When I think P&P, I think Disney animated movies.

There's a lot of grim shiznack in Disney flicks, and the characters and their loved ones suffer, and there's always genuinely scary moments, but love conquers all in the end.

Ravenloft and Spelljammer would be perfectly good P&P settings. Especially if the Domain Lords in Ravenloft needed to be redeemed instead of destroyed.

Quote from: Spinachcat;929262There's a lot of grim shiznack in Disney flicks, and the characters and their loved ones suffer, and there's always genuinely scary moments, but love conquers all in the end.

Especially the older Disney films, before they were musicals designed to sell toys (though I still want that Night On Bald Mountain playset).

QuoteRavenloft and Spelljammer would be perfectly good P&P settings. Especially if the Domain Lords in Ravenloft needed to be redeemed instead of destroyed.

Totally fits with the Fabian art as well.

Quote from: Spinachcat;929262Especially if the Domain Lords in Ravenloft needed to be redeemed instead of destroyed.

Yes, nice but not necessary.

A lot of people here are listing death, murder and drama as reasons for disqualifying something from P&P, but I would say it's the meaning and presentation of those events that distinguishes the style.

Death is OK if it's relatively clean and not dwelt upon for more than a few scenes. Alternatively, death can be horrible as long as it happens to evil people, but even then no visible gore, no PTSD for the heroes, and no philosophical angsting about who truly deserves to die and how.

Similarly murder can happen, but if it happens to good people they won't be major characters for us to linger on, or if they are we will get an indication that they went to heaven and/or cosmic justice of some kind will win out in the end. Either way, the surviving good people will almost totally recover from the tragedy and set about righting things. Murdering evil people in honorable confrontation is OK because they are evil, but heroes often won't have to worry about that because some random event (like a falling rock) or poetic justice (like the evildoer getting mauled by his own monster) will usually keep their hands clean.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;929212So? What I'm trying to say is that, in my opinion, the originals are irrelevant to this discussion. RPGs are designed by modern people with modern mindsets, targeting modern audiences. Fairy tales once meant what you are describing, but now, in the public consciousness, they mean this:

http://i.imgur.com/ueUdAcY.png

"The masses got it wrong". "News at eleven", I think you people are calling that?
Also, which masses? Quite a few people here have listened to the original tales for bedtime tories;). These are some different masses you mean, because I pretty much don't know people IRL that wouldn't be able to tell the difference between "original Fairy Tale" and "disneyfied FT" (and most of the exceptions I consider to be stupid people for other reasons as well).

QuoteWhich I would argue is a totally different feel and genre of fantasy than this (high fantasy):

http://i.imgur.com/CJ1x0OY.jpg

Not really, it's not. It's just a different style of drawing it.

QuotePaladins & Princesses can easily encompass and merge both these approaches.

Definitely! They're the same thing, after all:D!

Quote from: CRKrueger;929215Next thing you know I'll move to G+.

If I did make an Indie Storygame, I'd make a Medieval Catholic WitchHunter Cortex Drama Hack using as Values the Seven Deadly Sins vs. the Seven Heavenly Virtues just to see every storygamer across the world lose their collective shit.

Doooo eeeet:D!

Quote from: The Butcher;929220La Morte D'Arthur and the chansons de geste were, for the lack of a better word, metal as fuck and definitely not in the same league as Disney's take on fairy tales. Or Dragonlance, for that matter.

To me, Paladins & Princesses (meaning the Zeitgeist of AD&D 2e) = Medieval (or more accurately, Romantic "Medieval") imagery + a universe operating on a High Fantasy logic of clearly demarcated and militant forces of Good and Evil.

Lots of settings have Medieval imagery in spades and wouldn't strike me as P&P at all; ASoIaF/GoT, WFRP, Greyhawk to name a few.

Thank you:). I was getting tired of explaining the same thing.

Quote from: Simlasa;929247I'm pretty sure it's older than that... I remember reading that it probably originated somewhere in Asia... pre-1500s.

Maybe, but they're known in his version today;).

