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Post by amalric on Sept 3, 2008 10:53:05 GMT -5
I don't want to see Gord done by anyone else. It's like non-Howard Conan. Greyhawk has been butchered to the point that trying to recapture the original feel is not a realistic expectation. A new individual or company needs to recreate this wheel. Starting from scratch, but using the same ingredients that Gary used. That goes for the rules set and the setting. Amen to all that. Non-Howard Conan is such a poor imitation it brings a bad taste just reading the titles, let alone the text. Howard Conan, and all his other heroes - Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Turlogh O'Brien et al - bring a colour unmatched, one often imitated but seldom - if ever - matched.
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Post by amalric on Sept 3, 2008 10:56:02 GMT -5
Oh, and I can still recall reading Saga of Old City for the first time, many years ago now, and Artifact of Evil a little later. They felt like the purest D&D experience - to a novice like me - perhaps because they came from the hand of Gary himself. Even with characters named Deirdre and Oscar.
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Post by Scott on Sept 3, 2008 11:04:52 GMT -5
And don't forget Biff and Grover.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 3, 2008 13:31:40 GMT -5
Yeah, the same term "non-Howard Conan" can definitely be applied more broadly to "non-Gygax D&D" too.
Whenever I read a pastiche of Conan (like Carter, Jordan, DeCamp, etc.) I get the feeling of a listening to a cover of an old song thats jazzed up with some contemporary style. Unfortunately stories don't last an average of three minutes! When you play a D&D game that is ridden with non-Gygax elements even straightforward ones (3 bards to a low level party, players reciting "world" minutiae in character, tavern small talk domination, etc.) you get the same "burned" feeling. In regards to "Gord" whatever personal opinions people have of the books its still the only D&D novelizations that are worth anything. Even though "QUAG KEEP" came long before as the first "D&D novelization", it is the shape of things to come for non-Gygax D&D novels in its detached feeling from the game. If there is anything "wrong" with the Gord series its perhaps Gary was trying too hard to please the contemporary fantasy novel industry's "winning niche" that made Dragonlance "fly" with pounds and pounds of romantic liaisons when he should have been giving us more monsters and shit.
Otherwise, Gord stands up even in the romantic elements as the ultimate D&D series and one could even say that it makes other D&D novel efforts undeserving of being lumped together on the same shelf.
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Post by Scott on Sept 3, 2008 14:31:22 GMT -5
I love the books, they're good Greyhawk references, but as fictionm it's kinda eehhh.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 3, 2008 19:13:49 GMT -5
I completely disagree. I think the World of Greyhawk is ripe for an excellent writer to make use of it. A well-written series of fantasy novels set in Greyhawk could totally revive interest in it. It doesn't necessarily have to make use of Gord or other EGG-created characters, but it could be all-new characters in the same setting. I can imagine a writer who is respectful of EGG's creation and also in tune with the swords & sorcery source material behind it... it's just something we haven't seen yet!
I used to hate non-Howard pastiches, also. But I've actually read a few that I've liked, recently: Karl Edward Wagner's "Road of Kings" is excellent. "Conan and the Emerald Lotus" by John Hocking is good. Right now, I'm reading "Conan of Venarium" by Harry Turtledove, and it's pretty good so far. I used to sneer at the pastiches of Conan, Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu Mythos -- the original creations should be sacrosanct! But if you really think about it, even Howard wrote a Cthulhu Mythos story, he drew on that literary atmosphere. So did Clark Ashton Smith. Sherlock Holmes had a predecessor detective character created by Edgar Allen Poe... H.P. Lovecraft's early fiction and poetry almost seems like a conscious imitation of Lord Dunsany -- anyone remember Dunsany's "outer gods"? A lot of the writers we love so much were themselves drawing upon contemporary or previous influences...
***
I just came up with a title idea and blurb:
SWORDS AGAINST PASTICHE, a Greyhawk Novel by Gene Weigel "Paradoxical good fun about a pair of rogues beyond compare... and who should not be compared to any previous roguish pair!"
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 3, 2008 19:22:35 GMT -5
Well, its a good analogy in that there was an indifference towards the source anyways! I guess technically you could have a good GH novel but I think we might be beating around the bush too much lately. I wish I could get a game started!
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Rhuvein
Magician
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Posts: 228
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Post by Rhuvein on Sept 9, 2008 21:12:58 GMT -5
Anyone checked out the last Gord/Chert story penned by KR (with Gary)? IIRC it was announced at GenCon, and appears in "Of Dice and Men"? I expect to buy this and that other Gygax book from Paizo? ~ Infernal Sorceress. I have the Gord short story in Dragon, but have always wanted to read the novels first before tackling these later offerings.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 10, 2008 7:02:05 GMT -5
I thought about this some more and I guess the obvious answer why there hasn't been a good non-Gygax GH novel is that its bound to the D&D brand name which ultimately would never suffer a real visionary. One just has to look at Gygax's treatment and head the other way!
