I see a lot of comments about "traditional" fantasy roleplaying, and while I get the impression different people often mean different things by it, I've tried to sort out what it is people are complaining about, and why its absence is a problem.

Take the "archetypal character" sort of traditional discussed recently. Is there a great deal of value to be had out of playing standard fantasy archetypes, the disowned ranger, the bearded wizard, the halfling thief, ad nauseum? What sort of game do you get out of this, and why do you enjoy it so much?

Another way "traditional" is used indicates a desire to return to a simpler style of play, one in which the challenges raised are, for instance, traps and monsters, and not moral ambiguities and political conflicts. I've played very little of games which are "traditional" in this sense, but I don't see how you'd get much out of it for a very long time; after all, how many monsters can you kill for treasure before it gets a little, you know, same-ish? At that point, might you not as well just be playing computer games with the same friends? [Which is what we do when the overwhelming urge to just kill shit without serious plot or thought comes along.]

I'm trying to ask the questions in the most value-neutral way I can, because I won't learn anything if people just show up and start yelling. I really would like to know why these particular styles of gaming are valued, because currently, I do not.

I would also like to understand why "traditional" is held to be a value-positive term: I see it used most often to mean, "The Right Way," with all "new" ways of playing being not just undesirable, but really shitty. To me, a game full of dungeon crawls and monster-slaying is personally uninteresting, but I don't really think less of the person who plays that game; why is it that someone who plays a "nontraditional" game is not just different, but a son of a bitch who needs to be taught a lesson? [I guess that boils down to the "Why do people try to convince others that games suck?" question.]

What is "traditional?" Why is "traditional" better, without discussion of any other issues, than nontraditional? Or do you just happen to like it more?

I don't know that traditional is better than non-traditional.  But it's a cool thing that many people would like to emulate in their games.

To the extent that rules-sets make that hard to do (which is a very debateable point, but setting that aside...) that would be a loss, same as if games made it hard to play (say) comedy or romance in them.

Does that make sense?

Traditional fantasy is easy to grok for participants; just about everyone knows the standard tropes.

I think a lot of the complaints you're reading here on this site with regard to trad fantasy has to do specifically with D&D.  Up through 3.5e (even though I don't play it or like it very much, I will admit it's not as far removed from the D&D of olde as some say it is), D&D has been THE big trad fantasy game.  Traditional fantasy has long been a part of D&D's identity (especially earlier editions, as the artwork and advertising was securely in the traditional mode...which explains a lot of the hate for 2e and 3e as they explored different modes of fantasy and reflected it in their artwork and advertising).  In the old days if you wanted something more exotic, you played RuneQuest, EPT, etc.

A lot of what you're seeing here and on sites like Dragonsfoot is a reaction against those who are apparently trying to make D&D into something other than a traditional fantasy game.

I'm sympathetic to these feelings, by the way.  D&D will always be, to me, the "traditional" fantasy game.  I don't understand why those who want the game to be more like, say, Exalted don't just play Exalted.

Quote from: TonyLBI don't know that traditional is better than non-traditional.  But it's a cool thing that many people would like to emulate in their games.

To the extent that rules-sets make that hard to do (which is a very debateable point, but setting that aside...) that would be a loss, same as if games made it hard to play (say) comedy or romance in them.

Does that make sense?

Nice to see you back, Tony.

-clash

I think that the issue really is that the games rules as written might not allow the variety of games that would include the tradditional fantasy.
For me tradditional fantasy would be the stuff you read in novels so everything from LoTR through to the Lies of Locke Lamora. I guess its a lower level of power and a certain grittyness. The opposite would be that which you find in the CRPGs which although seeming to contain much of the same essence are infact more about High Power, extra-cool and high impact.

The second division you mention the traddional type of dungeon crawl versus more complex and subtle games is something I haven't even considered before. I mean we gave up on dungeon crawls as a game idea after about the 5th time we tried it 'cos it does get repetitive. I don't think many players would like a game that restricted you to that way of playing and I think in this regard 4e woudl be a great system if that was the type of game you were into.

