NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 5046729" data-attributes="member: 1129">True. This post, "It's interesting that these are all post-D&D fantasies, though. I think only one out of three is actually inspired by roleplaying, but they're all watermarked after D&D came on the scene. The Howard and Leiber and Burroughs and Vance stuff that Gygax cited as most inspirational all pretty much feature characters that remain on an even keel power-wise. Of course, the fantasies you mention also all more than three-book-minimum, and none of them are really evolved out of the short story format the way Conan and his pulp cohorts did. There's a serious shift from episodic adventure that goes alongside the shift from "the characters are roughly the same level of competence and their adventures are singular due to circumstances" to "each successive adventure takes place at a higher power level."I'm kind of curious as to what made this shift in fantasy literature happen. My pet theory is that people were wanting to have their Tolkien and Moorcock fused in an unholy union: all the everyman appeal of a hobbit, but with the cataclysmic endgame of an Eternal Champion. Frodo didn't become a god, and Elric was never an everyman, but somewhere along the line people figured they wanted both. I could be wrong, of course." ...does go a little way in following your line of thought. It's almost like there is a dividing line between when that genre becomes popular. Most of the material you note is relatively old, in the pulp era save perhaps later Fafhrd and Grey Mouser goods. Possibly Cugel. And of course there are the grim and gritty characters such as those found in the Black Company who despite being 'bad ass' often get chumped. But the formula, especially in a level advanced game, tend to follow a pattern up.</blockquote>

Verification