Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion
Sword & Sorcery in other media
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Sword & Sorcery in Roleplaying Games
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Let's see I played, in no particular order:Dungeons and Dragons
Warhammer (and DM'd)
Earthdawn
Shadowrun
Star Wars (and DM'd)
Star Trek
Cyber punk
Paranoia
World of Darkness (and DM'd)
Dragon Age (although we were online and ended up rewriting the rules to suit our game)
Also have a Chaos Army and undeads in a box in the cupboard.
Mod
I don't have time to play these all days:(
Has anyone ever heard of Middle Earth The Wizards? I've had this game for years and have never played it (nobody will play with me). I'm wondering if it's worth keeping.
Mod
http://wagadu.ning.com/group/sword-an...
Anyone try this RPG out? http://www.swordsmen-and-sorcerers.co...It looks like my cup of tea. "Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea"
That is cool SE.We've just got hold of Lord of the Rings - living card game. So far we've had our arses kicked by the Giant Spider queen....
Oh and Aragorn? Kicks much behind.
Sean wrote: "Anyone try this RPG out? http://www.swordsmen-and-sorcerers.co...It looks like my cup of tea. "Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea""
I own it, but haven't played it yet. The rules are heavily based on 1st edition AD&D, which may or may not be a feature (I'm more of a Runequest guy, but I'm thoroughly enjoying 5th ed D&D), but the setting is extremely detailed and evocative, with winter night lasting for years at a time, weird creatures ranging about, etc. There's a heavy Clark Ashton Smith influence. I bought the PDF version, but the boxed set looks pretty gorgeous. I'd pick it up if it showed up in my neck of the woods.
I bought my 12-year old daughter the D&D Starter Set for the holidays. At first she was skeptical about it and thought it would be boring. Now I've got her and the wife playing nightly with me being the tolerant dungeon master. Funny how things run full circle in life sometimes.
Mod
...planned for launch August 2015.
Link to the forthcoming RPG version of Conan.
Mod
I've got Zombicide Plague Edition coming soon!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
AlamoJack wrote: "S.E., I saw your comment about a group read based on RPG-games. I think it would be a good idea. We have a lot of options."I second that!
For some reason, I didn't notice this thread before.
Mod
https://www.change.org/p/wizards-of-t...
Want more ? Perhaps WoC will listen
Just started up a Ravenloft (2nd edition AD&D) game with some friends after almost 20 years. Forgot how much l loved RPG's. Such a collaborative way to tell a story.
Lono wrote: "Just started up a Ravenloft (2nd edition AD&D) game with some friends after almost 20 years. Forgot how much l loved RPG's. Such a collaborative way to tell a story."How's the Ravenloft campaign going after a couple of months?
Periklis wrote: "Just noticed Brom's cover art for the upcoming Conan RPG from Modiphius studios:
"
Cool artwork!
Not completely S&S but still very relevant to the field are of course the Dying Earth books by Jack Vance.I have the The Dying Earth RPG, and although it can be hard to get a group of players for it (familiarity with the setting being the main selling point), it's a great game.
Periklis wrote: "Just noticed Brom's cover art for the upcoming Conan RPG from Modiphius studios:"
Artwork is nicely in keeping with Frazetta's original style BUT (Happily) the young lady doesn't look inbred, in need of gym membership or serious dieting.
Peter wrote: "Not completely S&S but still very relevant to the field are of course the Dying Earth books by Jack Vance.I have the The Dying Earth RPG, and although it can be hard..."
I have a secondhand copy of The Eyes of the Overworld, but I haven't read yet as it's only the second book in the Dying Earth series. As I recall, Gary Gygax had recommended the series as inspiration of AD&D role-playing.
Mod
Original D&D spellcasting ("memorizing" spells that vanish from your mind when you cast them) came straight from the Dying Earth.
You could go ahead and start reading Eyes of the Overworld if you wanted to -- it shares the same setting as the original Dying Earth, but isn't a direct sequel or anything like that.
Joseph wrote: "Original D&D spellcasting ("memorizing" spells that vanish from your mind when you cast them) came straight from the Dying Earth."Interesting to learn the origin of that concept. As a player, it was always annoying to find that once you'd cast your fireball and magic missile spells you'd be little use in combat until you've had a rest and time to re-learn those spells! However, I learned that you could use your spells more strategically by casting long-lasting ones (like charm person) early on and then resting so as to learn more combat-useful spells thereafter.
Joseph wrote: "You could go ahead and start reading Eyes of the Overworld if you wanted to -- it shares the same setting as the original Dying Earth, but isn't a direct sequel or anything like that."
So that's another book that I can read on a standalone basis despite being part of a series. Excellent! :)
I played a lot of AD&D when I was a kid in the 80s, and as a dungeon master, I learned many skills that have translated into my professional career (project manager, for one). Fast forward to modern day, my third novel was inspired by a game of D&D my family played as a group activity when getting together for the holidays three years ago. Normally, we'd play Pictionary, but I managed to talk them into playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Only two of the group of 8 had ever played before, so their agreement to the idea was huge.Surprisingly, they role-played their characters surprisingly well, and their 'characters' provided a lot of inspiration to me. Afterward, I thought, "That would actually make a great book plot, and the characters they played would be fantastic!" So that's what I did (Paragon's Call, the third book in my Taesian Chronicles trilogy, comes out March/April 2016).
