Sword & Sorcery Adventures and Campaigns

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
But there can also be more mook fights.
Conan in particular is iconic for Frazetta illustrations of him up to his armpits in low-level maggots. Elric also, clearing out whole armies with his costly summoning spells. Hard to reproduce in D&D without opening the table to extreme abuse.
 

Yora

Should be playing D&D instead
I think it can be a setting, but also a vibe.
Always felt S&S was more human interaction--going against human cultists, bandits, etc. Because going against orcs makes it more Tolkien.
But there should be some weird monsters too or strange magics--but rare. Too much and it leads it to a gonzo vibe. magic and magic items should be rare and mysterious.
Sword & Sorcery is typically very egalitarian in its own way and doesn't discriminate against anyone. Everyone can be a thieving and murderous asshole and cleft in twain by cold steel in retribution. It has no need or use for "exactly like humans but repulsive and all evil so they deserve to be killed" because anyone regardless of background and heritage has the capacity to become repulsive and evil and deserve to be killed. Orcs and goblins exists as an easy way out to avoid having to consider the justification of lethal force and tell yourself that your blood covered killer is still a cheerful kind and sensitive character who couldn't hurt a fly.
Sword & Sorcery is more honest and earnest. If you slaughter people by the dozen, you have to acknowledge that you're a killer of people.
 

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
If you slaughter people by the dozen, you have to acknowledge that you're a killer of people.
Have to agree. If you subscribe to the alignment wheel (I do), Conan is a neutral Ftr (maybe Ftr/Thf?) who is mostly murdering other neutral characters in a hard, mean world. I guess to be fair, the mob NPC's are usually depicted as just a little more hard-bitten and rough around the edges than the 'barbaric' hero. But other than the odd nefarious wizard/odious cultist, most men in these stories are probably redeemable by ancient standards.

S&S remembers that heroes, as originally defined by the classical Greek word, are not necessarily good men/women so much as the driving force of the narrative.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
IIRC, in Conan stories there is often at least one "mook" band of tribesmen/bandits/assassins/guards, one "monster" like a big snake or something, and a wizard or Evil High Priest. But there can also be more mook fights. Mooks can take out nameless supporting men-at-arms, but named characters are usually good for a couple of mooks each, and Conan probably gets 2-4.

I mean, there are exceptions and variations. Tower of the Elephant comes to mind. But I know a lot of my memories of those books (mostly from long ago, I will admit) are of Conan mowing through hordes. Same with Elric.
Perhaps my favorite Conan story is the Hour of the Dragon. Conan is King, but the story arc is grand and sweeping---sometimes epic, sometimes it's gritty and personal. It's the closest feel to D&D campaign-style play I think I've read.

Also worth remembering is Howard's view that the simple barbarian, with his code of personal justice, in many ways acts more nobly than most civilized men. I think there was a big push back against high society in the 20's and especially the 30's. Conan was a loner but not an anti-hero. It was hard to find fault with his code. He was kind to the weak and unmerciful to the strong who abused their power (usually by attacking him). He was also universally depicted as a good leader.

Love Tolkien's books. There is a simple and clean moral line between good and evil. Nothing wrong with that. Is it incompatible with D&D? I guess that depends on the DM's execution and players. It is not all that difficult to precipitate events so that orcs and such act in a way that makes violence against them seem a proper response. (I am prudish in that I don't run evil PC parties. I could not take the self-indulgences and license to sin.)

That said, in our play combat is most often avoided...unless one or one's allies are attacked. It's a bit of a lowest energy-state to play all D&D like B2, where the PCs do a series of unprovoked home invasions for treasure. T1 was a far better exemplar of a mix of intrigue to unravel and aggressive malefactors. I dare say when T1 starts to make sense for you (and it didn't for me as a teen), then you've hit the classic D&D sweet-spot. It shows you what you, as DM, are suppose to create that invokes an illusion of a larger world---and that the temperature of the game runs both hot and cold. Truly, it's not for the casual "game-night" player who impatiently declares "I poke him!".
 
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Hemlock

Should be playing D&D instead
Completely open ended question. Any thoughts on Sword & Sorcery in adventures and campaigns?
And...

