that "fairly thoroughly placement" with a straight face.
Whereas James' "proof" that it was sword & sorcery with a superficial high fantasy patina is pretty much based on just the fact that the XP system rewarded the gaining of treasure and the fact that high fantasy is
lsightly less prevalent on Appendix N.
I'd say my face right now is considerably straighter than yours. :shrug:
In other words, besides the fact that a New School came along to displace the Old School, your assertions about the players at the time are just anecdotes. That's certainly a fair characterization, but it doesn't really seem to put forth much.
I never claimed that they were otherwise. Although I also claim that your assertions about the players at the time are anecdotes as well.
If we're talking about the player base and their attitudes at the time, then this is true. I think that there is room for a slightly more objective analysis in regards to what can be read into the nature of the game itself, rather than those who were playing it, however.
I don't. Like I said, the structural evidence in the game is really mostly limited to the XP system. You'd do better looking at some of the early modules and adventures, but even in those, "save the town", "rescue the captives", etc. were pretty prevalent as I remember. I don't think you'll prove your point there, athough I do think it's a more fertile and more convincing line of evidence to pursue.
Most of those really early modules really had no p"plot" at all and therefore didn't address player motivations one way or another. And by the time the 80s started, there was a bit more about "stopping raiding pirates or humanoids" "rescue such and such captive" or "protect the sleepy little town from cultists" or whatever.
You're reading too much into my having brought up the OSR. I know that it's not unified, but there are some (admittedly very broad) generalizations that can be made about it. I feel comfortable that the one I put forth is one of them.
The curious thing about the OSR, which I pointed out in another thread recently so it's still on my mind, is that it many ways its a product of
this time in spite of its claims to hearken back to an earlier period in gaming's history.
Not that it doesn't indeed hearken back to an older time in gaming's history in many ways--the retroclone rulesets alone certainly demonstrate that--but in that what is faddish, popular, or dogmatic in the OSR is not really representative of how games were played "back in the day." I'm hardly the only gamer out there who started playing in the heyday of the "OSR Age" yet who looks at OSR dogma and scratches his head saying, "Huh? No, our games weren't at all like that."
IN PARTICULAR, if you're claiming (which you are) that the default, original, OSR or whatever mode of D&D is that PCs weren't heroes but were instead venal scoundrels, then I think you're going to be hard-pressed to "prove" that by referring to structural elements within the older rules of the game itself. And certainly you'll be hard-pressed to do so by referring to them vaguely while not actually providing any such examples at all.
I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE PLAYERS, I'M TALKING ABOUT THE GAME. I don't know how to more thoroughly restate that point.
Your original post--which made a claim that I took exception to, since it didn't match my experience at all--was that "originally" in D&D it was assumed that the PCs were villains, or at least not heroes, and that the heroic paradigm was one that came about much later. That claim is not about the game, it's about playstyle. And you haven't backed up your original claim with evidence from the game, only vague allusions to it.
So, actually, no... your claim right there isn't true.
The game can obviously be played in whatever style the participants choose to play it. However, looked at as its own thing, the game can be said to orient itself towards specific styles, be they of play, genre, or whatnot. This isn't ever outrightly stated, and oftentimes isn't obvious, but I do think that it can be understood within the text itself.
I'm curious to see how.
I think that's a foolish, and wrong, way of looking at it. The fact that darker fantasy is more popular now is both a reaction to a long period of high fantasy popularity along with a rediscovery of older dark fantasy materials.
You think it's foolish and wrong to look beyond a glance at modern fantasy compared to traditional sword & sorcery and seeing something other than what I want to see in a superficial similarity? Or am I foolish and wrong for assuming that the cultural drivers that led to that superficial similarity must be because our culture hasn't had any evolution in the last 80-90 years? Or is it perhaps foolish and wrong to assume that what's popular in a culture's entertainment literature reflects something of the values, believes and nature of that culture itself?
I think it's foolish and wrong to assume that something popular nearly a century ago is just going to come back into style again as part of some kind of weird cycle. The arts do have movements where people look to the past for inspiration, but when that happens, it's because of things that are going on right then in their culture that drives them to do so, and drives those movements to be popular. And just because there is a movement that mimics and older school doesn't mean that it really does so for the same reasons, or really resembles it at a fundamental structural level.
And all of that, of course, assumes that superficial similarities are in fact motivated by purposeful imitation of the older style. Which I don't believe to be true at all. I think you'll have a really hard time finding any really significant parallels between the set that includes Conan, Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser and Elric and the set that includes Locke Lamora, Sand dan Glokta, Annasurimbor Kellhus, and Kylar Stern. You'd do a better job looking for parralels for the second set by looking at cynical, jaded antiheroes like Sam Spade, James Bond, Michael Corleone and guys like that.