QuoteIf most people think of the Disney adaptations when they hear 'fairy tales' then that's what fairy tales are to them. They're not 'mistaking' anything, they just don't care. They like what they like.

Not caring doesn't make them right. It makes them wrong and unaware they're wrong.
But people that don't even know the definition of something don't get to decide what that thing is;).


Also, I think it's time I unsubscribe from this thread. I mean, that's the genre of play that interests me the least, why do I keep spending time discussing it:D? It's time to rectify it.
Have fun with the parting words, and possibly with the voting today. I am making popcorn while waiting for the results!

Quote from: AsenRG;929270But people that don't even know the definition of something don't get to decide what that thing is;).

Really? It sure seems to have worked that way for the definition of roleplaying.

The definition of "faerie tale" has changed. The masses aren't wrong, some people are just clinging to an outdated, overly academic definition.

I just re-read the Prydain Chronicles. A lot darker than I remembered them being. Especially the later books in the series.

Mallory is indeed "metal as fuck". I am not sure which version of King Arthur people are reading to think it is all bright and shiny.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;929267Yes, nice but not necessary.

A lot of people here are listing death, murder and drama as reasons for disqualifying something from P&P, but I would say it's the meaning and presentation of those events that distinguishes the style.

Death is OK if it's relatively clean and not dwelt upon for more than a few scenes. Alternatively, death can be horrible as long as it happens to evil people, but even then no visible gore, no PTSD for the heroes, and no philosophical angsting about who truly deserves to die and how.

Similarly murder can happen, but if it happens to good people they won't be major characters for us to linger on, or if they are we will get an indication that they went to heaven and/or cosmic justice of some kind will win out in the end. Either way, the surviving good people will almost totally recover from the tragedy and set about righting things. Murdering evil people in honorable confrontation is OK because they are evil, but heroes often won't have to worry about that because some random event (like a falling rock) or poetic justice (like the evildoer getting mauled by his own monster) will usually keep their hands clean.

I think people can sometimes get carried away describing P&P to mean that nothing bad ever happens, which would make for a pretty dull adventure setting.

Quote from: DavetheLost;929284Mallory is indeed "metal as fuck". I am not sure which version of King Arthur people are reading to think it is all bright and shiny.

TBH I've read hardly any of The King Arthur stories. I was always more interested in Icelandic sagas and the Holy Grail stuff put me off. The ideas I have of it mostly come from old Hollywood versions, where most everyone is clean and pretty, the floors are polished to a high sheen, and a lot of the darker stuff is toned down or missing. Also, Richard Harris singing Camelot...

I wrote:

Quote from: Skarg;929051We've certainly done this with some homebrew GURPS campaigns. Generally it involves interfering gods who interfere to benefit devout followers who stick to their codes, and sometimes sick them on each other's followers.

but then others wrote...

Quote from: AsenRG;929068Fairy tale fantasy would probably be too dark for Paladins and Princesses. No, I'm not being ironic, just thinking of a few well-known fairy tales:).

And I think the point is that not all high fantasy needs to be about Paladins and Princesses, but all Paladins and Princesses games are high fantasy;).

Quote from: PolearmPatrol;929080... Fairytale heroism and goody-two-shoes PCs and all that, right?

Quote from: Simlasa;929099I'm thinking it's a bit old westerns vs. Spaghetti Westerns... some John Wayne (though NOT The Searchers!) movie where rules of behavior are clear and followed by most of the people in town... people actually being as good and upstanding as they'd like to think they are, with a few solid protectors around for when The Other tries to prey on their good inrentions and naivete.
I like those older stories but I'd find it difficult to play that way... at some point I'd be wanting to subvert it, question it, poke it in the eye. Probably fine for a one-shot or short adventure though.

Quote from: The Butcher;929121.... Fairy tales are a poor fit except in their most bowdlerized versions.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;929212So? What I'm trying to say is that, in my opinion, the originals are irrelevant to this discussion. ...

