D&D General For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk

[Ruin Explorer]

The point I made as that they have similar styles of protagonists and similar levels of stakes.

What does that actually mean though, "similar styles of protagonists"? I guess I can't really discuss that unless you can define it a bit more. (I see you kind of did later - but if you want to add anything, I'd be interested).

Level of stakes makes sense, but let's look at it. The stakes in noir are pretty much never more than the lives of a few dozen people, and usually they're lives of a couple of people, and maybe not even whether they live or die, just whether they get rich or go to jail. I assume you agree with the above?

In S&S, the stakes can be as low as that, definitely - "The best thieves in Lankhmar", where spoilers, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser think they're best thieves in Lankhmar but actually get ripped off by the real best thieves in Lankhmar, a lesbian couple who make fools of them. Very low stakes. But they can also be as high as the fate of entire cities, regions or perhaps even the world. Certainly Conan or Red Sonja have stopped some Very Bad people.

There's also a difference of stakes. Very often in noir, long-term happiness is at stake (and almost always not gained). That's sometimes the case in S&S, but a lot less often.

A S&S hero is jaded and mercenary because he is a strong man who only bothers to interact with society for the vices he desires.

A Noir hero is jaded and mercenary because society has broken him, torn him down and forced upon him vices that he cannot get rid of.

Well it's a little bit more complicated than that, but not a million miles away.

Your first description is bang-on for Conan so you're clearly learning something about S&S or revealing what you already knew but maybe didn't realize you did. There are definitely others like him, too.

But Elric, for example, kind of is mid-way between the two. He's from a society he's disgusted with and has thus left to wander the world, and he needs to the money to keep himself alive because he has physical problems that seem connected to that society's decadence (I actually forget the exact source).

And Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser love/hate Lankhmar like New Yorkers love/hate New York (and it is New York, as has been discussed), they don't not want to interact with it, in fact it's more like sometimes they tire of it, and have to go elsewhere, before inevitably returning. And initially they're not really jaded - they eventually become it, but it's a character failing that they correct.

Can you tell that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are my favourite S&S characters yet?

Re: your point on GH and internal consistency, I agree, but I think that just because something can happen and be consistent, doesn't mean it it's likely or typical. Certainly not saying that couldn't happen though. And whilst in noir it can often be difficult to distinguish good guys and bad guys (frequently the bad guy is themselves partly a victim of a setup from the dame/broad who kicks things off or whatever), in S&S, that difficulty is less common. It's more like evil badguys (often vile-ly evil) vs. morally grey heroes - many S&S characters are explicitly thieves, for example.

 

[pemerton]

A S&S hero is jaded and mercenary because he is a strong man who only bothers to interact with society for the vices he desires.

Your first description is bang-on for Conan so you're clearly learning something about S&S or revealing what you already knew but maybe didn't realize you did. There are definitely others like him, too.

<snip>

in S&S, that difficulty is less common. It's more like evil badguys (often vile-ly evil) vs. morally grey heroes - many S&S characters are explicitly thieves, for example.

REH's Conan has a strong moral sense.

In Tower of the Elephant <spoilers> Conan sets out to rob a wizard's tower of its jewels, but ends up getting no treasure but instead rescuing a trapped being from another world.

In The People of the Black Circle <spoilers> Conan starts out by kidnapping the Queen but then ends up rescuing her from the evil wizards, and not just for the mercenary purpose of exchanging her for his captured soldiers.

Etc.

 

[Hussar]

"Strong" moral sense might be overselling it a bit.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What does that actually mean though, "similar styles of protagonists"? I guess I can't really discuss that unless you can define it a bit more. (I see you kind of did later - but if you want to add anything, I'd be interested).

Level of stakes makes sense, but let's look at it. The stakes in noir are pretty much never more than the lives of a few dozen people, and usually they're lives of a couple of people, and maybe not even whether they live or die, just whether they get rich or go to jail. I assume you agree with the above?

In S&S, the stakes can be as low as that, definitely - "The best thieves in Lankhmar", where spoilers, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser think they're best thieves in Lankhmar but actually get ripped off by the real best thieves in Lankhmar, a lesbian couple who make fools of them. Very low stakes. But they can also be as high as the fate of entire cities, regions or perhaps even the world. Certainly Conan or Red Sonja have stopped some Very Bad people.

There's also a difference of stakes. Very often in noir, long-term happiness is at stake (and almost always not gained). That's sometimes the case in S&S, but a lot less often.



Well it's a little bit more complicated than that, but not a million miles away.

Your first description is bang-on for Conan so you're clearly learning something about S&S or revealing what you already knew but maybe didn't realize you did. There are definitely others like him, too.

But Elric, for example, kind of is mid-way between the two. He's from a society he's disgusted with and has thus left to wander the world, and he needs to the money to keep himself alive because he has physical problems that seem connected to that society's decadence (I actually forget the exact source).

And Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser love/hate Lankhmar like New Yorkers love/hate New York (and it is New York, as has been discussed), they don't not want to interact with it, in fact it's more like sometimes they tire of it, and have to go elsewhere, before inevitably returning. And initially they're not really jaded - they eventually become it, but it's a character failing that they correct.

