Discussing Sword & Sorcery and RPGs

[MGibster]

I agree, Conan is just an easy thing to point to and does not always typify the genre for everyone. Conan is what comes to mind for me but not the original books, though I have read them, but actually my mind goes to 70s DC Conan comics which usually leaned toward more monster of the week fare.

I used to love those Conan comics when I was a kid and I started reading them again last year for adventure inspiration. You could do much worse than those comics for S&S adventure ideas. I started reading a few of the original stories back in 2019, and it kind of surprised me much Conan was behaving like an old school AD&D character by looking for secret compartments and hidden passages while looking for treasure.

 

[Yora]

So ... I'm not sure you're going to get full agreement on these points. Classic (OD&D, early AD&D and B/X) D&D, for example is often considered more S&S, yet has elves, dwarves, and other "Tokien-esque" high fantasy flourishes.

Does this reply to the paragraph you quoted?

Would you say that characters who are 1) bound by social obligations and vows of allegiance, 2) solve other people's problems as a disinterested party, and 3) overcome their challenges by thorough research and cunning diplomacy make for good protagonists in a Sword & Sorcery story?

One trope I like from Sword and Sorcery is "society is decadent and corrupting", and I would probably use this to influence the quests and quest givers when designing a campaign.

For example, rather than have a starting town the party save from a looming threat. I would probably make the starting town a pretty horrible place, perhaps with a subjugated peoples, and I make the quest givers horrible people to boot.

I would have the quest giver send them on morally dubious quests before they later betray the party at some point, perhaps by sending them into a fighting pit full of reptilian monstrosities instead of paying them their fee. Once the party have battled their way out of the fighting pit, they can fight that early quest giver and unwittingly emancipate the peoples of the town (hopefully making them anti-heroes in the process).

I am generally in agreement with that. In Sword & Sorcery, you don't generally have a happy peaceful starting situation that is being disrupted by an outside force and an expectation that the protagonists will set things right by returning them back to the status quo.
Though I'd be very careful to use betrayal sparingly and for times where it will have strong impact. If the first two people the PCs work for both betray them, you send the players the message to never take on any jobs. I think that can cause a lot of problems further down the road.
But I think it can be pretty neat to have NPCs try to cheat the PCs out of money rather than stabbing them in the back. For example, a merchants appearing unhappy when the party shows up to claim their reward because he didn't expect to actually have to pay the money he promised.

I've got a campaign idea kicking around in my head for a Conan campaign and this is a rule I'm following. The premise is that the PCs, or their loved ones, have been wronged by a powerful sorceress and are seeking her throughout Hyborea to exact their vengeance. There's no world shaking event here and defeating this sorceress won't save the world.

I'd been toying with just such an idea myself last months. A party united by a common oath to find and slay that evil wizard who wronged them should work pretty well.

I think one subtle element is that the setting is just that: it's scenery, a backdrop. The protagonists don't have much emotional attachment to the world around them, and they're definitely not there to change it. They interact with their immediate surroundings, they're not concerned with the past or the future or anything that's happening further away than the reach of their axe.

It's just that very interesting things tend to happen within that reach.

There's a couple of neat Sword & Sorcery stories that happen pretty much entirely as disruptions while the protagonists are traveling between A and B.

As a GM I would prepare an open world style and give the party multiple avenues they can solve a situation. I would expect them to both return the mcguffin to its rightful owner as well as keep it for themselves. Characters often get ripped off by dubious allies, I would give them the opportunity for bloody revenge. They should be able to hand out justice as they see fit even if it means assasinating a local king they disagree with.

I think it's a vastly superior way of running adventures in general, but for Sword & Sorcery it's absolutely mandatory to not have a script that demands that the PCs are going through specific scenes. Distrust and backstabbing is a big part of the game, as is sudden and unplanned violence. There's also both the thing of cutting your losses, and taking stupid risks just because you're really pissed at one guy in particular.
Even more than in other styles of fantasy, the journey is the destination. It needs to be a fun and exciting ride, and if at the end the heroes stand with nothing to show for their troubles, that's perfectly fine.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Does this reply to the paragraph you quoted?

Would you say that characters who are 1) bound by social obligations and vows of allegiance, 2) solve other people's problems as a disinterested party, and 3) overcome their challenges by thorough research and cunning diplomacy make for good protagonists in a Sword & Sorcery story?

Sometimes. I don't think that characters are necessarily bound by social obligations or vows of allegiance for S&S. Sometimes it's the complete lack of those bonds.

