Discussing Sword & Sorcery and RPGs

[Dioltach]

Some of the positives of S&S, in my experience, are:

Its short form: ideally, each adventure should be one session. This keeps the goals clear, and allows you to try a variety of scenarios, monsters and challenges without bogging down in a protracted campaign that could easily become stale or confusing, and that demand more effort from the DM and more attention from the players.

Its lack of moral philosophising: anyone who stands in the PCs' way is fair game - and is probably evil anyway. Along with clear goals, this means that the road towards achieving those goals is also uncomplicated.

Its cinematic quality: the villains are over-the-top, and accordingly the PCs are meant to be action heroes. The DM should encourage them to act swiftly and do cool stuff. Attacking first in combat should mean killing one or two mooks there and then. Sneaking around should take the PCs past secret meetings, strange sacrifices or at the very least startling a damsel (M/F) who could scream and give them away.

 

[Bedrockgames]

One of the biggest positives, at least for me, is it is probably the most gameable genre for me next to gangster genres or horror. I find anytime I read classic Conan or anything in that vein, but Conan in particular, I get adventure ideas very quickly. And the way that it inspires me isn't "I want to repeat what's on the page" or "I want to base an adventure on this" it is more like it jumps starts my thinking and the kernels in the story become fodder for making something larger that works in a fantasy RPG.

Also another positive is a lot of sword and sorcery isn't just in movies, it is in music too. There is a lot of S&S inspired heavy metal. Often I have the same kind of experience listening to something like a Dio song as I do reading Howard (though Dio isn't just S&S

 

[Dioltach]

In short, no S&S probably can't be saved. Much better you move on and leave the wreck for us poor people that doesn't know better than to like objectively distasteful material...!

S&S is experiencing a resurgence. Maybe not on a large scale, but there are quite a few authors out there writing modern S&S. Try some anthologies such as Swords & Dark Magic (mentioned above), The Book of Swords and The Book of Magic (both edited by Gardner Dozois), and Rogues (edited by Dozois and GRRM) some of the stories in Shawn Speakman's Unfettered and Unbound anthologies. For longer works, there are the Witcher novels, novellas and graphic novels, Douglas Hulick's Tales of the Kin, and even The Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed.

 

[Aldarc]

Thanks, but remember, my underlying impetus is to force us to confront the possibility it isn't S&S we really like.

Another way of saying this is that it can be easy to just crap all over what we don't like about S&S. But what is the alternative?

I have a hunch a lot of S&S' detractors can't define a genre that remains unmistakably S&S if they remove everything they profess to dislike.

But if they can't, isn't it better they realize it isn't S&S they like, and so go play in another genre?

Or at the very least admit to themselves they're not really into it for the constructive criticism. They just want to stop others from playing in a way they perceive as badwrongfun.

What I get frustrated by are people that simultaneously can't define the genre, can't explain what's left after everything bad has been cleaned out, yet give themselves permission to criticize what others like...

In short, no S&S probably can't be saved. Much better you move on and leave the wreck for us poor people that doesn't know better than to like objectively distasteful material...!

Saying I'm a S&S fan except... [insert pretty much everything that makes S&S recognizable and distinct here]... as if that's an useful take is what I see repeated over and over, and it is exhausting.

I offer a different take. Actually confessing S&S ---as it exists in the zeitgeist, not some theoretical ideal version--- has its allure seems to be an almost unique take around here... But how else did y'all become a fan of the genre!?!

I think that your pontification here is misplaced as it seems to fall into the fallacious trap of equating "criticsm" with "dislike" and "critical fans" with "detractors" and/or "haters."

 

[Yora]

S&S is experiencing a resurgence. Maybe not on a large scale, but there are quite a few authors out there writing modern S&S. Try some anthologies such as Swords & Dark Magic (mentioned above), The Book of Swords and The Book of Magic (both edited by Gardner Dozois), and Rogues (edited by Dozois and GRRM) some of the stories in Shawn Speakman's Unfettered and Unbound anthologies. For longer works, there are the Witcher novels, novellas and graphic novels, Douglas Hulick's Tales of the Kin, and even The Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed.

I'd also argue that Conan is having a pretty decent boom again, lately. Got another rules system released recently, and a survival online-game that seems to be quite well regarded.

 

[ART!]

I'd also argue that Conan is having a pretty decent boom again, lately. Got another rules system released recently, and a survival online-game that seems to be quite well regarded.

