@Chaosmancer:
There are a number of posts in the last few pages that will tell you what Greyhawk is like, and what some of its tropes are.
I noticed, and I've tried to respond to some of them. A couple had some very good ideas in them.
I feel that I cannot trust your opinion of (pre-4th) D&D since you haven’t read Jack Vance.
Well, if that is sarcastic, decent jibe.
If that is true... fine I guess. No need for you to listen to my opinion on anything if you don't want to. I'm just glad my introduction to DnD didn't feature so many roadblocks. People tend to be so much more willing to talk in person.
I mean, you've read D&D, so yeah, you definitely have. The question isn't have you read something influenced by them, as much as have you read something that has that S&S vibe? It's possible to extract elements of Moorcock and Howard without really getting the vibe at all. I'm sure you've seen this before a lot of times in a lot of media - where certain elements are lifted from a thing but then put with a completely different aesthetic. Buffy is a good example.
Sure, but I could have read something completely unrelated that had the vibe too. Or might have gotten a different vibe from whatever.
But none of that matters if I'm dismissed from the discussion for trying to figure out what the setting even is.
Now you might say "Well if no-one is doing S&S stuff, does it make sense for a TT RPG?" and that's a reasonable question. However, I don't think what D&D does is much like what's going on in the fantasy space at the moment, for better or worse, either, so maybe it's not a major issue. In my experience, many, perhaps most, D&D groups tend towards a style of play that's much more Lankhmar than it is Game of Thrones or Name of the Wind or First Law or Stormlight Archive (indeed the Stormlight Archive as done by D&D players would be hysterical).
DnD is always going to be different than the Fantasy Novels because it is a group activity instead of a solo activity. That fact alone is a seismic shift in the way it is approached.
And DnD is always more of a mirror than anything else. I think that is why homebrew is so popular, because we want to use it to mirror our inspirations. I know I took and ran a game (cut short by Covid) that was partially inspired by LitRPG novels , and posited a world where levels and skills are a real thing the characters are aware of within in the world.
It was interesting, but sadly short-lived.
EDIT - Helldritch points out the Witcher, and whilst I'd argue it's a related genre, rather than straight S&S, that actually is a modern example of something that does have a pretty strong S&S vibe. Have you read, played or watched Witcher stuff? It's certainly in the Venn diagram of Sanderson, Butcher and anime.
(Why do I do this to myself?)
No.
By the time I learned of the Witcher games, by gaming console was broken and they were quite a few years old.
Then I heard of the novels, but I wasn't able to put them on a Christmas list (my most reliable way to afford new books) because most of them are in Dutch I believe it was, and my family might have accidentally bought the original language copies.
My first indication that the TV series was a thing was finding a Youtube singer I follow doing a cover of the song, and I haven't watched a TV series at all in the last.... six months? I know it was right around that time and it was this year I think. So, I haven't watched the Netflix series either.
There are a lot of stories that do that, it's true. Anime has it all the time - the trouble is the anime approach to that is frequently so tonally and conceptually at odds with, say, the Buffy approach (despite superficial similarities) that it might actually make it harder to understand.
I've seen this a few times. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but I think what's more dangerous is a perceived similarity that masks significant differences, particularly as it can lead to people stubbornly insisting that they do understand a thing when they clearly don't. I'm not saying you're doing this, but it's a pattern I've seen on the internet quite a few times. Hell, I've even seen it from professional critics - the classic is the "This game sucks because I believe it is genre X but it is not like other games in genre X!", which has been used to dump on games from Bushido Blade to Diablo 2 to Demon's Souls.
Anyway, this all comes down to one fundamental thing - the idea that some opinions are better informed and more valuable to discussion than others. I hold that that is the case. I'm unclear if you disagree.
I can't say that there aren't people whose opinions on a particular discussion are less valuable, and I certainly can't say that some people are better informed than others, that is a statement so blindingly obvious that there is no way to argue against it.
But I also think the impulse to silence people whose opinions we shouldn't listen to is often misplaced, because sometimes people can surprise us. I never block people, because even people I have had some very frustrating conversations with have, at a later date, said something I agreed with.
And, again since we seem to keep drifting off topic. I did not start with putting forth opinions. I started with asking people about their opinions. The only reason anyone even knows I have limited exposure to those novels is that after someone answered with "it is like sword and sorcerery" I explained that that shorthand explanation did not help me. That is what sparked this storm, followed closely by my being honest that I did not have the time to read the genre in the lifespan of this thread.
