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  1. - Top - End - #241
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    I've never understood this notion that the devs don't know something (especially something as obvious as '5e healing rates are unrealistic') rather than the more realistic (hah!) idea that they know and simply don't care.
    There have been repeated issues with dev failures of understanding basic statistics and dice probabilities through the last 3 editions, especially with regards to the outcomes of things with multiple rolls. Since mid-3e it's been my habit to check the math for anything they do that involves more than one roll.

    That's actually semi-off thread, but there have been enough face-palms over the years that I don't assume the devs really know basic math any more.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    There have been repeated issues with dev failures of understanding basic statistics and dice probabilities through the last 3 editions, especially with regards to the outcomes of things with multiple rolls. Since mid-3e it's been my habit to check the math for anything they do that involves more than one roll.

    That's actually semi-off thread, but there have been enough face-palms over the years that I don't assume the devs really know basic math any more.
    Would you say basic math is a medium or hard task based on that?

    It’s mind boggling how even the simple math of a d20 can get botched. Meanwhile I’m standing on my head getting a grasp on the peculiarities of target number based dicepool systems.
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    There have been repeated issues with dev failures of understanding basic statistics and dice probabilities through the last 3 editions, especially with regards to the outcomes of things with multiple rolls. Since mid-3e it's been my habit to check the math for anything they do that involves more than one roll.

    That's actually semi-off thread, but there have been enough face-palms over the years that I don't assume the devs really know basic math any more.
    Tabletop gaming developers are generally writers by training, not statisticians, mathematicians, or people in any other field with a high degree of numeric literacy. Heck, Gary Gygax's training as an insurance underwriter probably puts him well ahead of average in terms of mathematics training among TTRPG devs. Also, TTRPG design teams are small. These aren't big corporate projects overseen by huge groups of people with multiple departments. Whole game systems are put together by 6-8 people on a regular basis, and even large gaming books can be composed entirely by one person and only edited by one other person. This is definitely true in 5e, which has a tiny design group (3e's was larger, probably the biggest its ever been for any TTRPG).

    Consequently math errors and continuity errors with regard to fluff are extremely common, doubly so among books that are produced by the method of writers contributing largely independent sections that are then cobbled together by a single design tasked with oversight. To get a continuity error like the Wall of the Faithless in 5e all you need is one person to misremember something, and one other person to not question the factoid and bother to double check. This is especially likely since the actual writers may not be especially familiar with the setting, certainly not on the same level as many of the biggest fans.
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    To get a continuity error like the Wall of the Faithless in 5e all you need is one person to misremember something, and one other person to not question the factoid and bother to double check.
    And even more likely an error when the person doing the writing is not even part of the main dev team. That book was farmed out to Green Ronin. So you have a non-core-dev writing stuff, likely influenced strongly by earlier editions, without checking with the main team. Plus the usual error of the main team contact person not checking it even if the 3rd party does check in.
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    Tabletop gaming developers are generally writers by training, not statisticians, mathematicians, or people in any other field with a high degree of numeric literacy. Heck, Gary Gygax's training as an insurance underwriter probably puts him well ahead of average in terms of mathematics training among TTRPG devs. Also...
    This isn't stuff that needs a team of professional statisticians. You can wander down to a university coffee shop and get the analysis you need from a student half way through their first stats class. The coffee fund will cover the expense. It just takes someone caring enough to ask if the "easy" X successes before Y failures trial really is easier than the hard one.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    So, about this "Wall of Mirrors" that got mentioned several times in the thread.

    From this fan wiki:
    The novel Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad states that Kelemvor also replaced the Wall of the Faithless with a mirrored wall that showed the false and the faithless their reflections in such a way as to reveal the follies and life choices that led them to be sent to his realm. However, the more recent Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide sourcebook still describes faithless souls being mortared into the Wall for eternity.
    Could it be that WotC simply fixed a continuity error? Or is the wiki wrong because the Wall of Mirrors was one of the changes Kelemvor had to undo?

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Millstone85 View Post
    So, about this "Wall of Mirrors" that got mentioned several times in the thread.