Can you tell that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are my favourite S&S characters yet?

Re: your point on GH and internal consistency, I agree, but I think that just because something can happen and be consistent, doesn't mean it it's likely or typical. Certainly not saying that couldn't happen though. And whilst in noir it can often be difficult to distinguish good guys and bad guys (frequently the bad guy is themselves partly a victim of a setup from the dame/broad who kicks things off or whatever), in S&S, that difficulty is less common. It's more like evil badguys (often vile-ly evil) vs. morally grey heroes - many S&S characters are explicitly thieves, for example.

Are you trying to say that S&S is both high-stakes (save the world) or low-stakes (beat the thieves), and that it is both morally grey and morally righteous?

Or are you trying to say that there are exceptions to every rule?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

REH's Conan has a strong moral sense.

In Tower of the Elephant <spoilers> Conan sets out to rob a wizard's tower of its jewels, but ends up getting no treasure but instead rescuing a trapped being from another world.

In The People of the Black Circle <spoilers> Conan starts out by kidnapping the Queen but then ends up rescuing her from the evil wizards, and not just for the mercenary purpose of exchanging her for his captured soldiers.

Etc.

Sure, but he's still jaded and mercenary in his outward attitudes and behaviours, and doesn't always behave that well (c.f. kidnapping the queen in the first place), he just has a "heart of gold" underlying that, like so many characters cutting across so many genres.

Are you trying to say that S&S is both high-stakes (save the world) or low-stakes (beat the thieves), and that it is both morally grey and morally righteous?

Not really, no.

S&S has a wide range of stakes. Noir has a narrow range of stakes. That seems like a fairly clear distinction.

S&S heroes are typically lawbreaking, jaded, and selfish, but often have a heart of gold - though not always, particularly not if crossed. Some are more moral, but I struggle to think of one which would reach "righteous", or even the moral standard of your average YA novel lead or the like. There's definitely some similarity to noir, but there's less broken-ness to them, typically.

You might make a stark contrast with Brandon Sanderson's leads. Almost all of them are extremely morally righteous, sometimes sickeningly so - one of the worst examples being Kaladin (no accident it rhymes with "Paladin" imho) - who is utterly grotesquely wronged and mistreated by the system/society, by his superiors, and by individuals, on a wide variety of levels, understands this, processes this, and whilst he considers actually doing something about it a number of times, pretty consistently but unbelievably decides not to (or limits himself in implausible ways). It's totally out-of-character with the entire vector of his personality, and really seems like the author stepping in going "WHOA THERE!" to one of his characters, rather than just writing the character - this is one of limitations Sanderson possesses, and whilst the murder of the end of book 2 (not related to Kaladin, no spoilers), suggests he is capable of moving past it, book 3 is full of this kind of righteous behaviour. But anyway Sanderson's limitations aside, the point is that's full of "morally righteous" fantasy characters (Shallan is a lot more consistent and plausible than Kaladin, I'll give him that).

When we're saying Conan has morals, it's more in that he agrees to be part of something bad, or does something greedy and risky, and then somewhat reluctantly ends up doing the right thing (usually it also feeds his ego massively, which I think is no coincidence). Even the baddest "good guys" (and hell, some "bad guys"!!!) are overall a lot morally brighter/clearer - they're also think about morality when they do stuff a lot, whereas S&S characters rarely consider actual morality - i.e. extrinsic rules of behaviour, but rather personal codes of honour, or instincts, which are frequently at odds with the societies they dwell in (sometimes violently so).

There's also a difference in tone that I don't know if has been mentioned, in that in noir, people's best days are almost always past them (even if they're like 28 or something!), and the general attitude is that life is a alcohol-hazed downslope after some early peak, at least for the characters involved. Sometimes the motivation for the main character is a perception of an escape from this downslope. Whereas in S&S, that's much more rarely the case, indeed, much of the time, the heroes are in their prime and perhaps on an upslope (Conan certainly seemed to be much of the time). There's a Lankhmar story specifically about an older, past-their-prime-seeming Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but part of the point of it is the juxtaposition with the other works. Within this there is sometimes a sense of melancholy for things lost, but it's not the same as the "dead end" vibe of the lives of a lot of noir main characters.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not really, no.

S&S has a wide range of stakes. Noir has a narrow range of stakes. That seems like a fairly clear distinction.

S&S heroes are typically lawbreaking, jaded, and selfish, but often have a heart of gold - though not always, particularly not if crossed. Some are more moral, but I struggle to think of one which would reach "righteous", or even the moral standard of your average YA novel lead or the like. There's definitely some similarity to noir, but there's less broken-ness to them, typically.

yoinked

When we're saying Conan has morals, it's more in that he agrees to be part of something bad, or does something greedy and risky, and then somewhat reluctantly ends up doing the right thing (usually it also feeds his ego massively, which I think is no coincidence). Even the baddest "good guys" (and hell, some "bad guys"!!!) are overall a lot morally brighter/clearer - they're also think about morality when they do stuff a lot, whereas S&S characters rarely consider actual morality - i.e. extrinsic rules of behaviour, but rather personal codes of honour, or instincts, which are frequently at odds with the societies they dwell in (sometimes violently so).

