D&D 4E 4e Design and JRR Tolkien

[Hussar]

feature the "new fantasy" (read anime and vieo games etc.)

Why the hell does new fantasy have to be anime or video games? Good grief there is some freaking EXCELLENT new fantasy coming out these days and I'm not even a fantasy genre fan. (I prefer SF myself)

But, y'know what, I'll easily see your Vance or Lieber and raise with a China Mieville, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams, or Steven Erikson. Holy crap, why should we keep retreading the same waters when there is SO MUCH great fantasy coming out today?

We've done classic fantasy pretty much to death. It's done. It's been covered. Let's let some fresh air in please. At least a few authors that weren't dead before I was born. Jeez, get down to your local bookstore or better yet, library and check out the new fantasy out there. It's fuggin good.

OTOH, the reprint market is doing fantastic business from what I've read. A lot of the older stuff is seeing the light of day again and that's great. It's great that everyone gets the chance to read this stuff, either for the first time, or again. But, writing off everything written after 1974 as being anime or video game is stupid and blind.

 

[Desdichado]

There's a genuine issue in the fact that 4e seems to be strangely off the path of standard fantasy. D&D 4e seems to be the version where D&D decides to start ignoring the source literature and start eating its own tail. A non-grognard who hears of an elf or a dwarf very likely has some idea of what you're talking about. But an eladrin and a tiefling? Not so much.

On the other hand, it's abandoning the bizarro Great Wheel and proposing a cosmology that sounds like it came right out of Dunsany or even his folkloric sources.

A non-grognard who hears about "the Plane of Concordant Opposition" isn't going to have any idea what you're talking about either.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Tsk tsk, your specificity missed the point.

Which was, incidentally, not about the Transformer's movie, but about how nostalgia sells.

Ain't nothin' wrong with that, but I don't think D&D should be in the business of selling 40-50 year olds their childhood back to them. I think D&D should be in the business of selling 14-15 year olds their awesome future memories.

Tsk tsk, yerself, bud.
That may be the point you were trying to make, (A point that is, indeed, valid.) but it is certainly not what you said.

Aaaah, so in the wake of the Transformers movie, marketers are realizing that rich nerds have a powerful affection for nostalgia!

 

[Brown Jenkin]

As we know it is futile to try and represent LotR characters within the D&D rules/mechanics, but thinking about Gandalf I would say he would be something along the lines of a Celestial/Angel/Outsider.

That is the best analogy for Gandalf in D&D terms. He is one of the Maiar who are lesser spirits that are bound to the greater spirits (gods) who came to Arda (the world) at its creation. They are immortal beings of great power even if they do not always show it. Amongst their numbers are all 5 wizards, Sauron, and the Balrog. Gandalfs doesn't show great power because that is not his goal, although he does have it which is why he was able to take on the Balrog by himself. His goal was much more to teach and inspire the free peoples of Middle-Earth to take care of themselves and defeat Sauron on their own. Gandalf was quite sure that he could wield the one ring well enough to defeat Sauron on his own, but was concerned about what would happen after he won which is why he didn't.

 

[Baby Samurai]

That is the best analogy for Gandalf in D&D terms. He is one of the Maiar who are lesser spirits that are bound to the greater spirits (gods) who came to Arda (the world) at its creation. They are immortal beings of great power even if they do not always show it. Amongst their numbers are all 5 wizards, Sauron, and the Balrog. Gandalfs doesn't show great power because that is not his goal, although he does have it which is why he was able to take on the Balrog by himself. His goal was much more to teach and inspire the free peoples of Middle-Earth to take care of themselves and defeat Sauron on their own. Gandalf was quite sure that he could wield the one ring well enough to defeat Sauron on his own, but was concerned about what would happen after he won which is why he didn't.

Yep!

 

[Mallus]

But, y'know what, I'll easily see your Vance or Lieber and raise with a China Mieville, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams, or Steven Erikson. Holy crap, why should we keep retreading the same waters when there is SO MUCH great fantasy coming out today?

In the immortal words of David Byrne: "stop making sense!"

We've done classic fantasy pretty much to death. It's done. It's been covered. Let's let some fresh air in please.

On the other hand, there's always room for 'doing something right again'. I'm not a big believer in definitive takes on a subject. Now was D&D ever a good take on 'classic fantasy'? I think the fact that it took until the 4th edition to introduce certain classic fantasy elements --like the 'new demonology' which finally resembles Western folkloric traditions-- into D&D canon of fluff speaks for itself.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, y'know what, I'll easily see your Vance or Lieber and raise with a China Mieville, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams, or Steven Erikson. Holy crap, why should we keep retreading the same waters when there is SO MUCH great fantasy coming out today?

We've done classic fantasy pretty much to death. It's done. It's been covered. Let's let some fresh air in please.

Some notes:

(1) I tend to think of fantasy literature as part of an ongoing dialogue (I think the same of science, literature as a whole, philosophy, and so on). All part of the ongoing dialogue of the human race. No one can know all of it, but you are at a severe disadvantage if you don't know the biggest influences. You are also at a disadvantage if you don't read the best of the new stuff. The difficulty is, of course, that it is easier to discover the older good stuff (because it has survived, and passed on its influence) than it is to discover what the current good stuff is. Overall, though, I agree that ignoring the current portion of the dialogue is as bad as ignoring the old.

(2) That said, I actually think that there is a paucity of great fantasy coming out today. There is some great fantasy coming out today, but the signal-to-noise ratio is heavily in favour of the noise. Of course, everyone's tastes are different.

(3) Modern fantasy retreads the waters of the past, just as Tolkein retreads the waters of the Eddas and the Medieval romances.

(4) I view the idea of simply looking at the new without exploring the past as well as being akin to a composition student claiming that she shouldn't have to learn grammar because many great writers could violate it successfully. They could violate grammar because they understood language to begin with.

RC

 

[beholdsa]

So, how did Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG do again?

That's because Decipher's system was crap and they as a company had other problems. (Personal opinion: I am biased; take me with a grain of salt.)

At one time Middle-Earth Role-Playing (MERP)--the old ICE game--was the second best selling RPG of all time (right behind D&D). And it probably would have been much longer if not for legal issues resulting from Tolkien Enterprises being dicks.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Whoa... MERP. Now there's a blast form the past.

 

[gizmo33]

Ain't nothin' wrong with that, but I don't think D&D should be in the business of selling 40-50 year olds their childhood back to them. I think D&D should be in the business of selling 14-15 year olds their awesome future memories.

Dragons are so Beowulf! Should DnD be in the business of selling 1200 year-olds back their childhood? Sheesh.