    From this fan wiki:
    Could it be that WotC simply fixed a continuity error? Or is the wiki wrong because the Wall of Mirrors was one of the changes Kelemvor had to undo?
    That novel did come out in 1998. From what I can tell after a bit of research, the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting from 2001 still mentions the Wall of the Faithless. (Dunno how things were in 4th edition.) So, either that is a long-lasting continuity error, or the Wall of Mirrors was retconned out.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ezekielraiden View Post
    You don't win people over by beating them with facts until they surrender; at best all you've got is a conversion under duress, and at worst you've actively made an enemy of your position.

    You don't convince by proving someone wrong. You convince by showing them a better way to be right. The difference may seem subtle or semantic, but I assure you it matters a lot.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Originally Posted by Theoboldi
    ...the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting from 2001 still mentions the Wall of the Faithless.
    The Faithless are discussed in several paragraphs on p. 259 of the FRCS. The Wall isn't mentioned by name as "Wall of the Faithless," but the Faithless are described as forming "a living wall around the City of Judgment, held together by a supernatural greenish mold." The mold apparently immures them in the wall and eventually dissolves them into nothingness.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    The Faithless are discussed in several paragraphs on p. 259 of the FRCS. The Wall isn't mentioned by name as "Wall of the Faithless," but the Faithless are described as forming "a living wall around the City of Judgment, held together by a supernatural greenish mold." The mold apparently immures them in the wall and eventually dissolves them into nothingness.
    Sounds like not quite either, then? The Wall of the Faithless is supposed to be eternal, right?
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    Quote Originally Posted by ezekielraiden View Post
    You don't win people over by beating them with facts until they surrender; at best all you've got is a conversion under duress, and at worst you've actively made an enemy of your position.

    You don't convince by proving someone wrong. You convince by showing them a better way to be right. The difference may seem subtle or semantic, but I assure you it matters a lot.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Originally Posted by Theobaldi
    Sounds like not quite either, then? The Wall of the Faithless is supposed to be eternal, right?
    Not sure what you mean by "not quite either," since I'm just going with what I see on p. 259. The wall isn't formally named as the Wall of the Faithless here, and it's a little hazy on the timeframe. Here's what it says after mentioning the supernatural greenish mold:

    "This mold prevents them from escaping the wall and eventually breaks down their substance until the soul and its consciousness are dissolved."

    In this context, "eventually" could be centuries or millions of years, and it also doesn't really detail what they're dissolved into, since presumably this is spiritual substance we're talking about.

    By contrast, the only direct mention of eternal punishment I see is for the False, who are a different category than the Faithless and not involved with the wall per se:

    "The False are punished according to their crimes in life and serve their sentence in the City of Judgment for eternity."

    So without reading this carefully, some people on the forums may be confusing the False and the Faithless, and may be assuming that the eternal punishments meted out to the False somehow apply to the Faithless as well. Again, I'm not familiar with the details of setting lore on this point, much less from other editions, so the wall may have been changed to an eternal sentence in some other source.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Information
    Well, I don't actually have the book myself, not being a huge Faerun fan. Just going off what information I can find online. All I was really concerned with was the canonicity of that "Wall of Mirrors" thing, which seems to have only been in one novel and no setting material beyond that.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ezekielraiden View Post
    You don't win people over by beating them with facts until they surrender; at best all you've got is a conversion under duress, and at worst you've actively made an enemy of your position.

    You don't convince by proving someone wrong. You convince by showing them a better way to be right. The difference may seem subtle or semantic, but I assure you it matters a lot.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    My point, I guess, is that if you want to see how these books influenced AD&D you should probably read the books. I didn't read either Three Hearts and Three Lions or the Dying Earth stories until a few years ago. When I did it became obvious to me where some of the ideas in AD&D came from.
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Three Hearts and Three Lions is not historical fiction. It's high fantasy all the way, with Chaos vs. Law, enchantresses, water nymphs, dwarves and elves, and ogres. It's hero is the most likely inspiration for paladins in AD&D. It is definitely where the idea for regenerating trolls came from, and it also has a swanmay (MMII) as the love interest.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Technically Dice said "historical fantasy"
    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Which would be what, fantasy set in a real life historical period? That's not what Three Hearts and Three Lions is, except maybe the prologue, where the protagonist is fighting a battle in World War II before he is swept off to the fantasy world. By that criteria The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe would be historical fantasy.
    "Historical fantasy" is fantasy set in a version of historical Earth where either (A) magic is real but hidden (like an urban fantasy-style masquerade) or declining to the point that it will be essentially gone in the modern day or (B) the world has been changed by the overt existence of magic but still basically resembles historical Earth (like, say, a setting where magic replaces technology and World War 2 is a clash between Allied dragonriders and Axis necromancers, totally ignoring the effects might have had to alter history up to that point), and it nearly always involves making mythical things real and/or borrowing from real-world magical traditions instead of inventing things whole-cloth.

