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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 1327412" data-attributes="member: 537">There are 1e6 monsters in 1e3 monster books for D&D. This is a simple consequence of D&D being a game with 30 years of history, with 1e4 designers and DMs all wanting to leave their mark on it. It does not mean any one individual campaign is going to feature 1e6 monsters taken from 1e3 monster books. Would you prefer something like the dead hand of K*vin Si*mbi*da dictating now, and forever more, everything that gets published for D&D?The corollary to the creeping HEROization of D&D is that people need to get rid of this silly, silly idea that there's such a thing as a "typical" D&D campaign or "official" D&D world. Feats, templates, prestige classes, the removal of limits on multiclassing, and a universal framework mean the volume of options and frills out there is just going to increase. The notion that there's such a thing as a canonical D&D game, utilising everything under the sun, is thus going to become ever more unsupportable.Notice how nobody thinks there's such a thing as a canonical HERO or GURPS campaign. Or at least nobody I've heard of.I have never seen or heard of any game where resurrections are available on the roadside.Troubleshooters hopping from place to place with little rhyme or reason can be found in:- Malory's tales of Arthur and the knights of the round table- Bullfinch's Tales of Chivalry- Xena (and Hercules)- Flash Gordon- the 1,000 Conan stories written by Robert E. Heinlein and all his friendsThe typical D&D campaign is episodic. This is because of the inherent nature of the RPG medium, and has nothing to do with D&D itself: you will get the same phenomenon cropping up in Vampire, GURPS, RIFTS, Savage Worlds, or any other game around. If it's a phenomenon associated with D&D more than any other game, it's because D&D is, almost alone among RPG rulesets, designed from the ground up with long-term campaigning (> 1 year) in mind. If you want campaigns where storyline features more strongly, play shorter campaigns.It's called wuxia because the (superficial) elements of _high-level_ play are similar to those found in wuxia: high mobility, flashy magic, larger-than-life heroes who don't have a place in society. All these elements can be found in western myth and folklore, if you care to look. At _low_ levels, D&D supports Conan-style swords & sorcery just fine.Replace "traditional" with "my idea of" and you're bang on the money.</blockquote>

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