Who are Howard and Leiber?

[argo]

I could be wrong, but was Red Sonja actually in any of Howard's Conan work or did she come latter in the 'shared' universe?

She was a Howard creation but not as part of the Hyborian age. The story where he created her Howard has her as an adventurer in semi-historical Turkey, circa 1400 IIRC. It was later that other authors moved the character to the Hyborian age.

Actually Howard wrote a lot of "historical fiction", it was the genre that got him into fantasy writting in the first place. He only created the Hyborian age for Conan because he got tired of people nitpicking the historical inaccuracies in his stories. Inventing a fictional proto-history let him use the historical tropes he wanted to without having to sweat the details. Thus some Conan stories read like Arabian Nights while others read like a Wild West yarn.

 

[S'mon]

Leiber and Howard both have strong female characters IMO - Nemia of the Dusk & the Eyes of Ogo are very different from Belit & Red Sonja, but they're definitely strong women! They also have helpless damsels, though moreso in Howard. Strong but scary females were always a major theme in Leiber; Howard had weak helpless females as well as butt-kicking warriors, and some apparently helpless but actually wily & ingenious females. Neither should offend any but the most sensitive sensibilities.

 

[Hussar]

*snip*
My 'handwave', which for some reason you refuse to accept, is that magic per se is not as stable and predictable or as common as implied by the PHB, that PHB magic is only for PCs and a few exceptional NPCs. OTOH I agree with your view that stable powerful kingdoms will attempt to control and use this small number of magic-users.

Here's why I refuse to accept the whole 1% number. The only justification for that number is because, as you said, classes should only apply to exceptional people - PC's and NPC's. So, to phrase it another way, classes should only apply to people who are important to the adventure. I do not accept that as a logical basis. Saying that classes should only apply for narrative reasons is hardly a basis for a logical assumption.

Add to this the fact that many of the published material routinely ignored this number as well. Look at modules like Cult of the Reptile God, Hommlet, heck, even Keep on the Borderlands, and you see classes far in excess of 1%. Even NPC's that had little reason for having classes, like bartenders or farmers, were routinely fighters or whatnot.

Plus, if you run with this 1% assumption, then the likelyhood of any adventuring group coming together becomes very, very small. I'm no math wiz, but, even I know that the chances of 6 people who all come from 1% of the population, coming together in the same place and the same time AND all having similar enough outlooks to want to work together is pretty bloody slight.


I have a problem with trying to use a narrative assumption to justify realism in a game. The 1% number isn't supported by the mechanics whatsoever. Hrmm, the only reason Joe can't become a mage is because he's surplus to needs for the plot? How is that realistic? If PC classes were meant to only represent 1% of the population, they should have been much more difficult to become. None of the 4 base classes require more than a 9 in a base stat. Mechanically, there is no reason why classes shouldn't be more popular.

That's why I refuse to accept the handwave. The assumption of only 1% of the population having a class has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with narrative.

 

[The Shaman]

The assumption of only 1% of the population having a class has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with narrative.

If the assumption is that only stats determine entry into a class, then this might be true. However, I don't think that's any more "realistic" than the 1% blanket - the potential to be able to do something doesn't automatically translate into the ability to do it.

From an entirely practical standpoint, wizards (for example) could be rare because entry requirements for a mage guild, or finding a mentor, or public resentment of wizards, or the laws of the land, or social pressure to be a warrior, steer people with the potential to become wizards away from the profession. There are dozens of in-game reasons why wizards (and other adventuring, as opposed to NPC) classes are rare, even as low as 1%.

Hussar, I like to create worlds that "make sense," too, but I also know that "logic" and "realism" are often overused. Looking at the incredible variety of social constructs that exist in our own world, some of them seemingly "illogical" to our modern, usually Western way of thinking, I think just about anything can be reasonably justified in a fantasy world if the GM cares to do so. Too often gamers use logic and realism to argue that there is only one possible outcome or implication, when a look at how people conduct themselves in the world around us suggests that that is far from true.

 

[S'mon]

The assumption of only 1% of the population having a class has nothing to do with realism...

*shrug* uh, yeah... :\ it's just a workable assumption to create a workable campaign world that looks vaguely pseudo-medieval.

 

[tetsujin28]

I do not accept that as a logical basis. Saying that classes should only apply for narrative reasons is hardly a basis for a logical assumption.

Sure it is: the logical assumption that classes exist for narrative reasons. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it illogical.

 

[Hussar]

Sure it is: the logical assumption that classes exist for narrative reasons. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it illogical.