And he's part of the Marvel Comics universe again, including being part of Savage Avengers.

 

[Yora]

Sword & Sorcery is fun because it's sincere. It's a style of adventure fiction that is done with apologizing for anything and defending itself against detractors. When people create works as Sword & Sorcery, they don't care if it may be seen as dorky, juvenile, unrefined, or sloppy. Even at it's dumbest and cheapest, I never got an impression that the creators don't believe that this is really the coolest and funniest naughty word.
The appeal of Sword & Sorcery is in having fun with stuff you're not supposed to, because it is considered improper.

You want beefcakes strangling giant gorillas with their bare hands? Do it!
Evil sorcerers with huge pointy collars on their capes and goatees? Do it!
Tiddies? Do it!
Fighting dragons on the spire of a burning castle during a thunderstorm? Do it!

Sword & Sorcery refuses to participate in the circus of trying to get accepted by critics and popular with the masses. If only a small group of people enjoy this stuff, then so be it. Make awesome fun stuff for those people, instead of making something for the masses that you no longer enjoy yourself.
Like punk and aspects of queer culture, Sword & Sorcery is crass and vulgar, because it's done with pleasing others and celebrating what it considers fun.

One of the most striking things about Sword & Sorcery to me is that it's radically egalitarian. The societies in which the characters live tend to be particularly cruel and oppressive compared to other fantasy worlds, but that's for providing a backdrop that highlights their acts of defiance to comply. A Sword & Sorcery hero can be anyone and anything, come from any background, and be of any appearance. Because just by virtue of being a protagonist in this kind of stories in this kind of worlds, their very existence is considered offensive to society.
Maybe they could change to fit in, but because they have power, they don't have to. And they chose to let the unfair world come at them rather than submit to it. Haters gonna hate. And if they don't get out of the hero's face, someone's gonna get slapped stabbed!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think that your pontification here is misplaced as it seems to fall into the fallacious trap of equating "criticsm" with "dislike" and "critical fans" with "detractors" and/or "haters."

To make an analogy:

A person likes cosmic horror. Cosmic horror is often defined in relation to HP Lovecraft.

One thing about HP Lovecraft is that not only was he racist, but that is pretty evident in some of his writings (Horror at Red Hook).

That said, the racism (and the transgressions of the racism) isn't what defines cosmic horror, or Lovecraftian horror. It's possible to discuss and enjoy something not because of the ways it has aged poorly, but in spite of the ways in which it has aged poorly.

I know CapnZapp didn't mean it in that way, which is why I was prodding him a little. The distilled awesomeness of the best S&S stories remain, despite aspects not being fully modern; something we should expect from stories written some time ago.

 

[pemerton]

I offer a different take. Actually confessing S&S ---as it exists in the zeitgeist, not some theoretical ideal version--- has its allure seems to be an almost unique take around here... But how else did y'all become a fan of the genre!?!

I don't think sex is essential to S&S. Again using REH as my reference point, it's there in some of the stories, but not others.

Tower of the Elephant, The God in the Bowl, The Phoenix on the Sword The Scarlet Citadel - classic stories in which sex doesn't really figure.

The People of the Black Circle - a classic story in which sex does figure.

Queen of the Black Coast - a classic story, sex drives it, but I have some trouble getting past the racism.

Xuthal of the Dark - a bit more by-the-numbers and sex is fairly central.

Vale of Lost Women - a pretty terrible story and as well as gratuitous sex there's gratuitous racism also.

When it comes to S&S RPGing, I think there's plenty to pick up on and emulate and be inspired by in that first bundle of stories without being obliged to include the "the ancient mysteries, and the exotic ways of pleasure" found in Xuthal of the Dark!

Conversely, for the incorporation of sex and sexuality into S&S RPGing, I would suggest VIncent Baker's In A Wicked Age as one way to do it, because it mediates the introduction of the material via an external process (ie drawing playing cards to read the game's "oracles" (ie lists of plot elements) that then suggest protagonists, antagonists and relationships) rather than just inviting the participants to spontaneously give voice to the more lurid end of their sexual imagination!

 

[Yora]

How come it's always only Sword & Sorcery that is asked to justify itself?

I never see any such objections against Grimdark. Grimdark is always allowed to pass with "It's not really my kind of fantasy". Even Game of Thrones is worse than all Sword & Sorcery I've ever seen, and that one's everyone's darling. (Until they lost the plot in the last third.)