Does D&D even have a component of "midieval" anymore?

[mhacdebhandia]

I don't think most games of D&D are (or should be) solid committed explorations of the ideas of anything, Tolkienesque or otherwise.

Don't read too much into it.

The post to which I replied seemed to be making the wholly unexamined assumption that Tolkien's ideas defined the fantasy genre, and that not using those ideas was the same as doing a Western game or setting without cowboys and saloons.

What I'm saying is this: Tolkien's ideas are not even close to being as fundamental to the fantasy genre as cowboys and saloons are to the Western genre. They're closer to much more specific and often-imitated tropes like, as I said, the Man With No Name - iconic of the Western, but hardly the sine qua non of the genre. There are plenty of real Westerns without that Clint Eastwood figure in them.

The Man With No Name is also a useful analogy for Tolkien's tropes because - iconic as he is - he's also actually pretty new, dating from the "spaghetti Westerns" of the Sixties. While, like the majority of what Tolkien did, the Man With No Name is based upon elements recognisable in that which came before him, the idea was also something new and creative at the time. That's part of why Eastwood's character and Tolkien's ideas are so iconic to us now.

The Western genre is a lot bigger than just the Man With No Name, though. Just as fantasy, including - perhaps especially - D&D, is a lot bigger than Tolkien.

My secondary argument is that the iconic status of these ideas within their genres means that they've been imitated time and time again, to the point where, I contend, there's very little fertile ground for true creative use of those ideas left. I don't argue that no-one other than Leone could do the Man With No Name, or that no-one other than Tolkien can do elves, dark lords, and epic quests to save the world . . .

. . . but I do argue that so many people have followed in their footsteps that there's less creative potential left in those ideas than in the broader, less iconic reaches of their respective genres. The only real creative possibility left in those ideas, in my opinion, involves really getting inside and exploring what they meant somehow - like Eastwood did in Deliverance - and, I'm sorry, but 99% of all the elven cultures in all the homebrew games out there aren't really getting inside Tolkien's ideas. They're just using well-worn paper-thin tropes because they're familiar and comfortable.

I do think that, in general, there's more creative possibility in non-Tolkienesque (and, apropos of this thread, non-medieval) fantasy settings for D&D - or other games, novels, films - simply because the other regions of the genre are less cluttered by iconic figures of the past and their imitators.

This isn't to say that you can't be creative with Tolkien's tropes, or with a medieval setting. Just that the glut of similar projects out there makes me feel skeptical towards any given example.

 

[Hussar]

^ Wut he said.

 

[BASHMAN]

Sure. I think it's silly to ignore the obvious. The arms, technology, and social structure of Medieval Europe are a big part of the trappings of the game. But the players, GMs, and even designers are not exactly Medieval recreationists and historians.

And I tend to think the game would be less fun if it were.

No, I think it'd be more fun. AD&D 2nd Ed was decidedly more medieval in feel than 3.x's "Dungeon-Punk" theme. Yes, so they had too many kinds of polearms, and AC counted backwards, but do we really need halfling paladins with rainbow mohawks planning to turn evil so they can take the blackguard prestige class?

This is partially why I personally enjoy Castles & Crusades so much. Alas, the only games I get to play anymore are D&D 3.x (someone else running) and BASH! (me running).

 

[mhacdebhandia]

No, I think it'd be more fun. AD&D 2nd Ed was decidedly more medieval in feel than 3.x's "Dungeon-Punk" theme. Yes, so they had too many kinds of polearms, and AC counted backwards, but do we really need halfling paladins with rainbow mohawks planning to turn evil so they can take the blackguard prestige class?

This is partially why I personally enjoy Castles & Crusades so much. Alas, the only games I get to play anymore are D&D 3.x (someone else running) and BASH! (me running).

And yet, you don't get to the bit where you explain why locking the whole game into a faux-realistic medieval aesthetic is actually more fun.

 

[Someone]

Medieval goes dark, grim n gritty better than anybody else Take a look at the art direction CD Projekt has used in their upcoming PC Game The Witcher,

The environments ooze authenticity. The character art direction has been Hollywooded a little - but steampunk is utterly absent from the setting - but it does sneak into the looks of some of the characters.

I prefer to focus on the environments

Now that's a game I want to play - and a world I want to play in.

Actually the game is based on Andrzej Sapkowsky's "the witcher" series of books. The setting is extraordinarily similar to the default D&D setting, with exactly the same standard PC races (except half orcs, since there are no orcs) and level of technology and magic (at least potentially: mages there seem to have about the same power level as D&D wizards, but 99% of them are selfish bastards and don't go around blessing crops and healing the poor). General people's attitude changes a bit to the worse, however: this makes the most distinctive change from standard fantasy, and it's what makes the books unique.

If you can get the books, which I think have been recently translated to English, do so. They're full of those I-wish-I-played-that-campaing moments.

 

[BASHMAN]

And yet, you don't get to the bit where you explain why locking the whole game into a faux-realistic medieval aesthetic is actually more fun.

Sure I did. The Lack of rainbow mohawk paladins planning to turn evil so they could become blackguards. That is my view of new DnD's "Dungeon Punk" theme in a nutshell.

 

[Hussar]

No, I think it'd be more fun. AD&D 2nd Ed was decidedly more medieval in feel than 3.x's "Dungeon-Punk" theme. Yes, so they had too many kinds of polearms, and AC counted backwards, but do we really need halfling paladins with rainbow mohawks planning to turn evil so they can take the blackguard prestige class?

This is partially why I personally enjoy Castles & Crusades so much. Alas, the only games I get to play anymore are D&D 3.x (someone else running) and BASH! (me running).

Isn't 2e the edition that gave us Planescape and Dark Sun? Sorry, but the idea that dungeon punk originated in 3e is silly. Brom and De Terlizzi were doing lots of art for 2e.

The game is as medieval as you want to make it in any edition.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Sure I did. The Lack of rainbow mohawk paladins planning to turn evil so they could become blackguards. That is my view of new DnD's "Dungeon Punk" theme in a nutshell.

Now demonstrate that those elements are in your game, if you don't want them to be.

Go on.

 

[Hussar]

I'm a bit confused actually. I've been assured time and time again by many that D&D owes its roots to writers like Howard and Lieber. Conan and Fafrd are about as removed from medieval as you can be. Other than a very thin veneer, it's certainly not medieval.

Yet, now I'm being told that earlier editions are very medieval in flavour.

Color me confused.

Of course, I'm still trying to figure out how this

ISN'T dungeonpunk.

 

[Someone]

MY EYES!!!