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Rhuvein
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Posts: 228
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Post by Rhuvein on Sept 10, 2008 11:04:00 GMT -5
I think the World of Greyhawk is ripe for an excellent writer to make use of it. A well-written series of fantasy novels set in Greyhawk could totally revive interest in it. It doesn't necessarily have to make use of Gord or other EGG-created characters, but it could be all-new characters in the same setting. I can imagine a writer who is respectful of EGG's creation and also in tune with the swords & sorcery source material behind it... it's just something we haven't seen yet! Great idea for sure. I myself have some thoughts for stories . . a female paladin who gets saved from an orc band of scoundrels by a half-elf bard and his gnome illusionist side kick. The paladin is torn between her duty to her saint/deity and her newly found love for her rescuer. The bard and gnome have Murlynd as their patron and so have have and use hoglegs and wear ten gallon hats and such. Hmm, this is getting good. And somewhere in the story, I'll have Gord pop in to help our heroes in some situation. Heck, if nothing else, I can create some material for my campaign world.
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GT
Wizard
Duke of Indiana, Knight Commander
Posts: 2,032
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Post by GT on Sept 10, 2008 17:24:59 GMT -5
"Down in the west 'Ridian town of Badwall..."
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 10, 2008 17:53:48 GMT -5
"...and out to the Marchlands of Ulek I go..."
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Rhuvein
Magician
Beware . . Mjolnir
Posts: 228
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Post by Rhuvein on Sept 11, 2008 20:43:25 GMT -5
Oh yeah . . . you can be sure Murlynd is going to be in my story. And that zany mad Arch-mage, Zagyg. I love these guys. Count Rhuveinus too.
Pounding away on the old Royal . . . plink, plink plink plink & CR ping!!
;D
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 12, 2008 11:35:08 GMT -5
"One night a wild young cavalier came in, Wild as the West Sea Princes wind...."I know...its too much already... "One little kiss and Leda goodbye..."Sorry...I had to get that one in...
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Rhuvein
Magician
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Post by Rhuvein on Sept 12, 2008 13:18:04 GMT -5
OK, now you've got me doing it . . . "Yippeeeyiooooooooooooooh, yippeeyiaaaaaaaaaaaay . . dragon riders in the sky!"
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GT
Wizard
Duke of Indiana, Knight Commander
Posts: 2,032
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Post by GT on Sept 12, 2008 17:32:14 GMT -5
Did you see Murlynd's place in the EX1/EX2 modules, Rhu?
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Rhuvein
Magician
Beware . . Mjolnir
Posts: 228
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Post by Rhuvein on Sept 13, 2008 14:24:18 GMT -5
Did you see Murlynd's place in the EX1/EX2 modules, Rhu? Yeah, fabulous stuff. The Wooden house and the vellum note in the study with the 2 scrolls. "If you should see Zagyg . . . "! And his books in the library - nice XPs if your PCs read them, haha!! Ya gotta love that stuff. Say, when did he become a doctor? He has a PhD, I assume rather than being an MD - it mentions that Murlynd is learned.
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Post by Scott on Sept 13, 2008 14:30:05 GMT -5
What are his other letters?
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Rhuvein
Magician
Beware . . Mjolnir
Posts: 228
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Post by Rhuvein on Sept 13, 2008 14:32:50 GMT -5
I've written a scene for The Green Dragon Inn, whereby a half-orc barbarian type walks into the bar and shoves some gnomes out the way so he can belly up.
Murlynd gets up from a table where he was chatting with some beautiful elvish ladies and walks (spurs clinking) over to the barbarian and tells him he's rude and to get out.
The bad guy (ugly scare face, heh) turns bringing up his loaded cross bow to fire on M. M, of course is already blasting away with the duel hoglegs and blows the bad guy through the front window.
Murlynd then gets the bad dude's coin purse and brings it to the bartender - "Apologies to Robilar when you see him. Here's some coin for the window and drinks all around!"
He'll then walk outside and whistles for his dragon. He jumps on as the bar patrons tumble out cheering and clapping.
"Yippeeyiyooooooooh, yippeeyiaaaaaaaaaaaaaay . . . "
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 13, 2008 14:38:35 GMT -5
Honestly? You lost me at half-orc barbarian!
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