The Tomb of Myth

[FireLance]

Jack7, would you agree with the following quote from "The High King", the last novel in the excellent Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander?

"Every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone."​

 

[Crothian]

If you want History and Myth in your campaign then put it in. It is not other people's responsibility to make sure you have myths and history in your own game. It doesn't matter if there is less myth and history in poeople's games in general since all that really matters is your own game and since the DM has controlo over the game there is no reason for the DM to not be able to place elements into the game that he wants.

 

[Yair]

If you want History and Myth in your campaign then put it in. It is not other people's responsibility to make sure you have myths and history in your own game.

Is it other people's responsibility to make sure you have combat rules in your game? Or an interesting setting or adventure? Yet we purchase roleplaying books and supplements. It isn't about what you can provide for your own game, it's about what the game provides as-is. D&D doesn't provide real-world mythology and even only pays lip service to its own mythology, focusing on gameplay at the expense of versimilitude and adhere to its own myths. It is just not a game designed for the above tastes, and neither are most D&D settings (with some exceptions, like Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas line).

 

[jdrakeh]

It is just not a game designed for the above tastes, and neither are most D&D settings (with some exceptions, like Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas line).

I have to agree. D&D is and has been a lot of things. It has never been about across the board verisimilitude. It has never strived for what peple here call "realism" in all (or even most) areas of design. Likewise, it has rarely (if ever) had mechanics in place dedicated to the recreation of epic myth cycles as they appear in literature.

 

[Crothian]

Is it other people's responsibility to make sure you have combat rules in your game? Or an interesting setting or adventure? Yet we purchase roleplaying books and supplements. It isn't about what you can provide for your own game, it's about what the game provides as-is. D&D doesn't provide real-world mythology and even only pays lip service to its own mythology, focusing on gameplay at the expense of versimilitude and adhere to its own myths. It is just not a game designed for the above tastes, and neither are most D&D settings (with some exceptions, like Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas line).

Rules are a different boat. But as you point out we have options like Mythic Vistas for people that want real world myth and history in their game. So, it is out there for people that want it. And I imagine if more people had really wanted it that line of books would have done a lot better.

 

[Desdichado]

A few points:

1) If you're so invested in the past, why not infuse your games with history rather than myth. I'd rather tell the story of Alexander than Hercules in my games I'd rather have characters that were more like Lief Erikson than Thor.

2) Joseph Campbell is extremely over-rated. I think it's interesting to see how he and George Lucas exploited each other: Lucas exploited Campbell to give his Flash Gordon pulp and serial influenced series an implied gravitas that it didn't really need, but which made him feel a lot better about himself, and Campbell exploited Lucas to sell a lot of copies of a book that says very little of substance beyond, "hey, I think I've discovered that good stories have something in common." Which, really, shouldn't have been very surprising to anyone in the first place.

3) It's a mistake, in my opinion, to try and make gaming something that it isn't. For many years, I labored under the delusion that I could make gaming better resemble a novel. I suppose that's true up to a point, but beyond that point, the medium works against you and your game actually gets poorer rather than better as you attempt to hammer it into a form that the medium is not suited to provide.

By the same token, a game can't resemble a myth too much, or it's not a very fun game. It can't resemble Joseph Campbell very well either, because its fundamentally an ensemble cast, not the story of a single protagonist and his sidekicks. If that's to your taste, you can of course infuse your setting with more mythic elements. You can wrap all of your spells and magic items up in mythic flavor. To say that the game itself doesn't provide this is somewhat disengenious; especially to claim that the game has lost this (the game never really had it. 1e was full of +1 swords and cure light wounds too, y'know.) It's always been up to the DM to provide that kind of flavor. And frankly, like I said, I'd be wary of going too far down that road anyway; chances are you'll just have your players rolling their eyes and telling you to get the point before too long. Accept the constraints of the medium and optimize your game along those lines; don't try to make your game into something other than a game.

Oh, and you might want to dial back the value judgement on what other people like a bit, while you're at it.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hey there Jack! Good to hear from you. I agree with what your saying--to a point. In my own campaigns, I use History and Mythology heavily--I love it, and my friends and players do as well. It tends to make the campaign richer, deeper, and more interesting on every level. This, in turn, tends to make the characters more interesting, heroic, and intriguing as well.

However--I think as Hobo explained, the medium really does impose certain limitations. There's only so far you can go in organizing the game like a novel, or mythic saga from the past--before you reach a consortium of mechanics, and game dynamics that actually cause an increasing *diminishing returns*. The game is typically about a *group*--as opposed to *one mythic individual or hero*. Finally, there are simply some elements in a novel that detract from a game; and some elements of a game that detract from a novel. The fact that a DM will in his efforts to create a campaign and run a game will reach the point where those elements intesect, is the threshold that will forever divide the game from being very much like a mythical story.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Jack7]

"Every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone."

