D&D General When did you leave D&D? Why? For what game? And what brought you back?

[Paul Farquhar]

No, that's not true. By the end of the 80s, I'd read almost everything on the appendix N and D&D only resembles anything there in extremely narrow and specific ways. And literally nothing in sword & sorcery, or any other literary subgenre resembles the core activity of older D&D, namely dungeon crawling. The only thing that comes close, and it postdates D&D by many years, is the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

There are plenty of sequences in REH Conan stories that resemble the opening sequence of Raiders. Not a coincidence, since they were amongst the 1930s pulp fiction that inspired Lucas and Spielberg in the first place.

 

[el-remmen]

Between ancillary products like the Tower of Zenopus

Googles furiously. ..

 

[el-remmen]

I saw Conan written up as a progressively more experienced multiclass character.

I wonder where you saw that. My friends and I had a zine around that time and one of them wrote an article using Conan as the example of "a progressively more experienced multiclass character" as a way to explain/get hyped about the 3E rules as soon as we got the PHB after a year of salivating over stuff leaked through this site's precursor.

 

[Desdichado]

The Mines of Moria sequence in Fellowship of the Ring was a huge inspiration for dungeon crawling in D&D.

The mines of Moria sequence is nothing at all like a dungeon crawl with the exception that it's underground. It's a brief travelog that serves as character development and world building, capped by a brief fight and chase sequence. There are no traps. There is no treasure. The characters didn't choose to go there, they were forced to and just went through as quickly and quietly as they could.

People say that a lot, but I disbelieve the illusion.

 

[Desdichado]

There are plenty of sequences in REH Conan stories that resemble the opening sequence of Raiders. Not a coincidence, since they were amongst the 1930s pulp fiction that inspired Lucas and Spielberg in the first place.

I've read every single REH Conan story multiple times and I don't see it. Every time he sneaks around and finds a monster, like Tower of the Elephant or God in the Bowl doesn't make it anything like a dungeon crawl.

 

[Reynard]

The mines of Moria sequence is nothing at all like a dungeon crawl with the exception that it's underground. It's a brief travelog that serves as character development and world building, capped by a brief fight and chase sequence. There are no traps. There is no treasure. The characters didn't choose to go there, they were forced to and just went through as quickly and quietly as they could.

People say that a lot, but I disbelieve the illusion.

I've read every single REH Conan story multiple times and I don't see it. Every time he sneaks around and finds a monster, like Tower of the Elephant or God in the Bowl doesn't make it anything like a dungeon crawl.

I think you are demanding too extreme an adherence in order to make your point. Surely you can see how these things evolved into what we call the D&D dungeon? After all, it did evolve. it was thing that developed over time both before and after the release of OD&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The mines of Moria sequence is nothing at all like a dungeon crawl

There was a dungeon crawl based on the Mines of Moria published in White Dwarf in the early 80s.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I've read every single REH Conan story multiple times and I don't see it. Every time he sneaks around and finds a monster, like Tower of the Elephant or God in the Bowl doesn't make it anything like a dungeon crawl.

I turned Tower of the Elephant God into a D&D dungeon around 7 years ago.

 

[Desdichado]

I think you are demanding too extreme an adherence in order to make your point. Surely you can see how these things evolved into what we call the D&D dungeon? After all, it did evolve. it was thing that developed over time both before and after the release of OD&D.

If that's what you call evolution, that's got to be punctuated equilibrium on crack.

There was a dungeon crawl based on the Mines of Moria published in White Dwarf in the early 80s.

I turned Tower of the Elephant God into a D&D dungeon around 7 years ago.

I fail to see how either of those observations is relevant. I turned The Shadow Over Innesmouth into a D&D scenario, but all that says is that I like The Shadow Over Innesmouth a lot.

 

[pawsplay]

I wonder where you saw that. My friends and I had a zine around that time and one of them wrote an article using Conan as the example of "a progressively more experienced multiclass character" as a way to explain/get hyped about the 3E rules as soon as we got the PHB after a year of salivating over stuff leaked through this site's precursor.

Someone's personal web page. I think I interacted with the author at one point, at random, some years later.