Ok, I take back that "we have done this", if the above is what many of you are referring to.

What we've done has been more akin to The Princess Bride or Stardust or Evangeline Walton's version of The Mabinogion at one end, and closer to Supernatural or Excalibur or like the bloodier parts of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival without the heavy-handed Christian thematic causation, so not so much like Chrétien de Troyes' Quest For The Grail (no blatant causation or literal notes or magic equipment delivered by river) except maybe for the bits about murderous tyrannical knights... done with gritty deadly tactical combat, where if a god is on your side, that means you get a blessed re-roll from time to time, and maybe some healing potions and knowledge of which weapons are good against demons. You win because your PC has good skills & equipment and/or because you made good moves that worked out on the battle mat, not because you were the purest of heart... though the guy struggling with his religious alignment's bless attempts didn't get answered (he didn't get to re-roll when he wanted to). Possibly some help from a fairy queen or dryad you meet, assuming you don't step on the wrong plant and are nice to animals in their presence. Except they want you to rescue the mortal king they've been making love to who was locked someplace where you'll have to try to hack your way through the not-so-benevolent fae who abducted him from her, and if you succeed, there are human assassins also looking for him, to try to wrap up the problem of the missing heir. And the PCs are to roleplay the human experience of real people in a world where this stuff is real and creating deadly conflicts whose outcomes are not certain and are determined largely by tactical decisions and good skills & good combat die-rolls. And no, your PC may die a horrible death at any time if that's what happens to happen. It really is up to you - your faerie godmother is not going to materialize but your faerie girlfriend might if she's an actual character hanging around the party at the time.

So this is more like it:

Quote from: David Johansen;929231Which seems odd to me as it's a movie where a murderous pirate, a Spanish duelist who kills for fun, and a brutal giant, take on a corrupt prince, his torturer, and a professional warmonger, who are granted license by a weak and ineffectual king.

Yes, they step into the expected fairy tale hero roles but they're actually a band of vicious bastards.  Very much like your average band of murder hobos.

La Morte de Arthur features adultery, murderous robber knights, dishonest knights sitting in company with the best knights in Christendom.  The king orders mass infanticide after knocking up his half sister.  Lancelot is mentally unstable and prone to running around naked in the forest, unaware of who he is.  The ladies of the lake are dangerous sorceresses who have their own agendas.  Even TH White deals with the ugly edges of the story.  I often wonder which Arthur people read.

(There are so many versions of the Arthurian tales, which each have various sub-tales which vary in their grimness and their cause & effect.)

Quote from: Spinachcat;929262When I think P&P, I think Disney animated movies.

There's a lot of grim shiznack in Disney flicks, and the characters and their loved ones suffer, and there's always genuinely scary moments, but love conquers all in the end.

Ravenloft and Spelljammer would be perfectly good P&P settings. Especially if the Domain Lords in Ravenloft needed to be redeemed instead of destroyed.

Ya. Disney films were definitely inspiration for at least one of our GM's, but with more human and grey-shaded characters, grisly consequences, sex, and combat (and love) results up in the air and waiting for decisive action and good or bad fortune.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;929267...A lot of people here are listing death, murder and drama as reasons for disqualifying something from P&P, but I would say it's the meaning and presentation of those events that distinguishes the style. ...

Hmm, well what we've done (in the minority of games where we do anything like this at all) is take the forms and themes and some of the magic powers, and used them as settings and/or inspiration for gaming more or less like the way we usually game. So there are paladins and princesses, and the murder and drama may matter to them and their gods and faerie lovers in ways that one would expect from them being the types of gods and faeries and paladins and princesses they are, but that's just roleplaying in character. It's not the absolute true cosmic meaning, and it's not that you aren't allowed to roleplay a grey-shaded human because we're supposed to be on some black&white morality assertion trip. If you fail at following one god's code, you're probably best stopping trying with that god and maybe finding another that matches your nature better. Good thing there's a pantheon and not one righteous patriarch, and that the gods tend to mostly leave alone the people who don't ask for their attention.