I hadn't actually thought of it like that. If classes only exist for narrative reasons, then narrative restrictions apply. The problem I see with that is there is very little to support the idea that classes only exist for narrative reasons other than the idea that if you allow classes to apply to everyone, then the baseline restrictions don't make sense. It's a circular arguement.

Classes are narrative because the restrictions on classes are narrative. The restrictions on classes are narrative because the existence of classes is narrative. I got accused of using tautologies early on.

S'mon, my point has always been, and will remain, that with the existence of stable magic and a fantasy assortment of races/creatures, you CANNOT have a medieval society such as seen in Howard or Tolkein. Only by having magic incredibly rare, unstable and unpredictable, can you create a Tolkeinesque world. DnD magic is not unstable or unpredictable. In fact, it's entirely predictable. Using DnD magic, you cannot create a Tolkeinesque world without making some very large and unrealistic assumptions.

Back to the original topic. Recent authors have, by and large, embraced what I've just said. Rowlings is but one example. The Bartemaeus series and the Amber Spyglass books also root themselves in the idea that magic is predictable. Modern fantasy has moved away from the idea that magic is this unknowable force a la Lovecraft, to a pseudo-science where magic is integrated into the society. This is not a bad thing and, IMO, something that is an outgrowth of DnD itself.

The popularity of DnD has driven the rise of Fantasy over the past couple of decades. Prior to about 1975, you won't find a New York Times bestseller from the fantasy genre (with a couple of possible exceptions). Now, names like Salvatore and of course Rowlings, regularly make appearances. This is directly driven from DnD. And the fantasy of the past couple of decades has largely been inspired by DnD - predictable magic that can be used as a tool rather than unknowable rites performed for inscrutable reasons.

 

[The Shaman]

S'mon, my point has always been, and will remain, that with the existence of stable magic and a fantasy assortment of races/creatures, you CANNOT have a medieval society such as seen in Howard or Tolkein. Only by having magic incredibly rare, unstable and unpredictable, can you create a Tolkeinesque world. DnD magic is not unstable or unpredictable. In fact, it's entirely predictable. Using DnD magic, you cannot create a Tolkeinesque world without making some very large and unrealistic assumptions.

Hussar, I'm really lost with respect to how you're defining "tolkienesque." (BTW, the "i" goes before the "e". )

Magic in Middle-earth is incredibly powerful and no less predictable than that of many D&D spells. That fact that there isn't a lot of flashy spell-casting (though there is certainly some) is a direct consequence of its power, not the lack thereof. It's understood that the power of magic may be a corrupting influence (in the same vein as temporal power) and that it draws the attention of the forces of darkness (divination, anyone?), so it is used circumspectly.

It's really not all that rare, either - magic items pop up throughout the War of the Ring, and I would go so far as to call it abundant in earlier ages (considering for example the magic swords in the barrows).

The popularity of DnD has driven the rise of Fantasy over the past couple of decades. Prior to about 1975, you won't find a New York Times bestseller from the fantasy genre (with a couple of possible exceptions).

This is an interesting premise for which I would like to see other factors considered, such as how the marketing and retailing of books of all sorts and fantasy in particular has changed in the same time-period, or how authors approach fantasy as a writing genre. As it stands, I feel it may be important to remind you that correlation is not causation.

Now, names like Salvatore and of course Rowlings, regularly make appearances. This is directly driven from DnD. And the fantasy of the past couple of decades has largely been inspired by DnD - predictable magic that can be used as a tool rather than unknowable rites performed for inscrutable reasons.

I was inspired by this thread to take a stroll through the fantasy section of a B&N over the weekend, to check out some of the authors mentioned here.

I would suggest that the correlation noted above could be explained by the fact that fantasy authors have discovered what popular authors like Danielle Steele and Sydney Sheldon discovered a long time ago, that turning out light-weight page-turners appeals to a broader audience than dense novels with challenging themes. The fact that this work is popular doesn't really sway me to the merits of relying on more contemporary authors for building a gaming experience.

 

[Hussar]

By Tolkienesque, I would say, low magic abilities on the part of the protagonists, magical items exist but are fairly rare - sure the Fellowship had a fair bit of loot, but, looking at the Hobbit, there isn't all that much. Monsters are fairly rare (while yes, there's orcs and goblins, actual MONSTERS aren't all that common). That's what Tolkienesque means to me. None of that applies to a DnD setting where monsters are around nearly every corner, magical abilities are not rare in the protagonists - let's face it the standard party of 3 fighters, cleric, wizard and thief means that 1/3 of the party is a spellcaster - and magical items aren't all that rare judging by published modules.