I mean, it hasn't even been a week yet. I'd still be trying to find time to go to the library, assuming my library even had something worth getting.
@Chaosmancer, as an analogy, however imperfect: the influence of the Bible in Western literature is enormous but I don’t think that simply reading the “canon” of Western literature gives a person an idea of how much of an impact the Bible has until they actually have firsthand experience of reading both. Many of these authors presumed that their readers were biblically literate so the allusions and subversions in their own literary works would be apparent despite their literary works not being biblical in nature. But IME, these biblical allusions and influences often go over the heads of many students of literature apart from some of the most superficially trite ones (e.g., “the protagonist is like a messiah figure”) who lack that biblical grounding. Recognition of those elements of influence and impact require knowledge of prior texts as a hermeneutic lens.
So you most definitely have read works influenced by the S&S authors of old, but that’s not the same as understanding S&S and its influence in those works anymore than reading Moby Dick makes a person biblically literate. If you lack the literary background or context then you miss a lot regarding how that influence transpires in new works.
Sure, and not understanding the history of slavery and the personal involvement of Melville in the political climate of his time can also leave you missing the allusions and thematics of Moby Dick.
That is why someone can be a scholar of only a single author, because the majority of writing alludes to past works, present concerns, and suppositions of the future. Meaning that is you want absolutely concrete understanding of everything about a work you need to devote a lot of time, effort and knowledge to that pursuit.
Maybe my position keeps getting distorted though, because I never claimed I could have 100% accurate understanding of Greyhawk. I just said I could understand it well enough to have a discussion.
Don't need to have read the Bible to understand what a Redemption Arc is, even though the concept of redemption in Western Canon likely found its roots in the Biblical texts (which found their roots in older stories (Which found their roots in older stories))
An attempt to summarise the main themes (together with their sources) of Greyhawk as presented in the 1983 boxed set. They are listed in order of importance. May be of interest to
@Chaosmancer.
1. War. The most important by far. Most of the entries for each region describe its order of battle – numbers of troops, troop types, equipment, and how many more can be raised. There are also several battle reports, such as the Battle of Emridy Meadows. A major war is brewing between The Great Kingdom and its neighbours. The main influence is medieval military history, by way of wargaming.
You know, I got to thinking about it, but Greyhawk is a setting in quite a bit of active turmoil, isn't it?
Of all the major settings I am familiar with, that does make it fairly unique.
FR I think might have wars, but wars are the events, they are not baked into the fabric of the setting.
Eberron has the Shadow of a war past, and the shadow of a potential future war, but the point is to prevent that next war from happening.
Darksun is a world in the apocalypse and ruled by a cabal of incredible powerful beings.
Greyhawk though, seems like it has a lot of low burning wars, constantly, which is a very different world in and of itself.
Although I'm not close to
@Ruin Explorer 's opinions on this, I will say that people have made some pretty compelling arguments and comparisons to other popular fiction in their pitch to Greyhawk.
So no, people don't expect you to have read these to understand what we are talking about. However, it is extremely frustrating when we give suggestions and comparisons, and you're reply is essentially "I haven't read that, and don't know that genre. Recommend something else or make a better pitch."
It's not our job to exhaustively go through the catalog of things you've read (we don't know you!) so for people to be annoyed that you don't have any willingness to learn about the subject, is justified.
So again, no you don't need to read Moorcock's books or buy a Conan pulp magazine. But yes, you need to be a little bit informed on the genre of S&S for you to understand the appeal of S&S. That's pretty standard on how learning works.
Here are some things you can read. If you won't, I think everyone should just give up on selling you Greyhawk.
As an editor at Pyr Books, Lou Anders has published tons of fantasy novels of all stripes. But now he's crafted his own fantasy novel, Frostborn, in the sword-and-sorcery tradition that goes back to Conan. But what's the difference between "epic fantasy" and "sword and sorcery"? Anders explains.
io9.gizmodo.com
1d4chan.org
I get that frustration, but do you want me to lie? To say that "oh yes, I completely understood that reference and see how it applies to this discussion" when I don't?
And, there have been quite a few posters in this thread that have presented information and concepts from Greyhawk that I do get, that do paint me at least some image of the setting, even if it isn't one that is always unique or compelling.
