| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Dennis |
Posted - 03 Feb 2011 : 04:03:03
Humor has always been an integral part of Realms fiction. Even in predominantly gloomy trilogies like The Twilight War and The Haunted Lands, we see a sprinkle of humor here and there. However, such funny scenes are always sporadic and often too few. Why not have a Realms series focusing on the funny aspects of adventure or misadventure?
I would further suggest that the series be anthologies of short stories or novellas. Novels are good. But they might be too much of a challenge for the creative team of the WotC’s fiction department. I’m not saying it’s impossible. However, having short stories is the shorter and easier route. Also, I’d like to see new and veteran writers alike in these anthologies.
Do you think this feasible? Will this appeal to FR fans? If so, what sort of stories do you wish to read about in the anthologies?
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| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Dennis |
Posted - 06 Nov 2011 : 18:41:16
But it's a nice and welcome break when from page 1 to 400 all you see is gore and slaughter. |
| Artemas Entreri |
Posted - 02 Nov 2011 : 12:33:46
I enjoy humor, but don't really care to see it in my fantasy
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| Dennis |
Posted - 02 Nov 2011 : 04:18:49
quote:
Originally posted by entreri3478
quote:
Originally posted by Dennis
Realms of Humor. Doesn't that sound great?
Possibly, but the humor i have seen in the Realms books which i have read has been rather pathetic.
I heard Rosemary Jones's books have a fair dose of humor, so as the novels where Danilo Than (sp?) appeared. I can't attest myself, for I haven't read them. But a lot of scribes said so, so most likely there's truth in it. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 01 Nov 2011 : 18:53:02
I never minded it much in the sourcebooks (there is definately a light-heartedness in RAS's original treatment of the Bloodstone lands), and even in some Ed's Volo guides (Elminster's running commentary is especially good), but in the novels I'd rather not have it. I think it detracts from the maturity of the setting, IMHO.
And as for the Scro, everyone knows they are just the Sharakim that made it into space. 
You know about their warchiefs, right? They call them "Tums"....  |
| Artemas Entreri |
Posted - 01 Nov 2011 : 18:27:30
quote:
Originally posted by Dennis
Realms of Humor. Doesn't that sound great?
Possibly, but the humor i have seen in the Realms books which i have read has been rather pathetic. |
| Dennis |
Posted - 01 Nov 2011 : 17:01:56
Realms of Humor. Doesn't that sound great? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 23:46:23
quote:
Originally posted by Arik
The spelljamming race of orcs are called scro. They consider orcs to be their backwards cousins.
Indeed. They are descended from regular orcs, but are far more intelligent and disciplined. They're quite militaristic, and many of them learn elvish so that they can insult dying elves in their own tongue.
The scro are my fave Spelljammer race.  |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 23:44:57
quote:
Originally posted by Arik
Gilligan's Island is also obliquely referenced in OA5 Mad Monkey vs Dragon Claw. The extraordinary favour Tymora bestows upon Volo is lampshaded during the Avatar Crisis; Volo is nearly killed by disgruntled cutthroats after his runs of supernatural luck assure (desperately unwanted) phenomenal success during his gambling pastimes. Conversely, the other Volo often seems relentlessly abused by Beshaba's special favour.
Early (1980's) D&D seemed more lighthearted and superficial, less inclined to treat itself seriously. Though this was more pronounced in the game than in the novels.
Actually, Volo's extraordinary run of luck was well after the Time of Troubles -- Volo himself wasn't intro'ed until a few years after the ToT. Volo's run of painfully good luck was in Tymora's Luck, when both she and Beshaba were involuntarily "leaking" luck all over the cosmos. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 23:31:13
The spelljamming race of orcs are called scro. They consider orcs to be their backwards cousins. |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 20:34:37
Hey, at least it's not orc Spelljammers- which would, of course, be "pigs in space".....And I seem to recall a D&D soda vending machine in the Encyclopedia Magica.
And then there's this: http://sterminio.deviantart.com/art/Drow-Cola-65914991?q=sort%3Atime+favby%3ADemonLover57&qo=3
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 19:00:39
quote:
Originally posted by Arik
Giant Space Hamster of Ill-Omen ... there isn't much need to say more.
Ah, but that's a Spelljammer reference!  |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 18:19:40
Giant Space Hamster of Ill-Omen ... there isn't much need to say more. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 17:53:49
NOTHING will ever compare to Greyhawk's Coca-Cola golems.
I can't believe I ever ran that setting, looking back, but I still have much nostalgic love for it.
I guess when you haven't yet tasted Filet Mignon, hamburger still tastes good to you.
