How different would the fantasy genre be if Conan the Barbarian

>>52383482
You mean if it had retained its status as most influential fantasy works?

>>52383529
Yeah.

>>52383482
>Less elves and other demi humans
>fantasy RPGs might have more of a historical feel to them
>magic and supernatural not portrayed as everyday events, but something worthy of awe and fear

>>52383482
well for one thing D&D would more than likely be about small groups of individuals murderhoboing about primitive societies in the name of loot and tits and typical fantasy films would be about laconic men doing manly things.

>>52383727
Sounds like an improvement to be honest.

>>52383730
So exactly the same?

>>52383832

It's true that D&D wouldn't change much because Conan is a bigger influence than LotR on it. But the bit he said about movies would be huge change from the current status quo.

>>52383727
>>52383817

>Less elves and other demi humans

Elves are pretty rare in Middle Earth by the 3rd age (see others attitude towards them, and Bilbo's first encounter with Elves in Mirkwood portraying them as frightening and elusive), and dwarves tend to be hidden away for the most part. Hobbits are just short humans.

>fantasy RPGs might have more of a historical feel to them

Middle Earth is fairly well-grounded in real-world history. I mean, the whole thing was intended as a work of mythology for the English people.

>magic and supernatural not portrayed as everyday events, but something worthy of awe and fear

The supernatural is definitely rare in Middle Earth (again, by 3rd age), it's just that The Hobbit and LotR have one of the world's only 5 wizards as a central character. Even then, his magic is very subtle.

I think you're sort of confusing Middle Earth with all of the fantasy crap that's followed in its wake. JRRT would have probably burned his manuscripts if he could see what he ended up inspiring. I definitely agree with all of those things being an improvement, though.

>>52383727
Funnily enough that's Tolkien's works summed up.
>men/humans become dominant
>more realism than fantasy
>magic is something only four people use in the entire lotr book trilogy

Tolkien is simultaneously one of the two most influential fantasy figures of all time, but also one whose works were quite detached from the "modern" fantasy we see now.

>>52384086
>JRRT would have probably burned his manuscripts if he could see what he ended up inspiring.


It's more the fault of Shannara, which was a warmed-over Flanderisation of Tolkien that raked in tons of money and caused publishers to rush to market every "epic trilogy" they could get their hands on.
(Terry Brooks says he wasn't doing Tolkien at all -- he was doing an homage to Faulkner. That just happened to have men and elves and dwarves on a quest to stop the terrible evil that had returned from long ago. Suuure, buddy.)

>>52383727
>magic and supernatural not portrayed as everyday events, but something worthy of awe and fear

wut. Magic is extremely common in the Conan universe. Every city is teeming with magical artefacts, rumours of magic bullshit, elephant people from other planets.

>>52384147
>Shannara
RRRREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>52384298

Hey, anon! Did you know it's supposed to be pronounced "Shuh-nuh-ruh" according to the author?

>>52384147
>>52384298
>>52384325
The only thing I really liked about Shannara were the freaky monster cyborgs and shit leftover from the past. That kind of stuff always makes me smile.

>>52384254
It's not how common it is, it's how it's portrayed. Every time something magical appears, it's weird, unnatural and scary. Do you even remember how cowed into humility Conan was in The Tower of the Elephant? All the weird magical shit just under the veil that you sometimes trip over is a cause for fright and concern, it's not something you're supposed to take in your stride as an every day occurrence. Just because it's there doesn't mean you see it. Conan's adventures are a highly condensed version of his life, there were probably very long spans of time in which he encountered no magic.

It would be complete shit. For one thing, the fantasy genre is already shit, for the most part. In fact I would wager that most RPG campaigns have a superior plot to a lot of the fantasy shlock that's out there right now. And, Conan was extremely influential. However, Lord of the Rings won out for good reason: it's better. The world is more well-developed, it's less pulpy, it has a better tone. Conan is basically grimdark cartoon shit that stops one step short of the kind of super-hero crap that D&D has turned into today. No, just because your fighter has a lot of hit points, and just because the mage can cast spells, does not mean your character can do ridiculous shit. No, your "wurld made of magic XD XD" excuse does not apply. It is fucking bullshit. Magic is bad enough. "I wanna play a mage! I wanna play a mage!" Then you obey the goddamn rules of your spell. No, you cannot summon a whale above your enemy to crush him. No, that is NOT creative, and I am NOT oppressing / suppressing fun by not allowing it. Go fuck yourself. No, your magic item that grows into a creature, cannot be used as a melee attack where you shove it into creatures' mouths then activate it. Go fuck yourself. No, you cannot use grease inside of someone to do whatever you want, you cannot do broken bullshit with your spells. You are the reason D&D spells are so fucking nerfed. Go fuck yourself. No you cannot use RAW then flavor interchangeable depending on what benefits you most, to powergame. Again, go fuck yourself. You play a mage in my game, you get BTFO. Which is what Gygax and his precious Conan wanked to, was killing wizards, but honestly I can't blame them for hating them in retrospect. It's probably the only good thing about those shitty books.

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>>52384433

>wall of bitter angry nerd text

Wow, you sound like a very unpleasant person to talk to.

>>52384433
kys

>>52384433
>Projecting one's own shittiness into an alternate reality where everything is shitty exept oneself
I'm sure there's a psychological term for this.

>>52384458
You don't need to post a 1 secong gif of an image like on tumblr, you retard

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>>52384556

It's four seconds, and you can go to hell, I'll post what I want.

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>>52384585
If you're gonna post a gif of a still image, you might as well either post a still image or post a gif that takes more memory than your favorite site's tiny penis server.

Alternatively just go back to tumblr and stop making this board more shitty than it already is you retarded negroid.

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>>52384433
>martialposting

>>52384433

anon r u ok

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>>52384634

>durr go back to tumblr

Why don't you go back to your mom's vagina? I'll even take my dick out first, just for you.

>>52384546
I think the professional term is "Being a Cunt"

>>52383482

Does it even matter? Games, vidya and novels would still be created by the same copycat hacks, so we'd just have a glut of dull samey Conanesque settings instead of dull samey Tolkienesque ones. Anything likeable about the original would have been milked to death and turned into cliche. Developers and authors would have been terrified of straying away from safe ground so they'd just keep on churning this shit out. They'd still keep doing hack shit like 'Aztec-themed hyena people' and 'Babylonian-themed desert golem civilizations'. Plebs would lap it up and patricians would sneer at them, same as they do now. In the end I think the only real difference would be no automatic Elf-Dwarf-Orc combo in most settings.

>>52384416
But the whole reason they even broke in there was to steal shit from a powerful wizard. A wizard that everyone knew about, because even the king was afraid of him.

Yes, the magic is weird and terrifying but not because it's rare. Hell, I'd find a mundane elephant weird and a little terrifying if I encountered one in the wild even if they aren't make believe.

>>52384728

Burn.

As someone who loves the shit out of Conan, personally I'd rather Solomon Kane was more influential.

Or maybe Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser.
Conan goes from nothing to king.
F&GM go from wandering heroes to having stable girlfriends that survive a story.

>>52384677
Actually I like playing spellcasters. I even like playing spellcasters in 3.5. I just don't like these dumb fuckers who try to abuse the fuck out of the magic system and hide behind "I'm being creative!!" as an excuse. Then they roll a natural 20 and they go LOL LOL I GOT A 20 IT HAS TO HAPPEN

>>52385217

It's the house rule crit fail brigade that I hate the most.

>Nat 1!
>You trip over and hit the ground so hard the whole planet shatters and everyone dies! LOL XD

>>52383482
>implying it wasn't

>>52384433
>your magic item that grows into a creature, cannot be used as a melee attack where you shove it into creatures' mouths then activate it
You just hate fun

>>52386457
> fun

Yeah, I hate fun.

Because fun is the stupidest fucking reason for anything to exist, on this entire planet. "Fun." Fuck fun, you know that? I want to play a goddamn RPG. You know what's fun? Doing coke and saying whatever random dumb shit comes to mind. That's a hell of a lot of fun. But you know what? You can't do that in an RPG without fucking it up. So guess what? Your fun doesn't fucking matter. Fuck your enjoyment.

You "rule of cool" twats don't understand that if you pulled half the stupid shit you try in movies, it would be panned as the stupidest thing ever. No one wants to watch that. Oh and by the way, it's one thing to do something stupid like that once, but once is never enough for you douchebags. Now you want to go through the rest of the dungeon doing your dumb-ass overpowered shit. No, fuck off. Nip that in the bud. If you aren't perceptive enough to see when you've been thrown a bone, you will get no more bones. And if you whinge and bitch about it, your character will find himself targeted by all manner of assassins for some contrived reason that will later be retconned in, possibly to further the story for those players who actually give a fuck about it, and aren't just there to hijack shit for the lulz, like you are.

>>52386518
>All this angry nerd rage.

You do know that you are one of the primary reasons the fantasy genre has gone to shit right? And now instead of having men on adventures fighting monsters and evil, we have harem fantasies, rape fantasies, woman power fantasies, and a whole host of other shit.

>>52386518
So just a quick question. In real life you have a hard time finding anyone to play in your game don't you? It's that or you've got the same friends you've had for years playing in your game.
Both those things are fine btw. I don't think there's anything wrong with you finding enjoyment in the things you enjoy. You'd probably be happier if you acknowledged others have the same right though.
Either way play on angrybro.

>>52386676
>You do know that you are one of the primary reasons the fantasy genre has gone to shit right?

No, the main reason the fantasy genre has gone to shit, are the normies and roasties who are invading D&D in the thousands.

> And now instead of having men on adventures fighting monsters and evil, we have harem fantasies, rape fantasies, woman power fantasies, and a whole host of other shit.

I have never supported or participated in any of that. Nice projection.

>>52386712
>It's that or you've got the same friends you've had for years playing in your game.

Mostly. But I've formed a new group in the last couple of months to go alongside my normal one (though it strains my scheduling). However the only reason I found these people, was by weeding out dozens of morons who should not be in RPGs at all.

>>52386978
Hey, you seem to be getting piled on in this thread, and I want you to know I agree with you. Wacky shit every once in a while is fine, but if it starts interfering with the campaign, fuck off.

>>52386978
RPGs are just a type of game. A collective story telling within a particular rules set. There is no one that "should" or "shouldn't" be in it. Like video games, poker, sports, etc. Anyone that wants to engage can form a group and do it or seek out a group and get involved.

Did I menation it is a game? Don't have them in yours? Sure. That's totally legit. But to say they don't belong RPing at all? Nah, fuck that noise. I was excluded enough from teh cool kids club in grade school. I'm not excluding newbies from my "nerdy" club unless they are personally annoying to me. Then they are welcome to play with others!

tl;dr RPing is for anyone/everyone

Also, Conan is sick nasty and I am all for upping the Conan factor.

>>52384433
>I would wager that most RPG campaigns have a superior plot to a lot of the fantasy shlock that's out there right now
W E W L A D
E
W
L
A
D

>>52384086
>I mean, the whole thing was intended as a work of mythology for the English people.
Well... I don't know about that. I've heard this said on here before but I don't think it's accurate. As a pretty impressive literary scholar in his own right, Tolkien already knew about SCORES of predecessor works that could already have feasible claim to be "a mythology for Englishmen." Spenser's "Faerie Queen" for example is pretty damn English, and like Tolkien it was written to draw itself from even older sources like the original faerie tales.

Also, I don't know what you even mean by "Middle Earth is fairly well-grounded in real-world history." It certainly wasn't allegorical, and you should know that much from Tolkien's own foreword to the second edition. It certainly wasn't making a meta claim to be some kind of alternate history. So what on Earth did you mean by this?

>>52383727
Popped a boner reading this.

>>52386978
Did you know that RPGs are games. That they allow you to do crazy wacky shit, and have something called fun? If you want to be a railroading asshat who doesn't care about the fun of your players, or fellows, you can fuck right off. RPGs aren't supposed to be about one person's enjoyment to the exclusion of all others. They are supposed to be entertaining and enjoyable for the entire group.

>>52387213
Posted like a real rpg podcast retard who's never written a plotline that wasn't inspired by some fucking webcomic

>>52384147
I don't think it's that bad of a story in of itself - it's at least interesting in how it sets up the 'evil races' as not necessarily being evil, and the humans being a bunch of decentralized petty villages and kingdoms. And I think it was at least a little before its time with its 'post apoc turned into fantasy' setting. It seems like a lot more writers are doing that now.

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>>52388521
>it was at least a little before its time with its 'post apoc turned into fantasy' setting.

1950 called. It says you need to read more fantasy so you'll be able to place Shannara more accurately within its corpus.

>>52388626
>popular fantasy existed before 1970

Whaaaat?

But more seriously, I had never heard of The Dying Earth. And even then, Shannara was still fairly unique, before a decade or two ago when you started getting every other new fantasy series set in a post-apoc world.

>>52389409
>I had never heard of The Dying Earth

It was a classic of the genre, widely read and influential within the fantasy community in the days before LotR.

>>52387221
>Also, I don't know what you even mean by "Middle Earth is fairly well-grounded in real-world history." It certainly wasn't allegorical, and you should know that much from Tolkien's own foreword to the second edition. It certainly wasn't making a meta claim to be some kind of alternate history. So what on Earth did you mean by this?

Not saying it was allegorical, but that the societies within Middle-Earth bear a resemblance- linguistically, materially, and to some extent culturally- to real-world societies, specifically of the 8th-11th centuries. The pre-Norman English didn't have a tradition of horsemanship like the Rohirrim, but in most other respects, such as language, architecture, social organization, they are very similar. the white horse banner of Rohan is evident in the white horse banner of Kent. The Dunlendings are an analogue of the Welsh. Gondor (and fallen Arnor) has shades of the remnants of the Carolingian Empire after the treaty of Verdun, as well as Rome and Byzantium. Near-Harad, along with the Corsairs, though little is said of them, can be compared to Moorish North Africa.

These are of course not 100% comparisons, but neither are we dealing with "the mystic land of Flabbiddydloop" where everything is just made up. I'm was responding to poster #4 who was talking about "historical feel," presumably because much of Howard's Hyboria draws inspiration from real-world societies. I don't think that Middle-Earth is any less "historical" than Hyboria.

: )

>>52389409

But you'd probably heard of Vance, right? As in Vancian magic? Or Vecna (which is an anagram of Vance)? Vance was the author of the Dying Earth books.

They're interesting, but a product of their times, and popular fiction has come a long way since then. People complain about contemporary fantasy, but geeze, the age of pulp wasn't all the nostalgic crack it up to be. I remember reading the Lensmen series, purported to the be the inspiration behind Star Wars. Dear God, such bad.

>>52384792
>>52386518
Saved

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Probably Conan fans would be mad for their favourite book series being bastardized so badly in derivative works instead of me.
>>52384086
Quite much this
>>52384433
>For one thing, the fantasy genre is already shit, for the most part
Id agree, as while the concept behind the genre is very appealing, execution is in most cases terribad and even among the well known and recognized works majority is just crap or meh at best, with little exceptions of value and that's only well recognized works, without touching myriads of novels and game settings so shit that nobody cares
But then you give me this
>In fact I would wager that most RPG campaigns have a superior plot to a lot of the fantasy shlock that's out there right now
And then I'm all like my pic rel

>>52387131
It's ok, I know I am right, these morons are just triggered because they know it's true. Thanks for the support, though.

>>52387213
It's true, though. Most of the fantasy out there is complete garbage.

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>>52390674
Here.

It took me literally 9,001 hours in MS Paint.

Autismatrons gonna autism

>>52392756
I don't think you understand how copy pastas work

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>>52392835
I'm not going to dispute that. Feel free to do it yourself.

>>52384086
The actual quantity of demihumans in Tolkien isn't why they're so popular now, but the fact he made them cool, so everybody wanted them around

>>52384048
The current status quo is no fantasy movies at all. The biggest things ever to be in theaters are LotR and Conan, so pretty much nothing would change

>>52393767
I guess I hallucinated that Harry Potter franchise.

>>52383727
Fuck, why am I not living in a world where this happened

>>52394085
You do. It's called, play goddamn low fantasy. You can even do it in AD&D somewhat well. What makes AD&D good is not the rules but the tone of the setting and the richness of the world. There's no catgirl sorcerers running around. Most heroes are human or elven, there's a hobbit here and there, yes mages can cast shitloads of spells but the magic rules don't really cover everything and there are all sorts of dark rituals and forgotten magic. Fights are tooth-and-nail instead of being DPS contests or SoD rocket tag. And the world is just so much better, I swear, it feels like a real fantasy world, not some kitchen-sink piece of shit. 3.5 and 4e absolutely destroyed the tone of old school roleplay. Who gives a fuck about the rules.

>>52394056
You're right about it being fantasy, though for some reason I never mentally associate it as such, but that was more the spearhead for the YA movie phase, rather than being sold on it being fantasy.

>>52393767

Check out the B movies, there's warmed-over Tolkien mush appearing just about annually

>>52383482
"How would the fantasy genre be different if it was sword and sorcery? ..."

>>52393767
What about Twilight, anon ;^)

>>52388626
>1950 called. It says you need to read more fantasy so you'll be able to place Shannara more accurately within its corpus.
Nice try, dude, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have phones in the '50s.

>>52383482
I hate to break it to you, but Conan the Barbarian was more influential and more profilic than LotR.

>>52384433
>No, you cannot summon a whale above your enemy to crush him. No, that is NOT creative, and I am NOT oppressing / suppressing fun by not allowing it. Go fuck yourself. No, your magic item that grows into a creature, cannot be used as a melee attack where you shove it into creatures' mouths then activate it. Go fuck yourself. No, you cannot use grease inside of someone to do whatever you want, you cannot do broken bullshit with your spells. You are the reason D&D spells are so fucking nerfed. Go fuck yourself

But... why? What about people using spells and items for things other than their intended purpose is so infuriatingly godawful? The ability to do absolutely crazy shit that the creators never intended is one of the few things tabletop games will always have over video games.

I'm guessing this nutbuster just got one too many BBEGs blown out by outside the lines spell uses.

>>52385288
God this pisses me off. So many "funny D&D stories" are just "I rolled a 1 and something really dumb happened!"

Yeah when you're a 14 year old who first got his greasy hands on a set of dice that shit's funny but if you plan on having anything resembling a long-term even slightly serious game you can't have everyone and everything having a one in twenty change of accidentally tearing off their own nutsack.

>>52387213
i think this is actually true tho

>>52397966

Author's bias. You helped create it, so you think more highly of it than an third party would. Not to dismiss that as a factor of your enjoyment of TTRPGS, that's a big part of the draw for me.

>>52386518
Beautiful

>>52398009
Don't also forget that authorship aside, interactivity alone also makes things way more enjoyable.

I really enjoy how mad some people get at the possibility of other people enjoying a thing different.

>>52398975
Welcome to 4chan.

>>52383482
what fantasy genre?

>>52397539
It's one thing if it's clever, it's quite another if its obvious abuse of the spell. Otherwise why couldn't Gandalf just use his telekinesis spell from the LotR movies to just automatically rip Sarumans' head in half? He could, and there'd be no fucking save RAW. Because you can't do that shit RAW. Also RAW doesn't cover everything, so anything the spell doesn't specifically outline using it for, is at GM discretion.

And eventually, the GM has had it with you trying to twist every spell into a physics equation. I've seen clever uses of spells: 99% of how players abuse them, is just stupid shit.

>>52383482
Demihumans would be more mysterious and malevolent, and probably not often open to players. I imagine we'd see near-human hominids as races (for example, 'picts as neanderthals' is a common fan view).

Magic would not be something you buy at a shop, it'd be dangerous and prone to backfiring. Probably would involve demon binding and deal making.

More pseudo-historical, like WFRP is.

No halflings.

>>52397573
>Yeah when you're a 14 year old who first got his greasy hands on a set of dice

Remove the "14 year olds" part and you are spot-on. Most of these people are 20-somethings, mostly failed normies, who have seen Stranger Things and Critical Roll and think all RPG games are going to be primarily motivated by comedy.

Fuck those people.

>>52401820
I don't know shit about the lore and inner workings of LOTR but I have seen many instances of things like what you described happening in fantasy novels and usually they don't work 100% due to something like spell resistance or a battle of minds or some shit.

As an example similar to something I once read, a necromancer could atrophy someone's muscles and senses with a touch. On a normal person, this would reduce them to a shriveled husk incapable of action and likely kill them. On an enraged orc fighter pinning him to a wall, this might just blind him for a short time and maybe make him slightly weaker.

If we go with the whale thing though, then there is no resistance against a whale landing on you. But who can draw the line between creative application and bullshit?

>>52394056
HP movies weren't all that good