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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9107106" data-attributes="member: 18">I just don't agree and tons of fantasy doesn't agree. Huge amounts of heroic fantasy and myth and legend doesn't give any particular reason that heroic (Greek sense) characters are heroic. If they like have weird-ass special powers, like Achilles being literally immune to damage, sure. But if they're just exceptionally fast, strong, brave, intelligent, quick-healing (but not regenerating), lucky, wise etc. it's just very often just put down to them being who they are.There's this big problem with RPGs which is that a lot of players, especially older ones, actually want some sort of science-y "sim" where everything is elaborately explained, rather than a more myth/legend-oriented game. But what Gygax actually designed was something more myth/legend-oriented, not a science-y sim.So much of it doesn't.Look at Lord of the Rings - Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli run for literally days on end to catch up with the hobbits who'd been taken. Obviously physically impossible. Why can they do it? It's not explained. It's never explained. Tolkien doesn't take us aside and explain the biological reasons why, because he's not thinking about that and doesn't care about that. They're heroic characters from a myth he's creatingWhy? Because Tolkien very consciously and intentionally wrote myths and legends, not facts, not science or some sort of rationalized and well-explained saga - and remember he repeated called LotR a myth - this isn't my projection, it's his own words and clear intention.And he's the founder of the entire modern genre.Because you want science-fantasy or ultra-grounded fantasy to be the only things allowable for D&D, you want A Princess of Mars or maybe at most The Name of the Wind or A Game of Thrones, and a lot of people want fantasy - which includes elements of myth and legend, elements of mystery and the unknowable and the truly supernatural, not merely "super-measurable and well-defined magic powers that might as well be science", they want Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, the Greek myths, the Arthurian legends, Conan the Barbarian, Tigana, The Last Unicorn, The Princess Bride, Circe, The Dark Tower and so on - stuff where people with no identifiable magic powers do things which are impossible or near to it, where magic isn't just science, where people sometimes go beyond what anyone thought they could do.That's why people are resistant. You're basically saying "Screw Tolkien, it's only Game of Thrones for me!", whether you're thinking that way or not, that's what you're de facto advocating.(Part of the problem here, if we're real, is Vance's baleful influence. I like a lot of elements of Vance's work (not the misogyny!), but it's essentially closer to science-fantasy than heroic or epic fantasy, and he likes to give things rational reasons, even if they're sort of dashed off, and unfortunately because it provided an easy model for the early game to ape re: magic, it gave early D&D a slightly confused and science-y vibe - and some people in early D&D days clearly wanted to be running something more science-y. But none of that is true today - just look at the big podcasts like Critical Role - even when modern or steampunk trappings are involved, they're not treated in a science-y way. The guns don't work in a science-y way. They're as mystical and metaphysical as everything else. Even D&D's spells, once quasi-science-y have regained an element of mysticism for the people playing in and watching those games. The same is true of most D&D podcasts, I note, especially ones with people in their 20s and early 30s, I note.)</blockquote>

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