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General Tabletop Discussion
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Where's the American Fantasy RPG?
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<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 8094664" data-attributes="member: 694"><p>In their day, Baum's "expanded universe" (Oz and its surrounding fairy-countries) were called "wonder-tales" and "the first American fairy-tales." They existed before the fantasy genre as we know it was a thing, and they didn't really influence it much. Modern fantasy can probably trace more a more direct line of descent from John Carter of Mars than Dorothy Gale of Kansas.</p><p></p><p>That said, Oz is most definitely one of the foundational, genre-defining pieces of fantastical Americana. You almost can't do distinctly American fantasy without at least referencing it. For my part, I grew up on Oz, so this just natural to me. I read Oz before I read Narnia and years before I ever even looked at Tolkien. (To the point where, in the 4th grade, when I finally did pick up a copy of <em>The Hobbit, </em>I was utterly baffled by the beginning of the story and Tolkien's explanation of how Hobbits were different from "the bearded Dwarves." Even as I read through the book and started to get a proper handle on Middle-Earth, it still seemed to me back then that Tolkien's Dwarves and Goblins were just respectively more-good and more-evil takes on Baum's Nomes.)</p><p></p><p>These days, my campaigns are chock full of deliberate and obvious Oz-references. My <em>Engines & Empires</em> game has stats for kalidahs, flying monkeys, and such right there in the monster section. (I've used kalidahs in place of owlbears for as long as I can remember.) Its campaign setting, <em>World of Gaia,</em> has full rules for playing as magically-animated straw men and tin men (and patchwork girls and wooden pumpkin-heads <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />), as well as windup clockwork men. But then, it helps that my default mode is "steampunk plus magic," so my games always feel like something of a mash-up among Baum, Lewis, Tolkien, Victorian literature, <em>The Wild Wild West</em>, and a healthy helping of the Southern Gothic esthetic.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jack Daniel, post: 8094664, member: 694"] In their day, Baum's "expanded universe" (Oz and its surrounding fairy-countries) were called "wonder-tales" and "the first American fairy-tales." They existed before the fantasy genre as we know it was a thing, and they didn't really influence it much. Modern fantasy can probably trace more a more direct line of descent from John Carter of Mars than Dorothy Gale of Kansas. That said, Oz is most definitely one of the foundational, genre-defining pieces of fantastical Americana. You almost can't do distinctly American fantasy without at least referencing it. For my part, I grew up on Oz, so this just natural to me. I read Oz before I read Narnia and years before I ever even looked at Tolkien. (To the point where, in the 4th grade, when I finally did pick up a copy of [I]The Hobbit, [/I]I was utterly baffled by the beginning of the story and Tolkien's explanation of how Hobbits were different from "the bearded Dwarves." Even as I read through the book and started to get a proper handle on Middle-Earth, it still seemed to me back then that Tolkien's Dwarves and Goblins were just respectively more-good and more-evil takes on Baum's Nomes.) These days, my campaigns are chock full of deliberate and obvious Oz-references. My [I]Engines & Empires[/I] game has stats for kalidahs, flying monkeys, and such right there in the monster section. (I've used kalidahs in place of owlbears for as long as I can remember.) Its campaign setting, [I]World of Gaia,[/I] has full rules for playing as magically-animated straw men and tin men (and patchwork girls and wooden pumpkin-heads :D), as well as windup clockwork men. But then, it helps that my default mode is "steampunk plus magic," so my games always feel like something of a mash-up among Baum, Lewis, Tolkien, Victorian literature, [I]The Wild Wild West[/I], and a healthy helping of the Southern Gothic esthetic. [/QUOTE]
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