    Since Three Hearts and Three Lions involves traveling to a world where the legends of Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane are real and the plot revolves around a war a clash between an alternate Holy Roman Empire and alternate Saracens, it's pretty solidly an example of the second version of historic fantasy. You can see the influence of historical fantasy on early D&D in the fact that all the human nations in Mystara and most of those in Blackmoor are basically fantasy-ified versions of different real-world nations and cultures, in contrast to early Greyhawk where there are certainly real-world influences but most of the nations and cultures there are X-meets-Y blends of real-world cultures rather than straight-up ports and there are plenty of nations without any real-world analogs.

    The Narnia books aren't historical fantasy, because while the nations of Narnia heavily draw on real-world cultures for influence and there are portals between Earth and Narnia through which cultural influence could flow, it's still a separate world (and a flat one, at that) with its own culture, geography, history, etc. However, if Narnia were merely a parallel Earth using the actual British Isles, Scandinavia, and the Middle East in place of "Narnia" and "Ettinsmoor" and "Calormen" and so forth, and the Dawn Treader's journey East took them to totally-not-India or totally-not-China, then it could potentially be classified as historical fantasy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason
    I'm not sure I would call The Dying Earth stories "science fanrasy" either. They're pretty much just low fantasy that happens to be set in a far-future earth, with very few science fiction tropes.
    The key difference between science fantasy and low fantasy is that the former retains a veneer of scientific or soft-sci-fi versimilitude in its setting elements and explanations for how its fantastical elements work. For instance, the Dying Earth and Athas are both postapocalyptic worlds with red suns and rare magic and such, but the sun dying in The Dying Earth is due to the sun being a very old star reaching the end of its lifespan while the sun dying in Dark Sun is due to the sun being a big ol' ball of light and positive energy that was drained for fuel by various ancient magical rituals.

    Similarly, the Dying Earth and Westeros both have fragmented and mysterious ancient magics and magical beings reemerging after being hidden away for many years or centuries, but magic in The Dying Earth is explained as being a creation of advanced mathematics and physics, many magical artifacts are actually poorly-understood ancient technological devices, and the magical entities are higher-dimensional beings of various sorts, while magic in A Song of Ice and Fire is pure-fantasy bloodlines and prophecies and mysticism and such.

    The major science fantasy influence in early D&D was psionics, where psionic potential in (demi)humans arose from random brain mutations and all of the sciences and devotions had much more modern and scientific-sounding names than spells did, and the various blatantly-technological-but-the-natives-think-it's-magic stuff like the "Nucleus of the Spheres" (an ancient crashed starship reactor core) in Blackmoor or the "golems" (maintenance and security robots), "talismans" (security access cards), and "blasting wands" (laser pistols) from the crashed starship in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan
    So without reading this carefully, some people on the forums may be confusing the False and the Faithless, and may be assuming that the eternal punishments meted out to the False somehow apply to the Faithless as well. Again, I'm not familiar with the details of setting lore on this point, much less from other editions, so the wall may have been changed to an eternal sentence in some other source.
    I don't think I've noticed anyone conflate the two thus far in the thread. Certainly people have described being imprisoned in the Wall as an eternal punishment, but if "having your mind and soul dissolved by magically-radioactive mold over bazillions of years" isn't considered a punishment, I don't know what is.
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  14. - Top - End - #254
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Originally Posted by Theoboldi
    All I was really concerned with was the canonicity of that "Wall of Mirrors" thing, which seems to have only been in one novel and no setting material beyond that.
    I’ve never heard of the Wall of Mirrors outside of this thread, so I don’t think it’s in any of the 3.X setting material.

