Oh no!

[Weltall]

[Great Rumbler]

Hahahaha!! :D

[Dark Jaguar]

So there are navy seals in WOT? I can't imagine it meaning the actual animals mind you.

[Great Rumbler]

Seals: locks on the Dark One's prison.

[Dark Jaguar]

Uh oh!

[Great Rumbler]

Mission Control: Chopper Dave, do you copy? Repeat, we have an "Uh oh".

Chopter Dave: I copy, Mission Control. Uh oh! *explodes*

[OB1]

You forgot to add the two dots to your Tai Chi symbol, Welly. I'm marking you down for that.

*marks down Ryan for that... on a report card or something*

[Great Rumbler]

Actually, in WOT that symbol didn't have the dots, but it is upside down.

[Dark Jaguar]

Uh oh!

....wooooooooo *alarm sound* *break dances*

Houston we have an uh-oh, over!

[OB1]

So the WOT symbol is just an upside-down, dotless Tai Chi symbol?

[A Black Falcon]

Its not the "WOT Symbol", its the symbol of the Aes Sedai.

[OB1]

Well EXCUUUUSE me for not knowing anything about your stupid wheels of time!!!

[A Black Falcon]

You and your fantasy-hating ways are not welcomed here!

[OB1]

I love fantasy stuff! LotR, The last Unicorn, Legend, that one "Time of Wheel" book I read a long time ago (I forgot the exact name), ICO, the Brother's Grimm, and plenty of other fantasy stuff. I just despise the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing, although that's because of the very boring, drab look of it.

[Great Rumbler]

Dungeons and drag...what do we look like? A bunch of nerds?!

[OB1]

Yeah.

[Dark Jaguar]

I remember that Last Unicorn movie!

You know what's fun fantasy? Parody fantasy!

I love the Princess Bride! That was hilarious! My mom loves it too, but the hilarious thing is she went for YEARS thinking it was serious :D.

[A Black Falcon]

Dungeons and Dragons is great. Its such a great and varied fantasy universe... I don't see how you can call it "drab and boring". I honestly don't understand how that makes even the remotest sense...

[OB1]

Visually speaking it is very drab and boring. The whole look of everything in that universe is extremely stale. I'll explain my feelings in letter form, addressed to the D&D people:

Dear Dungeons and Dragons creators and game developers,

There are other colors out there besides brown and grey! Seriously! There's green (and no I don't mean brownish-green), red, yellow, blue (aside from grey-blue), purple, orange and many other brilliant colors in the world. Now I'm not saying that you should turn D&D into Yoshi's Island, but rip off Tolkien some more by making vibrant grassy areas, gorgeous mountains, and beautiful lakes for your games and stuff, all which can be seen in the 'rings movies, games, etc.

Sincerely,

Daniel Coleman

[A Black Falcon]

You DO know that at heart D&D isn't a universe that is truly drawn, but numerous worlds that are mapped out or invented by the game players that don't exist anywhere except in the imagination and on crude topographic maps, right?

As for the games... Baldur's Gate is set in one small part of the Sword Coast of the planet that the Forgotten Realms is set on... I forget its name at the moment. This small region has many forests. Neverwinter Nights is set near that but in a slightly different area, hence the somewhat different architechture. Icewind Dale's games are in perpetual snow lands... and PlaneScape is mostly in a city and the outer planes.

That provides a quite varied set of landscapes... forests, plains, winter areas, mountains, deserts, cities... what is the problem here?

And what exactly are you basing this "there aren't many colors" thing on? I don't get it...

[OB1]

It doesn't matter how many different locations there are when they all use drab colors. That is my point.

[A Black Falcon]

Right, because pen and paper games and books (which is most of what D&D is) have so many colors in them!

[OB1]

I'm talking about the games and stuff, smartass.

[A Black Falcon]

I'd say that the books and pen and paper games are a much bigger part of D&D than the computer games are.

[OB1]

Well if you look at those D&D guide books (for the pen and paper game), just about every character is painted with very drab colors.

[A Black Falcon]

What exactly is wrong with making them look somewhat realisitic?

[OB1]

Go outside and look around. See those nice green trees? Or those gorgeous mountains? Or that nice lake? Eh? Well maybe everything is drab over there in Maine, but over here in Colorado it's very lush and beautiful. So D&D is not realistic. It's just ugly and drab.

[A Black Falcon]

From what I remember of BG (haven't played the first one in quite some time...), it has towns, forests, and some hills... but mostly towns and forests. That's the landscape of that part of the Sword Coast... BG2 varies it more, adding underground Drow lands, some undersea cities, deserts, more varied towns and cities, etc... Torment also has nice variation, with the huge city as the centerpoint but the quite different outer plains as a counterpoint to that... and I haven't played either Icewind Dale game.

And how about other games? BG: Dark Alliance looked pretty nice... or Neverwinter Nights. NN had problems, true... it repeated a lot of stuff a lot. But it presents a somewhat different view...

But here's a good question. Given how great the DragonLance book series is, why haven't there been more DragonLance games???

[Great Rumbler]

Do you guys have to have this exact same debate in two different threads?

