Dwarves don't sell novels

[Hussar]

Backing up and giving this another run for a second.

I reject two points of Zander's arguments basically. The first point is that we should self censor our inspirations to conform to a particular form of fantasy. To me, this is utterly wrong. This would lead to D&D becoming stagnant and dying pretty much in the same way that stock fantasy as a genre has stagnated. Looking at the most successful fantasy novels and other media currently, it is certianly not stock fantasy that is selling.

Sure, LOTR was hugely successful. However, it broke with tradition in a number of points - Legolas being the largest one. Moving over to the computer games industry, games like Everquest and World of Warcraft are about as far removed from standard fantasy as you can get and are vastly more popular than D&D could ever hope to be.

If we limit ourselves to "stock" fantasy in some sort of nostalgic yearning for the past, we will see the game dry up and die.

And this brings me to the second point - that there was some period in D&D's history that we focused on "stock" fantasy. This is simply not true. Even the first Monster Manual was filled with creatures that had no relationship to anything in fantasy. We've covered this ground, but, let me give two more examples.

Dragonlance.

Now here is a setting, hugely successful series of novels, that looks pretty much like stock fantasy. But step back for a second. The iconic bad guys of the series, the draconians, are genetically modified super soldiers. Sure, it's described as dragon eggs perverted by magic, but, let's face it, that's what they are. Cloned, force grown super soldiers. Actually, thinking about it, the Uruk-Hai from LOTR fits the bill as well. This is a pure SF trope clothed in magic, brought out twenty years ago. And it led to, as I said, one of the most successful products TSR every published.

But, let's step back in time a little more to what is probably the second most played module - X1 Isle of Dread. Keep on the Borderlands was pretty stock fantasy, but Isle of Dread most certainly wasn't. You had a village of natives pulled straight from King Kong, complete with barrier wall; you had a setting filled with dinosaurs (a very SF trope) which pays homage far more to A. C. Doyle and Jules Verne than to any fantasy author; you had a race of mind controlling, shape changing spiders straight out of Doctor Who. Add in a race of gliding monkeys straight out of Space Ghost and a race of cat-men riding sabre toothed tigers and you have an adventure that's about as far from fantasy as you can possibly get. Anachronistic, thematically divorced from fantasy, containing all sorts of elements that have nothing to do with fantasy. And one of the top ranked modules of all time, certainly in the top three.

Even twenty-five years ago, gamers knew that they had had enough of standard fantasy and wanted something different.

 

[Zander]

From what I know of European legends regarding dwarfs and elves and the like, there really wasn't much distinction between them in any way analagous to the way they are defined in game- that is, as distinct races.

Sure these were fuzzy sets with a high level of ambiguity but there was also some degree of differentiation as well. For more on the classification of various mythical/folkloric/fantastic creatures, I recommend Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes, and Goblins : An Encyclopedia of the Little People by Carol Rose.

 

[Zander]

Rumplestiltskin was good and lawful? He worked in the mountains?... Whoa, that's a very different story than what I read.

I was talking about Grimm's seven dwarves (or dwarfs) (as I think you know well). I haven't read Rumpelstiltskin since I was a kid (a looong time ago) but I seem to recall that they described him as a "little man", not a "dwarf".

 

[Zander]

Point 1: I accept that you believe [a common stereotype] exists, but reject it's actual existence. It has no value outside of your own mind.

Solipsism aside, intrinsically, a stereotype cannot exist as a single person's concept. It has to be that of a collectivity. When dealing with mythical/fantastic creatures, the "stereotype" defines those creatures.

Point 2: It would actually NOT make commercial sense to adhere to these steotypes. D&D3e has changed or violated or revolutionized or tweaked a number of their creatures and concepts to better fit the game and the modern audience, and has been the best-selling edition ever. The only way it would make commercial sense is if WotC's brand of halflings sold less than hobbits -- if their version negatively impacted sales and the common stereotype positively impacted sales, then this would be true, but throughout D&D, the opposite has remained true.

As I've already pointed out, halflings were not the only thing to change from 2E to 3E so you can't safely attribute any of 3E's popularity to the new halflings. It may well be that 3E was more successful despite the changes made halflings, not because of them.

D&D dragons, for instance, are really nothing like classic medieval dragons, yet books on D&D style dragons continue to be one of the best-selling subjects in 3e.

Col Pladoh certainly added greatly to the concept of dragons but he didn't replace very much. From the start, Col Pladoh had dragons that were large, pseudo-reptilian monsters with two wings, four limbs, hoarded treasure and breathed fire. Not so different from Smaug from The Hobbit.

That's a pretty unfounded assumption, there. I don't think anyone can attribute D&D's success either in whole or in majority to any one aspect of D&D, but I can definately declare that it isn't because D&D was more true to the stereotype...only a small part, if any, of D&D's success was because of familiarity with the elements of it's fantasy.

Then why weren't other fantasy RPGs, many of which with more elegant rules mechanics but non-'stereotypical' fantasy, more successful?

