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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6853202" data-attributes="member: 996">Nothing so sophisticated as an allusion, no, just a pun on 'minion' and a bit of a stretch, at that.Sounds like the same thing, to me.  I think Elric (Moorcock's works in general, that is) was more an influence on cosmology and aligment than Elric himself was a suitable PC. [sblock] (Moorcock conceived of Elric in a fit of youthful rebellion as a sort of anti-Conan after some of his REH pastiche was panned by critics.  Conan is a barbaric warrior, Elric an effete prince of a decadent civilization, Conan is strong in every sense, Elric a feeble albino, Conan distrusts magic and goes around murdering evil Sorcerers, Elric is an evil Sorcerer, though he sometimes uses his power for something akin to good, Conan is an ubermench, an ideal of humanity and masculinity taken to extremes, Elric isn't human, his race didn't even evolve from primates.)[/sblock]But, I suppose he is almost playable, anyway.  He could certainly be represented by an arch-mage with an artifact weapon that feeds him hitpoints who casts Tenser's Transformation and Gate and little else.  Early D&D sword-weilding would have been an issue, unless we translate Melniboneans as decadent elves (Drow would be closest, really, just light-skinned, above-ground drow).  The big sticking point is that unless you put all his magical abilities in items, his Gating in Grahluks and Elementals and Arioch himself, would make him an archmage, and then why is he never casting anything else, right?  ;P  Like 5th-level-Magic-user Gandalf, the classes meant to model him offer more abilities than he ever displayed.Fafhrd is too good at non-fightery things and the Mouser too good at fighting for D&D to have ever done them well, but the basic concepts have been available for a long time.  The Mouser is arguably the inspiration for the Thief class (without the niche-protection of which, as you pointed out, it might be a bit easier to model characters from genre).  But, while the basic concepts have class (and multi-classes, and kits/feats/backgrounds/themes/archetypes) boxes they're clearly meant to go in, the characters often do more than the classes are credited with.That's not entirely unreasonable.  Maybe not all the time, but consistently enough that the player can count on the character pulling off a critical action when it counts.  In fiction, the protagonist can pull off a 1-in-a-million shot now and then, when it's critical to the plot (and fail a routine task when it moves the plot along), because it's all under the control of the author.  In a diceless collective storytelling exercise, the same probably still holds true.  In an RPG where dice are required to resolve otherwise unlimited-use abilities, there's a gulf between the 'realistic' probability of success of a genre-appropriate heroic attempt, the 'fair game' chance of a high-impact action succeeding, and the certainty of it needing to succeed (or fail forward, I suppose) for the sake of establishing the character and supporting the flow of the story.  So, yeah, if a hero goes around breaking the laws of physicals with his feats of athleticism and consistently beating the odds critical moments, a game needs to give the player & GM tools to model that.  Whether it's the character having special abilities that let him escape prosecution for violating physical laws, or whether it's a free pass to do so a limited number of times, or just a really good physical-law attorney on retainer....</blockquote>

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