There's also a difference in tone that I don't know if has been mentioned, in that in noir, people's best days are almost always past them (even if they're like 28 or something!), and the general attitude is that life is a alcohol-hazed downslope after some early peak, at least for the characters involved. Sometimes the motivation for the main character is a perception of an escape from this downslope. Whereas in S&S, that's much more rarely the case, indeed, much of the time, the heroes are in their prime and perhaps on an upslope (Conan certainly seemed to be much of the time). There's a Lankhmar story specifically about an older, past-their-prime-seeming Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but part of the point of it is the juxtaposition with the other works. Within this there is sometimes a sense of melancholy for things lost, but it's not the same as the "dead end" vibe of the lives of a lot of noir main characters.

The more you talk about S&S, the less sense it seems to make. You are saying that Sword and Sorcerery can be low stakes, personal vendettas, or high stake save the world quests. The heroes can be entirely ammoral, or have secret hearts of gold.

What makes it different than Epic Fantasy or Heroic Fantasy then? Epic Fantasy is generally defined by having epic-scale stakes, but S&S also has epic scale stakes sometimes. Heroic Fantasy is more focused on the characters, Mercenaries and soldiers struggling with their flaws and sometimes being heroes and sometimes not being heroes.... it is even something S&S is compared to in some of the articles I read, which is how I learned about it.

At this point it seems like S&S is less of a useful definition of a genre and more of a shorthand for "Conan and some other very specific stories written around the same time as Conan." it seems more like a transitional period, where the genre was in the middle of evolving and now it is something else entirely.

You might make a stark contrast with Brandon Sanderson's leads. Almost all of them are extremely morally righteous, sometimes sickeningly so - one of the worst examples being Kaladin (no accident it rhymes with "Paladin" imho) - who is utterly grotesquely wronged and mistreated by the system/society, by his superiors, and by individuals, on a wide variety of levels, understands this, processes this, and whilst he considers actually doing something about it a number of times, pretty consistently but unbelievably decides not to (or limits himself in implausible ways). It's totally out-of-character with the entire vector of his personality, and really seems like the author stepping in going "WHOA THERE!" to one of his characters, rather than just writing the character - this is one of limitations Sanderson possesses, and whilst the murder of the end of book 2 (not related to Kaladin, no spoilers), suggests he is capable of moving past it, book 3 is full of this kind of righteous behaviour. But anyway Sanderson's limitations aside, the point is that's full of "morally righteous" fantasy characters (Shallan is a lot more consistent and plausible than Kaladin, I'll give him that).

Popped this out, because this is a tangent, but what exactly do you want Kaladin to have done?

He is a low-born man, a slave, and branded a violent criminal and traitor during the war. And most of that is from him being wronged by a high-born nobleman, who has spent decades convincing everyone that he is the most honorable, kind and generous person in the entire kingdom. The type of man who would never stoop to such tactics or do something like that to another man.

What exactly is Kaladin supposed to do about that? Tell them the truth? No one would believe him. Fight? He tried that. Foment a rebellion? He tried doing that a few times too, to get his fellow slaves to escape, it usually ended up with the other slaves getting killed while he got viciously beaten.

By the start of the story he has been a slave for years, constantly beat down and oppressed and every time he fights back, it only makes things worse and gets other people killed. This is exactly the type of person who is going to struggle with "doing something about it" when he is treated unjustly or unfairly.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The more you talk about S&S, the less sense it seems to make.

What it is is a term invented by Friz Lieber to describe his own work, and relate it to other works he considered similar and influential.

Beyond that, you don't need a definition.

It's significance here is it is the sort of stuff Gary Gygax liked, and thus was hugely influential on the Greyhawk campaign setting and early D&D.

 

[Aldarc]

@Chaosmancer, if you are finding the explanations of RuinExplorer to make less sense of S&S than before, then maybe move on? This is not a value judgment on Ruin Explorer's explanations; instead, it's the proposition that you may find it more conducive to follow/read someone whose explanation of S&S has been more helpful.

 

[carmachu]

They could open up Greyhawk on the DM Guild.

This. Thats all thats really needed. I dont need WotC to produce anything. Just let others do it.

Frankly i dont care if anything gets officall published by wotc. Theres alot out there i can use already.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What it is is a term invented by Friz Lieber to describe his own work, and relate it to other works he considered similar and influential.

Beyond that, you don't need a definition.

It's significance here is it is the sort of stuff Gary Gygax liked, and thus was hugely influential on the Greyhawk campaign setting and early D&D.

It makes a ton of sense to me that the origin of this word is an author's self-description.

@Chaosmancer, if you are finding the explanations of RuinExplorer to make less sense of S&S than before, then maybe move on? This is not a value judgment on Ruin Explorer's explanations; instead, it's the proposition that you may find it more conducive to follow/read someone whose explanation of S&S has been more helpful.

I'm willing to drop the conversation. I thought it was over a while ago, but then he responded and we kept discussing.