D&D 4E 4e Design and JRR Tolkien

[Desdichado]

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.

I dunno; there's a lot of sources on demons and devils that really got it right. Especially some of the Planescape ones.

Besides, the fluff on demonology we have so far isn't any more 'right' that what we already have; all we know really so far is the fallen angel aspect of devils (already present in 3.5) and that there's a split between devils and demons (not from Western folkloric traditions.)

Also besides, 'getting it right' is a very subjective thing. You're quibbling about details that don't matter to others. All in all, D&D has clearly been heavily influenced by the 'classic fantasy' tradition.

Among other traditions as well.

 

[gizmo33]

Now...Aragorn. He goes 135 miles in under 3 days. On foot. He faces orcs and kills them by the dozen. He faces and chases off three of the Nazgul armed with nothing more than a couple of flaming sticks. Show me a D&D character who can take on 3 Death Knights with no more help than three 1st level halfling fighters. Finally. let's take an actual quote from The Lord of the Rings, shall we? This is from Helm's Deep:

'There are among us names worth fifty battle-hardened warriors."

In case there's any doubt, the mentioned are Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and maybe Eomer. It does NOT include Gandalf (who's not present when this line is said). Fifty. Battle-hardened warriors. Not 50 1st-level mooks. Aragorn may not be 20th-level, but he's well past 5th.

Mooks *are* battle hardened warriors. Otherwise they're called commoners. It's another situation where DnD has caused an escalation in people's expectations. Because someone's PC can easily dispatch a 1st level warrior, now we've got to up the ante. People seem to forget that DnD is designed to model heroic characters. If you don't feel like your character is heroic, that's an issue of interpretation IMO. It's not a license to start redefining "heroic" as being 10th level+.

And the idea of being "worth 50 battle-hardened warriors" doesn't mean you go out in the field and fight 50 warriors and win. It means that you're worth that in terms of achieving strategic objectives. Tolkien was not aware of DnDisms when he was writing his story. Aragorn has the ability to move swiftly, act independantly, be a leader, know his magic item lore, heal, observe, and basically do all sorts of extremely useful things that IMO should be factored into Tolkien's statement.

There's no justification for making the ringwraiths into death knights. He didn't actually hit them with the flaming sticks so I don't know what was going on. I never saw the ringwraiths use abyssal blast, and I think they were incorporeal. Tolkien wasn't writing a game anyway, he could just have author fiat decide that Gandalf wasn't going to use a particular spell without having to explain the relevant resource issues to the reader. Or decide the ringwraiths were going to run away. As I recall Aragorn wasn't utilizing the flaming stick with some sort of superhuman ability, I think it was just a typical folklore case of a creature being afraid of fire.

DnD was suppose to model heroic adventuring, even at lower levels. Seems to me if a 5th level character isn't impressive anymore that's because the person is jaded, not because the character's capabilities are well within the range of the most cheesed-out of fantasy heroes. I suppose that's why we need 10th level commoners now.

The characterization and stories make Aragorn seem much more impressive than Bob the Ranger in someone's campaign, but there's no reason that such a thing has a bearing on actual power.

 

[Desdichado]

Interesting points, RC. Here's my take:

(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.

When you say "you are at a disadvantage" in what way do you mean? Do you mean, "if you're WotC or some other game developer?" or do you mean literally all of us here?

I mean, I accept that in general the less widely read you are the more disadvantaged you are, but I'd also propose that being well-read outside the fantasy genre is more likely to provide some significant advantage than being well-read within it. You can be familiar with some of the basic nuances of fantasy and run a very successful fantasy game based on just that, especially if you're familiar with other influences. I've had a lot of luck crafting campaigns that feel like paranoid Robert Ludlum thrillers set in a fantasy world, for example. I've had good luck drawing influence from horror, history, science fiction, or heck, even romance novels on occasion.

(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.

I don't think the signal to noise ratio is any different than it's ever been. Looking backwards, we simply have the advantage of having filtered away the noise and are just looking at the signal, giving us an artificially compressed body of 'signal' works, making it seem better than ever.

I've read really crappy fantasy for as long as I can remember. If anything, I think there's more good stuff out there now. But there's more stuff in general, so it's still an ongoing filtering process. Agreed on that.

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

Some of it does. Some of it doesn't.

Not that I see the relevence there, though. Good storytelling tends to be timeless, so it's not wonder that we can spot similarities between works in the past and now

(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.

Eh. I guess I can see your point, but I don't agree with it. Fantasy isn't like language. Fantasy can be good without any reference to works that have come before it. You can throw fantasy into any type of story, even one that has no references to the fantasy genre, and get a good story; in fact, probably one that's more interesting than yet another retread of the same ole same ole. For example, you could throw fantasy elements at a classic British boarding school story, add in some mystery elements and have a run with it. Might do fairly well.

I think that that's true, though, for the sector of the fantasy audience that's extremely conservative in their tastes and don't care to look beyond the rather limited horizons of what they know and already like. Which I'm trying not to couch in terms that are insulting, because that's perfectly fine; I know what I like too, and I don't spend lots of time looking outside the "tried and true" but on the occasions when I've done so, I've often found that there's stuff out there that I otherwise would never have considered but which is really quite good.

In any case, in terms of D&D capturing a "new fantasy" market segment, I think your points are irrelevent. In terms of retaining the "classic fantasy" market segment, you're probably spot on. Ideally, WotC needs to straddle the line with material that appeals to both segments simultaneously, of course. And I firmly believe that that's exactly what they're trying to do. The whole "WotC is firing the customer" mentality doesn't hold true with what we know so far of 4e, looked at from the bigger picture. It's certainly changing some of the D&Diana; the specific minutia and esoterica of the past, but I see no evidence that it's abandoning "classic fantasy" as a driving motif. In fact, with as many changes as seem to depart from it, I see just as many that cleave closer to it (the Realm of Fairy, for example, or an entire race of cursed people in the tieflings, etc.).

 

[Desdichado]

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.)

Indeed. I thought the system was pretty good. Better at representing Middle-earth than D&D was, by a long shot.

But clearly not without it's problems. And I agree; I think Decipher had other problems and dropped the ball, so to speak, with the license.

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.

I don't mean to be all nitpicky and stuff, but do you have a citation or something for that? I have to admit that I find it difficult to believe based just on your claim.

 

[Desdichado]

Mooks *are* battle hardened warriors. Otherwise they're called commoners. It's another situation where DnD has caused an escalation in people's expectations. Because someone's PC can easily dispatch a 1st level warrior, now we've got to up the ante. People seem to forget that DnD is designed to model heroic characters. If you don't feel like your character is heroic, that's an issue of interpretation IMO. It's not a license to start redefining "heroic" as being 10th level+.

Well, the difference between a 1st level warrior and a 1st level commoner isn't being "battle-hardened." I'd think that's more like a two week boot camp.

Once you add a level or two, though, I think you have a point. 2nd or 3rd level warriors could reasonably be called battle-hardened.

There's no justification for making the ringwraiths into death knights. He didn't actually hit them with the flaming sticks so I don't know what was going on. I never saw the ringwraiths use abyssal blast, and I think they were incorporeal. Tolkien wasn't writing a game anyway, he could just have author fiat decide that Gandalf wasn't going to use a particular spell without having to explain the relevant resource issues to the reader. Or decide the ringwraiths were going to run away. As I recall Aragorn wasn't utilizing the flaming stick with some sort of superhuman ability, I think it was just a typical folklore case of a creature being afraid of fire.

Indeed. The ringwraiths only very vaguely resemble deathknights. And the primary reason they left was because they figgered they'd accomplished their strategic goal by knifeing Frodo already.

Although I have to admit that their general incompetence in getting the Ring back after a protracted and prolonged guerilla warfare stage all the way from Hobbiton to Rivendell does a lot to take away from the terror that they otherwise do a great job of exuding.

DnD was suppose to model heroic adventuring, even at lower levels. Seems to me if a 5th level character isn't impressive anymore that's because the person is jaded, not because the character's capabilities are well within the range of the most cheesed-out of fantasy heroes. I suppose that's why we need 10th level commoners now.

The characterization and stories make Aragorn seem much more impressive than Bob the Ranger in someone's campaign, but there's no reason that such a thing has a bearing on actual power.

Sounds like you're making a compelling case for E6 already.

 

[Mallus]

I dunno; there's a lot of sources on demons and devils that really got it right. Especially some of the Planescape ones.

I hate to admit it, but I'm not well versed in Planescape. Best I can say is that I loved Torment...

Besides, the fluff on demonology we have so far isn't any more 'right' that what we already have; all we know really so far is the fallen angel aspect of devils (already present in 3.5) and that there's a split between devils and demons (not from Western folkloric traditions.)

The whole 'fallen angel' shtick is in 3.5?

Also besides, 'getting it right' is a very subjective thing.

I was responding to the statment that ''classic fantasy' can 'done to death' (BTW, I say no). We can argue about what constitutes classic fantasy, or if work X qualifies as it, but my point was there's always room for more interpretations/versions/implementations/etc.

Innovation is nice, quality is nicer.

You're quibbling about details that don't matter to others. All in all, D&D has clearly been heavily influenced by the 'classic fantasy' tradition.

Me, quibble?

I agree that D&D has a lot of influences, but it's also been such an idiosyncratic take on them that there's plenty of room left to make the next version better at modeling the various source materials. Heck, they could try making knights in shining armor more viable (and less like Pokemon trainers).

Not that I have anything against heavily armored Pokemon trainers, mind you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Interesting points, RC. Here's my take:

When you say "you are at a disadvantage" in what way do you mean? Do you mean, "if you're WotC or some other game developer?" or do you mean literally all of us here?

I mean, literally, all of us are disadvantaged to some degree or another. There is a hard limit to how much we can take in, and that limit (to some degree or another) influences what we can put out. The defining novels of the Western Fantasy Canon -- books like Dracula, Frankenstein, Lord of the Rings, and The Water of the Wondrous Isles -- influence what comes after them. Our ability to understand and appreciate what the authors who are influenced by, say Dunsany, or Howard, or Lovecraft, is limited by our own knowledge of these authors....and, of course, by what influenced them.

Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot is a better read if you've read Dracula and seen Nosferatu. There are many fantasy (and non-fantasy) books that are richer if you understand the Biblical and mythological allusions they are making.

And, yes, game designers should be aware that our culture is steeped in these memes. You don't have to read Frankenstein to be influenced by Mary Shelley; you don't have to read Howard to be influenced by his legacy, either.

I agree that being well-read outside the fantasy genre is just as, or even (in some cases) more likely to provide some significant advantage than being well-read within it. But there is an interesting case to be made that all novels are fantasy novels. Some are just fantasies about how we wish humans behaved.

Because influence runs from the past to the future, understanding influence and allusion requires you to at least make a breach into the past. But that doesn't mean ignoring the present, which would leave you impoverished in another way -- bereft of the vitality and energy of the new, as well as how your society adapts old influences and creates new ones.

I sincerely wish that I knew all of the old classics, as well as all of the new stuff that is destined to become classic. There's just not enough time...... And, even if it were possible to be caught up right now, I'd be unable to keep up!

I don't think the signal to noise ratio is any different than it's ever been. Looking backwards, we simply have the advantage of having filtered away the noise and are just looking at the signal, giving us an artificially compressed body of 'signal' works, making it seem better than ever.

Exactly what I meant by noise-to-signal. As time passes, the signals get stronger and the noise falls away. It is easier to know which older novels are worth looking at now. I am sure that it was no easier to determine when they were coming out, though.

Eh. I guess I can see your point, but I don't agree with it. Fantasy isn't like language. Fantasy can be good without any reference to works that have come before it.

