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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3886410" data-attributes="member: 30001">I've gone back a few pages and tried to figure out how the discussion got on this tangent and I'm not quite sure.  The issue seems to revolve around what sort of fantasy DnD should simulate.  I think.  There are statements that claim that Dracula is not fantasy, for example, but I don't see anyone making this case lately.  It also seems like folks arguing now have said things that support each other's arguments in the past, making this confusing overall.The problem IMO with making DnD a fantasy novel simulator is that some parts of novels just don't work well as a game.  Gandalf, as I mentioned much earlier, IMO is just way too driven by deus-ex-machina and "writers fiat" to really have statistics.  Novel writers can manipulate the perception of risk, and mislead you about what you think the mechanics are in terms of the story.  Misleading players in the ways that readers are sometimes mislead or misdirected, according to my gaming style, is just bad DMing, even though it might be good story-telling.  Maybe one of the best examples of this is the concept of Fate - something that can exist in a novel pretty well but otherwise doesn't work in standard DnD with dice.Ultimately, I see that many of us that learned to play DnD from Gygax's rules in the early 80s are sympathetic to Tarzan, Dracula, and those sorts of classic novels having an influence on DnD.  If anyone wants to say that they're not fantasy, then fine, call them Genre X and then I'll say that I think DnD should keep an eye on Genre X as source material.  Whether or not every element of Genre X is suitable to the game of DnD is something I doubt however, but the same goes for any other genre definition.  Ultimately this comes down to my belief and preference that games and stories do not completely overlap.</blockquote>

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