Edith Hamilton on D&D Settings

[DarkKestral]

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.

Having just had a classics class, I can say that my professor certainly thought so, and it looks like most of the current crop of classicists think so.. and so do I.

I'm fairly sure there is a definite procession from the 'dark, creepy, wild and dangerous mythic' to 'cataloguable mythic' to 'humanist mythic' to 'rational' in Greek myth. Each succeeding mythic generationappears to get less and less cthonic in nature and more and more human, and their stories seem to get succeedingly less dark and more and more prone to focusing on the humans involved. However, the Odyssey and the Iliad seem to be solid outliers (though their popularity probably spawned some of the tendency, if they were) due to their extreme age relative to other stories, and thus the likelihood is that they were written in the cthonic eras. However, they are decidely 'fantastical humanist', so they almost belong to a later one. That might be because there were constant contests for a while to come up with a better Odyssey and Iliad, and the version we see now is just the end result of those contests.

Most specifically, look at the Argonautika by Apollonius (it even has an early anti-hero as the "main" protagonist) and it's treatment of Hercules/Herakles. It actively seems to treat him as a 'bad old days' sort of hero and gets rid of him at the first possible opportunity. However, he's always ambiguous in terms of morality, as he goes berserk and kills his kids, wives, and seemingly entire city-states on at least 2 occasions.

 

[Melan]

Well... both and neither. I like a points of light setting with the cited "Greco-Roman" outlook. That is, my campaigns are about worlds full of wild and unknown lands with small patches of civilisation, but they are not really "huddled around a campfire and afraid" millieus. There is an idea of, how shall we put it, normality and progress? That monsters, weird cults, dungeons, tyranny and evil liches are a fact of life, and now that this is established, we can get on with the important things.

Eh, it isn't easy to articulate.

 

[DragonLancer]

My prefered out of the two options would be "Points of Light."

 

[Doug McCrae]

The nature of roleplaying is highly Greco-Roman, in the OP's sense. Everything is precise, enumerated and classified, particularly in D&D. Monsters and magic have stats that can be learned if the players read the MM and DMG. This is why there is a great need for new monsters, to keep an element of mystery.

4e will be somewhat 'points of light' at first as its monsters will be unknown. Though I don't imagine trolls or orcs will be all that different than they are at present.

 

[ephemeron]

I like "points of light" as a campaign beginning, but want PC's to expand those little lights over the course of a campaign. Which is very Greek -- PC's who wander around ridding the land of monsters and tyrants are following in the footsteps of Heracles and Theseus.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

I like "points of light" though I always seem to develop my campaigns in the "greco-roman" fashion.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Well... both and neither. I like a points of light setting with the cited "Greco-Roman" outlook. That is, my campaigns are about worlds full of wild and unknown lands with small patches of civilisation, but they are not really "huddled around a campfire and afraid" millieus. There is an idea of, how shall we put it, normality and progress? That monsters, weird cults, dungeons, tyranny and evil liches are a fact of life, and now that this is established, we can get on with the important things.

Eh, it isn't easy to articulate.

Agree.

 

[airwalkrr]

I prefer Greyhawk. It is kind of like the "points of light" image, but its a teensy bit more advanced.

 

[howandwhy99]

I like Borderlands. Civilization. Here there be Monsters.

IMO, the "points of light" idea is a good one. It says: You are not playing in your modern urban world.

 

[pawsplay]

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.

As a counterpoint, I give you Antigone, fundamentally a tale of psychological darkness told inside a castle.