But no:

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;929267...Death is OK if it's relatively clean and not dwelt upon for more than a few scenes. Alternatively, death can be horrible as long as it happens to evil people, but even then no visible gore, no PTSD for the heroes, and no philosophical angsting about who truly deserves to die and how.

Similarly murder can happen, but if it happens to good people they won't be major characters for us to linger on, or if they are we will get an indication that they went to heaven and/or cosmic justice of some kind will win out in the end. Either way, the surviving good people will almost totally recover from the tragedy and set about righting things. Murdering evil people in honorable confrontation is OK because they are evil, but heroes often won't have to worry about that because some random event (like a falling rock) or poetic justice (like the evildoer getting mauled by his own monster) will usually keep their hands clean.

No, we don't do this at all. If horrible death isn't a possibility for the good guys, nothing (or much less) is at stake, and as usual, we have a focus on the game and having serious things actually at stake.

That is:

Quote from: Ratman_tf;929305I think people can sometimes get carried away describing P&P to mean that nothing bad ever happens, which would make for a pretty dull adventure setting.

Yes.

And like Asen, this isn't really my favorite style of play, though I've run games with elements of it, and very much enjoyed playing in games run by GM's who were more into it, who did a good job but still stayed on the sides I prefer of the lines mentioned above.

Some observations:

"Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.  Nobody that matters, that is." (Edna St. Vincent Millay)  I think there's an element of that in the Knights in Shining Armour genre.  Death happens, but it's relatively bloodless, doesn't happen to the important people until the very end of the story, and it isn't presented in a gory and lurid fashion.  Paladin (see what I did there?) from Have Gun, Will Travel and Bill Munny from Unforgiven are both Western guns for hire, but they're not the same.

Also, people get The Princess Bride all wrong, probably because Reiner is a comedy director.  The book is both an explicit deconstruction of and homage to the fairy tale/swashbuckling genre.  A lot like Mystery Men and Galaxy Quest.

I suspect people have different dividing lines between genres here, and that people are trying to declare a binary division between high fantasy as in Tolkien and this "Paladins & Princesses" genres. I don't think where one draws a line for binary distinction matters much.

I'd be more interested to hear in the specifics about how to run such games and what they were really like. For example, I once ran a campaign a while ago in the genre of Narnia - where the PCs were children from the real world drawn into a fantasy world. It was mostly systemless, and focused more on exploration and puzzle-solving than combat, as one might expect.

If I were trying to describe this sub-genre I think I'd go with Pre-Raphelite  meets Old  Disney myself. Its a harder genre to game well than you'd think though. I've tried and its one of the few sub-genres I'd like to play rather than run it but getting it to feel right is tricky. Never really managed it to my satisfaction

Also   its helps to have good players, IME Players tend to run cynical and to Knaves and Kobolds   or Dungeons ad Demons or sometimes the others. I've seen net zero P&P games out of dozens of groups

Quote from: 5 Stone Games;929812If I were trying to describe this sub-genre I think I'd go with Pre-Raphelite  meets Old  Disney myself.

  Mix with Hal Foster and Howard Pyle. Season lightly with 80s fantasy media and Nintendo. Serve comfortingly warm.

Quote from: 5 Stone Games;929812If I were trying to describe this sub-genre I think I'd go with Pre-Raphelite  meets Old  Disney myself. Its a harder genre to game well than you'd think though. I've tried and its one of the few sub-genres I'd like to play rather than run it but getting it to feel right is tricky. Never really managed it to my satisfaction

Yep. I think Paladins and Princesses needs it's "Ravenloft" (the module) to provide some kind of hook that players can grab onto.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;929831Mix with Hal Foster and Howard Pyle. Season lightly with 80s fantasy media and Nintendo. Serve comfortingly warm.

MMM. Tasty.

None of my players (mid 20's) know any of these things accept Disney and Nintendo (Zelda I assume?) alas

My old play group was more mature but also way too cynical.

I am trying to form a new gaming group though, maybe i'll see how it goes.