I think the key elements of Sword & Sorcery within fantasy are that everything and everyone is larger than life, and that victory is gained by being bold rather than cautious. The later one being an aspect that very much goes against the Gygaxian Funhouse of Death. Cunning and trickery are great, but slow and methodical isn't the way of fearless, death defying warriors.
Here's some initial thoughts from me (I'm sure I will have more after rereading this thread a couple of times):

1.) On boldness vs. caution:

I've been playing around lately with the fantastic Dungeon Fantasy RPG, which BTW fixes all of my least favorite things about GURPS while keeping the best parts. And at least in this system, I think the only real difference between the slow and methodical approach vs. the bold approach is how many casualties you are willing to take in a Gygaxian Funhouse. For example, in preparation for a real game for my friends, I've been gaining system mastery by running test parties through the randomly-generated dungeon that I'll be using next week. One surprising result: the Brute Squad, a melee-heavy party of four front-line fighters and two healers (3 Knights, 1 Swashbuckler, 2 Clerics) which completely ignores tactics and recon and just kicks down every door and kills whatever is on the other side... does surprisingly well even against things that murdered my cautious, balanced party the first time. It takes a lot of caution and recon and preparatory spellwork and mental effort to match or exceed the raw brute strength of the Brute Squad. Whereas the cautious party might get to congratulate themselves on picking the right spells to get through the Evil Runes of Evil passageway without anyone taking any damage (and resting for a while afterwards to recover expended energy), the Brute Squad might just absorb the hefty 3d-3 (7) points of damage that most of them will take from the evil runes, bash down the door, and charge into the room beyond looking for trouble, which might be ten flaming skulls or six brown puddings. (For perspective: even one regular pudding was a nightmare for three PCs to kill in my first test run, and brown puddings are stealthier.) And yet, it works! Not perfectly and I suspect not against everything, but surprisingly well. And it's waaaaay more relaxing than doing things the paranoid way.

Maybe this is just a system-specific thing, but at least in DFRPG I'm tempted to say that maybe Sword and Sorcery is just an attitude where you embrace Valhalla and just don't worry about contingencies and the long-term plans.

2.) On atmosphere and evil:

DFRPG has a pretty... cosmopolitan atmosphere by default. Towns are where you buy stuff, not where adventure happens, and metallurgy and magic are both sort of industrialized to the point where as long as you've got the cash, acquiring a very fine suit of plate armor with additional enchantments on it is straightforward, if time-consuming. By default this makes society seem peaceful, almost modern.

But what if it isn't?

Sword and Sorcery tends toward a very cynical view of human nature: power corrupts, and whoever is in charge is probably not a very nice person or they wouldn't be in charge. This is actually great for adventure because it means individuals can make a difference! In a society where buying fancy new magic armor means forking over cash to the Sorcerer King's templar-priests while the rightful owner of the meteoric mine from which the armor's metal was forged sits in jail on false charges and while workers too old or crippled from industrial accidents to be useful to the templars starve in the streets... none of DFRPGs economic assumptions or rules need to change, but the psychological context of dungeon delving is entirely different! (Also, being Wealthy enough to get near-full-price on dungeon loot that you sell after an adventure probably represents having good connections among the templars and nobility--players may even feel embarrassed or ashamed to have high Wealth!)

This doesn't have to change how you play the first few dungeons, but as soon as the players get tired of killing monsters and taking their loot, they can start smuggling falsely-accused prisoners out of prison, resettling old cripples and paupers in new wilderness colonies and protecting those colonies from monsters, plotting to assassinate templars or the Sorcerer-King himself, etc. They'll probably die trying but it doesn't have to be in a dungeon!

Is this really true? I'm not familiar with Kane or Elric, but every Conan fight I can think of has him engaging a single powerful enemy. As for lethality, I don't think there is any genre except for maybe spoofs where the protagonists regularly die with extreme bathos. Khaleryon Firesoul the Paladin of Freya breaking her neck in a pit trap or getting eaten alive by fire beetles is an expression of gamism, not genre emulation.
Or else it's just selection bias. If Khaleryon gets eaten alive by fire beetles, she won't be the protagonist of any stories. She's tragic backstory or a supporting character to the eventual protagonist.

There are definitely genres where people breaking their necks in traps and getting eaten by fire beetles is a thing that happens. (Indiana Jones even loses, what, four companions this way? One stabbed by a trap after betraying Indy, one shot by a criminal while Indy is trying to sell Nurhachi, one falls in an earthquake hole, one crushed by a falling space temple I think? The one shot by a criminal is even unambiguously a good guy.)
 
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Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Or else it's just selection bias. If Khaleryon gets eaten alive by fire beetles, she won't be the protagonist of any stories. She's tragic backstory or a supporting character to the eventual protagonist.
This is the conceit of Classic style games; whoever survives to high level gets to be Conan. We know Mordenkainen because he lived.

Conan in particular is iconic for Frazetta illustrations of him up to his armpits in low-level maggots. Elric also, clearing out whole armies with his costly summoning spells. Hard to reproduce in D&D without opening the table to extreme abuse.
It might be doable in 1e, if a 8th level fighter can theoretically attack 8 bandits in a round, with a high probability of hitting and killing them. I'm not sure how the grappling rules would affect this, but with lucky initiative rolls (or maybe even without one, I don't understand the 1e initiative system well but it is possible he would get several of those attacks in the early segments), or a ring of free action, and/or decent support from other PCs.

