Eladrin, warlords, and unnecessary D&Disms

[Odhanan]

No, LOTR doesn't fit at all into S&S at all.

While that's open for debate (we would have to all agree on a clear definition of Sword & Sorcery for that, and that seems to be the issue here), I personally agree with you. I do not consider the LOTR as "SnS" at all since for me the expression evokes authors like Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, these kinds of tales. LOTR isn't "high fantasy" either, in fact.

Epic Romance? Yes. High Fantasy and/or sword and sorcery? Nope.

 

[The Little Raven]

While that's open for debate (we would have to all agree on a clear definition of Sword & Sorcery for that, and that seems to be the issue here), I personally agree with you.

This stance allows people to cloud issues by always throwing in a "Well, I define that differently" comment, as if that should invalidate a commonly held definition of the genre. By looking at the stories in the S&S genre, we can determine certain key traits that are present in all of them, which should be beyond debate.

Inspired primarily by the works of Robert E. Howard, especially Conan the Barbarian, sword and sorcery is more concerned with immediate physical threats and action than high fantasy, distinguishing the two genres. Further, sword and sorcery, in contrast to high fantasy, tends to portray amoral protagonists and/or worlds--there are rarely objective values, or any sort of cosmic justice. Even when the protagonists act morally and do incidental good deeds along the way, the usual protagonist's motivation is self-interest.

That is a dead-on accurate description of the basics of sword and sorcery. That description easily applies to Conan, Ffahrd, and Elric.

The term high fantasy (also epic fantasy) generally refers to fantasy that depicts an epic struggle between good and evil in a fantasy world, whether independent of or parallel to ours. The moral concepts in such tales take on objective status, and are not relative to the one making the judgement.

The moral tone and high stakes -- usually world-shaking -- separates this genre from sword and sorcery, while the degree to which the world is not based on a real-world history separates it from historical fantasy.

And a pretty dead-on accurate description of high fantasy. This describes the theme and tone of LotR (Sauron = Evil; His Enemies = Good), Shannara (Warlock Lord/Demons/Mord Wraiths = Bad; Druids + Races of Men = Good) and plenty of others.

I do not consider the LOTR as "SnS" at all since for me the expression evokes authors like Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, these kinds of tales. LOTR isn't "high fantasy" either, in fact.

Black and white morality? Check. World-shaking stakes? Check.

Epic struggle between good and evil? Most definitely.

 

[Odhanan]

It's interesting because I define "high fantasy" by being opposed to "low fantasy", and for me, that has to do with the amount of fantasy (magic, magical creatures, spells and so on) involved in the tale considered.

Hence my assertion that LOTR is not "high fantasy".

It's great that wikipedia defines sub-genres of fantasy the way it does. It doesn't stop said sub-genres and their definition to still be subject to debate, though.

 

[Valiantheart]

Warlord should be Marshall.

 

[Fifth Element]

It's interesting because I define "high fantasy" by being opposed to "low fantasy", and for me, that has to do with the amount of fantasy (magic, magical creatures, spells and so on) involved in the tale considered.

Hence my assertion that LOTR is not "high fantasy".

It's great that wikipedia defines sub-genres of fantasy the way it does. It doesn't stop said sub-genres and their definition to still be subject to debate, though.

It's great that you define "high fantasy" like that, but if you're one of the few who does so it only serves to confuse the discussion.

If you say "LotR is not high fantasy", most people will read that a certain way, regardless of how you intended it. Thus, Mourn's point about the "I define that differently" comment clouding the discussion. See above.

 

[Fifth Element]

Incidentally, when are we going to see Bigby's Bitch Slap? Isn't it an obvious avenue?

That's a Dungeon-Pimp spell if I ever saw one.

 

[Scribble]

Warlord should be Marshall.

Marshall Marshall Marshaaaallllll!!!!!!

 

[Betote]

D&D, IMO, isn't Sword & Sorcery, High Fantasy, Low Fantasy or anything else. It's D&D-Fantasy. Farmers becoming godlike heroes, Beholders, Prismatic dragons, spells with very concrete uses... These are things we don't see in fiction, not even in most D&D-related fiction (FR novels et al).

In fact, my main fear about 4th Ed is that they might kill enough 'sacred cows' to make a good fantasy RPG of it, but not a good 'D&D-fantasy' one.

 

[Scribble]

D&D is all of the above.

High Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, et al are all just "templates" that you apply to your own particular campaign.

 

[SSquirrel]

This is a different argument from whether a class named Debt Collector and a new race of quasi-gnomish frog people called Gsnorky belong in the PHB, alongside Wizards and Elves. You get me?

Vecna can be in the books, and you can ignore him if you don't like him. Put a class called Knight of Vecna and a race called Vecnaspawn in the PHB, and you can no longer ignore him. Too bad if you don't like him, or think that Vecnaspawn is a stupid name.

Well if we were playing debt collector's, wouldn't we be playing Rolemaster? They seemed to have most niche jobs covered as options.

Actually you can easily ignore Vecna, Warlords, Eladrin or even Humans. Invoke Rule 0. "In my world there are no Eladrin, Warlords or bags of glue to throw at enemies. Make your characters based on this knowledge." Done. You will NEVER appease all buyers of the game. You will NEVER have consensus that pretty much any one specific part of D&D is great or wonderful. I know many people who love Alignment and Fire and Forget magic. I personally really dislike both. For ME, D&D will be a better game when it removes both of those sacred cows. That will piss off a lot of folks tho. It happens.

Look at everything else out there. IN the 80s car companies made ugly, blocky cars and still called them Mustangs and such. They eventually went back to a more classic look b/c people didn't like them. Operating systems change with every major iteration, sometimes rather drastically. In the end, you're still probably using a mouse and keyboard to accomplish most things*. Just like even if you have an Eladrin Warlord in your party of characters, you're still playing D&D.

I really find it hard to get too hung up about a class just based on the name when there is NO real info on the class even given yet. I really think some people's ulcers would be in much better shape if they just forgot ENWorld was here for about 5 months or so. The game is already pretty well set as it stands, no more drastic changes likely to happen. So it's time to start dealing with the fact that Eladrin and Warlords are in the game. Maybe not in PHB1. Which makes this whole thread even more ridiculous as a large part of the kvetching going on is based on teh assumption that both are in the first PHB. We don't know yet and won't for awhile I'd guess. I don't expect to see many hard facts about 4E published prior to New Years.

*Barring specific handicap and software/devices to circumvent