Quote from: Pat on April 01, 2022, 08:10:33 AM

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM

Quote from: Reckall on April 01, 2022, 06:35:12 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.

https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o

"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."

The depth of the research is astounding.

While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.

Tolkien invented humans? Silly interpretations aside, I think you're overstating the degree of congruence. The four races are the iconic ones who made up the Fellowship, but when you get into the specifics, they're very different.

There are certainly Tolkienesque elements in D&D, but I think the tendency is to overstate rather than understate them, simply because Tolkien's work is so widely known and recognizable. Cracked saying "the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork" is ridiculously wrong.

Now this is where it's getting ridiculous. Halflings are straight up copied from Tolkien, and can't come from anywhere else. Elves are also closer to Tolkien Elves than any other imagination of a creature called an Elf before then. Dwarves you could make some argument for being more generic, but they're also quite a lot like Tolkien Dwarves.

No, to suggest that the four core races are anything other than primarily inspired by Tolkien (whether it was reluctantly done by Gary is irrelevant) is wishful thinking - an overreaction to the claim that D&D is just inspired by Tolkien.

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:37:20 AM
Tolkien is also the most obvious especially if you're looking at Basic D&D that most people started with. The makeup of the adventuring party is straight up Tolkien. And while Leiber is the inspiration for the Thief class, it's easy to forgive people for thinking that's from the Hobbit, with Bilbo being a 'Burrahobbit'. The only element that is front and center that really doesn't look like Tolkien is the Cleric class. With a slight tweak, if you dropped it and had the Elf using Cleric spells instead of Magic-User and it would suddenly look more like Tolkien again - with Frodo only able to get healing from the Elves at Rivendell.

You had to read Appendix N to really see where the inspiration all came from, and back in the day the AD&D DMG was supposed to be DM's eyes only. With that Gygax's choice to split the game up like that is also responsible for that misconception.

Well, you left out "Vancian" magic, which is not a small thing.  Also Howard's Conan.

The thief is a mix of Leiber and Vance.  You are forgetting Cugel and some of the lesser characters in the Vance stories.   Plus, you don't have to read Appendix N to see it.  You just have to read the books that are in Appendix N one way or the other.  The trick is that the influence runs more widely and deep, which is I think Armchair Gamer's point.  The more widely and deep you read in Appendix N, the more you see the varied influences.  When the Red Box sets were in the Sears Christmas catalog and D&D was really taking off as a thing, you could still get most of the Appendix N books in actual books stores (back when those were a thing). A lot of people played D&D in the first place because they had read some of those books, not the other way around.

Also see Andre Norton and Poul Anderson, whose influence on D&D is not limited to occasional monsters (Anderson's troll for example) but is less obvious from a tone and feel.  Though some of the more obvious feel connections are tricky, because Anderson wrote them after D&D was a thing.  Anyway, people are interested in myth and fantasy, full stop.  Where that interest begins, varies.

Quote from: Wrath of God on April 01, 2022, 03:16:37 AM
Dunno. I think Golarion

Is another good example of a deflated less interesting universe over time.
So much of the mystery is gone. The world post changes is duller and less interesting.
In addition mystery is a limited quantity.

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 08:29:21 AMNow this is where it's getting ridiculous. Halflings are straight up copied from Tolkien, and can't come from anywhere else. Elves are also closer to Tolkien Elves than any other imagination of a creature called an Elf before then. Dwarves you could make some argument for being more generic, but they're also quite a lot like Tolkien Dwarves.

And the half-orcs, who tend to get played pretty straight as they're seen in The Two Towers and the Scouring of the Shire.

Now that said, while the tropes and trappings of Tolkien's races are clearly the inspiration for the folk as they show up in Greyhawk and other Gygax-source documents, it is notable that in terms of style and thematic atmosphere they come off very differently. To put it as bluntly as possible, Gygax's elves, dwarves and halflings all had a far greater capacity to be outright a$$holes than Tolkien ever attributed to them, at least in his primary stories. That lack of spiritual and moral gravitas is very clearly an injection from the pulp traditions of Lieber, Moorcock and Vance, which were in their turn influenced by the distinct noir sensibilities of their origin period.

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 08:29:21 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 01, 2022, 08:10:33 AM

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:21:57 AM

Quote from: Reckall on April 01, 2022, 06:35:12 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 28, 2022, 10:57:38 AM
What the title suggests. The link below is what CRACKED.com thinks they are, but I've only heard of two of them.

https://www.cracked.com/article_33173_4-tabletop-rpgs-that-are-way-better-than-dd.html?fbclid=IwAR37r6hPMz-RLssG60m-xV2t43GzwSSJfLe-j8FB8PMKUSdQbonHnxtFS3o

"If you think Lord of the Rings sucks, then maybe you've been turned off of D&D entirely, because c'mon, the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork."

The depth of the research is astounding.

