Actually, a D&D novel by James Joyce would have been awesome.

LoTR "high culture"? Heh. Okay fair enough I'll try to be more clear, as that is certainly not what I am implying.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkThe D&D I played as a kid involved simple stories about a hardy band of adventurers that cleared the local cemetary from an infestation of giant rats, explored the depths of the local catacombs and defended the town from goblin bandits. If we survived for long, we might find ourselves in truly EPIC battles, fighting a pair of marauding ogres or maybe a troll.
 
And the mechanics? Mostly they could be sumarised as thus: "Roll a d20 and hope for a high number". It's easy to forget how simple a game it was.
 

Preach it.

I'm somewhat bemused by the debates over PCs maxing out at level 30 or level 32 or level 20, because in 25 years of playing we only ever had a handful of PCs reach level 10.

As for crunch, we would never have started playing D&D in its 3e incarnation. As 11-year-olds with an aversion to math and the more technical subjects of school in general, we were fine with 'roll a d20 and hope for a high number'. Heck, we played for a year or two before we could even figure out how AC worked.

So super-kick-ass powergaming built on a chassis of analytical meta-gaming was never going to be a winner with my group.

Quote from: StuartSo if you really were reading "These tropes look inspired by anime." and "I'm not interested in this anime/kung-fu/wuxia influence." then that's somehow racist?

What if the person was interested in influences from other sources?  Why isn't that valid?  :confused:

I don't get what he's saying either.  

When people say "anime style", they don't literally mean every single Japanese cartoon ever made fits into one type of style.  They mean that the vast majority of the stuff they've seen - things like Dragonball Z or Ranma 1/2 or Tenchi-Muyo or Fullmetal Alchemist or whatever - has a certain "over the top" style to them.  Same with a lot (but not all) kung-fu/wuxia movies.

And that while the over-the-top style might appeal to some, it does not to others.  Or simply that they do not find a long-term game in that style to be something they'd enjoy.

There's absolutely nothing racist about not liking the over-the-top style of a particular style of eastern entertainment and not wanting it in your game (just like not wanting to play Pendragon because one finds that particular Western style of fantasy to be boring and stuffy does not make one racist against Europeans).  It's simply a preference for a style of play.  It has nothing to do with race.

Quote from: SettembriniWhich tells us what about you and your little concept of mysogynism?
Yeah, right.

Them darkies, gooks and them vaginas don´t know when they are insulted. Only me, Captain "Manly-WASP" Whitebread can surely pinpoint unfairness and biases when they occur.

Fuck you, Sett.

Quote from: StuartSo if you really were reading "These tropes look inspired by anime." and "I'm not interested in this anime/kung-fu/wuxia influence." then that's somehow racist?

Not at all.

Quote from: StuartWhat if the person was interested in influences from other sources?  Why isn't that valid?  :confused:

It absolutely is.

Quote from: James J.I guess I'll kind of take that as an apology. I guess. You'll have to tell me if it was meant as one.

It was, so far as I really didn't mean to call anyone a racist. I thought some of the prose written might have been faintly so, which I thought was different then actually calling someone a racist. (As an example, it's possible to not be a raving misogynist but still say things that are rooted in a misgynistic framework, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't make someone an awful person, or a misogynist in any kind of total sense, but this stuff still happens. That's a totally different discussion, suffice to say that I'm *not* writing concerns off on the basis of that. I just thought some of them were conveyed poorly. Much like I've been doing here.)

But yeah, I'm sorry for that. I was unclear, and that lack of effort on my part was rude and unfair on my part. Plus, I believe that I was wrong in what I thought people were saying. (So an apology on all counts, really.)

Quote from: James J.And here's the biggest irony for me, personally. Since we/I brought up the Wheel of Time, I'm thinking that could have been cited as a direct influence almost most of all. I mean, if this isn't Lan teaching Rand to a T, I don't know what is....

Absolutely. Of course, when I started playing D&D (with Advanced) I never thought about this stuff. I mean, I had read much of it at that point, but it felt like an oppertunity to create my own worlds withing the framework of D&D's rules, though the rules never seemed a good fit for the stories I read. 3.x was a real breakthrough, in that I felt I could at least tinker with classes, but... the maneuvers really do seem like a good match for Wheel of Time. I bought the rpg book for the setting, and while it had all new magic rules, they left melee the hell alone, much (imo) to their detriment. I mean, all the effort to make new magic, and almost no tinkering with Feats or any of that? The Blademaster class was kind of a dissapointment to me when I finally saw it. (It was a good book overall, though.)

