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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6737032" data-attributes="member: 996">I'm sure there's some genres, or at least sub-genres, where the protagonists die like flies or get maimed pretty regularly or otherwise need to be very risk-adverse, and actually are.&nbsp; Survival horror, for instance.&nbsp; The 'high fantasy' and S&amp;S sub-genres that D&amp;D nominally takes inspiration from aren't quite that extreme.&nbsp; Boromir is the only member of the Fellowship o/t Ring to die, for instance, and that was an almost moralistic tale, where he came close to betraying the hobbits only to redeem himself by defending them to the death.&nbsp; In most other fantasy stories, you have a protagonist that survives and wins through in spite of not only facing extreme danger repeatedly, but approaching said extreme danger pretty recklessly much of the time.&nbsp; Maybe the fantasy trappings were deceptive, and D&amp;D was really more of a treasure-hunting genre?&nbsp; You have a group of cooperating rival treasure hunters who aren't exactly disappointed that their individual shares get bigger each time one of the others dies, but are each highly motivated to live long enough to get their share, which requires cooperation, since no one of them can get the treasure alone.&nbsp; I know I've seen the odd caper movie or thriller that went along those lines, though I can't think of a specific one.Or, maybe some of the attitude of D&amp;Ders is in reaction to the less plausible genre tropes?&nbsp; The bold hero who takes pointless risks and makes no preparations to speak of, only to survive and win through blind luck, the aid of some love interest who dies later, and/or outright Deus ex Machina.&nbsp; So, in contrast, play a band of cautious heroes who take full advantage of every piece of gear and magic trick they have available to not only win, but win without sticking their necks out.&nbsp; It'd make a boring movie, but it's a vindication, of sorts, for anyone who's ever yelled at a screen or thrown a book across the room because the hero (or villain) was just that stupid.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6737032, member: 996"] I'm sure there's some genres, or at least sub-genres, where the protagonists die like flies or get maimed pretty regularly or otherwise need to be very risk-adverse, and actually are. Survival horror, for instance. The 'high fantasy' and S&S sub-genres that D&D nominally takes inspiration from aren't quite that extreme. Boromir is the only member of the Fellowship o/t Ring to die, for instance, and that was an almost moralistic tale, where he came close to betraying the hobbits only to redeem himself by defending them to the death. In most other fantasy stories, you have a protagonist that survives and wins through in spite of not only facing extreme danger repeatedly, but approaching said extreme danger pretty recklessly much of the time. Maybe the fantasy trappings were deceptive, and D&D was really more of a treasure-hunting genre? You have a group of cooperating rival treasure hunters who aren't exactly disappointed that their individual shares get bigger each time one of the others dies, but are each highly motivated to live long enough to get their share, which requires cooperation, since no one of them can get the treasure alone. I know I've seen the odd caper movie or thriller that went along those lines, though I can't think of a specific one. Or, maybe some of the attitude of D&Ders is in reaction to the less plausible genre tropes? The bold hero who takes pointless risks and makes no preparations to speak of, only to survive and win through blind luck, the aid of some love interest who dies later, and/or outright Deus ex Machina. So, in contrast, play a band of cautious heroes who take full advantage of every piece of gear and magic trick they have available to not only win, but win without sticking their necks out. It'd make a boring movie, but it's a vindication, of sorts, for anyone who's ever yelled at a screen or thrown a book across the room because the hero (or villain) was just that [i]stupid[/i]. ;) [/QUOTE]

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