"HF" vs. "S&S" gaming: the underlying reason of conflict and change in D&D

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Why "D&D should also provide myth creation"? There are lots of other games out there better suited.

And there are no games that are able to pull off Sword & Sorcery better? What for example is with Warhammer?

 

[Ariosto]

D&D is really a genre unto itself. To go off in the direction of simulating any fiction is to depart from the game as conceived. There are both potential rewards and hazards in that.

It was not designed for a single epic quest like that in TLOTR, after which, as Rob Kuntz put it, "There was not a continuing story line possible, for the story line itself was in fact based around the destruction of the Ring and all those events which were spawned from it. As we would say at TSR 'END OF ADVENTURE'." Perhaps even more to the point, the D&D system could end such a story quite prematurely.

It was not designed for the convenience of lone wolves or dynamic duos, or for "the party" as a singular entity with members advancing in lockstep. It was not designed to give much chance of survival to any particular first-level figure. What else is one to make of a 58% chance of death from a single hit? At high levels, combat can feasibly be an objective in itself -- but it is by design not a very rewarding one.

It was not designed for a lot of things, and the mismatch between the designers' goals and some players' goals is a driving force not only in the arising of other games by other names but in the appearance of different games by the same name.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I agree with the others who have stated that D&D is a genre unto itself. Although D&D has always contained (to varying degrees) elements of HF and S&S (and probably other fantasy sub-genres as well) I don't believe that it is predisposed enough toward any single genre to say that "edition X is clearly genre Y".

Some significant D&D tropes include "Lemmings: Meatgrinder Edition" and "The Christmas Tree Effect". I, for one, cannot recall encountering any such tropes in any of fantasy literature I've come across. One of the more significant distinctions of 4e is a near abandonment of the meatgrinder trope (frequent, arbitrary PC death) that was a fairly common 'default' property of the earlier editions. Though a DM could certainly downplay these elements (as well as encourage or discourage aspects of certain literary genres), it was up to the individual DM to do so. (I firmly believe that a DM who set his mind to the task could create a 4e meatgrinder without excessive effort).

I don't believe that that's changed much since the beginning. Certainly the rules themselves have changed, in that 4e requires different modifications than 1e but it still remains that, IMO, the D&D tropes remain the dominant ones (within the 'default' game). DMs have run HF 1e games despite claims that 1e is a S&S game, and DMs run S&S 4e games despite claims that 4e is a HF game. I'm dubious about the idea that running a "true" HF 1e game requires significantly more modification than a "true" S&S 1e game. For my group at least, D&D has embraced elements of both genres while remaining something uniquely "else".

I don't believe that the D&D rules are particularly better at modeling HF than S&S (or vice versa). You can play D&D in a high fantasy style or with a sword & sorcery flavor, but in the end it is D&D. Frodo wasn't killed by a stray arrow, and neither was Conan, though either could have been (if you ignore that it would have been bad for the story). In the end, literature is literature and D&D is a role playing game. Distinctions certainly exist between editions, but I think that attempting to categorize them as either HF or S&S is doomed to be "a loose fit, at best".

 

[Krensky]

Krensky wrote:


So here you accept that the common tropes are not really what define the genre??

Where on earth do you get that idea?

Cowboys, Indians, Mexicans and gun fights do not a western make.

The plot of Die Hard can be viewed as a western. Hud can be viewed as a western. The Seven Samurai can be viewed as a western. Art is oftern incestiously circular like that.

Wild Wild West (TV or Movie) take place in and have the trappings of a western, but are not because they're spy stories.

Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Magnificent Seven are almost shot for shot remakes of Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and The Seven Samurai. Spaghetti Westerns in general eschew all but the broadest and most generic conventions of the Western, and typically replace the conflicts between East and West, Rancher and Industrialist, Rich and Poor, and Settler and Native and morality play plot structure with blood, grit, and violence. Sergio Leone was a great director, and in the case of the three movies listed he was cribbing from a master.

You keep confusing tropes with style and trappings. The Knight Errant is trope. A cowboy on a horse with a sixgun is rendition of it. So is Sanjuro . So is Don Quixote or Sir Gallahad. So is Zatoichi. Different trappings, same tropes.

As I've said before, genre is composed of tropes, trappings, and conventions. D&D is a genre unto itself which is informed and inspired by S&S, HF, and tons and tons of other things. There is no drift from one chunk of that to another the way you theorise. I don't see it and you certainly haven't given any meaningful supporting evidence to that theory, let alone provved it. OD&D does both equalkly well and doesn't really favor either style, and the same holds true right up to 4e.

Your theory is unsupported, and wrong in both detail and as a whole. D&D has not changed genre, it is still D&D.

 

[Zulgyan]

So what characterizes and defines the D&D genre, if it is so unique?

 

[Desdichado]

Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Magnificent Seven are almost shot for shot remakes of Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and The Seven Samurai.

That doesn't make them samurai films. Kurosawa was widely criticized by Japanese film critics, for instance, for making western films that just happened to take place in Japan and feature samurai as characters. Also: shot by shot remakes is a bit thick on the hyperbole.

Anyway; the many, many problems with the assertions in the first post have been pretty thoroughly hashed out by now, so I won't add to them at the moment, but I will state that in the early and mid 80s when I was playing BD&D and AD&D, I approached it from more of a high fantasy perspective. Now that I'm playing 3.5, I approach it from a sword & sorcery perspective. I don't think that perspective is influenced by, nor even has anything to do with, the rules themselves.

 

[Zulgyan]

I will state that in the early and mid 80s when I was playing BD&D and AD&D,

And that is precisely the time in which the shift slowly began.

 

[Zulgyan]

Your theory is unsupported, and wrong in both detail and as a whole. D&D has not changed genre, it is still D&D.

Well... then, under your parameters, I can consider you haven't proved me wrong either...

And saying that D&D of the 70s, is the same D&D of today... hmmm... try to prove and support THAT.

 

[Obryn]

Well... then, under your parameters, I can consider you haven't proved me wrong either...

Is the burden of proof really on him, though?

-O

 

[Zulgyan]

Well... most is one me, you are right.

But some statements and arguments need backing.

If you say D&D is a totally unique genre, then back it up.

And saying that what I say is totally unsupported is very unfair. Because it isn't. A little research about the history of early D&D and EGG support me. Follow the links on my initial post.

He is using that as a retoric weapon.