I think that if 4e D&D doesn't allow you to replicate the type of fantasy that you want to play its moving away from it's original market. I always felt that the strength of D&D, and why we always came back to it after trying MERP or RQ, or Whatever, was that you could do anything in the system that was done in your favourite fantasy novel. This is certainly not true of all systems. You wouldn't attempt to run a Star Wars games with a Dark Heresy ruleset. Yes you could do it, you could manipulate the various components and house rule stuff but it just wouldn't feel right. In the same way if 4e adopts an esthetic, from art through to the rule system and structure, that promotes what I would call a MMO type of game, but others would perhaps correctly call it an Encounters based game, one in which feats and special powers and the like replace skills and roleplaying as the main focus, then I think the more gritty less 'dungeonpunk' games will be harder to pull off.
I don't know about you but I don't really see Gandalf chucking out a magic missile each round of combat or the Grey Mouser using his charisma to shift the troll back 2 squares or Galahad using a Mark ability etc ... I know this is all doable and you can interpret each of the powers to fit how you play but the whole structure of the thing the design, the artwork (that we have seen) is pushing you toward a different type of game.

The fairy tales of my youth had elves and witches, not half-dragons and psionicists.  That's why traditional fantasy is still important.  It resonates with the bedrock of our collective imagination.  Branching out to new things is also important, but sometimes you need to touch base with where you came from.

Well, Engine, you've covered a couple different definitions for traditional. The reasons for digging one may not be the same as the reasons for another.

Traditional in the sense of "archetypal character"--actually this could be broadened to include types of enemies, style of magic and its general role in the gameworld, etc. I think the main attraction here is familiarity as a building block. Players know roughly how things work at a low level, so it's easier for them to focus on other goals without having to spend a lot of time learning how the world works. This is a similar attraction to that of a favorite rules set. (Now, granted that "traditional" often means more "like D&D" than "like fantasy literature". But since most fantasy gamers started with D&D, it's not an issue.)

Another attraction is simply enjoying the texture of the "traditional" game. I should mention that I'm a bit of a dissenter here--not a huge fan of "D&D" fantasy beyond the familiarity aspect for gamers. Still, the distance from "D&D fantasy" to the stuff I prefer (historical, S&S, "genuinely traditional" fantasy are main ones) isn't that far.

There may be other reasons for liking "traditional" in the first sense, but I'll leave those to others. For people whose reasons are outlined above, the problems with "non-traditional" include, first, a steep learning curve, and second, the fact that "non-traditional" often takes you even farther from your preferred "feel". I don't really know what exactly a Tiefling is, but it doesn't sound like something from S&S or Arthurian fantasy, certainly not as a protagonist. In fact "non-traditional" is often weird seemingly for the sake of being weird, flashy and not particularly deep in itself. So the traditionalist shies away partly because it may be a warning sign.

The second sense of traditional may be attractive simply because people enjoy the type of activity. It's not the fictional content so much as the game activity--solving puzzles, exploring and analyzing a location, managing resources, tactical maneuver, etc. You're right that there's a similarity to video games, but video games lack the easy flexibility of tabletop gaming, not to mention the sociability; they also require additional skills that people may not enjoy exercising.

I am not a computer nor have the ability to spew out infinite information about my setting (although it seems I can come close at times ;-) ). By relying on standard tropes my players can correctly assume many things about my setting. This makes the games more accessible and more importantly FUN for them.

This is the same reason I use real names for gods, insitutions, and ranks. Set, Mitra, Thoth, Nephthys, etc. While my Set isn't Egypt's Set the stereotypes that are associated with the name are correct for the causal knowledge of the everyman in my world. "Oh Set evil god" "Oh Thoth God of Knowledge".

Later as they get into my campaign they can learn why my Set is not like Egypt's Set or Howard's Set, or Marvel Comic's Set.

If you respect the tropes and understand where they come from, like Tolkein did, then you will find they have a lot more utility and depth then stuff that totally made up.