Lets agree to disagree on this one. I think resonance is important to making fantasy work; the more resonance, IMHO, the more likely the fantasy is to "ring true". Even things that seem to be utterly new, when examined, often turn out to be older ideas in different clothing. For example, I think that the original Star Wars film owes an aweful lot to Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars series, with its Jeds and Jeddaks, its deserts with large pad-footed animals being used as beasts of burden by warlike natives, and its Sith.

In any case, in terms of D&D capturing a "new fantasy" market segment, I think your points are irrelevent.

Perhaps. But I tend to think that the resonance of older ideas infuses the "new fantasy" market segment quite a bit more than you do.


RC

 

[Desdichado]

I hate to admit it, but I'm not well versed in Planescape. Best I can say is that I loved Torment...

Me neither, but I've at least looked at some of the lower planes material, and frankly, the Western folkloric tradition is an extremely strong element of how demons and devils have been presented in D&D. For that matter, they kinda always have been, although it's been partially obscured by the whole alignment issue, which confuses the basic similarities between all the fiends.

The whole 'fallen angel' shtick is in 3.5?

Not for all devils, but for some. Erinyes are specifically called out as fallen angels, as are Beelzebub and... uh... Belial, I think?. Asmodeus is hinted at as being a fallen angel. The introduction to the Fiendish Codex 2 strongly implies, if not outright states, that the origin of devils as a whole is in lawful "angels" who became more and more brutal and evil as the unending war between law and chaos went on. In other words, yeah, fallen angels.

I was responding to the statment that ''classic fantasy' can 'done to death' (BTW, I say no). We can argue about what constitutes classic fantasy, or if work X qualifies as it, but my point was there's always room for more interpretations/versions/implementations/etc.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't trying to imply disagreement with you. I think that there is room for more work in "classic" fantasy and I think D&D does classic fantasy in a highly esoteric way.

But, we've got the LotR game by Decipher, we've got the Conan OGL book, we've got the Song of Fire and Ice RPG---in two versions very soon, we've got Thieves World, Black Company, Fantasy HERO...

It really has been done to death. If a game is going to be classic fantasy, it better really get it right, because it's got a lot of pretty stiff competition. Just because there's still room for classic fantasy doesn't mean that any old classic fantasy will work; it's got to either bring something new to the table, or do something so well that nothing we've seen previously competes, or there's no point.

And I realize that I'm not really arguing with you, because you've never implied anything otherwise, but I tend to write kinda stream of consciousness here.

Innovation is nice, quality is nicer.

And both at the same time is nicer still.

Me, quibble?

I agree that D&D has a lot of influences, but it's also been such an idiosyncratic take on them that there's plenty of room left to make the next version better at modeling the various source materials. Heck, they could try making knights in shining armor more viable (and less like Pokemon trainers).

Not that I have anything against heavily armored Pokemon trainers, mind you.

Oh, no doubt. The open question here, I guess, is whether or not 4e is more esoteric in a D&D kinda way or less. Or... well, that's one open question. Another is still what the market wants; more esoteric or less. I don't know the answer to either of those.

 

[gizmo33]

2nd or 3rd level warriors could reasonably be called battle-hardened.

Ok. I would propose that "battle-hardened" could equally mean 1st level warrior plus intangible morale factors. It's a question of whether or not someone who is battle-hardened is really better in a one-on-one fight than someone who isn't - or whether they simply have better morale and familiarity for how their unit operates. These intangibles aren't as easy to deal with as "2nd level" so I suppose most people would translate it as 2nd+. But this basically starts the escalation of power because then intangibles start to mean killing power because it's the only thing that DnD models in this area.

Indeed. The ringwraiths only very vaguely resemble deathknights. And the primary reason they left was because they figgered they'd accomplished their strategic goal by knifeing Frodo already.

