D&D 4E What do you think should be the primary source of inspiration for 4ed flavor?

[Daztur]

I think that people's differences of opinion on this issue is the source of a lot of debates about some of the recent articles.

Personally I'm a big fan of drawing inspiration mainly from mythology and folklore since that's the ultimate source of most fantasy. Keeping things grounded on real world mythology helps make things more intuitive and makes the Core flavor more easily flexible and easily portable to different campaign worlds. That's what I like a lot about the new Cosmology, it seems to draw more from real-world mythology than previous D&D canon.

What do the rest of you think?

 

[Wormwood]

You hired designers? Let 'em design already.

 

[JeffB]

I chose tradition (though some of the tradition sucks..e.g. FR Drow vs, the original GH ideas) but I would have preferred multiple choice as I think mythology should def be a part of it.

I have literally no faith in the current designers idea's of "good fantasy" ,nor most modern novelists. (EDIT: nor did I have much faith in the 3E design team either, but it WAS better)


IMO, of course.

 

[shilsen]

Me. I should be the primary source of inspiration for 4e flavor. And no, I'm not being completely facetious, since whatever flavor WotC puts into the books, I'm going to remold it to fit my particular tastes. I presume many other DMs will do the same.

As for the flavor in the books, I'm fine with them drawing inspiration from any and every source. While the idea that they should draw inspiration from mythology and folklore is not bad, the problem I find is that almost everyone saying that has a very specific kind of mythology and folklore in mind. I've been reading mythology since I was 4 years old and studying folklore from shortly afterwards, and there's an incredible amount of diversity out there. Celtic myth differs drastically from Greco-Roman myth, which has very little similarity with Finno-Ugric myth, leave alone with Indian mythology or the Chinese mythos. Pulling from any one or two of them is unnecessarily restricting one, IMNSHO.

 

[fuindordm]

Creative ideas are great, but they can always be traced back to something--and I would prefer to have some recognizable parallels with Earth's rich legacy of myth.

 

[Desdichado]

1) D&D tradition's been done. Why do we need it rehashed? If we want to use it, all our older material is still right there on our shelves, or at least we can wikipedia it and read a nice summary of it.

2) Same with real world mythology and folklore. That's what the public library (and again, wikipedia) is for. Don't waste time in D&D books trying to recreate stuff I can get better information on somewhere else.

3) Eh. Modern fantasy like who? Since a huge chunk of modern fantasy is essentially writing a vague Tolkien/D&D pastiche anyway, that's hardly removed from 1 or 2. Unless you pick someone very specific who's doing something different. In which case, it'd be the setting of those books. No thanks.

4) Yes already. Give me something new that I can steal ideas from. If you're just going to give me stuff I've already got, then the fluff is extremely non-compelling to me. I don't want to buy what I've already got, just repackaged with nice new WAR art. I'd rather just use the SRD if that's all they can do, and fill in my own flavor.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

I want 1, 2, and 3 to be picked, cut, dried, and pressed into blocks. A stone room is constructed with a pit of hot coals in the center; the design & dev teams are locked inside, and these blocks of inspiration are periodically added to the coals. The sweet incense is inhaled, and great things are written.

Really. I don't like any of the three first sources exclusively, and anything I don't like gets cut off and something of mine bolted in its place anyway, so the more diverse and excellent concepts they can fit together in the books the better chance they have of appealing to me with cool tidbits.

 

[Imaro]

The thing I lked about the Great Wheel cosmology was that it was distincly D&D. The stuff they are letting slip now seems like the stuff other games used years ago. Yes, people can say it's because they're drawing on myhology, but the problem is...so has everyone else. I also see this as not necessarily the right thing to attract new gamers, I'm sorry but the new mythology is pop-culture fantasy. I would bet that more new gamers know who Cloud, Sephiroth, and Ang are as opposed to Gilgamesh, Sundiata and Cuchulainn. The thing that Exalted did so well (and IMHO part of it's appeal) is combining the two.

I would have rather seen WotC create something new, a distinct D&D cosmology, and I think this is where drawing on Swords and Sorcery would have been a good thing. S&S doesn't really resonate with Mythic heroes and gods. If anything it's writers were willing to create their own pantheons and planes of exsistence to suit their world. I think new gamers are more than willing to discover the intricacies of a new world if it is exciting and interesting(just look at the numerous fan pages for Avatar and the various Final Fantasy games.). In the end I don't think drawing on mythology will be a deathblow to D&D 4e, but I will admit I was a little dissapointed that they chose to go this route.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

1. Modern fantasy MEDIA, including but not limited to literature
2. Real-world myths and legends
3. D&D tradition
4. New and original ideas

 

[Wormwood]

1. Modern fantasy MEDIA, including but not limited to literature

Good point, that.