    Originally Posted by PairO’Dice Lost
    I don't think I've noticed anyone conflate the two thus far in the thread.
    Which is why I specified forums in general rather than this thread in particular.

    Originally Posted by PairO’Dice Lost
    Certainly people have described being imprisoned in the Wall as an eternal punishment, but if "having your mind and soul dissolved by magically-radioactive mold over bazillions of years" isn't considered a punishment, I don't know what is.
    I haven’t said that the wall isn’t a punishment.

    I’m quoting the distinction between the punishments received by the False and the Faithless. According to the text on p. 259 of the FRCS, the wall by definition isn’t eternal punishment, while residence within the City of Judgment is.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Theoboldi
    All I was really concerned with was the canonicity of that "Wall of Mirrors" thing, which seems to have only been in one novel and no setting material beyond that.
    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    I’ve never heard of the Wall of Mirrors outside of this thread, so I don’t think it’s in any of the 3.X setting material.
    The canonicity of either Wall is kind of indeterminate. All FR novels are canon and share equal canonicity with the sourcebooks, so Kelemvor replacing the Wall of the Faithless is canon...except when a later novel or sourcebook overrides an earlier one with an update or retcon, so Kelemvor replacing the Wall of the Faithless is not canon...except that the 3e material didn't update it with "Uh, actually, he put the Wall of the Faithless back" or similar and all other lore from the same novel is treated as canon in 3e material up to and including the Grand History of the Realms, so Kelemvor replacing the Wall of the Faithless is canon...except that the entire move from the Great Wheel to the Great Tree in 3e is one big retcon which could have included an implicit retcon for the Wall as well, so Kelemvor replacing the Wall of the Faithless isn't canon...except that the cosmology changes explicitly didn't impact the deities' divine realms at all except changing the planes on which they were located and the Wall is technically a feature of the current death god's divine realm, so Kelemvor replacing the Wall of the Faithless is canon...and so on and so forth.

    At the end of the day, retaining the Wall of the Faithless causes more conflicts with canon than using the Wall of Mirrors does--Kelemvor's canon personality in 3e came about as part of the same events that led him to create the Wall of Mirrors; Kelemvor lives in the Crystal Spire instead of the Bone Castle, and he transformed the Castle into the Spire at the same time he transformed the Wall of the Faithless into the Wall of Mirrors; neither Wall is mentioned in any 3e material after the FRCS, with Kelemvor's F&P entry not mentioning anything about his realm and GHotR not mentioning Kelemvor's and Mystra's trials when describing Cyric's trial; and so on--so treating the Wall of Mirrors as canon is the more consistent option, and that goes double with WotC now acknowledging their prior mistake with errata.

    I’m quoting the distinction between the punishments received by the False and the Faithless. According to the text on p. 259 of the FRCS, the wall by definition isn’t eternal punishment, while residence within the City of Judgment is.
    Ah, I thought you were drawing attention to the fact that being put in the Wall wasn't described as a punishment or as being particularly tormentous for the Faithless while the False are explicitly "punished" and "serve their sentence."

    Yeah, the fact that the Faithless don't spend literal eternity being dissolved while watching everyone else getting to go off of to a real afterlife or at least have a "life" while toiling in the City, merely spending an indefinite and unbounded period of time there, is somewhat of a mitigating factor on its terribleness. Not that it makes much of a practical difference to the Faithless involved.
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Since Three Hearts and Three Lions involves traveling to a world where the legends of Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane are real and the plot revolves around a war a clash between an alternate Holy Roman Empire and alternate Saracens, it's pretty solidly an example of the second version of historic fantasy.
    Well, maybe. It's much more a fairy tale than any attempt to be realistic or historic, and the clash is really between law and chaos, with the Empire and Saracens being pawns of the two sides. I picture "historic fantasy" as something a little more grounded in reality. "Reality but with magic."

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Originally Posted by Jason
    Well, maybe. It's much more a fairy tale than any attempt to be realistic or historic….
    From what I remember of the book I would agree. Certainly not historical fantasy as I’m familiar with it.