Your point about Spelljammer and Dark Sun is not attributable to one point of either of these settings. Rather, the history on the issue suggests that these settings splintered the buyer base, which is too small to be splintered successfully. So it's not that they weren't successful, it's that they didn't make D&D as a whole successfull because the people who played DS wouldn't buy SJ.

IIRC they were not released or withdrawn at the same time so there were opportunities for one or other to prosper in an undivided market. NB that Greyhawk and FR have co-existed together for longer than any other D&D settings.

You're confusing comfort with enjoyment. People are comfortable with what they're familiar with. It's safe, it's known, it's controllable.

The psychological dictum I mentioned was not created by me. People like what they're familiar with. No confusion.

 

[Hussar]

I was talking about Grimm's seven dwarves (or dwarfs) (as I think you know well). I haven't read Rumpelstiltskin since I was a kid (a looong time ago) but I seem to recall that they described him as a "little man", not a "dwarf".

But, again, you're guilty of picking and choosing your sources. Rumplestiltskin appears in Grimm Fairy Tales. A dwarf who is highly magical, hardly lawful and completely opposite to the stereotypes presented by Disney's Snow White. In Grimm's Snow White, the dwarves are barely given any personality at all. Other than forcing Snow White into slavery, they don't really do much at all. Never mind that in other versions of the story, the dwarves are actually bandits and robbers, living in the forest because they'd be hanged in town.

This is the problem we've been having all the way along. Zander discounts any source which counters his argument. Grimm's stories are filled with dwarves that range from evil wizards to hole diggers. Yet he seems to want to say that we should cling to one version to the exclusion of all others.

 

[Gez]

I was talking about Grimm's seven dwarves (or dwarfs) (as I think you know well). I haven't read Rumpelstiltskin since I was a kid (a looong time ago) but I seem to recall that they described him as a "little man", not a "dwarf".

Right. A "little man" with magical powers, taken right out of a fairy tale, isn't a dwarf.

 

[Zander]

Backing up and giving this another run for a second.

I reject two points of Zander's arguments basically. The first point is that we should self censor our inspirations to conform to a particular form of fantasy. To me, this is utterly wrong. This would lead to D&D becoming stagnant and dying pretty much in the same way that stock fantasy as a genre has stagnated. Looking at the most successful fantasy novels and other media currently, it is certianly not stock fantasy that is selling.

Sure, LOTR was hugely successful. However, it broke with tradition in a number of points - Legolas being the largest one. Moving over to the computer games industry, games like Everquest and World of Warcraft are about as far removed from standard fantasy as you can get and are vastly more popular than D&D could ever hope to be.

If we limit ourselves to "stock" fantasy in some sort of nostalgic yearning for the past, we will see the game dry up and die.

And this brings me to the second point - that there was some period in D&D's history that we focused on "stock" fantasy. This is simply not true. Even the first Monster Manual was filled with creatures that had no relationship to anything in fantasy.

You're attributing a position to me that isn't mine and never has been. I'm not in favour of immutability. If I were, I would not have suggested that fantasy has had a long and varied past. My objection has always been the unilateral way in which WotC replaces fantasy elements without regard to their heritage.

 

[Zander]

But, again, you're guilty of picking and choosing your sources. Rumplestiltskin appears in Grimm Fairy Tales. A dwarf who is highly magical, hardly lawful and completely opposite to the stereotypes presented by Disney's Snow White. In Grimm's Snow White, the dwarves are barely given any personality at all. Other than forcing Snow White into slavery, they don't really do much at all.

In the original Snow White by the Grimm brothers, they are described as "good" creatures that are very orderly and go daily into the mountains in search of copper and gold.

This is the problem we've been having all the way along. Zander discounts any source which counters his argument. Grimm's stories are filled with dwarves that range from evil wizards to hole diggers. Yet he seems to want to say that we should cling to one version to the exclusion of all others.

I was specifically asked to present an example of an author who had written a popular story featuring dwarves because it was believed that there was no such thing apart from The Hobbit. The fact that the brothers Grimm also wrote stories with elves and little men doesn't mean that they didn't have at least one popular one with dwarves.

Incidentally, why do you refer to me in the third person? If you've quoted me, it will be generally understood that you're referring to me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure these were fuzzy sets with a high level of ambiguity but there was also some degree of differentiation as well. For more on the classification of various mythical/folkloric/fantastic creatures, I recommend Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes, and Goblins : An Encyclopedia of the Little People by Carol Rose.

I prefer sources like my various Encyclopedias of mythology, folklore and the like by Bullfinch, Larousse, or Dulaires, the annotated Grimm's, and the various epics, like the Kalevala, etc.

Yes-there is some differentiation, but there is LOTS of crossover and ambiguity.

 

[Turjan]

I was specifically asked to present an example of an author who had written a popular story featuring dwarves because it was believed that there was no such thing apart from The Hobbit. The fact that the brothers Grimm also wrote stories with elves and little men doesn't mean that they didn't have at least one popular one with dwarves.

Which doesn't change the fact that the Grimm brothers saw dwarves as a kind of elf.