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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5635682" data-attributes="member: 54877">Yesway, I would again strongly suggest that you read the first two or three Fafhrd and Gray Mouser collections, if you really want to understand where some of us are coming from--and perhaps experience it yourself.  Not only will it cut out some of the confusion, it will probably be a lot more enjoyable than arguing with all of us at the same time. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> While I think Pemerton and Neochameleon are correct in their assessment of the kind of action adventure 4E is meant to emulate--and it is considerably wider than Lieber's work--I think Leiber sits at the center.  That is, if you could map the various works that might qualify as a major influence on the tone of 4E's implementation of the D&D ethos, you'd see Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser running around right in the center quadrant.  No novel maps perfectly to a game, of course, but you can see parallels. Two characters aren't a party, but two is a playground for interpersonal dynamics a whole lot more than Cugel the Clever or Conan. Abilities are often oddball, and personified.*  There is very much an improvisational flair to the heroes' actions.  Fights are dynamic.  Vividness is neither confined to combat (as with, say, Salvatore) but neither is the vividness of the non-combat allowed to dominate the story. There is a constant stream of characterization and dialogue--what at a table will be largely supplied by roleplay.  Combat is not so much a break as a heightening of the action (as if, if played to the hilt, any conflict). * Looking at 4E as a whole, it is perhaps the least applicable here.  Compare it to 1E unfavorably, as a whole system expressed in the world.  Take, however, 4E in parts, as might be used within a single campaign and expressed narratively in the characters, and it looks a lot better on this score.  Of course, 1E also benefited from monsters and magic not always following the same rules as the characters.</blockquote>

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