But I think Wheel is a good example of western fantasy with stuff like in Tome o' Battle. I could also point to the efficiently brutal styles of western european swordplay, and the multitude of fencing schools, I suppose.

I think a generic western style fantasy will be the essential core of D&D, but it's going to be a mutant, to say the least. The world I homebrewed is also very western in feel for 3.5 (and true20) (though it's got other lands where the feel is different). We'll have to see how far from the original feel 4th goes, but I think your apprehensions will be borne out at least a little bit.

There's the upshot that I have a hunch that low-level (or 'heroic' without 'cinematic' as it's put) will be covered much longer in the rules then in 3.5. It'll get huge, but I think it's going to start low and stay there, with the caveat that the heros will have decent survivability at those levels.

Quote from: jgantsI don't get what he's saying either.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, so I'm sorry about that. Does that make any more sense? I can explain more specifically perhaps?

QuoteAnd it smelled like exoticism from where I was at.

And yet you see no exoticism in all this grab-bag orientalist pastiche at all . . .

Planks, eyes, I'm sure you've heard the line before.

Quote from: J ArcaneAnd yet you see no exoticism in all this grab-bag orientalist pastiche at all . . .

Planks, eyes, I'm sure you've heard the line before.

He apologized, man, and admitted he might have been in the wrong here.  Give him the benefit of the doubt....

Quote from: J ArcaneAnd yet you see no exoticism in all this grab-bag orientalist pastiche at all . . .

Planks, eyes, I'm sure you've heard the line before.

Actually, I do. But I'm not sure how maneuvers are orientalist pastiche. I took more issues to things like Kindred of the East or Oriental Adventures. At the same time, I view much of typical western fantasy as over-romantized, for whatever that's worth.

I haven't heard 'planks, eyes' before, I don't think. Is that like, "Remove a splinter from someone else's eye/plank in yours?" kinda thing?

((OFf topic: Thanatos02 I just wanted to compliment you on how you've carried yourself.))

Quote from: Thanatos02Fuck you, Sett.

Why? You said, that you know better than [XYZ "minority"] what is good for them than they do themselves.

Settembrini: more ingenuity, fewer boilerplate Junge Union-isms, please.

Quote from: SettembriniWhy? You said, that you know better than [XYZ "minority"] what is good for them than they do themselves.

Well, it's because my white male privilege gives me super-powers.

Quote from: Thanatos02Actually, I do. But I'm not sure how maneuvers are orientalist pastiche. I took more issues to things like Kindred of the East or Oriental Adventures. At the same time, I view much of typical western fantasy as over-romantized, for whatever that's worth.

I haven't heard 'planks, eyes' before, I don't think. Is that like, "Remove a splinter from someone else's eye/plank in yours?" kinda thing?

You got it.  I was feeling smartarsed, and it's early in the morning.

Look, I have no problem with anime.  I have no problem with Asian cultures.  Quite the polar opposite in fact.  Hell, as a cook, I'm still more comfortable with Asian foods than I am with American food.

I do have a problem with them being in D&D.  D&D is a Western fantasy game.  It's bad fantasy novels, and old fairy stories, and that's what I LIKE about it.  It's the comfort food of gaming.  

Tony Bourdain talks a lot about how what chefs crave after they've got off a long night of work messing with microgreens and squeeze bottles and plating that looks like abstract art, what they really crave is the simple, homecooked comfort food.

That's what D&D is to me.  It doesn't need to be tarted up with a grab-bag of poorly understood foreign stereotypes, because that's not what it's about, or supposed to be about, any more than my biscuits and gravy need imported Spanish ham and a shaved white truffle garnish.

When I want to play something with an Asian flair, I'll pick up sometihng that really understands and displays that culture.  I'll grab Usagi Yojimbo, or Sengoku, or Qin.  

D&D is schlock fantasy, and that's what it's supposed to be.  It's comfortable, it's instantly recognizeable to basically anyone who's grown up with fairy stories about knights and dragons, and that is it's greatest strength.  

That article doesn't get it, and if that is the attitude that's being taken regarding 4e, then I have a damn right to be concerned, just as I'd be concerned if my favorite local diner decided to go upscale and start putting microgreens on the hashbrowns.

I can totally understand your concerns on the matter, then. Hopefully, D&D 4 will make it easy and natural (and fun) to play a standard western fantasy game.