It's an American Thing

[eskemp]

Somewhere along the way of turning a misspent youth into a misspent adulthood, you may notice that there's a certain...something about the way we tend to play. It's something that came into focus once when I realized that one of the cardinal differences between an American fantasy like D&D and a European fantasy like Warhammer is that, well,

Comments

[hot_pants]

I agree with this 100%

That's why all my World of Darkness games play like Blood Meridian.

Well...no. That's why all my World of Darkness games are informed by the haunted ugly West of Blood Meridian.

[eskemp]

Man, nothing would inform the World of Darkness quite like McCarthy. You don't even have to say "it's like our world, only darker." Just "It's like our world, only there are supernaturals in it. Some of them are as bad as some of the humans running around."

[hot_pants]

That's basically my take on things, World of Darkness style. The supernatural is a slight aberration on the face of a world with a strange, inhuman divinity and a cast of human cruelty. I think that's the thing where McCarthy connects with the West and with what I see as best about the WoD, the sort of deeply "primal" spirituality of that landscape.

[mouseferatu]

I've long wanted to see a D&D setting really embrace the "Western in knight's clothing" trope you're talking about here. (Not claiming I've thought of all of this by any means--I never really considered the fact that most American fantasy fits into this model already--but I have thought that the two genres would mesh well together.)

Eberron comes close in a few respects, but only at the periphery of civilization. I really want to run a campaign set in the continent of Xen'drik, where the PCs are accompanying the builders laying down a new lightning rail track on behalf of some House Orien "railroad barons."

[eskemp]

Well, obviously the dungeon is an exception to my "D&D is a Western" philosophy. Campaigns where there's a lot of out-of-the-dungeon play, though; I honestly think the average red-box game played a lot like them already. Substitute the President of the United States for the Grand Duke of Karameikos, and it sort of falls together. It may fall apart a bit as you get to epic-level play, of course. I don't have a lot of experience with epic fantasy that isn't superheroes, at least in gaming, so you may see more influences from non-American writers like Tolkien and Moorcock creeping in as a matter of course, because that's what's there

[eskemp]

It really doesn't take much to do a "defend the village from the bandits/ogres/what-have-you" scenario and have it feel like proper D&D. The only thing that makes The Seven Magnificent Samurai feel one-shot-ish is the meditation on mortality at the end. Everything else, right down to showcasing the desperation of the peasants, the aspiration of the seventh hero to join the "adventuring class," the question of how to teach the peasants to stand on their own and the dedication to the Right Thing To Do: it could just as easily be "how I spent 5th level."

(Of course, in my old D&D game with Fred and Aileen and Kathy and Jeff, it was ogres. So, bias.)

[innocent_man]

(Truth be told, I'd be kind of disappointed to find out I was the only person who ever thought that a perfect quote to drop into the middle of a Werewolf session would be "We're in the spirit world, asshole, they can't see us!")

You are far from the only person who has done this.

[eskemp]

That makes me feel quite a bit better.

[adembskibowden]

"We're in the spirit world, asshole, they can't see us!"

That film remains the pinnacle of humanity's achievement.