Quotes from the High Fantasy vs. Sword & Sorcery discussion

So I took my little article over to ENWorld just to see what happened. I was not that surpriced, of course, about some diametrically opposed opinions in the line of "You are totally wrong!!" vs. "Very good analysis" - that's what you can always expect from that forum. But most of the discussion was very interesting and enriching.

I will post some quotes that might clarify my ideas. I'm sorry about this messy way of presenting things. I'm a bit busy with life right now.

After the discussion, I think I might have to revise some of the terminology and concepts, but my opinion has stayed more orless the same.

Rogueattorney wrote:

Dragonlance was the bellweather event in the transition Zulgyan is describing. You had to alter or ignore a number of 1e rules to run the original 1e Dragonlance modules. Among them xp for wealth and taking campaign time out to train. Both of those particular rules were dropped for 2e and the main reason why was to fit the epic campaign paradigm seen in Dragonlance and then emulated in many, many adventure modules thereafter. In a race to save the world from the Dark Evil Overlord, who has time to scrounge for gp or train?

Other than I6, the other two campaigns didn't have a single thing published for them until 1987, the year before 2e came out. The big shift had already happened. They were written with the latter, non-S&S concept of D&D in mind.

Frankly, I don't see why it's controversial at all to say that the folk who came to the game in the mid-80's or later were coming to the game familiar with a fairly different style of fantasy than those who came to the game earlier, and would thus have some different notions of how the fantasy world should work. I, for one, can say I got a much better understanding of what Gygax and co. were trying to do after finally reading some Lovecraft, Vance, and Anderson.

Zulgyan wrote:

1) I don't wish to be controversial. I want, if posible, end with the old school vs. new school conflict and take the discussion a bit higher conceptually, and see where all the controversy comes from.

2) There are some obvious difference bewteen how literature and gaming work. To keep the article shot, I just focused on the similarities.

3) Conan wins against all odds because he is a literary protagonist, no doubt. But the novels constantly stress that it's all about his own skill, resourcefulness and luck, with no intervention from a Christian-like god how wants good to win over evil. His story is a "success story" that had no guarantees of being that way - that's how the author presents the world. An uncaring, amoral universe. Conan wins because he is strong, not because he is good.

That can be recreated in gaming, by reducing DM intervention to "keep the story right" and by reducing the system elements that control plot: balanced encounters (even though it might be a misinterpretation of the rules, it is one misinterpretation that is quite widespread), treasure prescriptions, linear adventure design, etc.. If you take distance from story manipulation and you reduce player entitlement, and you just let the players alone with no DM or system help, struggling against a hostile world: the end result will feel much more like a S&S novel. All their success will be self gained.

But don't take this to the extreme of course, we are talking about just an guiding principle that can have it's exceptions.

2) In S&S literature you have gods with minuscule, not the judeo-cristian God that has a plan of salvation where good will triumph over evil. S&S gods are just superpowerful beings, that commit mistakes, have character flaws, and fight each other to control the world, not to redeem it. And they are not responsible for it's creation either. So they are not really gods the way most modern theology and philosophy interpret it. That's why I used the word atheism, that might have been confusing. But remember that Howard was himself an atheist, and the gods from his novels are a criticism to theism in a symbolical way, because the are either evil or unhelpful.

3) The cleric class is confusing, but you can interpret their gods as just a powerful beings who can squish vancian spells into your brain.

More on that last point later!!

Zulgyan wrote:

1) I think some are missing the point that, what defines HF vs. S&S is the underlying worldview and moral system - basically: God on the side of good vs. No God, or God takes no sides.

2) The presence of demi-humans, clerics, vancian magic or not, etc. are all secondary to that, IMO. So sword & sorcery is not necessarily about barbarians vs. evil sorcerers. That's how it is in many popular S&S novels, but it does not need to be necessarily that way. You need to look at the higher concepts and themes of the novels.

3) I agree that D&D and westerns have much in common. Specially the spaghetti-westerns of Sergio Leone: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", "Fistful of Dollars" and "For a few dollars more". I heartily recommend those films, and their plots are very very D&Desque

4) Yes, RPGs are bigger than Gygax, agreed. But when you analyse the RPG he authored, he is a main reference for interpretation, ins't he?. What John Wick says about Houses of the Blooded will be more relevant that what Ron Edwards says about that game.

5) I think that OD&D and 1E as games that captured very close the spirit of S&S, was not that intentional on part of Gygax. Not very consciously, IMO, he captured the spirit of S&S because in his game, the fact you where good or the protagonist, made you in no way special.

6) When authors write their novels, they don't justify the survival of their protagonists solely on them being them protagonists. They introduce an additional justification, to create an illusion that they survive because of other reasons than just being the protagonist. On general terms, in HF novels it's because higher forces of good will never let evil triumph. In S&S it's because the protagonist is skillful, lucky and resourceful, not because he receives aid from above.

Saying that the only survive because they are the protagonist is a very poor reading of the novels. You have to look at the illusionary reason the author uses to justify their success. That illusion tells you a lot about the imaginary world of the author.

7) 4E is not a pure HF game. To be a pure HF game, you need a mechanic that makes good always win over evil. 4Edoes not have it, for good IMO. But 4E has introduced some "plot control" mechanics that make the HF premise easier to achieve, the premise being "good will win over evil".

This are:
1) Automatically Balanced encounters: the game is telling you when and what should be encountered. That's plot control right there.
2) Treasure prescriptions: the game is telling when should a magic sword be gained. That's also plot control the way I see it.
3) Less randomness, more predictability, that will reduce "bad surprises" that can frustrate the fulfillment of the HF premise: good will win over evil.

Zulgyan wrote:

I want to encapsulate the thesis of my article as briefly as possible:

A lot of the changes in D&D during the course of it's history can be explained by the conflict between two fantasy genres that are based on diametrically opposed world-views: High Fantasy vs. Sword & Sorcery.

The game started strong on the Sword & Sorcery genre, but slowly, as a majority fans wanted to play the game in a fashion closer to High Fantasy, elements of plot protection slowly made their way into the game.

Zulgyan wrote: (Was Sauron's defeat, in the Catholic inspired LOTR, inevitable?)

According to Catholicism, even though God respects human liberty, good will always finally triumph over evil. In fact, evil has already been defeated by Christ on the Cross. So yes... you could read that Sauron's defeat was prophesied or mandated. Gandalf, who is in part an allegory of Jesus, even prophetisizes that "Gollum still has a role to fulfil". So he knew how the ring was going to be destroyed beforehand.

Zulgyan wrote:

Well, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are a duo. I don't think that individuality is necessarily a caracteristic of the genre. Maybe Howard wanted to stress that nobody, nobody helped Conan, that he was all by himself.

But I think that teams can also be part of the S&S genre. Individuality is no essential - it's the means by which they succeed.

ZULGYAN WROTE:

Here is Conan turned into High Fantasy, as an example that the common tropes of the genre are not what define it