I also don't think that the necessarily overcome their problems through research or cunning diplomacy. Sometimes it's just a sword.

Finally, a character can be very involved as an interested party; revenge is not an uncommon motivator. Nevertheless, the disinterested mercenary is also a common trope.

Yet you could have a good protagonist in a S&S setting that matches those three criteria, but also have one that has none of those.

 

[Yora]

My point is that in Sword & Sorcery fiction, you usually see protagonist who can do what other can do, because they can afford to not give a naughty word what other powerful people think about it. Influential aristocrats, officers, and merchants often have their hands tied because their power lies within their status and reputation and the people who are on their good sides. Even when they know what's right and really want to do something, doing so would cost them dearly.
Barbarians, thieves, and dethroned archmage-emperors have no such issues. They have nothing to lose but their lives, and they are very capable of guarding that. If they piss of the wrong people, they can skip town. If they step outside of social boundaries, there is no status they can lose.

While it does not apply to all fantasy, Sword & Sorcery is inherently action adventures. You don't see the protagonists besting their opponents and winning conflicts in offices or meeting rooms. (Unless it's to behead the king on his own throne.) The heroes always go where the action is and will do what has to be done with their own hands. It may be by full out open assault or by stealth and cunning trickery, but they are always in the thick of it.

Which is why I am puzzled that any of this could be questioned or controversial.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

{snip}

Which is why I am puzzled that any of this could be questioned or controversial.

Well, if you're puzzled as to why your assertions would be questioned, on the internet, on a forum of geeks known for arguing discussing anything, including the smallest things ... well, I can't help you there!

If you are wondering why an attempt to define a specific genre would be controversial, it is for the same reason that all attempts are- and as I already outlined.

S&S came up due to an exchange between Lieber (who is S&S) and Moorcock (who is S&S) discussing Howard (who is S&S). However, despite similarities, even those three quintessential examples (Conan, Gray Mouser & Fafhrd, Elric) are very, very different. Which is why we have a term that is defined both by a grouping of certain works, and by excluding others (the contemporaneous high fantasy, like Tolkien, or the Chronicles of Prydain).

More specifically, S&S arose out of a particular time (roughly from Howard through the 70s) and a conception of certain types of pulp literature and archetypes on fantasy fiction; it is very difficult to disentangle what aspects of all those stories are absolutely necessary for S&S, in the same way that (for example) we can discuss aspects of film noir with canonical examples (femme fatale, visual cues such as lack of balance in composition and unconventional lighting, private detective, etc.), and yet never come to a conclusion as to what exact elements constitute the genre in film ... let alone if we attempted to translate it ("I'm doing a film noir in D&D!").

 

[univoxs]

I used to love those Conan comics when I was a kid and I started reading them again last year for adventure inspiration. You could do much worse than those comics for S&S adventure ideas. I started reading a few of the original stories back in 2019, and it kind of surprised me much Conan was behaving like an old school AD&D character by looking for secret compartments and hidden passages while looking for treasure.

You can't help but me impressed by the Buscema art. And silly me it was Marvel not DC. DC was doing D&D comics a little later. In particular Issue #41 of the original Marvel run of Conan is very good. Something happened in that issue that truly rattled Conan and came up again and again throughout that run.

 

[ART!]

The heroes always go where the action is and will do what has to be done with their own hands. It may be by full out open assault or by stealth and cunning trickery, but they are always in the thick of it.

Until things go pear-shaped, at which point they look to their best interests and bug out. Loyalty to some great cause - or even to one's faithful crew of pirates - only goes so far when your neck is on the line.

 

[Yora]

Totally, but that's them deciding that their part in the adventure is over. They are not going to delegate the fighting to someone else or ask for a ceasefire to set up a meeting at the negotiating table.

Well, if you're puzzled as to why your assertions would be questioned, on the internet, on a forum of geeks known for arguing discussing anything, including the smallest things ... well, I can't help you there!

If you are wondering why an attempt to define a specific genre would be controversial, it is for the same reason that all attempts are- and as I already outlined.

But you don't seem to refute my claim either.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

But you don't seem to refute my claim either.

Can't help you there!

Look, my last piece of advice on this thread:

1. If you want people to argue with you, have fun! There's plenty of people here for that.

2. If you read what I wrote, and that's your response- you're looking for an argument, not a discussion. I'm not the best person for that.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I am more interested to know if there is stuff that is more fitting to our current world and does not include the "issues" that classic S&S stories have. Are people even writing and publishing new S&S stories?