As far as quantity over quality goes, well, I'm willing to stack up the best of the 21st centuries fantasy authors against Howard any day of the week. Let's face it, great prose Howard is not. I'll see your Howard and raise you a Mercedes Lackey, or CJ Cherryh or Donaldson or Pratchett. The authors of today are most certainly not lacking in skill or creativity. Yes, there are crap authors, but, then again, that's always been true. For every Howard or Tolkien, there's a hundred other short story authors lying forgotten in the pages of the pulp books.

You're saying that DnD has had no effect on the popularity of fantasy as a genre. That the rise in popularity of DND and other RPG's has had no effect on Fantasy as a genre. Well, I'd point to R.A Salvatore and Weiss and Hickman to show the mistake of that. Best selling authors whose work has been derived straight from DnD. Would Dragonlance have been half as popular if it was published in the 60's? I don't think so. Would a certain dual wielding DROW made the best sellers list without DND? Not a chance. No one would even know what a drow is without DnD.

Like I said some time ago, it's a virtuous circle. Elements from fantasy were drawn together to make DND. DnD's rise has fueled the rise in the fantasy genre. The rise in the fantasy genre has given rise to the idea that not every setting is required to be Middle Earth or Hyboria in order to be fantasy. That has been ported back into DnD. It goes around and around. The ideas get bashed about, rewritten, revised and the meme passed back, all buffed and shiny.

Is DnD based on the early "Golden Age" fantasy works? Of course. There's no denying it. Does that mean that we should lock DnD into the same forms and ignore the wealth of information brought out by new fantasy authors? Of course not. Both the genre and the game evolve as new ideas and concepts are explored. You can't ever really go back.

It's no longer enough to crank out a dungeon crawl in the middle of the wilderness for no reason other than to give the players something to kill. Dungeons need to have an ecology to increase verisimilitude. Look at the "Worst Modules" thread bouncing around and you'll see people thinking exactly that. Twenty years ago, you didn't need a reason for that orc in the 10 foot room guarding a chest. No one cared. We do now. Because, as gamers, we've evolved and changed, and, well, become considerably more sophisticated. That's an element that has been reflected in fantasy as well. It's not enough just to plunk a serpent cult in the middle of the mountains. Now you need to explore where they get their food and why the heck they are there and not on some comfortable beach somewhere.

I for one, would never want to go back to the days when the DM could simple wave away any sort of nod towards realism and just plunk down 10 different kinds of humanoids in the middle of a ravine with nothing to eat, a half days walk from a fortress. As a DM, I would never want to present this to my players without a pretty good explanation.

 

[S'mon]

S'mon, my point has always been, and will remain, that with the existence of stable magic and a fantasy assortment of races/creatures, you CANNOT have a medieval society such as seen in Howard or Tolkein. Only by having magic incredibly rare, unstable and unpredictable, can you create a Tolkeinesque world. DnD magic is not unstable or unpredictable. In fact, it's entirely predictable. Using DnD magic, you cannot create a Tolkeinesque world without making some very large and unrealistic assumptions.

"Very large and unrealistic assumptions"? - you mean the assumption that magic is not as common in the world at large as it is in the environment experienced by the PCs? I have no problem with that - low level scenarios are set in unusual borderland areas where civilisation meets savagery and you have to be tough to survive. High level scenarios are set amongst the world's movers & shakers, involving quests that will become the stuff of future legends.

I think a fundamental disconnect here is that I am the sort of GM who first decides the kind of campaign world I want, with little or no reference to the specific ruleset. In my case my campaign world derives from Leiber, Howard, a lot of Moorcock and some Tolkien, and very little from modern D&D. I don't see the rules as a world-building tool. As a wise sage said, "rules are for players" - the rules are there to help the players interact with the milieu, not to define that milieu. Hence I take the opposite approach from that advocated by Monte Cook in the 3.0 DMG. If I need to change the rules and the baseline D&D assumptions to get the milieu I want, I change those, not the setting. I've used different rules for the same setting depending on the ruleset I'm using (edit: for the kind of game I want to run - swords & sorcery PBEM, dungeon crawl, skirmish wargame etc), and an NPC in my setting will stay the same person whatever ruleset. If the D&D ruleset can't properly define a Heavenly Mountains Guardian (a sort of martial sorceress-monk) I'll do an approximation within the D&D ruleset, but only to the extent needed for that NPC to interact with D&D-statted PCs. Stuff doesn't need to be defined in the ruleset to exist in the campaign world, it only needs to be defined to the extent necessary to interact with the PCs.

Once this is accepted, logic problems re the particular ruleset largely disappear.