Disdain for new fantasy

[Moon-Lancer]

Thanks, I have been looking for a list of good animated fantasy cartoons. Wanna add any more to it?

scraped princess is kindof interesting.

 

[shilsen]

Much of the themes people talk about here can be traced back an awful lot further than anime. Heck, Peter Pan kills a roomful of pirates and then flies away. Odysseus fires arrows through axeheads. Biblical characters level cities.

The idea of massively powerful humans is hardly a new one.

That's precisely what I've always maintained. D&D can do anime and it can do fantasy and it can do grim-and-gritty (with more difficulty) and a bunch of other things with some tweaking. But right out of the box, what it really does and does well is mythic. Look at the Iliad, the Mahabharata, the Eddas, the Mabinogion ... and so on. The characters there and their capabilities are what D&D maps to very well. D&D does Cuchulainn far more than Conan.

 

[RFisher]

The funny thing is, every time I pick up my copy of BESM, something about it turns me off. I think it is the anime, which is strange, because I like anime.

(So, normal English style is to italicize foreign words. (Just as in Japanese, BTW, they write foreign borrowings like "anime" in katakana instead of kanji or hiragana.) But what if you're writing a word that you're borrowing back from a foreign language that borrowed it from English? (^_^))

Spot-on here. The better a ruleset is, the more it will allow vastly different campaign styles and character choices, I says.

For a long time I was in the "generic" camp. These days, though, I tend to think that both generic mechanics & rules tied to a genre/setting have their place.

& frankly, I think there's a reason that games like D&D--that split the difference--seem to do best.

(Likewise, I think Wizards was smart not to make d20 into a truly generic system, but to present it as a toolkit for building non-generic games.)

 

[WizarDru]

Yeah, one of the main characters uses a his spiked chain as a divining tool from time to time.

Either way, a chain with a (at least) spike qualifies as a spiked chain? /shrug, I am totally clueless when it comes to weapons, maybe I made the wrong assumption.

No, it doesn't. The character in Saint Seiya, Shun (the Andromeda Saint), uses a series of chains for weapons that end in a weights, but they aren't particularly sharp (though one of them is pointed). He (and yes, it is a guy) uses them to bind enemies, strike them and electrocute them primarily. Shun's chains are a direct descendant of the chains used in the kusari-gama...except that instead of a small bladed scythe, the other end is simply has a sharpened point.

The D&D spiked chain is purely a WotC fictional invention, afaik. Particularly with representation to it's wonky combat abilities (It's a melee weapon! It's a reach weapon! It's BOTH!)

Here's a mini with the spiked chain, by way of comparison with Andromeda's armor.

And in case you're wondering, while I liked the anime back in 1986 (in the same way I liked Dragonball Z) I can't STAND the abortive attempts to bring it to the US. Any of them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Personally, I'm a fan of any new fantasy works that promote Gnome love.

 

[AllisterH]

Ah, Slayers. I really enjoyed the show when I first watched it, but I have a hard time seeing it the same way after watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZVP1qwteTI

Maybe it's just because Xellos fits the part so freakishly well. Lousy munchkin DM NPCs....

.

Heh, I can top this...So good but so wrong....

 

[Nifft]

The D&D spiked chain is purely a WotC fictional invention, afaik. Particularly with representation to it's wonky combat abilities (It's a melee weapon! It's a reach weapon! It's BOTH!)

I always thought the spiked chain was just a poorly visualized kusari-gama.

Cheers, -- N

 

[WizarDru]

I always thought the spiked chain was just a poorly visualized kusari-gama.

Well, now you know better.

It might have started out that way, at one point...but a Kusari-Gama would do either bludgeoning (at range) or slashing damage....not Piercing like the spiked chain does and at a range of up to 10'. In fact, the weighted end of the weapon was really only ever used for snaring an enemy's weapon, rarely for damage, which also invalidates the comparison.

And the Kusari-gama sure as heck didn't weigh TEN POUNDS. Yikes.

 

[Nifft]

not Piercing like the spiked chain does and at a range of up to 10'. In fact, the weighted end of the weapon was really only ever used for snaring an enemy's weapon, rarely for damage, which also invalidates the comparison.

Oh, no doubt they're different.

I'm just saying that the k-g shared some properties with the 3.5e spiked chain:
1/ Effective at 10 ft. and up close;
2/ Good for tripping & disarming;
3/ Exotic; and
4/ Involves chain.

The piercing damage thing never made ANY sense to me.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Jack99]

No, it doesn't. The character in Saint Seiya, Shun (the Andromeda Saint), uses a series of chains for weapons that end in a weights, but they aren't particularly sharp (though one of them is pointed). He (and yes, it is a guy) uses them to bind enemies, strike them and electrocute them primarily. Shun's chains are a direct descendant of the chains used in the kusari-gama...except that instead of a small bladed scythe, the other end is simply has a sharpened point.

Yeah, fair enough. I must admit that i couldnt recall precisely how the chain was. Havent seen the show since 87-88. I even had it on connected with the blonde one, the Knight of the Swan, but I seem to recall now that he was all about cold attacks

Either way, I would still maintain that WoTC designers could have been inspired by said cartoon.

Cheers