While obviously D&D drew inspiration from a number of sources and not just Tolkien, there are also elements that are incredibly obviously taken from Tolkien and couldn't come from anywhere else. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings? That's straight up Tolkien. Tolkien's influence on D&D gets both overplayed and underplayed.

Tolkien invented humans? Silly interpretations aside, I think you're overstating the degree of congruence. The four races are the iconic ones who made up the Fellowship, but when you get into the specifics, they're very different.

There are certainly Tolkienesque elements in D&D, but I think the tendency is to overstate rather than understate them, simply because Tolkien's work is so widely known and recognizable. Cracked saying "the game is a direct rip off of Tolkien's masterwork" is ridiculously wrong.

Now this is where it's getting ridiculous. Halflings are straight up copied from Tolkien, and can't come from anywhere else. Elves are also closer to Tolkien Elves than any other imagination of a creature called an Elf before then. Dwarves you could make some argument for being more generic, but they're also quite a lot like Tolkien Dwarves.

No, to suggest that the four core races are anything other than primarily inspired by Tolkien (whether it was reluctantly done by Gary is irrelevant) is wishful thinking - an overreaction to the claim that D&D is just inspired by Tolkien.

Elves in D&D are short. They cast fireballs. They don't have any real woodland abilities. They can't walk on snow. They're level-capped, instead of being vastly more powerful. Why do AD&D elves have a Con penalty? Why are they resistant to charm? Humans don't include high men with elven ancestry and extended lives. Half-elves don't get to choose whether they're elves or human. Wizards aren't divine spirits. Why do demihumans have infravision?

And that's the core races, which are superficially the most Tolkienesque aspect of the game, barring a few very specific cases like treants and elven cloak and boots. How many swords glow only when goblins are around? How many magic items are based on the Phial of Galadriel? How many herbs can only be used by a true king? Where are the ringwraiths? Even when Tolkien and D&D share some core roots, like wights/barrow wights, there's almost always absolutely nothing about the D&D version that suggests the source was Tolkien.

Even more importantly, the design and structure of the game is nothing like anything in Tolkien. The idea that characters start weak and level up is nothing like Tolkien. The magic system is entirely different. The core premise isn't grand quests or tragedies, but money-grubbing. Even dungeon crawls are nothing like Moria.

There are some elements cribbed from Tolkien, but calling it a "direct rip-off" is completely absurd.

Quote from: Valatar on March 30, 2022, 08:28:36 PM
1. Genesys/Fantasy Flight Star Wars
2. Shadowrun
3. Warhammer Fantasy 2e
4. World of Darkness*

Genesys despite being burdened by custom dice is excellent at doing fairly cinematic play where little stuff doesn't bog down the game and big stuff is appropriately challenging.  Shadowrun, by which I specify 3rd and 4th editions as the sweet spot for the series, is fantastic for having a whole rainbow of character options for how someone wants to play.  WFRP2 throws a brutal gory vibe into the whole fantasy genre that is extremely fun to play.  And WoD, well.  I prefer the original 90s setting but the nWoD ruleset, which helped make fights vastly less of a slog.  I haven't kept up with the versions since then as the property spirals the drain.

Aren't those all official games?   My topic was about games used for those settings, but are not those games. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 01, 2022, 08:37:57 AM

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 07:37:20 AM
Tolkien is also the most obvious especially if you're looking at Basic D&D that most people started with. The makeup of the adventuring party is straight up Tolkien. And while Leiber is the inspiration for the Thief class, it's easy to forgive people for thinking that's from the Hobbit, with Bilbo being a 'Burrahobbit'. The only element that is front and center that really doesn't look like Tolkien is the Cleric class. With a slight tweak, if you dropped it and had the Elf using Cleric spells instead of Magic-User and it would suddenly look more like Tolkien again - with Frodo only able to get healing from the Elves at Rivendell.

You had to read Appendix N to really see where the inspiration all came from, and back in the day the AD&D DMG was supposed to be DM's eyes only. With that Gygax's choice to split the game up like that is also responsible for that misconception.

Well, you left out "Vancian" magic, which is not a small thing.  Also Howard's Conan.

The thief is a mix of Leiber and Vance.  You are forgetting Cugel and some of the lesser characters in the Vance stories.   Plus, you don't have to read Appendix N to see it.  You just have to read the books that are in Appendix N one way or the other.  The trick is that the influence runs more widely and deep, which is I think Armchair Gamer's point.  The more widely and deep you read in Appendix N, the more you see the varied influences.  When the Red Box sets were in the Sears Christmas catalog and D&D was really taking off as a thing, you could still get most of the Appendix N books in actual books stores (back when those were a thing). A lot of people played D&D in the first place because they had read some of those books, not the other way around.

Also see Andre Norton and Poul Anderson, whose influence on D&D is not limited to occasional monsters (Anderson's troll for example) but is less obvious from a tone and feel.  Though some of the more obvious feel connections are tricky, because Anderson wrote them after D&D was a thing.  Anyway, people are interested in myth and fantasy, full stop.  Where that interest begins, varies.