Oh... and Chocolate Bunny Golems... <shiver>
Those may have actually been in the same issue of Dragon as the much-loved Athalantar article, along with some of FR's strangest (and comedic) lore, like a Beholder 'gangsta' that wears a zoot-suit, and the fiddle-playing Drow (IIRC). Now THAT was some really bad FR comedy (still amusing, though). |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 17:36:59
Gilligan's Island is also obliquely referenced in OA5 Mad Monkey vs Dragon Claw. The extraordinary favour Tymora bestows upon Volo is lampshaded during the Avatar Crisis; Volo is nearly killed by disgruntled cutthroats after his runs of supernatural luck assure (desperately unwanted) phenomenal success during his gambling pastimes. Conversely, the other Volo often seems relentlessly abused by Beshaba's special favour.
Early (1980's) D&D seemed more lighthearted and superficial, less inclined to treat itself seriously. Though this was more pronounced in the game than in the novels. |
| Therise |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 17:06:20
For humor, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Greenwood's interpretation of Cormyr's royal guards and wizards of war. It starts out mild, then usually turns into something out of the Keystone Kops. Elminster Must Die! goes along those lines at various points, and it's pretty funny.
For horror, I quite liked Davis' Circle of Thorns. As a genre, I don't even like horror fiction. But the way Davis blended Waterdeep with Asmodean cultists, it was very effective and really creepy. I didn't like the Haunted Lands trilogy, as the characters were just not likeable at all. I kept wanting Szass Tam to come and smack them all into instant death because of their relentless emo whining, but their plot armor was too thick.
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| Markustay |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 16:46:53
Someone mentioned 'Gilligan'... he's in OAtR as well; IIRC, the dwarf with the skyship was calling his small pterraman companion his 'little buddy', and the ship was called the Minnow (once again, IIRC).
Mr. Rourke and Tattoo (a Halfling) were in there as well (in Maztica), along with dozens of other TV references.
I think I walked away with one usable geography reference (a city on the coast of Kara-Tur that has many Faerunian ex-patriates in it, which exists in the 'lost province').
Read that book and then decide if you really want low-brow comedy in the Realms. A lot of the information left me with a "Say WHAT?!" impression (like the fact that two relatively weak humans were able to stroll into Myth Drannor unmolested).
I suppose we could 'assume' that Volo is blessed of Tymora, since the novel is one, long series of fortunate events (that manage to save Volo and his companions' lives time and again).
@Allysra - I don't remember a Skullport scene, but then again, I have tried to blot much of it out of my memory. Considering your attempted 'title change', methinks we may be discussing different works.
The two guards at the beginning are named after the Star Trek captians (Kirk and Stewart). Its that bad.  |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 16:10:48
Some characters manage to pull of a bit of both. Szass Tam's witty nonchalance has certain humourous appeal at times. |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 15:27:20
Well put, Lady FS. I didn't want to delve into specifics because it's really off-topic in the thread (as Alisttair noted in the original question posed to me). Your questions and observations are all worthy of discussion.
For the record, I think (and my post does mention this, I'm pretty sure) that a great many of general fantasy and/or Realms novels DO wear some of the trappings of horror fiction, some quite effectively.
My main point is that it just wouldn't make sense to insist upon that as a guideline for ALL novels in a given line: as Dennis points out, authors will be drawn to write what they're good at writing, and trying to force them to write horror or comedy or anything else for that matter is counter productive to producing good stuff.
Cheers |
| Lady Fellshot |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 05:23:33
quote:
Originally posted by Erik Scott de Bie
There's a genre difference between horror and fantasy, however, that you have to deal with one way or another if you're going to cross genres. Fantasy is about the struggle of good and evil, in which good inevitably triumphs (see Tolkien's eucatastrophe), or as Bob Salvatore puts it: "Fantasy = good wins." Horror, on the other hand, is generally about the triumph of evil.
I think that's over simplifying a great deal. Horror as a genre isn't about winning once and for all. It's about not losing this round and hoping that whoever you pass the torch to doesn't lose the next one. Fantasy seems to like to deal with certainties. Horror really doesn't.
quote:
Fantasy also, generally speaking, has a morality that is reducible to white and black. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad. There might be some gray people who walk the line between the two, but ultimately, they pick a side (or die). In horror, on the other hand, the only thing that's morally clear is usually the adversary (and even then, its evil is often founded in trauma or some sort of warping)--the characters are, by and large, all morally gray.
Well, for fantasy I suppose it depends on if your Evil Overlord has a reason to be evil. Not that an underlying emotional motive will make them a better character or anything.
