This about sums it up.

I wouldn't have picked Raistlin as the opposite of a self-involved narcissist.

Considering most of important mythological heroes are half-gods - I take doubt.jpg here.
Adventurers of early D&D strikes me more like a Conan - and Conan is fundamentally anti-mythological libertarian hero.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 06, 2021, 06:13:56 PM
Considering most of important mythological heroes are half-gods - I take doubt.jpg here.
Adventurers of early D&D strikes me more like a Conan - and Conan is fundamentally anti-mythological libertarian hero.

I don't recall Hercules being covered in three tonnes of seizure-inducing CGI.

Quote from: Pat on February 06, 2021, 03:59:37 PM
I wouldn't have picked Raistlin as the opposite of a self-involved narcissist.

   Picking Dragonlance for the 'Embrace Tradition' side of the meme is replete with ironies.

   1. A good chunk of the OSR points to Dragonlance as where things went wrong with D&D, as I understand it;
   2. Dragonlance as it evolved in the Weis & Hickman novels is very much amenable to the progressive mood and tone.

Yeah, I think Raistlin is a good example of a self-involved narcissist. More generally, being a self-involved narcissist isn't incompatible with myth. Heck, Narcissus himself is a myth.

Then again, I'm not clear how different Raistlin is from early D&D characters like Mordenkainen, Bigby, and so forth. They didn't have novels written about them, but the descriptions of them often sound pretty snowflake-y to me. Take this description of how Mordenkainen and Bigby developed:

QuoteBigby was created by Rob Kuntz as a low-level non-player character evil wizard in the early dungeons of Greyhawk in 1973. Gary Gygax's character, the wizard Mordenkainen, encountered Bigby. The two wizards engaged in combat; Mordenkainen managed to subdue Bigby using a charm spell, and forced Bigby to become his servant. Kuntz ruled that Bigby would be Mordenkainen's servant as long as he remained under the charm spell, but until Gygax, through roleplaying, had won Bigby's loyalty, the evil wizard would remain a non-player character under Kuntz's control. After a long time and several adventures, Mordenkainen managed to convince Bigby to leave his evil ways behind, and Kuntz ruled that it was safe to remove the charm spell, since Bigby had changed from an enemy to a loyal henchman; therefore Gygax could use Bigby as a player character. For a time after this, Kuntz ruled that all the names of Mordenkainen's future henchmen had to rhyme with Bigby. This resulted in Zigby the dwarf; Rigby the cleric; Sigby Griggbyson the fighter; Bigby's apprentice, Nigby; and Digby, who eventually replaced Bigby as Mordenkainen's new apprentice.

Thereafter, Gygax developed Bigby into a powerful wizard second only to Mordenkainen, and eventually Bigby became one of the original members of Gygax's Circle of Eight, a group of adventurers made up of eight of Gygax's own characters.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greyhawk_characters#B

I know if I had a PC of mine be the most powerful wizard in the world, people would think I was being self-involved.

How many D&D settings have major NPCs who were the designers' PCs?

I'm not following the narcissist angle with Bigby et al either...why wouldn't the characters created to play test the game (including high level play) have...high levels?

Looks like Pundit is drinking the piss again.

All I am seeing is two different takes on gaming neither is wrong nor right. Different tastes and all that.

I guess it's slow week and Pundit needs to stir up some more controversy.

Quote from: Pat on February 06, 2021, 03:59:37 PM
I wouldn't have picked Raistlin as the opposite of a self-involved narcissist.

The difference is that in Dragonlance he's 'corrupt', you could say 'evil' for that.

On the other hand in postmodern sjw stories, being a self-involved narcissist is considered sound. In some cases, stunning and brave.

A thread about self-involved narcissists? Excellent! I can talk about myself! Count me in!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 06, 2021, 08:19:02 PM
How many D&D settings have major NPCs who were the designers' PCs?

All of them.

Otherwise whats the point?

QuoteI don't recall Hercules being covered in three tonnes of seizure-inducing CGI.

Sure Hercules was basically big buff dude, but I'm not talking about how inhuman being looks. There are many mythological beings that looks quite weirdly - consider all asian demigods for instance.

QuoteI'm not following the narcissist angle with Bigby et al either...why wouldn't the characters created to play test the game (including high level play) have...high levels?

And then were kept as important and iconic part of game?

QuoteAll of them.

Otherwise whats the point?

Well you can you know simply design major NPCs to suit setting, and test game on some noname PCs

QuoteThe difference is that in Dragonlance he's 'corrupt', you could say 'evil' for that.

On the other hand in postmodern sjw stories, being a self-involved narcissist is considered sound. In some cases, stunning and brave.

But just because players are self-involved narcissists does not means their PCs will be.
TBH considering Critical Role are made in large part of relatively young conventionally attractive celebrities, I'm not really sure that's the point.
If anything it's cattering to weeb-tiefling-tumblr crowd with colourful PCs, more than... compensating. Advertisement method.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 06, 2021, 07:37:38 PM
   1. A good chunk of the OSR points to Dragonlance as where things went wrong with D&D, as I understand it;

How comes? I ran the Dragonlance campaign twice in the 1980s with two different groups of players, and I wrote the "Legends" campaign by myself for one of them. We had a blast every time.

As a long time D&D player, I saw things go wrong starting with 2E. They started to create rules, exceptions, special rules, rules tied to supplements... This may sound hypocritical coming from someone who owns basically everything 3.5E related. Admittedly, 3.5E had more crunch. However, once you grasped 3.5E's fundamentals everything else was readily adaptable to your campaign. More crucially, 2E fluff was anemic. I still consider the 3/3.5E's era fluff as the best D&D ever put out and the source of unnumbered ideas for my games. 2E fluff was the pinnacle of meh.

I remember some reader letters in White Dwarf in the 80's, where someone complained about using pregens and following a fixed campaign path.
And Kender.
Otherwise I've got nothing either.