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

[Daztur]

Let me give an example of what I meant by the 4ed cosmology being mythologicaly-based:

Compare Shadowfeld with:

Gilgamesh, Tablet 7

The house where the dead dwell in total darkness,
Where they drink dirt and eat stone,
Where they wear feathers like birds,
Where no light ever invades their everlasting darkness,
Where the door and the lock of Hell is coated with thick dust.
When I entered the House of Dust,
On every side the crowns of kings were heaped,
On every side the voices of the kings who wore those crowns,
Who now only served food to the gods Anu and Enlil,
Candy, meat, and water poured from skins.

Odyssey, Book 11

"Then out of Erebus came swarming up
shades of the dead—brides, young unmarried men,
old ones worn out with toil, young tender girls,
with hearts still new to sorrow, and many men
wounded by bronze spears, who'd died in war,
still in their blood-stained armour. Crowds of them
came thronging in from all sides of the pit,
with amazing cries. Pale fear took hold of me.
...
Why leave the sunlight,
come to this joyless place, and see the dead?
...
How can you dare to come
down into Hades' home, the dwelling place
for the mindless dead, shades of worn-out men?'

Same basic ideas and then there's Hel (Norse), Sheol (Hebrew), Tuonela (Finnish) and Yomi (Japanese) that have the same basic idea. The Feywild and the Elemental Maelstorm also have VERY strong parallels with a series of myths that pop up all over the world.

Can you say the same of the Negative Energy Plane? No. The elemental/para-elemental/quasi-elemental? Not really, maybe Muspelheim but even that fits better as part of the 4ed Elemental Maelstorm. The Great Wheel? Nothing mythological fits with that that I can think of? Etherial? Again, I'm drawing a blank.

So it seems that what 4ed is doing is drawing on common mythological themes without tying itself tightly to any one set of myths.

I LOVE THIS.

 

[Cadfan]

You forgot option 5. All 4e flavor should be taken directly from my homebrew campaign.

I selected "modern fantasy literature," as this is the next best choice.

Screw D&D tradition, a lot of it was stupid. "Oh, we've got 9 alignments, so everything we do that involves an alignment has to come in sets of 9 now!" "Oh, dragons have colors so everything we do with dragons has to be color coded now!" For crying out loud. Use D&D tradition only as a tie breaker. If you've got several viable options, and one of them matches D&D tradition, use that one. Otherwise ignore it entirely.

Real world mythology and folklore is too limited, frankly. You can start with that, but you'll run out pretty quick.

The design team coming up with new and creative ideas is nice, but the time for new and creative ideas is after other manners of gameplay have been satisfied.

Modern fantasy literature (and movies and other media and yes even [fantasy] anime) should be the starting point. Any time you've read a fantasy novel or watched a fantasy movie and said, "DUDE! I wish I could do that!" was a point where D&D design should have been paying attention.

 

[Pygon]

I chose DnD tradition since so many aspects of it borrows from literature and mythology and makes it something game-able.

I don't really go for the "new and creative ideas" because everyone has their own new ideas, and they are all over the spectrum of widely acceptable. As long as the new ideas are explored enough and considered generally viable, well, then maybe.

DMs are of course welcome to their own homebrew ideas, but those shouldn't be in published works, since in so many cases, they are campaign specific and don't lend themselves well to everyone's general purposes.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Going back to the original source, which in the case of D&D is European myth and folklore, usually works better than looking at secondary or tertiary material such as Tolkien or Brooks.

That said, a good idea can come from anywhere. D&D has always been a fantasy fun house with influences from all over. If Gary had restricted himself to mythology he'd never have created classics like the beholder, rust monster and gelatinous cube.

Admittedly, those monsters are all pretty f---ing stupid, but they are classics.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Screw D&D tradition, a lot of it was stupid.

True.

I don't like the colour-coded dragons either.

 

[drothgery]

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

What the Moogle said.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Use D&D tradition or something 100% new.

 

[WayneLigon]

Modern fantasy, plus real-world myths; there's quite a lot of cross over there, anyway. I'd honestly ignore the so-called 'D&D tradition' since it wasn't designed as a system with any sort of coherance. Bits and tidbits of flavor tossed at random into monster write-ups, decades-old magazine articles and such do not a unified and consistant cosmology make.

But then again, I don't think that the core rules should be in the cosmology business at all. Leave all that for the settings books.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

all of the above (I choose 4 because encompass all)

fantasy is more than a single aspect of it, a new product should build on everithing around and on tradition of the game

our idea of fantasy is modified by the last book, the last film, the new documentary, the old myth we read again with new knowledge

if the game must thrive and live and be strong must be co-construed every time with all there is and all it's gamer have played and dreamed

have fun

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Whatever is the most Metal.

Brad