In 4e, I don't know about whole armies, but by the equivalent of 8th level (13th in 4e) a fighter could probably take out a squad of 8 bandits without being too worried.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
It was glossed over earlier, but truly it's significant that S&S is typically a non-magic type in a hostile, sometimes magical environment. It's very much against the genre for the protagonists to have the ability to lob fireballs.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Elric was (I believe) intentionally written by Moorcock to be against the arch-typical S&S hero.
 

Yora

Should be playing D&D instead
Though that was at a time before the term Sword & Sorcery had been used.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Maybe 50's? Certainly by the 60's.

Either way, Moorcock was reacting to the stereotypes in pulp fiction which went way back.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
Interesting. I didn't realize that Fritz Leiber coined the term in 1961. I have a feeling that you people(tm) probably could've saved some time by looking up Sword and Sorcery on Wikipedia.

I remember an editorial in Dragon magazine about Low vs. High Fantasy, and from what I remember about that editorial it seems that S&S would be a type of low fantasy.

 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Interesting. I didn't realize that Fritz Leiber coined the term in 1961. I have a feeling that you people(tm) probably could've saved some time by looking up Sword and Sorcery on Wikipedia.
Yeah, like anyone is going to accept anything other than their own personal definition.

Wait... um... I mean...

Yeah, @squeen, S&S is "fast-paced, action-rich tales", so Classic D&D doesn't count! SUCK IT!!! [does air guitar solo, holds up devil horns]

Seriously though, looking at the definition in the article, and the list of examples, I have trouble classifying Thieves' World as S&S. I haven't read it in years, but I don't recall it being particularly fast paced, it was more of a noir slow walk toward failure and disappointment.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
it was more of a noir slow walk toward failure and disappointment.
Never my cup of tea. I still own it. One day, I'll try again.
-----
OD&D was pretty seat-of-your-pants when we played it. Running screaming from the dungeon at 1st level while half the party died. It was an adrenaline hit.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Never my cup of tea. I still own it. One day, I'll try again.
I don't think I've looked at it since my teens. I enjoyed the early books, but it was wearing after a while. I picked it up after I made that post, and the two stories I have read so far are definitely noir. Little people forced to make unpleasant compromises and getting screwed over by the powerful. Sanctuary is Chinatown, Jake. But it may be fodder for my urban campaign.

OD&D was pretty seat-of-your-pants when we played it. Running screaming from the dungeon at 1st level while half the party died. It was an adrenaline hit.
The Hommlet campaign I'm running is a bit like that. Everybody seems to be Leeroy Jenkins, so much death there are no original characters left out of a large original party, and noone seems to make it past second level without dying.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Everybody seems to be Leeroy Jenkins, so much death there are no original characters left out of a large original party, and noone seems to make it past second level without dying.
That was a cultural reference I had to look up.

That wasn't quite our style --- we weren't so much reckless as easily overwhelmed by what we accidentally stirred up in the dungeon. At lowest level, retreat is really your only option once your meager resources were depleted. That's why our DM had this regenerative skeleton in the entrance/exit of the dungeon. We had to kill him on the way in, but it usually killed at least one of us on the way out---as we tried to escape with critically low hp. It also got tougher each time you killed it. I'm sure there was a way to beat it permanently, but that's a puzzle we never solved. We just got used to trying to run past it.

Making it to 3rd level usually meant you PC was now tough enough to last for a longer haul. Ultimately though, they all died in combat sooner or (often much) later.
 

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Maybe old-school is faithfully S&S. It's just that your average S&S hero has insane stats/insane luck/is owed favours by elemental lords and your average character just never makes it past the funnel to S&S heroism... You're not playing the heroes, but the hapless skeletons lining the corridors at the heroes' feet...
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Maybe old-school is faithfully S&S. It's just that your average S&S hero has insane stats/insane luck/is owed favours by elemental lords and your average character just never makes it past the funnel to S&S heroism... You're not playing the heroes, but the hapless skeletons lining the corridors at the heroes' feet...
Ah! You aren't playing Conan, you are playing the bodies that Conan finds. By the time Conan gets to the dungeon, its mostly cleared, except for the boss that killed you.

You're welcome, Big Guy!
 

Johann

*eyeroll*
Conan in particular is iconic for Frazetta illustrations of him up to his armpits in low-level maggots. [...] Hard to reproduce in D&D without opening the table to extreme abuse.
Older versions of D&D do fine in this regard, as fighters get one attack per level against mooks. And later on, Cleave enables slaughter.

(Oops. Point has been made. Shoulda finished reading the thread.)
 
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