To a large extent FL, yes.
Especially in the real world in which dangers can be metal, psychological, spiritual, political, business and financial, etc. The Saint is at least as big a hero as the military hero (and if a peaceful martyr, that is a martyr who dies for others rather than kills others, maybe more so), the philanthropist as the fireman or cop. A good father and mother are heroic, the man who risks his life for others is heroic.

In a game world dangers are often more immediate and physical because so much that occurs in real life is compressed into very simplistic terms and events. So heroism in-game is usually more directly and less subtly expressed. In this context I am speaking about mythical and game heroism though, which is far less a matter of reality than idealism. Or let me put it this way, in real life heroism is often chronic and grinding, expressed day by day, in our obligations and sacrifices to others and for others. It is therefore often cumulative. (Though there are moments in real life where we risk out lives, and I have. Those moments are exciting, and when you live through them very pleasing and dramatic, and make for good stories and fond memories, but are no more "valuable" in the long run than day to day obligations such as taking care of your daughter, or buying new clothes for a burned out neighbor.) In a game, movie, video game, etc. however it (heroism) is often acute, expressed in the heroic charge, the fierce and lethal encounter. Game heroism is a metaphor for real life heroism compressed into a single moment of terrible action.

1) If you're so invested in the past, why not infuse your games with history rather than myth. I'd rather tell the story of Alexander than Hercules in my games I'd rather have characters that were more like Lief Erikson than Thor.

I agree. History and myth should both be integrated. History because of it's cultural and physical relevance (my milieu is set in Constantinople) and myth and religion because of it's psychological and spiritual relevance. It's not either/or. But we're all invested in the past to some degree, even if we don't realize it. Without a past there is no present.

For many years, I labored under the delusion that I could make gaming better resemble a novel. I suppose that's true up to a point, but beyond that point, the medium works against you and your game actually gets poorer rather than better as you attempt to hammer it into a form that the medium is not suited to provide.

By the same token, a game can't resemble a myth too much, or it's not a very fun game. It can't resemble Joseph Campbell very well either, because its fundamentally an ensemble cast, not the story of a single protagonist and his sidekicks.

We agree here as well. A game cannot be a novel. Or a myth, or any other medium than itself. A novel for instance is static. A game (at least an RPG) is dynamic. And has more than one "author." A game however can easily and often does and often should incorporate elements drawn from other sources, such as books, films, stories, myths, religion, and so forth. Sometimes you can incorporate too much from such sources, sometimes too little. I'm saying far too little of something really important lately, and far too much of stuff not so important lately. And that doesn't have anything to do with edition per se, it is more modern design philosophy and elements. Ah crap, I was gonna say something else but my wife interrupted me and I forgot it. That's all about that I guess.

Oh, and you might want to dial back the value judgement on what other people like a bit, while you're at it.

I am not telling people, and never have, what their games must be. I am saying I do not like the loss of myth as a motivational factor on game and adventure and milieu development. I do not understand why people cannot understand the difference between a demand and a critique. That which is not criticized is that which does not improve and progress.

Greetings!

Hey there Jack! Good to hear from you.

You too Shark. Even when you disagree you are never disagreeable. I'm not so sure you shouldn't be named the Dolphin instead.

 

[Wayside]

And inherent in your response is the implied attitude of, "because things are as they are now they neither warrant nor deserve improvement."

No, it isn't.

That sentence is pleonastic, by the way, which usually means you're a) substituting big words for a lack of argument, or b) just not sure what you really want to say. I noticed this problem in your original post as well.

But no system, no state, no condition, at any point in time is so perfect or so flawless that it should not or cannot be open to critique and improvement.

Nobody said that a system, a state, a condition, at some point in time may be so perfect or so flawless that it should not or cannot be open to critique and improvement.

There's a difference between disputing what counts as perfection or improvement and disputing whether something is perfect or can be improved.

 

[shilsen]

I am not telling people, and never have, what their games must be. I am saying I do not like the loss of myth as a motivational factor on game and adventure and milieu development. I do not understand why people cannot understand the difference between a demand and a critique. That which is not criticized is that which does not improve and progress.

What you are apparently not understanding is that many people, both here and in some of your other threads (re. heroism in D&D, for example), are disagreeing with your critique. As has been pointed out more than once in quite a lot of detail, there's no less use of myth in game/adventure/milieu development nowadays than there ever was. Simply because you fail to see or encounter something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.