Or perhaps it was just deus ex machina being employed by the author. An author's writing is not interactive and does not have to stand up to the level of scrutiny and simulation that a rule set must (under most gaming styles). That makes translating novels into game statistics very tricky. Sort of like when a Bond villain just sets the sea bass with lasers on their heads after Bond and then leaves the room thinking he's accomplished his strategic goal.

Although I have to admit that their general incompetence in getting the Ring back after a protracted and prolonged guerilla warfare stage all the way from Hobbiton to Rivendell does a lot to take away from the terror that they otherwise do a great job of exuding.

Did you ever hear of the inverse ninja law? (I think it's on wikipedia). I've found there's something similar with horror monsters - the longer they are in the movie, the weaker they get. Take "30 days of night" for example - at first the vampires seem blindingly fast and powerful, but as the movie rolls on they become slower and weaker it seems. I think that's a basic property of all story monsters - they're going to seem less scary as they fail to kill the heroes, who in this case can't be much more than 1st level hobbits. Again, it's probably just a situation where a story author has the luxury of being able to manipulate perception of risk in a way that a game system cannot.

Sounds like you're making a compelling case for E6 already.

Must be a case of the universal mind because I have no idea what E6 is (unless it's the Spanish language version of the E! channel).

 

[Desdichado]

And, yes, game designers should be aware that our culture is steeped in these memes. You don't have to read Frankenstein to be influenced by Mary Shelley; you don't have to read Howard to be influenced by his legacy, either.

Because influence runs from the past to the future, understanding influence and allusion requires you to at least make a breach into the past.

You didn't originally put these two paragraphs together, but if you do, I think that there's a bit of a disconnect or paradox in your claims. If these themes and motifs are so ubiquitious in our culture as you claim, then no, you actually don't need to read the original source to "get" them. I can "get" the point of Frankenstein without ever reading Mary Shelley (I recommend reading it anyway; entertaining and thought-provoking book, but the fact remains that I can watch The Terminator or even I, Robot as shallow as that film is, and come away with most of the same themes and ideas.

I agree that being well-read outside the fantasy genre is just as, or even (in some cases) more likely to provide some significant advantage than being well-read within it. But there is an interesting case to be made that all novels are fantasy novels. Some are just fantasies about how we wish humans behaved.

I've long maintained that my favorite fantasy involves a roadtrip on the big ole tourbus of the Dallas Cowboy's Cheerleaders.

Lets agree to disagree on this one. I think resonance is important to making fantasy work; the more resonance, IMHO, the more likely the fantasy is to "ring true". Even things that seem to be utterly new, when examined, often turn out to be older ideas in different clothing. For example, I think that the original Star Wars film owes an aweful lot to Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars series, with its Jeds and Jeddaks, its deserts with large pad-footed animals being used as beasts of burden by warlike natives, and its Sith.

?? I'm not really seeing that. I see Tatooine as a clear homage to Dune. The similarity of the words jed, jeddak and Jedi seem to be coincidental, as they otherwise don't really have anything in common, the banthas don't need to be based on Barsoom since they look more like weird alien desert elephants than anything else (dewbacks as thoats, though? Hmm...) and Sith are just generic black knight type characters with a heavy layering of dark wizard, which is pretty antithetical to Barsoom.

Still, while I disagree that Star Wars heavily resembles Barsoom, I do agree that it manages to get resonance. However, I first saw Star Wars (when it was new) when I was five or six years old (there, I've done and given away my age) when I had no idea of the the sources that influenced it and it still resonated with me. Resonance doesn't require that the audience necessarily be familiar with the original source material.

Perhaps. But I tend to think that the resonance of older ideas infuses the "new fantasy" market segment quite a bit more than you do.

No, I actually agree with you. One of my consistent critiques of fantasy in recent years is that it's become somewhat hidebound and needs some shaking up. Maybe the whole "New Weird" Dark Tower and China Mieville influenced school of thought is going to accomplish that yet, but in the meantime I feel like I'm rereading the same old story over and over again.

Maybe we disagree on how desirable a state of being that is, though. Not sure.