Steven wrote: "I played a lot of AD&D when I was a kid in the 80s, and as a dungeon master, I learned many skills that have translated into my professional career (project manager, for one). Fast forward to moder..."I DMed a fair bit too but I doubt it enhanced my own project management skills. It may have helped my storytelling abilities though and it also provided me with a hobby that kept me sane!
It's wonderful to hear that your more recent family RPG sessions provided some inspiration for your latest book!
Greg wrote: "It's wonderful to hear that your more recent family RPG sessions provided some inspiration for your latest book!"Many people have noted that making books out of RPG sessions doesn't tend to work well. What I did was get inspired by the game and by how the players role-played their characters. Only one sequence of actual game play was used in my book, and only loosely at that. RPGs provide inspiration, but they don't make good transcripts for novel material.
Steven wrote: "Greg wrote: "It's wonderful to hear that your more recent family RPG sessions provided some inspiration for your latest book!"Many people have noted that making books out of RPG sessions doesn't ..."
I agree! Inspiration is one thing but a transcript would be like one of those conversations where you end up telling people that they 'had to be there' to appreciate what happened.
I would think it would work better the other way around. I am writing a sword and sorcery novel, the basis of which might make a decent adventure, or the background for a campaign. Of course, this may just indicate that my story is derived from all the TSR books I read as a child, and the hours I spent rolling dice with my friends.
I don't think you can really adapt a story either direction. But you can get a lot of great ideas for both from either.
Arley wrote: "I would think it would work better the other way around. I am writing a sword and sorcery novel, the basis of which might make a decent adventure, or the background for a campaign. Of course, this ..."I think it's possible to adapt a novel for use as a scenario, although the latter is a very different kind of writing in that it is the outline of a story that has to be fleshed out (as it were) by the players' actions in the game.
I was struck recently by how much better the writing of Spice & Wolf, Vol. 1 seemed to be as a manga adaptation of a novel compared with some manga that is not based on a pre-existing textual book (although it may suffer a little from exposition).
There were several movies in the 80's that had a group of young adults playing D&D-like games (couldn't call it Dungeons & Dragons, or TSR would have your ass in court so fast your +3 Back Scratcher would spin) that get sucked into the game world itself.They were all terrible, and it would be generous to call them B Movies.
Novels tend to be the same way, at least those that try to directly translate a game or campaign into a book. Against The Giants is an example of an AD&D module converted into a book that was almost universally panned.
As the discussion so far is showing, it's best to take inspiration from your RPG, but don't directly translate it (although I'd secretly love to see someone actually pull it off).
Portal Fantasy is almost always garbage. John Carter is the one exceptional case in which I just ignore it and read on instead of not reading at all.
I mostly agree, though there are exceptions. I love Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry and enjoyed at the time of reading The Woods Out Back by R.A. Salvatore as a kid, especially as a huge The Hobbit fan. Though I'd probably enjoy it a lot less now. Another exception would be the ultra weird A Voyage to Arcturus.Steven wrote: "There were several movies in the 80's that had a group of young adults playing D&D-like games (couldn't call it Dungeons & Dragons, or TSR would have your ass in court so fast your +3 Back Scratche..."
I remember a Tom Hanks flick from the 80's, Mazes and Monsters, or something to that effect, that had a similar concept. Don't remember enjoying it much though. I did love The Pagemaster as a kid though.
Also there was a D&D cartoon from around then that was... okay. I think the kids took a carnival ride into the D&D universe or something.
Martin wrote: "Portal Fantasy is almost always garbage. John Carter is the one exceptional case in which I just ignore it and read on instead of not reading at all."Are there any books with the portal motif that stand out as being particularly bad?
Steven wrote: "There were several movies in the 80's that had a group of young adults playing D&D-like games (couldn't call it Dungeons & Dragons, or TSR would have your ass in court so fast your +3 Back Scratcher would spin) that get sucked into the game world itself.They were all terrible, and it would be generous to call them B Movies."
Luckily, I don't think I've seen any of these though I do recall seeing a film or series episode involving role-players getting into trouble because of their role-playing activities (inspired no doubt by The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III).
Having recently found my copy of an '80s fantasy role-playing magazine comprising a single, but complete, adventure story, I thought I'd add an entry about it on Goodreads. This is The Tower of Terror by David Brunskill (1984).Hopefully, nobody will kick it from the database on the basis that it is a magazine. However, I'd successfully argued in the Librarians' Group for having an entry on another magazine that featured a single horror story/novella as being a 'book' (Fear over London).
The Tower of Terror is probably very hard to find anywhere now except in copyright receipt libraries but maybe a copy will pop op on ebay at some point.
Mod
Many magazines are on Goodreads, so that is fine. I think there is a typo. Lots of "Readers" in the blurb:
Proteus is a new kind of magazine - a complete adventure story in which you, the reader, play the part of the reader. (hero?)
S.E. wrote: "Greg wrote: "Having recently found my copy of an '80s fantasy role-playing magazine comprising a single, but complete, adventure story, I thought I'd add an entry about it on Goodreads. This is [bo..."Oops! Lol. I fixed that error - thanks for pointing it out, Seth!
I'd be intrigued if anyone else finds a copy. It would be strange if it turned out that I have the only known copy left.
Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"
Books mentioned in this topic
The Tower of Terror (other topics)Fear over London (other topics)
The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III (other topics)
The Fionavar Tapestry (other topics)
The Woods Out Back (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
E. Gary Gygax (other topics)Jack Vance (other topics)
Jack Vance (other topics)
Milton J. Davis (other topics)
I created a group to discuss RPGs with S&S games, because Goodreads has jack in the roleplaying department, either in terms of books or groups.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...