[A Black Falcon]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D

[OB1]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon


From what I remember of BG (haven't played the first one in quite some time...), it has towns, forests, and some hills... but mostly towns and forests. That's the landscape of that part of the Sword Coast... BG2 varies it more, adding underground Drow lands, some undersea cities, deserts, more varied towns and cities, etc... Torment also has nice variation, with the huge city as the centerpoint but the quite different outer plains as a counterpoint to that... and I haven't played either Icewind Dale game.

And how about other games? BG: Dark Alliance looked pretty nice... or Neverwinter Nights. NN had problems, true... it repeated a lot of stuff a lot. But it presents a somewhat different view...

But here's a good question. Given how great the DragonLance book series is, why haven't there been more DragonLance games???

Dude, we've already established that there are towns and forests in the BG series; that was never an issue. The problem is that all of the locations are very drab, no matter what they are.

[A Black Falcon]

All we have established is that you find it dull but I find it very detailed and a great gameworld.

[Great Rumbler]

OB1: D&D is drab and it only uses dull colors!

ABF: What are you talking about?

OB1: It only uses dull colors like brown and gray and there aren't any beautiful outdoor settings!

ABF: It's not dull at all! It's an excellent game world!

OB1: No it isn't!

ABF: Yes it is!

OB1: You only say that because you like dull colors and drab enviroments!

ABF: That's not it at all!

OB1: Yes it is!

ABF: No it isn't!

OB1: No it isn't!

ABF: Yes it is!

OB1: HA!

*universe explodes*

[A Black Falcon]

Pretty much, except for the part where he tricks me into agreeing with him. :)

[OB1]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
All we have established is that you find it dull but I find it very detailed and a great gameworld.

Well yeah.

[Nick Burns]

Originally posted by OB1
Well if you look at those D&D guide books (for the pen and paper game), just about every character is painted with very drab colors.

*sigh*

OB1, the reason that they are drawn is such "Drab Colors" is because those colors are visually pleasing and easy to look at for extended peroids of time.
Tell me, would you like look at blue or yellow text of and on for hours while you RP? They tried using different colors in the past, but to many people suffered from headaches.

Its like have bright pictures and words in a dictiionary or encyclopedia while you are trying to write or type a report. You wouldn't beable to read much with bright pictures in your face now could you...didn't think so....

[A Black Falcon]

That "drab colors" thing of his makes absolutely no sense, but its no point arguing... though his arguement is quite bizarre.

For one thing, there isn't really a "D&D Art Style"! Far too many people have done art for D&D to say there is one defining style... sure, there is a way they depict the characters, but it changes somewhat all the time depending on who does the drawing... D&D art is just so hugely varied that I would never say it has any one style in some category.

As for "drab", that's both because of what Nick Burns said and because ITS MORE REALISTIC!

[OB1]

*sigh*

OB1, the reason that they are drawn is such "Drab Colors" is because those colors are visually pleasing and easy to look at for extended peroids of time.
Tell me, would you like look at blue or yellow text of and on for hours while you RP? They tried using different colors in the past, but to many people suffered from headaches.

Its like have bright pictures and words in a dictiionary or encyclopedia while you are trying to write or type a report. You wouldn't beable to read much with bright pictures in your face now could you...didn't think so....

So now you're trying to compare the look of D&D with a dictionary? Well then this time I admit defeat! You won this argument! I definitely agree with you that the look of D&D has the same amount of visual beauty as dictionaries and encyclopedias.

See, ABF? I can admit defeat.

That "drab colors" thing of his makes absolutely no sense, but its no point arguing... though his arguement is quite bizarre.

For one thing, there isn't really a "D&D Art Style"! Far too many people have done art for D&D to say there is one defining style... sure, there is a way they depict the characters, but it changes somewhat all the time depending on who does the drawing... D&D art is just so hugely varied that I would never say it has any one style in some category.

As for "drab", that's both because of what Nick Burns said and because ITS MORE REALISTIC!

Look, you are obviously someone who doesn't like to look at visually pleasing things. You like the shitty art in Oni, and you like the look of D&D. That's fine. You go and enjoy your drab and ugly D&D universe all you want. Have fun!

[A Black Falcon]

So now you're trying to compare the look of D&D with a dictionary? Well then this time I admit defeat! You won this argument! I definitely agree with you that the look of D&D has the same amount of visual beauty as dictionaries and encyclopedias.

See, ABF? I can admit defeat.

You're being sarcastic and purposely misrepresenting his point, that's what you are doing.

Look, you are obviously someone who doesn't like to look at visually pleasing things. You like the shitty art in Oni, and you like the look of D&D. That's fine. You go and enjoy your drab and ugly D&D universe all you want. Have fun!

There is no sane way you can represent all D&D art as ANYTHING in a few words... is some of it drab? Probably, but its not like its one style! There is just such a huge amount of variety... plenty of it isn't drab. I have no clue what you are basing that opinion on, but its clearly not on much of a sample, I'd have to say... either that or you have very, very bizarre standards...

[OB1]

You're being sarcastic and purposely misrepresenting his point, that's what you are doing.

I have to admit, Nick makes a lot of sense!

There is no sane way you can represent all D&D art as ANYTHING in a few words... is some of it drab? Probably, but its not like its one style! There is just such a huge amount of variety... plenty of it isn't drab. I have no clue what you are basing that opinion on, but its clearly not on much of a sample, I'd have to say... either that or you have very, very bizarre standards...

My brother is a big D&D geek so I've seen a lot of D&D stuff, and all of it is drab and ugly.