Sword and Sorcery has been done to death.

[Sir Elton]

<rant>
Remember when I said I was inspired by Frank Frazetta? Well, I got opposite inspiration from the many sword-and-sorcery and medieval romance settings for d20. There are so many it's like kicking a dead horse.

What's more sick is that many are based off tolkien's work. I realized how sick I really was on the sword and sorcery genre of world settings when I was writing down my current project. I had originally thought of Atlantis as a psi-heavy world for 3e psionics (the Psionics Handbook). I even wrote up a treatment for a campaign setting, describing some details on how I want the world to be. It was ingenius (at least in my mind), since no one has tried something in quite the same way since Athas.

Then it happened. I got stuck between what I wanted and what other people wanted. I subconsciously wanted to do a psi setting, but I said that others wanted something else. As a result, I had great ideas, but I couldn't do anything. >:

Now, I'm mad. I'm mad for listening to other people. I'm mad for kowtowing at what they wanted and I was producing sucky stuff. I'm MAD at being impotent because I was "listening" to other people instead of doing what I wanted in my heart.

I'M BLOODY MAD THAT PEOPLE THINK THAT PSIONICS IS OVERPOWERED OR SUCKS! And I'm sick and tired of people saying so. Geeze people-who-think-3.5e-psionics-is-overpowered-or-sucks, read The Expanded Psionics Handbook thoroughly, it's not that hard to get that it isn't overpowered. After reading a bit of Edgar Rice Burroughs and looking at Frazetta paintings, I'm still inspired by Frank and Burroughs.

But I decided to scrap all reference to sword and sorcery for Atlantis. Like I said, sword and sorcery has been over done. I'm going try experimenting with ground that hasn't been covered since the Deryni novels and Darkover novels. I'm going to create an Atlantis campaign setting that has overtones of psionic romance. And if any of you people-who-think-3.5e-psionics-is-overpowered-or-sucks are going to try and stop me, well then, that for you! >snaps fingers<

</rant>

 

[francisca]

<rant>
I'M BLOODY MAD THAT PEOPLE THINK THAT PSIONICS IS OVERPOWERED OR SUCKS! And

You are correct. They should be saying, "PSIONICS IS OVERPOWERED **AND** SUCKS!"

There. Feel better?

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give your rant a 2.

Sword and Sorcery overdone? All based on Tolkien? Says you.

 

[Emiricol]

Cool. But I think it sounds like the problem is mostly with the decision you allowed yourself to make. That being, to let other people tell you what kind of game to run when you had your heart set on something else.

 

[Campbell]

Additionally, it seems like your rant isn't really addressing Sword and Sorcery fiction like Moorcook's Elric, Howard's Conan, or Lieber's Grey Mouser, but rather modern day heroic fantasy which comes from meshing the Sword and Sorcery genre with the genre of fantasy inspired by Tolkien's works. I hate to nitpick, but I guess I'm also verging on rantdom myself.

 

[EricNoah]

I sorta think I understand what you're saying, though -- there are many flavors of "fantasy" that could taste good in an RPG like D&D. Clerics-and-wizards-and-breastplates-and-swords-and-magic missle-and-fireball is just one of many ways to play. A diet of mac and cheese (or pizza or whatever your staple food is) is fine, but sometimes you just want something different. Psionics can be one avenue to achieving that, without sacrificing playability or "balance."

Or maybe I missed the point of the rant.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

From a pure playability standpoint, the psionics rules are almost certainly superior to the magic rules.

But the Tolkien-inspired epic fantasy that you're so sick of (an understandable state) isn't properly sword and sorcery. Conan or the Grey Mouser? S&S. Frodo and Aragon? Epic fantasy. Mind well the difference, for sword and sorcery is by no means an overdone genre, and could really do with a good renaissance.

In fact, psionics is probably more suitable to most sword and sorcery games than standard D&D anyway. A lot of sword and sorcery has a pseudo-science background (Conan's demons often came from outer space, John Norman's ever-controversial Gor was an alien planet, etc.)

 

[francisca]

In fact, psionics is probably more suitable to most sword and sorcery games than standard D&D anyway. A lot of sword and sorcery has a pseudo-science background (Conan's demons often came from outer space, John Norman's ever-controversial Gor was an alien planet, etc.)

Agreed. And I say that as a person who is no fan of Psionics in any way, shape, or form.

And let's not leave out Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts, Three Lions" wherein the hero often muses about the scientific explanations of the world around him, being an engineer transported to a fantastical realm. (any more commentary would spoil the book, and I encourage all D&D players to read it, and see where many aspects of the game came from.)

 

[Doug McCrae]

Edgar Rice Burroughs Princess of Mars is nominally science-based, but for the most part the science is so woolly it might as well be magic. The one bit that is accurate is that John Carter can jump further on Mars. But it's also got telepathy, anti-gravity and much other nonsense.

I wouldn't call it Sword & Sorcery or High Fantasy though. Scientific Romance maybe? Moorcock calls all sci-fi and fantasy by the same name - Romantic Fiction.

 

[Emiricol]

I'm a fan of systems like The Riddle of Steel, which iis one of several modern systems to offer (in my opinion) a Sword & Sorcery feel superior to what I can get out of D&D. I mean S&S in terms of Conan, the Grey Mouser, Elric, etc. These have a dramatically different feel than Tolkein or Vance.

I say this as a guy who plays far more D&D than any other system. Like Eric said, sometimes a change can be a good thing.

 

[Zappo]

Meh. For me, psionics and magic are basically the same thing anyway. Making stuff happen with no apparent cause. Giving a person supernatural abilities. Whether it takes waving of hands and arcane mutterings or not is fairly secondary, isn't it? The reason for which the Darkover books are original is that they aren't about The Epic Quest To Save The World, not that they aren't sword-and-sorcery.