Edith Hamilton on D&D Settings

[freyar]

For those of you who've read Edith Hamilton, you know that's not quite right; she was the headmistress of Bryn Mawr college who became a famous classics scholar in retirement and died in 1963. In any event, I've recently been paging through her Mythology (amazon listing), and the introduction makes several comments about the Greek vs earlier (and later, such as Medieval) myth that strike me as quite appropriate for fantasy role playing, particularly with all the buzz about the "points of light" approach. Here are the relevant passages (I've shortened this quite a bit):

... Nothing is clearer than the fact that primitive man ... is not and never has been a creature who peoples his world with bright fancies and lovely visions. Horrors lurked in the primeval forest, not nymphs and naiads. Terror lived there, with its close attendant, Magic, and its most common defense, Human Sacrifice. Mankind's chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever divinities were then abroad lay in some magical rite, senseless but powerful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain and grief.

I won't vouch for the anthropological accuracy of these statements, but, when I first read this months ago, I thought that it sounded like a good description of a horror setting (maybe Ravenloft, though I've never played there). It also sounds to me a lot like the "points of light" setting. Here's her take on the Greco-Roman worldview, just picking what I think is the best paragraph:

That is the miracle of Greek mythology -- a humanized world, men freed from the paralyzing fear of than omnipotent Unknown. The terrifying incomprehensibilities which were worshiped elsewhere, and the fearsome spirits with which earth, air and sea swarmed, were banned from Greece. It may seem odd to say that the men who made the myths disliked the irrational and had a love for facts; but it is true...

She then gives examples of "facts" in Greek myth, such as the fact that the myths give precise geographical locations for such events as the birth of Aphrodite.

My poll question, then, is which kind of setting you prefer to play in. "Points of light," where anything beyond your town is unknown and terrifying. Or "Greco-Roman," where there might be great danger, but it can be understood and catalogued?

And if any others of you have read Hamilton, I'd love any more discussion on her works.

 

[Teflon Billy]

While I'm sure my answer could change in a few months, right now the answer is Points of Light.

I've been really inspired by Kiznit's use of Wilderlands of High Fantasy to make a campaign along those lines.

 

[pawsplay]

Hamilton is a great cyclopedist of Greek myth and its interpretation. However, I find her cultural assessments suspect, if for no other reason than decades of intensive research that have changed a lot about how we think of Greeks and Romans.

Let me make an illustration. In the Odyssey, Odyssess visits Hades, and there on the river Styx, encounters ghosts hungering for blood. Ghosts, in most Greek stories, are sad figures, nearly mindless with grief, who hunger for blood in order to experience life. Now, let us detour to Hungary and Rumania. There, we hear stories of ghosts who drink blood to survive.... strigoi, vampiri. The Greek world at one time encompassed modern Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia... thus, the two myths are found in geographic neighbors. In other words, both the Greco-Roman world and the "primitive" world had legends of blood-drinking ghosts.

So what is the essential divide? I subscribe more to the notion that the modern is simply the primitive conversant in modern language.

 

[freyar]

While I'm sure my answer could change in a few months, right now the answer is Points of Light.

I've been really inspired by Kiznit's use of Wilderlands of High Fantasy to make a campaign along those lines.

I can completely understand wanting to switch back and forth. "Right now" or "on average" preferences are both valid.

 

[freyar]

pawsplay, you're completely right that her cultural assessments are, to put it mildly, over-simplified (and she is writing in 1942). To be fair, she did mention the "dark" aspects of Greek myth also, noting that the transition was not sharp; I simplified her by selective quoting. Nonetheless, our modern scientific heritage mostly begins with the Greeks, there is probably some basis to her ascribing a "love of facts" to them.

My interest was just in applications to fantasy, though.

 

[Moggthegob]

I like points of light, that sort og gri mand gritty feel. Even if its in alrger settinf the unknown is always much more interesting

 

[Mouseferatu]

I can't imagine not having both as options. They both serve for great places to game (or write fiction, for that matter), depending on the mood/theme/plot/characters/etc.

So I don't think I can even give a "right now" or "on average" answer.

What I can say is this: I think the "points of light" setting is a much better basis for the D&D default setting, because it leaves so much in the DM's hands.

 

[dmccoy1693]

What I can say is this: I think the "points of light" setting is a much better basis for the D&D default setting, because it leaves so much in the DM's hands.

QFT. Points of Light is a great idea. If the whole world is known, what fun is that? If the PCs are on a mission to get a person in some village and they get there and find the village destroyed several months ago, then they have to begin a quest to find this person. In a Greeko-Roman idea, that can't happen (at least not frequently). If the whole world is cateloged then someone would know the local news.

 

[Korgoth]

Hamilton is a great cyclopedist of Greek myth and its interpretation. However, I find her cultural assessments suspect, if for no other reason than decades of intensive research that have changed a lot about how we think of Greeks and Romans.

Let me make an illustration. In the Odyssey, Odyssess visits Hades, and there on the river Styx, encounters ghosts hungering for blood. Ghosts, in most Greek stories, are sad figures, nearly mindless with grief, who hunger for blood in order to experience life. Now, let us detour to Hungary and Rumania. There, we hear stories of ghosts who drink blood to survive.... strigoi, vampiri. The Greek world at one time encompassed modern Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia... thus, the two myths are found in geographic neighbors. In other words, both the Greco-Roman world and the "primitive" world had legends of blood-drinking ghosts.

So what is the essential divide? I subscribe more to the notion that the modern is simply the primitive conversant in modern language.

It looks to me like much of Greek myth is about man whipping the backside of the mythic (scary) past... like a celebration of progress, essentially. Odysseus in particular seems to do this all the time. He particularly represents reason. But the other heroes each display their own "superior Greekness" and more or less put the "bad old days" to bed.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

I've been really inspired by Kiznit's use of Wilderlands of High Fantasy to make a campaign along those lines.

Linky?