Catching up with Tom Barber, Classic S&S Artist, at the blog of DMR Books.
Dungeons & Dragons: Friend or Foe of Sword-and-Sorcery? at the blog of Goodman Games/Tales from the Magician's Skull.
The first is the result of a couple emails exchanged with my friend Tom Barber, who is looking to sell some of his artwork. He's not doing commissioned pieces at the moment, but has some work that will likely be of interest to fans of spec-fic. I am planning to see Tom in the next couple months.
As for the latter piece, hey, we all enjoy a little shit-stirring every once in a while. I love RPGs and have been an on-again/off-again player for large portions of my life, but I don't think they are an unalloyed good for budding S&S writers. YMMV. It is weird that their meteoric rise tracks very closely with S&S's precipitous fall. It may be a coincidence, but perhaps not.
4 comments:
Interesting pieces.
I've never played D&D but I know about it through pop culture osmosis. It may not have had a positive effect on sword-and-sorcery. I've read a few publishers guidelines for magazines that specifically say not to write stories based on D&D campaigns.
"What gets lost in this process of necessary game codification and standardization is magic, creativity, and randomness―the stuff of good fiction." A lot of D&D players today make the same complaint about the game! Thankfully the OSR has produced lots of modules with weird, non-standard ideas that put some of the magic back in the game.
I'm not going to lie, my years playing D&D have their influence on my fiction, although I try not to let it show. For example, the climax of "The Lair of the Brain Eaters" was inspired by the potion miscibility table in the DMG.
I would guess that the existence of a movement to recapture the pulp flavor of the original roleplaying games indicates that at least some people agree about what the scene has evolved into.
Matthew: It's a fun game, I've enjoyed many fond hours around the kitchen room table vicariously playing fighters and rogues.
Dave: I haven't read a lot of your stuff but can't say I detected "game fiction" in anything you have written. Borrowing odd elements of the game is fine, even cool, as an homage, as you have done; I'm talking more about writing books based off campaign notes or simulating games in fiction. Two different things altogether.
Andy: Yep. The older stuff remains popular for a reason, as does the OSR.
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