Author: Guy Hoyle (---.nextel.com)
Date: 05-22-2002 07:30
The world portrayed in the D&D game for a couple of decades (up until the D20 system encouraged others to adapt the system to other worlds and genres) really isn't what I've ever considered traditionl fantasy, at least in many of the particulars. The magic system in particular is very odd, not much like anything but Vance's "Dying Earth" series which was the source material. Most of the major fantasy stories up to the time D&D was first published (authors like Howard, Tolkien, Poul Anderson, deCamp, etc.) didn't lend themselves well to being recreated in D&D; magicians are far less common or sympathertic in that genre, though there are of course exceptions (the Incomplete Enchanter, for one, but Harold Shea wouldn't work well in an AD&D environment either).
I'm glad there are now strating to be sourcebooks like "Occult Forces" by Atlas Games (I think), which seem to focus on other approaches to magic (in this case based in concept on some "real" magic systems like voodoo, geomancy, etc.). It made me realise that what I disliked about the D&D system was the world inadvertently built into the rules from Day 1, which wasn't to my liking at all. After 20 years of disliking D&D, I find myself more willing to give the rules a shot. But only if I don't have to play in somebody's copy of somebody's version of somebody else's take on Gary Gygax's peculiar ideas about "traditional fantasy".
Guy
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