goblinoidgames.com

To be fair to the Dresden Files even Harry has to out think or out run his enemies quite a lot of the time. Mostly it's the non-wizards (Karin Murphy, Michael Carpenter and John Marcone) who take out the monsters. Hell, there was a fight in the second book where Harry's only real contribution was tossing Murphy a can of Sterno while she was taking a chainsaw to a plant monster. That and in the book's final battle Harry nearly sacrificed himself for no good reason trying to kill the Loup-Garou.

I know I'm bringing this topic back up a bit late but there's an interesting ancient concept called mana. Essentally power, or magic, from skill, authority, influence and raw talent, or on occaision divine or otherworldly birthright. It can be found in the possesion of people, places, things and even governments. Typically humans could increase their mana through sex, warfare and other "adventurous" activities. But certain actions could and misfortunes could also cost mana. So a person with exceptional mana could forge a high-tech suit of armor in a cave with a box of scraps.

Here are a few examples of exceptional mana characters, mostly warriors.
Cinematic Marvel: Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widdow and Ivan Vanko.
other: Prince Nuada, Hellboy, Rasputin, Liz Sherman, Samael, Marv, Miho, Dwight and a whole lot of Quentin Tarantino charcters.

Game of Thrones is fantasy IMHO, but has little magic in it. I think it might be hard to pull off in a RPG though.

Fantasy does not need magic (or weird science) and non-humans at all to be fantasy.

Blood axe wrote:Game of Thrones is fantasy IMHO, but has little magic in it. I think it might be hard to pull off in a RPG though.

I've played the original Game of Thrones RPG, it played well.

No-magic Fantasy is no problem for me.

Dyson Logos wrote:

Blood axe wrote:Game of Thrones is fantasy IMHO, but has little magic in it. I think it might be hard to pull off in a RPG though.

I've played the original Game of Thrones RPG, it played well.

No-magic Fantasy is no problem for me.

You have to admit though, its not easy to pull off. Easier for a one off, much harder for an ongoing campaign. Difficult to keep it exciting without magic & "only" humans. Not the rpg most are used to.

Actually, since I play a lot of different RPGs, I'm used to them not having magic or non-human races. I've played a lot of hard sci-fi, modern espionage and similar styles of games, so taking those themes to fantasy is easy, and the people I play with have no issues with it.

And the "difficult to keep exciting" part is definitely way off for me. I can do that in a game where everyone is a level 0 commoner working in a dirt farm. I ran a 12-episode campaign set in a prison yard.

Now, if everyone I played with only played D&D-like fantasy games, then yes, I could see it being harder to maintain a campaign. But for the Game of Thrones RPG, it doesn't actually play as well for a one-shot as it does for a campaign. Too much of the game is wrapped up in politics and manipulation and long-term investments of power.

Agrippa wrote:I know I'm bringing this topic back up a bit late but there's an interesting ancient concept called mana. Essentally power, or magic, from skill, authority, influence and raw talent.

I don't buy some of your examples - Thor isn't based on power from skill, authority, influence or talent - he's a god. He gets his power from his bloodline and his hammer. Hellboy is another example of someone with supernatural power backing him up.

Surfing HalfOrc wrote:The question is: where does Fantasy leave off, and Science Fiction begin?

There was a time when there was no difference. Science Fiction is fantasy based on science instead of fantasy based on magic. Both are fantasies.

Dyson Logos wrote:

Agrippa wrote:I know I'm bringing this topic back up a bit late but there's an interesting ancient concept called mana. Essentally power, or magic, from skill, authority, influence and raw talent.

I don't buy some of your examples - Thor isn't based on power from skill, authority, influence or talent - he's a god. He gets his power from his bloodline and his hammer. Hellboy is another example of someone with supernatural power backing him up.

So I'll just have to include otherworldly as another mana source. Thank you for the help.