For example the magligned Gnomes that are not in 4th edition. Where did Gygax get them? What legends had them, what can we use from folklore to make them interesting. Of course Dragonlance had the first instance of tinker Gnomes that seemed to forever mark the Gnomes much like Tasselhof's kender-halflings. But if that concept grew stale then the older legends should have been looked at for inspiration for the new Gnome rather than jettison them all together.

Rob Conley

Quote from: Elliot WilenWell, Engine, you've covered a couple different definitions for traditional. The reasons for digging one may not be the same as the reasons for another.

I was just about to post this. I've never really felt that out-of-the-box D&D (and that's what spurred this thread, right?) did "traditional" literary fantasy that well. It was aimed at little slices of it but mostly it was wearing some thrown on, ill-fitting dark paradoy of literary fantasy. Like an Edgar Suit. Not entirely surprising given the history of D&D.  I found it a bit easier with 3e (and 3e's version of multiclassing, if anything, helped) but still.... :shrug:

Quote from: DwightI've never really felt that out-of-the-box D&D...did "traditional" literary fantasy that well.

Keeping a couple things in mind - I don't play traditional fantasy, and I don't like Tolkein particularly much - does/did &D keep you from being able to play traditional literary fantasy, or did it just encourage a different style of play?

I've found D&D bends easily to my will. The rules almost never have an exact fit for who I want to play and how, but they stretch very easily. Maybe it's my forgiving GM - "You want to do what? Are there any rules for that? Well, let's go play darts and find a way to make it fit." - but I've never gotten the impression that D&D prevented me from doing something, only that it maybe didn't have rules to precisely cover it [particularly, as you note, out-of-box, where you don't have any real rules for, say, being undead].

My question, then, is one of intended emphasis: could you still press traditional literary fantasy out of D&D with some difficulty, or did it somehow make that impossible? I would have thought it'd be a close fit, actually, but I probably only think that because D&D is closer to traditional than it is to how I play.

Quote from: Enginedoes/did &D keep you from being able to play traditional literary fantasy, or did it just encourage a different style of play?

Playing something recognizable as D&D and "traditional" fantasy simply doesn't mix IMO. The biggest problem, front and center, is magic. D&D is suppositly "Vancian" but IMO it doesn't even convey that.

It's a total rewrite to get there.

I don't really dig trad fantasy all that much - don't get me started on elves & dwarves

A lot of it has to do with the "fantasy" I read while growing up and the stuff I read now. M.John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Le Guinn...

BECMI is what I consider D&D the rest of the editions, I consider generic systems which I use to create non-trad games.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: DwightPlaying something recognizable as D&D and "traditional" fantasy simply doesn't mix IMO. The biggest problem, front and center, is magic. D&D is suppositly "Vancian" but IMO it doesn't even convey that.

It's a total rewrite to get there.

Ah, now that's not something I'd thought of. D&D's magic system would definitely make traditional literary fantasy extremely difficult! Some sort of utter replacement mechanic would need to be used, and it would need to depend heavily on your inspiration. I would be very interested in seeing such a system, but would be horrified to have to create it.

I don't think "vancian magic" (and I use the term loosely, as D&D magic resembles zelazny more than vance these day) is a meaningful distinction by which to conclude that D&D does not or cannot replicate traditional fantasy. Some fantasy has very explicit rules about how magic operates, and invariably most of those won't match D&D. But would it be out of place in a novel or story? No, I don't really think so. I think enough are suitably vague about how magic operates that even if D&D style magic was at work, you'd never know it.

Quote from: jrientsThe fairy tales of my youth had elves and witches, not half-dragons and psionicists.  That's why traditional fantasy is still important.  It resonates with the bedrock of our collective imagination.  Branching out to new things is also important, but sometimes you need to touch base with where you came from.

While I certainly can see where you're coming from-and in part agree with you... Well actually I guess I'd actually say we completely agree, but we're just saying it in two different fashions.

I too look to the original source materials for inspiration, which I guess does make them important to at least me.