Matthew Slepin gives his opinion on the Sword & Sorcery vs High Fantasy talk going around (here is a good treatment of it), and pulls my piece The Tower into the discussion. Read that, and my response, here.
I'm generally thrilled with what he wrote (being compared to Clark Ashton Smith? w00t!) but of course I had a minor complaint and that's what the discussion (not rant or argument) is.
Interesting that this discussion comes up now. A slightly reworked version of The Tower is part of Death Frost Doom (the adventure originally came in at 24 pages, and 28 pages is the limit for the postal price class, it fits thematically, it gave me an excuse to actually pay Laura for that free piece she did to accompany The Tower in Fight On!, so why not?).
I'm generally thrilled with what he wrote (being compared to Clark Ashton Smith? w00t!) but of course I had a minor complaint and that's what the discussion (not rant or argument) is.
Interesting that this discussion comes up now. A slightly reworked version of The Tower is part of Death Frost Doom (the adventure originally came in at 24 pages, and 28 pages is the limit for the postal price class, it fits thematically, it gave me an excuse to actually pay Laura for that free piece she did to accompany The Tower in Fight On!, so why not?).
Hmmm. Is Death Frost Doom as much of a death trap as the Tower?
ReplyDeleteI believe that every adventure should be deadly and only a very skillful, or lucky, party will get through with no casualties.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I've run about 20 characters through Death Frost Doom in its various incarnations, with 4 deaths. All four happened in this last playtest, and only one as a result of the thing I figure would be the big killer of the whole adventure.
It's also possible to collect a lot of loot without even being threatened.
I got my start in RPG with an advance copy of D&D one of the folks in our wargaming group obtained from Mr Gygax. The descriptions of the style of games described in the discussions you linked to pretty much accurately describes the early games as more resembloing wargames than RPGs. And this was pretty much the case until we got more non-wargamers into the hobby.
ReplyDeleteI was actually unhappy with the OD&D. I was also a fan of fantasy writing and I wanted to do LOTR with my game. By 1977 I'd switched to the original Chivalry and Sorcery and I've run C&S 1st and 2nd Ed exclusively for FRP since then except for short forays into Earthdawn and OEPT/Gardaysiyal (EPT was OD&D with funny names and funnier monsters).
I still run games with a Heroic Fantasy style, though I've been dabbling with my OD&D lately for purely nostalgic reasons (you get as old as I am, you'll be reminising about the old days too.
Sounds good James. I like adventures to be deadly as well. Treasure should be bought by daring.
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