mhacdebhandia
Explorer
I don't think there's a generational divide per se. Rather, I think that the growing influence of non-traditional fantasy and science fiction and horror (i.e., speculative fiction) stories is simply a consequence of a maturing hobby and associated market.
It's not that The Lord of the Rings or "The Tower of the Elephant" are no longer an influence upon Dungeons & Dragons or fantasy roleplaying games - it's just that they now share their place of inspiration with a broader range of stories, with different themes and motifs.
In other words, it's not that kids are playing D&D with no reference to anything except Full Metal Alchemist and Slayers. It's just that those manga and anime series are around these days, and take their place alongside the original classics that informed the game when it was first created. It's absolutely no different to people in the mid-Eighties who were inspired by the Ethshar novels like The Misenchanted Sword, which is not (or so I hear) a great deal like either The Lord of the Rings or "Two Sought Adventure".
The other part of it, of course, is that a great deal of the manga and anime that's popular in the West is in turn inspired by the same Western tropes that we've been gaming with for years. Fullmetal Alchemist is obviously heavily inspired by early modern European ideas; Berserk is likewise filled with medieval European tropes; Record of Lodoss War is basically a D&D campaign, after all.
Ultimately, everything feeds back on itself - and always has. Robert E. Howard was writing sword and sorcery tales but he was influenced by H. P. Lovecraft's horror stories and influenced him in turn. Is that really so different from D&D inspiring Slayers, and then dozens of fans trying to write up versions of Dragon Slave for D&D?
In any case, I think the influence of manga and anime on the current generation of players (and on future players) is kind of overrated. I was dead obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, having been the right age in the Eighties; suffice to say it's not exactly a huge influence on my approach to gaming now. I see no reason why the same won't be true of kids who watch Yu-Gi-Oh now.
(I have no time for manga or anime, myself, purely and simply because of the aesthetic conventions of Japanese comics art. It's a shame, because I could get into some of the narratives I hear about if only I could stand to read or watch them.)
Anyway, I'm different enough from the average D&D player, I think. I don't like Tolkien, I'm fond of Howard and Leiber but don't obsess over them - really, fantasy fiction isn't much of an influence on my gaming. History, mythology, horror, and game settings themselves have much more to do with how I prefer to game than anything else.
It's not that The Lord of the Rings or "The Tower of the Elephant" are no longer an influence upon Dungeons & Dragons or fantasy roleplaying games - it's just that they now share their place of inspiration with a broader range of stories, with different themes and motifs.
In other words, it's not that kids are playing D&D with no reference to anything except Full Metal Alchemist and Slayers. It's just that those manga and anime series are around these days, and take their place alongside the original classics that informed the game when it was first created. It's absolutely no different to people in the mid-Eighties who were inspired by the Ethshar novels like The Misenchanted Sword, which is not (or so I hear) a great deal like either The Lord of the Rings or "Two Sought Adventure".
The other part of it, of course, is that a great deal of the manga and anime that's popular in the West is in turn inspired by the same Western tropes that we've been gaming with for years. Fullmetal Alchemist is obviously heavily inspired by early modern European ideas; Berserk is likewise filled with medieval European tropes; Record of Lodoss War is basically a D&D campaign, after all.
Ultimately, everything feeds back on itself - and always has. Robert E. Howard was writing sword and sorcery tales but he was influenced by H. P. Lovecraft's horror stories and influenced him in turn. Is that really so different from D&D inspiring Slayers, and then dozens of fans trying to write up versions of Dragon Slave for D&D?
In any case, I think the influence of manga and anime on the current generation of players (and on future players) is kind of overrated. I was dead obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, having been the right age in the Eighties; suffice to say it's not exactly a huge influence on my approach to gaming now. I see no reason why the same won't be true of kids who watch Yu-Gi-Oh now.
(I have no time for manga or anime, myself, purely and simply because of the aesthetic conventions of Japanese comics art. It's a shame, because I could get into some of the narratives I hear about if only I could stand to read or watch them.)
Anyway, I'm different enough from the average D&D player, I think. I don't like Tolkien, I'm fond of Howard and Leiber but don't obsess over them - really, fantasy fiction isn't much of an influence on my gaming. History, mythology, horror, and game settings themselves have much more to do with how I prefer to game than anything else.