I would posit that good wins in horror at a terrible cost to the "good guys" and that it permanently scars them in some way (madness, physical disfigurement, lifelong aversion to calamari, fear of cuttlefish... whatever). Sometimes fantasy seems to forget this in its attempt to simplify things down to stark black and white.
quote:
So when writing fantasy and horror in one novel, you have a fundamental disconnect in terms of what your story is about plus a nebulous moral structure, making it hard to strike a balance between the two conflicting demands.
*in best disingenuous voice* Did you know that one of the things that horror is really awesome at is making a mundane setting eerie? I can't imagine how that could be worked into fantasy.
In all seriousness though, I think that in some ways you are making too much of the narrative trappings of horror, when it seems easy enough to transplant the stylistic aspects of the genre in the same manner that one would insert little bits of humor into one's story. |
| Dennis |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 04:07:13
quote:
Originally posted by Alystra Illianniis
Well, considering that that story was about Volo, I think we got off easy.... BTW, MT, don't you mean "Once More Around the Realms"? And it really wasn't THAT bad- I was at least somewhat amused. Might have been better if it had not been in Skullport though. That is one place that does not lend itself well to humorous tales. Which brings me to another point- I think it as much an issue with the place in the story as with the characters in terms of whether humor works in the Realms. Ovbiously, certain places would not work as well for that genre. For instance, I wouldn't think of Thay as a place for a funny story, but Longsaddle certainly would fit! You could probably do an entire series on the Harpels!!!
I agree on Longsaddle and the Harpels!  |
| Dennis |
Posted - 09 Feb 2011 : 04:00:27
quote:
Originally posted by Erik Scott de Bie
quote:
Originally posted by Dennis
Maybe the difficulty lies in the current roster of FR writers, as very few have leaning towards humor. Well, if that means hiring new writers, why not?!
I think my participation in a scroll has gone too far when a suggestion like "let's throw out all the current writers and go for something new" comes up.
Cheers
I didn't mean it like that. Hiring new writers does not necessarily mean throwing out the veterans. The latter can be left alone in what they do best [PSK, for instance, should stick to dark fantasy; he always shines in that type of fantasy, (though betimes he also offers humor in his books); and RAS, as I assume most would agree, must stick to Drizzt], while the former can create new avenues of fun in the Realms, like a series of humorous stories. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 20:45:14
Khan Artist? Seriously? I need to read more Realmsfic.
Though Volo (and Volo) are both detestable characters in my mind, their predictably Gilligan-like antics just don't amuse me.
I initially disliked the Harpells, but hey, they kinda grow on you. Danilo's portrayal is awesome. Elminster and even Khelben sometimes snipe in some decent remarks, they're apparently unable to resist getting in the last word (even if it's just a meaningful glare or a noticeably thoughtful puff on the pipe). Even Drizzt has made me snicker. And there's always King Pinch, the title says it all. The Bouldershoulders were good too, though edging toward the unacceptable side of ridiculous.
I don't like halflings, nor the assumption that they're always snarky little comedy props. None can be as amusing as that annoying vermin, Tasslehoff Burrfoot. (While mentioning Dragonlance: Caramon was funny at times, just by being a BigDumb, even when not saying much.) |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 17:56:43
Well, considering that that story was about Volo, I think we got off easy.... BTW, MT, don't you mean "Once More Around the Realms"? And it really wasn't THAT bad- I was at least somewhat amused. Might have been better if it had not been in Skullport though. That is one place that does not lend itself well to humorous tales. Which brings me to another point- I think it as much an issue with the place in the story as with the characters in terms of whether humor works in the Realms. Ovbiously, certain places would not work as well for that genre. For instance, I wouldn't think of Thay as a place for a funny story, but Longsaddle certainly would fit! You could probably do an entire series on the Harpels!!! |
| Markustay |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 17:19:30
They are constantly adding new authors to their roster, so I don't understand the suggestion myself.
I'm not sure how that works; if they seek these authors out, or that they approach WotC, but either way FR is obviously considered a 'serious' setting, because either they do not seek out authors who lean toward humor, or authors who have a penchant for comedy do not approach them. The setting simply does not lend itself to humor, outside of the dripping sarcasm so many major characters seem to demonstrate (like Elminster and Khelben).
The Realms are not Discworld, and each has its own flavor. I don't think I would appreciate funny novels set in the Forgotten Realms. One of my biggest problems with Dragonlance was the silliness of the tinker gnomes (which also turned me off to Spelljammer). A setting will attract the kind of authors appropriate to its flavor.
Once again, I cite Once Around the Realms as a precedent of how wretched they could be.
A Khan Artist? Seriously? Please... no more like that... |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 17:13:12
To address Alisttair and Lady Fellshot and others:
quote:
Originally posted by Alisttair
A little off topic, but Erik, I would like your opinion. How about horror in fantasy. And I don't mean Ravenloft horror, I mean like Stephen King. Do you think there's a place for it, maybe not now but in the future, in the realms? How difficult would it be to pull off (since evil creatures are the norm in such a world)?
