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.)
en.wikipedia.org