    Originally Posted by Jason
    I picture "historic fantasy" as something a little more grounded in reality. "Reality but with magic."
    I’m thinking of a novel from about ten years ago which was a very close rewrite of Pride and Prejudice, except certain people could weave glamours of light, which was considered quite the art form. Can’t recall the title, but the setting was virtually indistinguishable from Regency England.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Well, maybe. It's much more a fairy tale than any attempt to be realistic or historic, and the clash is really between law and chaos, with the Empire and Saracens being pawns of the two sides. I picture "historic fantasy" as something a little more grounded in reality. "Reality but with magic."
    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    From what I remember of the book I would agree. Certainly not historical fantasy as I’m familiar with it.
    The historical fantasy genre is about how closely the peoples, cultures, and other trappings correspond to those of a particular real historical period, the involvement of iconic historic or mythic figures in fantastic events or the introduction of fantasy elements to historic events, and so on, not about power levels or grittiness or the like.

    Gaslamp fantasy and wuxia are considered sub-genres of historical fantasy, and both vary widely in degree of grounded-ness. The former includes lots of less-grounded works like the Temeraire series (dragons everywhere!), the Shades of Magic series (multiple alternate Londons with more magic than ours!), and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel (adventures in Faerie and worlds beyond!)--the latter of which has much the same fairy tale feel that Three Hearts and Three Lions does--and the important part is that they're all set in a reasonable facsimile of Victorian-ish era England. The latter includes a ton of stories involving greater or lesser amounts of magical martial arts, the most famous being Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the important part is that they're all set in a reasonable facsimile of ancient China.

    Meanwhile, a story being a "fairy tale" is fairly fuzzy from a scholarly perspective (just to start with, there's lots of debate as to whether a story can be considered a fairy tale if it's not authentic folklore even if it otherwise meets all the relevant criteria) but in general it has much more to do with plot elements (archetypal characters, often defined by their role more than their individual existence; repetition in the narrative, especially things coming in threes; "just-so" plot points and setting elements that "just happen," lacking explanation in the story; clear moral lessons at the end, whether explicit or implicit; and so on) than about setting. Indeed, the magical realism genre is basically the fairy tale genre with the traditional historical or fantastic setting swapped out for a contemporary one.

    Personally, I could see characterizing Three Hearts and Three Lions as both a historical fantasy and a fairy tale, but D&D only really borrowed the historical fantasy elements and eschewed the fairy tale ones.
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Originally Posted by PairO’Dice Lost
    The historical fantasy genre is about how closely the peoples, cultures, and other trappings correspond to those of a particular real historical period, the involvement of iconic historic or mythic figures in fantastic events or the introduction of fantasy elements to historic events, and so on, not about power levels or grittiness or the like.
    Not sure how you’re construing my comments to have anything to do with “power levels or grittiness or the like.”

    As for your definition, seems clear you have a different one than Jason and I, or else we’re remembering the book very differently from you.

    Originally Posted by PairO’Dice Lost
    …but D&D only really borrowed the historical fantasy elements and eschewed the fairy tale ones.
    Apart from the swanmay, which draws on swan-maiden folktales which are represented in cultures from all around the world, and which has been incorporated into several editions of the game.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Personally, I could see characterizing Three Hearts and Three Lions as both a historical fantasy and a fairy tale, but D&D only really borrowed the historical fantasy elements and eschewed the fairy tale ones.
    Have you read the book?
    Regenerating trolls are straight from this book, a direct borrow by D&D. Then there's the world being fought over by the forces of Law and Chaos, the swanmays, witches with damiliars, Hugi the forest dwarf (gnome), a werewolf, etc. D&D didn't borrofamiliars, more historic Empire or Saracen backdrop at all.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    Not sure how you’re construing my comments to have anything to do with “power levels or grittiness or the like.”
    Phrases like "grounded in reality" and "reality but with magic" are generally code for "gritty low fantasy," and you contrasted those with the cosmic-scale Law vs. Chaos conflict. It looked to me like you were concerned with grittiness and "street-level" conflict when defining the genre, but if not, apologies for misinterpreting that.