Yes, Anderson is a huge influence. Alignments, paladins, even the trolls. Same with Leiber, Merritt, Burroughs, Vance, and more. One of the points I've been making is that people unfamiliar with those writers but familiar with Tolkien will tend to overplay the Tolkien influences because that's all they see.

D&D primarily gets its inspiration for its gameplay and look and feel from a mix of historical wargaming and the appendix N sources, not Tolkien. D&D in many ways is more sword & sorcery than epic fantasy.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 01, 2022, 04:29:01 AM
The trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.

Yup, that's pretty much what I've done every time I've had the chance to play the setting. I usually start the campaign right as Kalak is getting killed, and the PCs who're slaves take the chance to escape during the commotion.

Quote from: migo on April 01, 2022, 04:58:02 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 31, 2022, 07:06:09 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 31, 2022, 04:37:28 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on March 31, 2022, 03:53:39 PMI look at it the other way: Static settings let you know that nothing your character does matters because the setting just reboots to the start again.

Static settings are designed with 'Here is what is going on, how do you wanna change it?'. More often then not, they are written with YOU being the main changer in mind.
Active setting generally suffer from 'Level 65 God King Is planning an attack on an army of 22 Demon Princes, how will you stand and watch?'. Active settings with assumed proactive PCs just tend to wind down (Dark Sun, Golarion) as the active threats are taken out.

The metaplot destroyed Dark Sun and the Revised & Expanded boxed set was complete crap because of it (plus all the uninspired crap that got added that wasn't part of the original). And I still think that Dark Sun was the greatest D&D setting ever created, but when I say that, I'm talking about the original boxed set and initial supplements that truly expanded on the OG boxed set. Everything that came after was complete crap. Even the novels sucked after the first two or three books (though, I barely remember them now and lost them to a termite infestation so I can't reread em).

What was good with DS Revised is re-adjusting the Strength scores. Percentile Strength really messed with the 5-20 ability score range.

Yeah, Percentile Str was a mess in general, even outside of Dark Sun I hated it. But characters being able to start at 19-20 Str made it even more jarring.

QuoteIs another good example of a deflated less interesting universe over time.
So much of the mystery is gone. The world post changes is duller and less interesting.
In addition mystery is a limited quantity.

Dunno, for me it's generally on simmilar level of massive kitchen-sinkness. And again the virtue of RPG setting is - you decide how much to move with setting evolution.
But then I generally despise published settings with some big myshterhies that even authors of game clearly didn't think through - for me it's anathema of proper worldbuilding.

Quote from: Wrath of God on April 01, 2022, 10:22:35 PMBut then I generally despise published settings with some big myshterhies that even authors of game clearly didn't think through - for me it's anathema of proper worldbuilding.

I don't understand how a mystery that you as a GM and your group gets to resolve, is worse then somesort of pre-planned thing where things just get safer and more boring.
Golarion as a kitchen sink was like a continent of problems. Each country made no sense, but existed to be a catalyst for adventure. Resolve those problems and you just have a patchwork of boring nonsense.

Quote from: Wrath of God on April 01, 2022, 05:58:44 AM

QuoteThe trick with Dark Sun is to set any new campaign just before or just after Kalak's death, and ignore all the published metaplot after that. (Almost) anything a GM comes up with for their home campaign will be better than what was printed. Or at least break even.

Now without any knowledge about DS metaplot, that seems like good solution for any setting - pick moment you prefer.
More editions moving things through - well fine you have more moments to choose.

And since moment you start playing rest of metaplot simply does not matter.

Kalak's death is specifically a good starting point for a new Dark Sun game, because it kicks off a ton of opportunities for adventure with the power vaccum created by the death of a Sorcerrer King.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that. They haven't been funny or insightful for years now.

Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games. I've never even HEARD of Brindlewood Bay (and it sounds more like a craptastic ripoff of Clue, to be honest). Mork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic. And Gloomhaven sounds more like a boardgame than an RPG -- why is it even on the list?

Fuck, I think I lost brain cells parsing this article. Dammit, Jeff...

This thread is tainted now.

Quote from: VengerSatanis on April 02, 2022, 10:37:27 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 28, 2022, 11:28:19 AM
First off, you're linking to Cracked and you should feel bad about that. They haven't been funny or insightful for years now.

Secondly, that list is hilariously stupid. Traveller games can be just as deranged as D&D games. I've never even HEARD of Brindlewood Bay (and it sounds more like a craptastic ripoff of Clue, to be honest). Mork Borg has been covered before, and it ranges from excessively woke to excessively nihilistic. And Gloomhaven sounds more like a boardgame than an RPG -- why is it even on the list?

Fuck, I think I lost brain cells parsing this article. Dammit, Jeff...

This thread is tainted now.

This thread wallows in the taint of VengerSatanis and uses it to shine its dark glossy finish....

"If you: want to play as a mystery solving granny..."

Not even a tiny, tiny bit. No.

GM: "Everyone, roll up a mystery-solving granny."

Me: