Exactly. If you want to play a good monster, why not make it,... oh, a duergar? I don't think I've seen one of those yet. On the other hand, my wastebasket is filled with Drizzt wannabes. ("But this one is different. His name is ... Brizzt, and he's half an inch taller than Drizzt was!")By the same token, "member of generally evil race/tribe/nation has redeeming qualities" has been done in any number of ways since forever, and there's room for more. "Good drow ranger do-gooder" is starting to get pretty specific within that field, though, and when you start giving him pet cats and scimitars... well, come on.
Modern culture frowns on copying without reinvention.
Go nuts. Play something that can actually speak, but isn't at all humanoid and won't think like a typical one either, like an otyugh (probably start medium size).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The best re-inventions are the ones you barely recognize on some subconscious level, but can't quite put your finger on. The opening to Iron Man I did this to me. When the story finally hit me, I punched pause and yelled, "IT'S WAYLAND THE SMITH!!!" Whereupon Mrs Gersen firmly took the remote away from me. But it made me like the movie better.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ironically, a non-evil drow/tiefling/goblin/etc. is much less "cliche" than the evil ones, yet the former was the star of a popular novel series and is thus unusable by anyone anymore.
Not only that, but the depiction of goblins as evil is racist to begin with. I mean, who the hell are you pinkskins to judge?!?
In other news, not only are good drow wicked cliche, but drow are wicked cliche. They're so boring I've only ever used them once, and that was in the Scarred Lands where they were different. They were LE.
Tieflings? Pfft. Lame.
Down with Paizo!
Vive le Galt!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm getting a bit tired of Tolkien fantasy actually. If you sit down, and clear your head a bit, as a dm and world builder it is actually easy to come up with something different to the norm. Dark Sun is an example, Lace and Steel with its centaur emphasis but no elves is another. A game I ran in zombie overrun Poland was horror fantasy but not a whit like typical dnd.
My last game was in a Galtan gulag. It wasn't very Tolkienesque at all.
Unfortunately everybody died, and I think next we're going to play Rise of the Runeplutocrats.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The best re-inventions are the ones you barely recognize on some subconscious level, but can't quite put your finger on. The opening to Iron Man I did this to me. When the story finally hit me, I punched pause and yelled, "IT'S WAYLAND THE SMITH!!!" Whereupon Mrs Gersen firmly took the remote away from me. But it made me like the movie better.
+1. To the idea, to the analysis, and also to Mrs. Gerson for her quick thinking and appropriate action. We can argue about how much Wayland owes to Hephaestus and about how best to bring Wayland into the 15th century -- or 21st, for that matter. (Now I have an urge to create a Starfleet engineer and name him John Wayland.)
But if I make a medieval smith in Golarion, name him Wayland, and give him a level of Oracle just for the lame flaw,.... well, in my group I might get away with it because few of them are that well-read. But I'd sure feel dirtied....
I feel inclined to argue that every work of fiction is a reinvention since everyone is telling the same story about the human experience but that's going off on a tangent.
Not really. The point you're not yet seeing is that not every work of fiction is a reinvention. Some are simply copies.
Feckless youth seeks out wise mentor who provides him the tools he needs to face the big challenge and then disappears is archetypical. (Straight out of Campbell, in fact.)
Lyke Skyrunner seeks out Obi-two Kennobbi who provides him with a lightsword that he needs to face Garth Vadya is not archetypical. It's copyright infringement (or at best, parody).
Modern culture frowns on copying without reinvention.
Every work is a reinvention. That is not a bad thing by any means, but it is true. One uses elves because one saw elves in another work and liked them, and so included them. With changes, yes. Always with some changes. But it is derivative all the same. Any character one creates is an amalgamation of what one derives from life and other fiction. It's much easier to go through life as a creative individual when you embrace this fact.
Now, back to the subject at hand: I do NOT believe GMs shouldn't ever restrict player choices on race or class. I have a handful at my table for my homebrew settings (the only thing I outright forbid is strix because flying at 1st throws things off IMO, other thing I will discuss). Hobgoblins play a pretty big role in my setting, but I warn player that wish to play one that their choice of backstory will be limited and they will be met with hostility from common people.
However, I think disallowing good drow because of one popular character is a bad reason and, to my, makes little sense. At what point does something become a "staple", and thus immune to the forbidden-for-cliche? Is making an elf archer a staple, or is it forbidden because of Legolas' popularity? What makes the Legolas character a staple and the Drizzt character a "cliche"?
If an evil drow can still be an interesting enough, distinct enough-from-the-rest character to be able to be played, why can't a good character be so diverse? Does every LG in the party have the same personality as [insert LG character of your choosing here, I usually go for Superman], and their only saving grace is the different race and class? Or are there other aspect of their personality that make them distinct? Why is it impossible for a drow to be the same? Not every good drow IS, but is it at least POSSIBLE?
Perhaps you can see why I'm not following here.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The best re-inventions are the ones you barely recognize on some subconscious level, but can't quite put your finger on. The opening to Iron Man I did this to me. When the story finally hit me, I punched pause and yelled, "IT'S WAYLAND THE SMITH!!!" Whereupon Mrs Gersen firmly took the remote away from me. But it made me like the movie better.
I don't get it.
:(
EDIT: But now I do!
Paizo.com: Full of learning experiences!!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Every work is a reinvention.
Repeating an incorrect statement will not correct it.
Not every work is a reinvention, because reinvention requires a substantial amount of creativity.
Some works lack the necessary creativity even to be reinventions; they're simply copies or clones. If I try to reimagine (and draw) the Mona Lisa sitting by a pool in Malibu, CA, dressed in the clothing of the 1980s Valley Girl culture, that's a reimagination. If I download a copy of the Mona Lisa and put a frame around,... that's just a copy.
This isn't just wordsmithing. It's a key concept, for example, in copyright law. A derivative work technically is defined as "A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship," basically something you stole and adapted enough to make it original. If you just copied it but didn't modify it substantially, it's not a derivative work. It's simply copyright infringement.
Reinvention is an achievement to which many players of Drizzt's clones should aspire.
The best re-inventions are the ones you barely recognize on some subconscious level, but can't quite put your finger on. The opening to Iron Man I did this to me. When the story finally hit me, I punched pause and yelled, "IT'S WAYLAND THE SMITH!!!" Whereupon Mrs Gersen firmly took the remote away from me. But it made me like the movie better.+1. To the idea, to the analysis, and also to Mrs. Gerson for her quick thinking and appropriate action. We can argue about how much Wayland owes to Hephaestus and about how best to bring Wayland into the 15th century -- or 21st, for that matter. (Now I have an urge to create a Starfleet engineer and name him John Wayland.)
But if I make a medieval smith in Golarion, name him Wayland, and give him a level of Oracle just for the lame flaw,.... well, in my group I might get away with it because few of them are that well-read. But I'd sure feel dirtied....
At the risk of spamming the thread... why would you feel dirtied at all?
You're paying homage to something old that you love, and is beloved by many. That's a pretty big part of the high-adventure fantasy genre, indeed, to literature as a whole. Why does this have to be a bad thing? It's not as if you're copying the source material word-for-word and trying to sell it as your own brainchild.
In the Prose Edda, Dwarves, duergar, and black elves are all synonymous with beings called Svartalfar.
Yup. Literally, "Black elves." Gnomes fall into that group, too. One of Tolkien's great achievements was to reimagine the Svartalfar in two different ways, or alternatively to merge the Irish tradition of the Sidhe (who became the elves) with the Svartalfar (who became the dwarves).... lit-crit types have argued about this for years.
And I think we can agree that that's genuine reimagination.
Having said that, everyone since Tolkein who has blindly followed his lead on the ancient feud between the elves and the dwarves -- something else he reimagined for The Hobbit -- is not reimagining his work, but copying it.
Every work is a reinvention.Repeating an incorrect statement will not correct it.
Not every work is a reinvention, because reinvention requires a substantial amount of creativity.
Some works lack the necessary creativity even to be reinventions; they're simply copies or clones. If I try to reimagine (and draw) the Mona Lisa sitting by a pool in Malibu, CA, dressed in the clothing of the 1980s Valley Girl culture, that's a reimagination. If I download a copy of the Mona Lisa and put a frame around,... that's just a copy.
This isn't just wordsmithing. It's a key concept, for example, in copyright law. A derivative work technically is defined as "A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship," basically something you stole and adapted enough to make it original. If you just copied it but didn't modify it substantially, it's not a derivative work. It's simply copyright infringement.
Reinvention is an achievement to which many players of Drizzt's clones should aspire.
Perhaps my word use was poor. Reinvention may not be the right word. But every work of fiction is created from the bits and pieces we take in. That was the important part. Perhaps I misunderstood you and some of the other posters, but it sounded like you were all against the idea of having a good drow as a whole because it resembled a popular character, not because the individual players were just copying Drizzt.
Here, you sound a bit more reasonable. If you do mean to say that a perosn can create and play a non-evil drow that is distinct enough from Drizzt to be a reinvention, then I agree with you. If you actually do mean that no non-evil Drow can ever be distinct enough form Drizzt for that purpose only, I still disagree.
EDIT: I'm just going to walk away from the computer for awhile and give ample time for responses instead of just replying to everything as I see it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
At the end of my last campaign, Brother Panjeer was in a prison cell and was communicating by tapping on the pipes to the next door cell (Darkness at Noon) wherein resided the King of Galt!!! (The Man in the Iron Mask) in between his daily interactions with the turnkey, a half-orc woman named Juliet who brought him toasted peanut and butter sandwiches with toothpicks in them (Lost).
I think I only had two players (out of five) who "got" one of those, each.
There was also a burro-riding cavalier running around named Alonzo Quijano (or, as he was known in-game, Alonzo the Reactionary Teamster). Nobody ever "got" him, alas.
But I live for that shiznit. Makes me feel clever.
I'm getting a bit tired of Tolkien fantasy actually. If you sit down, and clear your head a bit, as a dm and world builder it is actually easy to come up with something different to the norm. Dark Sun is an example, Lace and Steel with its centaur emphasis but no elves is another. A game I ran in zombie overrun Poland was horror fantasy but not a whit like typical dnd.My last game was in a Galtan gulag. It wasn't very Tolkienesque at all.
Unfortunately everybody died, and I think next we're going to play Rise of the Runeplutocrats.
Dude can I play in that game?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But I live for that shiznit. Makes me feel clever.
One of my favorite self-written adventures was a straight-up merging of John D. MacDonald's mystery Darker Than Amber and Manley Wade Wellman's Appalachian fantasy The Old Gods Waken, with some other details scrambled around. Two groups of players at different times, and no one picked up either reference. :(
1. If you do mean to say that a perosn can create and play a non-evil drow that is distinct enough from Drizzt to be a reinvention, then I agree with you.
2. If you actually do mean that no non-evil Drow can ever be distinct enough form Drizzt for that purpose only, I still disagree.
1. Yes, but it would take some effort.
2. "Non-evil bad guy" is pretty general. "Non-evil drow" is starting to skirt very close to one particular example, given the sheer number of other evil races to choose from. "Male non-evil drow who is all emo but has a pure heart" is really pushing it, and you'd need something pretty different about the PC to avoid people coughing *RIPOFF!* into their hands. Make your good drow PC a ranger with a pet cat and two scimitars, and you're just hitting "copy" on the Xerox machine (and, no, making it a pet LION and two SHORT SWORDS instead is not "re-imagining." It's copying.)
1. If you do mean to say that a perosn can create and play a non-evil drow that is distinct enough from Drizzt to be a reinvention, then I agree with you.
2. If you actually do mean that no non-evil Drow can ever be distinct enough form Drizzt for that purpose only, I still disagree.1. Yes, but it would take some effort.
2. "Non-evil bad guy" is pretty general. "Non-evil drow" is starting to skirt very close to one particular example, given the sheer number of other evil races to choose from. "Male non-evil drow who is all emo but has a pure heart" is really pushing it, and you'd need something pretty different about the PC to avoid people coughing *RIPOFF!* into their hands. Make your good drow PC a ranger with a pet cat and two scimitars, and you're just hitting "copy" on the Xerox machine (and, no, making it a pet LION and two SHORT SWORDS instead is not "re-imagining." It's copying.)
I do not truly think (and htis is of course purely opinion) that a "rip-off character" is a problem in tabletop roleplaying games. For one, to an extent they encourage this in the rulebooks, since some people just aren't very creative or necessarily good writers and have need to use larger building blocks when making their characters (i.e Darth Vader + old wizard).
In any case, it seems a prevading opinion on this thread is that players are just forbidden to play drow unless they are evil because Drizzt exists, not they are discouraged from doing so because it would be hard to roleplay or talked to about how they can make their character unique, which is bad.
Striving to create characters/stories that are fresh or new takes on old concept is definitely a goal worth pursuing... to an extent. When that is the most important goal, one may end up with something unappealing for completely different reasons.
I do not truly think (and htis is of course purely opinion) that a "rip-off character" is a problem in tabletop roleplaying games.
IME, that depends entirely on the group.
Some people have no problem with Filbo Faggins the halfling rogue adventuring alongside Roarin Ashenshield the Dwarf and his 8 dwarf followers. For others, it would totally break immersion.
Just as some groups have no problem with a kender rogue named Scumbag Smellsbad and a half-orc barbarian named Moe Curleyson the Stooge. For others, it would totally break immersion.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You get tired of seeing Drizzt 2.0 in every game you play...
Also you are helping a person out by encouraging them to think beyond the same character every time.
When I am helping a new player work on a back story I get them to think of 2 or 3 fictional or historical characters that interest them and to take aspects of those lives and use them as inspiration.
For Carrion Crown my gunslinger is a combination of Barry Lyndon, Flashman, and Dick Turpin.
I used to play with a guy who had two characters - Gonad the half ogre barbarian and Sam Fox the double D Amazon Archer... At least he alternated them each game. It took us a few years but actually started to put some thought into his characters.
Maybe my group is an outlyer, but I've yet to see a Drizzt 2.0 come up in any of my games.
Could be we just happen not have any players that are the type to make such a character, could be people are exaggerating so they can ban it for personal reasons.
Sometimes I think I am the only gamer who has played for more than a few weeks who has never, ever, not once, encountered any player who wanted to play a Drizz't clone.
Just another thing that makes me appreciate my gaming group.
I've never had someone bring a Driz'zt clone to the table, but I've had players:
|
I played a Drizzt clone once. Sort of. I was really into dual wielding characters back in high school. So, after reading all of the good drizzt novels (everything before hunter's blades and, ugh, transitions), i decided i had to play a Drizzt clone. I, however failed. While my character was indeed a CG drow ranger, he was not troubled anf brooding. And he frequently got into fights with people who verbally abused him for being drow. He also responded with deadly force to armed attacks. He was really kind to people who treated him like juat another dude who walked into an inn/store/etc
He actually met the real Drizzt once and promptly disliked him for giving so much of a hoot about the crimes of his race and what others thought of him.
Dude can I play in that game?
Sorry, Plutocat, I think there aren't any slots left.
However, for all New England RPGers and Doodlebug Anklebiter fans, may I draw your attention to:
Open Gaming Convention 2013: Rise from the Wreckage
Come to NH, roll some dice, smoke a doob.
Live free or die!
But I live for that shiznit. Makes me feel clever.One of my favorite self-written adventures was a straight-up merging of John D. MacDonald's mystery Darker Than Amber and Manley Wade Wellman's Appalachian fantasy The Old Gods Waken, with some other details scrambled around. Two groups of players at different times, and no one picked up either reference. :(
It's alright, it just feeds our feelings of unrecognized intellectual superiority to our fellow bipedal sentitent beings.
Why do people attack character's based on movie, book, or TV characters? I want people to role play NOT roll play in my games. So if copying or deriving a character from pop culture helps them role play I say YES please do.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For Carrion Crown my gunslinger is a combination of Barry Lyndon, Flashman, and Dick Turpin.
My current bard is a mash-up of John Lyndon, Billy Bragg, and Karl Marx
-On another note, back to the topic, racism is a powerful force in the world. The American Civil War, the Porgroms in Tzarist Russia, the Belgian Congo, the Japanese in China...etc etc.
-Shouldn't a world have serious racial, ethnic, religious tensions to reflect reality?
-Shouldn't a world have serious racial, ethnic, religious tensions to reflect reality?
One would think so.
Do these tensions mean a person would realistically attack a member of a disliked race on-sight regardless of circumstance?
Possibly, but if such a race is playable by the GM, most likely not.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the suggestion was that the complete stamping out of racial themes on a meta level is a bit unrealistic. To handwave them away seems strange.
The players may or may not choose to echo the broader theme, but the absence of the theme seems beyond unrealistic.
If it works why care? Racism/sexism can get pretty cliché anyways.
If you hand wave away ethnic, species, class, religious, caste, gender, tensions, you end up with the very safe and boring McHappy Monoculture... Where your fantasy world looks like a bad Ren Fair.
You don't have to deal with these themes every game and you use it as a highlighter rather than a sledge hammer.
I like having all the spices of the really world in my fantasy world - it gives extra dimension, it gives hooks, and challenges, things to strive against, stuff to win in spite of.
As for Drow in my world they are monsters, they are the KKK and Taliban of the Elven world. They are baby sacrificing demon worshipers... Yes there is a good chance they will get killed on sight.... If a PC is playing one I let up a little but I don't make it a cake walk.
Okay, that's fine for you. I have a bunch of different cultures that are individually defined, some of various races, some defined by one. It works out just fine. I don't have to involve racism, and to be honest I'm fine with that. I also don't use real world analogues, because it annoys me on a personal level.
You don't have to deal with these themes every game and you use it as a highlighter rather than a sledge hammer.
Yeah see what you did wrong there? You suggested that there were a range of options other than taking everything to the max, so many people only appear to have two settings 'Off' and '11'.
Okay, that's fine for you. I have a bunch of different cultures that are individually defined, some of various races, some defined by one. It works out just fine. I don't have to involve racism, and to be honest I'm fine with that. I also don't use real world analogues, because it annoys me on a personal level.
I don't describe my Drow to the players as KKK/Taliban - But I need context and a reference point for my role playing the NPCs.... If they have to deal with the drow or I need think like the drow on a tactical level I go to my assigned perception of those monsters.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah see what you did wrong there? You suggested that there were a range of options other than taking everything to the max, so many people only appear to have two settings 'Off' and '11'.
You don't have to deal with these themes every game and you use it as a highlighter rather than a sledge hammer.
Grey is hard concept for some people.
My current bard is a mash-up of John Lyndon, Billy Bragg, and Karl Marx
For Carrion Crown my gunslinger is a combination of Barry Lyndon, Flashman, and Dick Turpin.
Okay, Lydon and Marx are/were both arrogant, self-centered pricks, but Billy?
Billy's a sweetheart.
Either way, Vive le Galt!
When I ran Carrion Crown, I created the requisite air of insular xenophobia mostly by having the Ustalavans treat the party's LG half-orc wizard, Dok, like he was in the Jim Crow south.
Innkeepers would make him use the service entrance, children would point and laugh, town constables would stop and frisk him, etc., etc.
I must say, Dok was quite the Uncle Tom about it, always apologizing and sheepishly doing as he was instructed. I'm sure Booker T. Washington would have been proud. It was funny, too, because the more Dok Uncle Tommed it up, the more, of course, I would oppress him.
Things finally started to change when the party went Up North (both literally and figuratively) to Lepidstadt. He got laid with a white girl (although she was drunk, and sighed heavily the next morning when she found him in her bed) and he was even inducted into the University's Order of Learned Fellows.
Not too long after that, Tramora III wrecked the game, again, alas.
If you hand wave away ethnic, species, class, religious, caste, gender, tensions, you end up with the very safe and boring McHappy Monoculture... Where your fantasy world looks like a bad Ren Fair.
You don't have to deal with these themes every game and you use it as a highlighter rather than a sledge hammer.
I like having all the spices of the really world in my fantasy world - it gives extra dimension, it gives hooks, and challenges, things to strive against, stuff to win in spite of.
As for Drow in my world they are monsters, they are the KKK and Taliban of the Elven world. They are baby sacrificing demon worshipers... Yes there is a good chance they will get killed on sight.... If a PC is playing one I let up a little but I don't make it a cake walk.
And if you go for the ultra-realistic grim and gritty medieval simulation, you end up with a world where anyone born into the wrong class or sex (which is almost everyone) is pretty much screwed. Joy. That's a lot of fun.
Play how you want. There are lots of examples in fantasy literature of everything from one end of the spectrum to another. Neither are inherently better than the others. Obviously there needs to be conflict, but it doesn't have to be race or sex based. It can be pure evil demons invading the perfect world. Or race-linked street gangs fighting each other for scraps. There are good stories to be had either way.
Like I said before highlighter not sledge hammer.
Grey is an infinite amount of shades from off white to coal black - you adjust your shades of grey to suit your table. You have multiple shades for multiple topics, not a single shade for the whole game.
Problem here is most people are stuck in a black white and middle mindset and that they have to choose one.
And if you go for the ultra-realistic grim and gritty medieval simulation, you end up with a world where anyone born into the wrong class or sex (which is almost everyone) is pretty much screwed. Joy. That's a lot of fun.
That would be setting the volume to '11'.
There are a lot of levels between 'OFF' and '11'.
We try TOZ, we try.
If it works why care? Racism/sexism can get pretty cliché anyways.
Yeah, racism being the be all and end all to a character is pretty dull.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
If only people actually spoke about the other levels instead of propagating the OFF/11 dichotomy...
Especially since the very people bemoaning the lack of that gray now were pushing that dichotomy pretty damn hard for the past few pages.
Personal stance on racial tensions: They should be present, but they shouldn't result in unavoidable "no win" situations. I've complained before about worlds staying static regardless of what the players do.
@Ellis Mirari: Personally I'd have no problem with CG drow rebels either. Not everyone sees a race/alignment combo and immediately goes "omg clone"! I'd prefer to see what they've actually got first. :)