    As for your definition, seems clear you have a different one than Jason and I, or else we’re remembering the book very differently from you.
    The genre definitions I'm using are the ones from Wikipedia and the various "scholarly attempts to classify fantasy" books that it draws upon. People have been setting down fantasy genre definitions since before 3H&3L or LotR were even written, and "historical fantasy" doesn't mean "literally based on historical Earth with one or two magical bits inserted" any more than, say, "epic fantasy" means "literally based on a classic epic poem."

    Apart from the swanmay, which draws on swan-maiden folktales which are represented in cultures from all around the world, and which has been incorporated into several editions of the game.
    Swanmays being involved in fairy tales doesn't make them a "fairy tale element" any more than dwarves or witches are, because folklore and fairy tales are not synonymous and the fairy tale genre is, as mentioned, much more about story structure than setting elements.

    The fairy tale elements of 3H&3L are things like how he just has a knight's steed and armor dropped in his lap immediately upon appearing in a forest in a fantasy world, and then immediately stumbles upon a witch's cottage who gives him a Faerie guide and sets him on a quest, and then encounters three archetypal monsters in the wilderness on the way to the next town, and then is told by a stereotypical wizard to go fetch a mystical sword of English kings guarded by a different set of three archetypal monsters, and so on and so forth.

    One of the key points of fairy tales is that the specific character and setting details in them usually barely matter, because the general stories are told and retold and reretold with lots of different variations in the details to the point that you can cluster them all together in a big index of the common themes. The swanmay is a creature from folklore that could have been swapped out for any other beautiful female creature love interest like a nymph or an alfr or whatever else without changing the overall shape of the story, in the same way that Holger could have turned out to be Wayland the Smith or King Arthur instead of Ogier the Dane (with the Saracen and the sword altered appropriately) to fit the general sleeping hero archetype and fulfill that role in the story.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Have you read the book?
    Regenerating trolls are straight from this book, a direct borrow by D&D. Then there's the world being fought over by the forces of Law and Chaos, the swanmays, witches with damiliars, Hugi the forest dwarf (gnome), a werewolf, etc. D&D didn't borrofamiliars, more historic Empire or Saracen backdrop at all.
    You are aware that, aside from regenerating trolls (which Gygax and Arneson specifically acknowledged as an original creation they lifted for D&D), all of those are in fact from real-world myths and folktales and not invented by this book, right?

    And it did indeed borrow familiars (see: Magic-Users/Wizards in every edition), though 3H&3L is of course not the only source of those, as well as the Holy Roman Empire and Saracens backdrop (see: the Empire of Thyatis and the Emirates of Ylaruam in Mystara, which are respectively a blatant HRE expy and a blatant Crusades-era Middle East expy, and they even have the same rivalry going, though Thyatis is more concerned with Alphatia, the blatant Atlantis expy).
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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Originally Posted by PairO’Dice Lost
    Phrases like "grounded in reality" and "reality but with magic" are generally code for "gritty low fantasy,”….
    I have no idea what “code” you mean here, and I haven't used those phrases anywhere in this thread.

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    Default Re: [Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defender

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    You are aware that, aside from regenerating trolls (which Gygax and Arneson specifically acknowledged as an original creation they lifted for D&D), all of those are in fact from real-world myths and folktales and not invented by this book, right?
    Of course, but it is fairly obvious that it is basically the versions from the book that D&D borrowed, not the "authentic folklore" versions.

    My point being that it's mostly the fantastic elements that influenced D&D, not the historical elements. That makes sense, because the focus of the book is also on the fantastic elements, not the historic ones. The Law/Chaos elements of the alignment system seem to have been particularly influenced by the book, as well as the paladin class.

    Edit: Three Hearts and Three Lions may also be the first book with a Scottish dwarf. That certainly had far-reaching consequences.

    Also, I would say Thyatis is more of a Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire expy than a Holy Roman Empire expy, as is made clear from the artwork, the gladiatorial arenas, and names used (Latin and Greek-derived, not Germanic). For instance the Thyatian-colonized Grand Duchy of Karameikos (Greek) has Specularum (Latin) as its capital.
    Last edited by Jason; 2020-11-17 at 10:24 AM.

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