Well, as my own work probably indicates (my first novel having been a FR western and my second a FR horror/thriller), I personally think the Realms is and always has been ripe for quite a bit of genre bending. Fantasy horror abounds in J.P. Davis's FR work (see Circle of Skulls for an example) and Richard Lee Byers was a horror author before he started writing in the Realms, so it's not really a surprise that his work has some of that as well (see the Haunted Lands trilogy).
There's a genre difference between horror and fantasy, however, that you have to deal with one way or another if you're going to cross genres. Fantasy is about the struggle of good and evil, in which good inevitably triumphs (see Tolkien's eucatastrophe), or as Bob Salvatore puts it: "Fantasy = good wins." Horror, on the other hand, is generally about the triumph of evil.
Fantasy also, generally speaking, has a morality that is reducible to white and black. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad. There might be some gray people who walk the line between the two, but ultimately, they pick a side (or die). In horror, on the other hand, the only thing that's morally clear is usually the adversary (and even then, its evil is often founded in trauma or some sort of warping)--the characters are, by and large, all morally gray.
So when writing fantasy and horror in one novel, you have a fundamental disconnect in terms of what your story is about plus a nebulous moral structure, making it hard to strike a balance between the two conflicting demands.
I do think effective horror/fantasy can and has been done (and thanks for the recommendation, MT!)--it can just be a tough road to walk.
Cheers |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 17:04:11
Erik, I don't think he was saying that we should throw out current writers, but it never hurts to bring in fresh blood. That said, I think the consensus here is that a lot of us would like to see an ANTHOLOGY of Realms humor, not neccessarily an entire novel. Although for my part, I'd love to see a novel that detials some of Danilo's early escapades (BEFORE Arilyn) to see how he became such a loveable rogue. I'd be willing to bet that such a book would be chock-full of humor almost by neccessity. It's part of the character. In fact, there are quite a few characters who are almost always funny, and some of them could easily carry a novel by themselves. The Bouldershoulder brothers come to mind, along with the dou of Jarlaxle and Athrogate, Elmisnter is often quite funny and witty, Olive Ruskettle has been mentioned- there are so many characters who could carry a humorous tale as easily as a more serious one. I think it's just a matter of how it's handled. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 16:37:52
I love comedy and lighthearted entertainment. A few more ridiculous tales set in the Realms would always be welcome. Especially if they involve low-level bumbling and puns.
As long as it doesn't turn D&D into a bunch of pointless yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk slapstick. I'm confident that the roster of FR authors (at least those I've read) are capable of writing humourous and sophisticated tales. |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 16:28:16
AI, I wasn't forgetting or glossing over the fact that many writers are very adept at comedy. I'm just saying that the vast majority of successful fantasy novels are at least mostly action/drama, with a *little bit* of comedy thrown in. Ed's books are hilarious, but even they aren't all funny, all the time. An entirely slapstick/banter/comedic tale just doesn't fit the genre very well, and it's considerably more subjective (i.e. more people will dislike it than something more straight).
That said, there are all sorts of pieces in the Realms that are dominantly or even entirely comedy, particularly in the various anthologies. Heck, even *I* did it with my Realms of the Dead story, and that was really fun to write. I'm just concerned that trying to maintain that level of humor over the course of an entire novel will fall flat.
quote:
Originally posted by Dennis
Maybe the difficulty lies in the current roster of FR writers, as very few have leaning towards humor. Well, if that means hiring new writers, why not?!
I think my participation in a scroll has gone too far when a suggestion like "let's throw out all the current writers and go for something new" comes up.
Cheers |
| Dennis |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 04:49:34
Some readers might it vastly entertaining to see 'light' humorous scenes that involve those who appear unlikely to be involved, the grim long-standing evil characters whose humor often includes bloodshed. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 04:29:07
As for horror and fantasy, I would highly recommend The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton, which blends the two genres beautifully (without stooping to any 'Cthulhu by Gaslight' tropes). Not Gothic Horror - REAL high-fantasy horror, which is hard to come by.
And its GRIM... you have been warned. 
I've still (sadly) yet to read any Pratchet. I O.D.-ed on comedy/fantasy with the Xanth series, which I loved very much back in the day (much to my poor GH players chagrin). I still throw a bad pun in once in awhile, for old time sake, but I try to not let my FR games be reduced to groaning sessions.
Someday I may punish you all with revelations about some of my more comical monsters, like the Rukus, Foo Bird, Living Canon (affectionately called the 'poo-shooter'), and Cerebral Hemorrhoid. |
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