So why is Sword and Sorcery so popular in RPGs?

[Gundark]

i was reading this thread http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2556048#post2556048
and Dougmander said in the thread "Problem is, to do a strictly historical military game, you have to know history well enough to make it come alive in detail, and you have to be such a skilled storyteller that you don't need to fall back on magic or monsters to create tension."

I might be misquoting here but it got me thinking. I remember playing in a Spycraft game and it burned out as the group got tired of the same opponents time and time again (not a problem of the system but hey). The same DM ran a D&D game which ran a lot longer. But it got me thinking is Sword and Sorcery type games so popular because of the diveristy of the challenges? I'm not saying that modern/historical games can't be good. What do you think?

 

[Kanegrundar]

I'd say that's a big part of it. I tend to do one-shot games with D20 Modern, but the long running game I had (other than D&D or Warhammer QUest) was a Rift-ish D20 Modern game about a year or so ago. I had a lot more options of things to throw the player's way. While I think I could do a longer modern-day game, I could see me recycling/repackaging ideas used earlier in play later in the campaign. Plus, some people get into a different mindset when playing historical or reality-based games. While magic allows many fantasy campaigns explain away things easily, you don't have that luxury in modern games. If you aren't playing with a system that comes close to simulating reality, some players will quickly get turned off by it. I think it comes down to the options in front of the GM and the mindset of the players.

Kane

 

[Mallus]

Because pretending to be rabbits never caught on?

 

[Corinth]

Sword and Sorcery works for a few fundamental reasons:

1. Autonomy: The standard sword and sorcery character is a rootless, amoral mercenary out for himself. He wants lots of gold, personal power, and the priviledges that those two things brings to his life. This is far easier to pull off in D&D and its clones than any other RPG.
2. Power: The standard RPG player is it in to satisfy his power fantasies, which are of the sort that best suits a rootless, amoral mercenary out for himself. Superheros, spy games, and science fiction have the power but it's often of a nature that can be put down or taken away with reasonable effort- and it's often of a nature that's easy for everyone that matters to acquire.
3. Ease: No requirements to be good, no need to know anything about the real world, no responsibility or accountability to anyone else, and no need for anything more than a dungeon to loot and some things to kill makes sword and sorcery gaming very easy for novices and casual gamers to get their game on.

These three reasons are while Howard, Vance, and Lieber are the root of D&D- and (as much as I would like it to be otherwise) not Tolkien and Lewis.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Because pretending to be rabbits never caught on?

Says you! Watership Down the RPG was a big hit with our group!!!

Sorry...I couldn't resist.

Kane

 

[ThirdWizard]

Because when the GM is caught with a situation making no sense, he can just say "It's magic!"

 

[AIM-54]

But it got me thinking is Sword and Sorcery type games so popular because of the diveristy of the challenges?

But why is that the case? Is it really more interesting to fight orcs, then lizardmen, then gnolls, then vampires, then dragons, all on a progressively more difficult scale, than to fight human bandits, then outlaws, then a baron's men-at-arms, then a well-trained mercenary army, all on a progressively more difficult scale?

I don't think it has to be and am in the process of building a world where most threats are going to be of the humanoid (human, elf, dwarf, orc, though not Tolkienian orc) variety.

Part of it may simply be it's easier to justify killing all kinds of "others" than intelligent human after intelligent human.

It's an interesting question, certainly.

 

[ThirdWizard]

But why is that the case? Is it really more interesting to fight orcs, then lizardmen, then gnolls, then vampires, then dragons, all on a progressively more difficult scale, than to fight human bandits, then outlaws, then a baron's men-at-arms, then a well-trained mercenary army, all on a progressively more difficult scale?

I think generally, yes.

There's a mystique to fighting trolls and dragons that you don't get fighting humans. They might be an equivalent tactical experience, but there's a big emotional difference between battling against the king's well trained personal guard and an evil demon who just rose up out of a pit in the ground or a dragon who is swooping down on you breathing fire.

Not that you can't have an involving and exciting campaign based on humanoid opponents. It will just, IMO, take more work to make it as interesting as the fantastical one.

 

[Turjan]

But why is that the case? Is it really more interesting to fight orcs, then lizardmen, then gnolls, then vampires, then dragons, all on a progressively more difficult scale, than to fight human bandits, then outlaws, then a baron's men-at-arms, then a well-trained mercenary army, all on a progressively more difficult scale?

I think one of the main differences between those two sides is that, with a historical setup, I always feel the urge to 'get it right'. Somehow, realism creeps into the game. I don't want to have realism in my game, just verisimilitude. Realism is straining, fantasy is fun .

To tell the truth, my games are a mixture of those two examples. If you meet orcs, you might meet orcs with class levels later and some high level orc shaman or orc king at the end. The dragon is there for a change in between .

 

[tetsujin28]

Real sword-and-sorcery is actually a pretty rare beast in rpgs. The aforementioned orc etc. have no place in s&s, where the opponents really are mainly people. Rpgs have really created their own genre of fantasy.