I am strongly in support of Sword&Sorcery. High fantasy simply isn't my thing, either in literature or in my games. Most of D&D's traditional assumptions hew closer to S&S; indeed, the entire "adventurer" concept has more in common with the flawed protagonists of Leiber, Howard and Vance than high fantasy characters, who triumph over their opponents because of their superior morality. Korgoth makes some good points about this:
Korgoth said:
S&S is about mercenary adventurers who follow their occupation because they are socially irresponsible, misfits, or too proud to get a regular job. ... I think D&D is designed for S&S because of the original XP mechanic: you get XP for finding gold. Why do you get XP for finding gold? Because that's your job. That's what you do for a living instead of being a peasant. You rob tombs and justify it by noting that since the inhabitants were all undead, they were probably jerks in the first place. You're an "adventurer"... that means that instead of working for a living, you scavenge wealth from the forgotten places, places men with less backbone and more work ethic prudently avoid. ... That's the "story" of D&D: a bunch of self-serving adventurers mount an expedition (like an old-time archaeo-treasure-swiping expedition) to the lost city/cavern/whatever to plunder it of whatever cool old stuff it has; these mercenaries will brave its many dangers in hopes of gaining wealth and power. Monsters? If there are any, hopefully we can avoid/evade/trick/blitzkrieg them before they can threaten us. Or maybe they can eat our porters while we high-tail it out of the lair. Saves us having to pay them when we get back to civilization.
There, that is the D&D experience to me in a nutshell. When we come down to brass tacks, being an adventurer is about murder for profit, and a cynical, materialistic outlook. This is unfomfortable to many, but in truth, when was the last time when your characters
really did good for the sake of doing good? Did they do it with no compensation in the form of XP and gp and those nifty magic items? Did they sacrifice life (permanently), power and happiness for the common good? Because
Lord of the Rings is about these sacrifices and how much they cost you. Of course, not all high fantasy fits the Tolkien mold, but even so, even supposedly good D&D characters tend to have a rather... mercenary outlook.
Of course, this is glossed over. What D&D has is a sort of compromise, so you are getting more wealthy and powerful by killing sentients beings and robbing them of their valuables, but it is okay because they were bad people and you were doing the right thing. Look, you even stopped the Evil Overlord in the end!
To me, and this is entirely subjective, a stronger S&S vibe feels more honest than "D&D fantasy", which has all the outwards trappings of high fantasy - idyllic rural communities, noble heroes, benevolent monarchs and heroic quests - while it ignores its message. But then I also prefer the imagery, the structure of the stories, the mosaic-like worldbuilding, and all that jazz.
) is based on a high fantasy D&D game. Author R.A. Salvatore's novels featuring a drow focus on high fantasy conflicts with massive orc armies (not to mention the high fantasy Dragonlance novels).
the 'Paladin in Hell' image from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
