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Jack Vance's Forgotten Contributions to D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7887217" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>I'm not sure it really tried that hard. The impression I've always gotten from D&D was that it wasn't trying to emulate the sub-genres it pulled from, which included science-fiction and horror as well as fantasy & mythology, but to subvert the tropes of those genres and "do it right." That is, if you've got some immortal (or/and amoral) quasi-human wielding barely-limited (barely defined, but extrapolated from what's displayed in a pseudo-scientific way) supernatural power, he should mop the floor with the inadequately dressed primitive screwheads who are just swinging swords around. Like, every time.</p><p>(Someone posted a link to a shortstory, the 7th Geas or something, that well, had Geas working something like D&D, but also subverted the genre in that same way, with the stereotypical heroic warrior batted about like a trivial plaything by supernatural beings.)</p><p></p><p>But that's just Garthanos's "revenge of the nerds" theory, again. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> </p><p></p><p>Interesting digression about that. As a dumb kid who'd been into Star Trek and Star Wars (and Space:1999 among other things, but the key is, movies & TV), I was quite at a loss with Traveler. Why were interstellar civilizations using machine guns instead of ray guns? Why were computers so huge? </p><p>...then I read H. Beam Piper's <em>Space Vikings</em>, and found out there was a lot of other stuff like it out there. A whole sci-fi sub-genre I'd been ignorant of. Really, kinda a huge one, just mostly literary (OK pulp, whatever, stuff y'read rather than watch). Did Traveler have something like D&D's appendix N, with Piper, EE Doc Smith, Asimov, Goulart, Harrison, Dickson, and others from the 30's through the 60s, stopping abruptly right before the New Wave? It might've helped.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7887217, member: 996"] I'm not sure it really tried that hard. The impression I've always gotten from D&D was that it wasn't trying to emulate the sub-genres it pulled from, which included science-fiction and horror as well as fantasy & mythology, but to subvert the tropes of those genres and "do it right." That is, if you've got some immortal (or/and amoral) quasi-human wielding barely-limited (barely defined, but extrapolated from what's displayed in a pseudo-scientific way) supernatural power, he should mop the floor with the inadequately dressed primitive screwheads who are just swinging swords around. Like, every time. (Someone posted a link to a shortstory, the 7th Geas or something, that well, had Geas working something like D&D, but also subverted the genre in that same way, with the stereotypical heroic warrior batted about like a trivial plaything by supernatural beings.) But that's just Garthanos's "revenge of the nerds" theory, again. ;) Interesting digression about that. As a dumb kid who'd been into Star Trek and Star Wars (and Space:1999 among other things, but the key is, movies & TV), I was quite at a loss with Traveler. Why were interstellar civilizations using machine guns instead of ray guns? Why were computers so huge? ...then I read H. Beam Piper's [i]Space Vikings[/i], and found out there was a lot of other stuff like it out there. A whole sci-fi sub-genre I'd been ignorant of. Really, kinda a huge one, just mostly literary (OK pulp, whatever, stuff y'read rather than watch). Did Traveler have something like D&D's appendix N, with Piper, EE Doc Smith, Asimov, Goulart, Harrison, Dickson, and others from the 30's through the 60s, stopping abruptly right before the New Wave? It might've helped. [/QUOTE]
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