While far less often acknowledged than those of Robert Howard, Micheal Moorcock or J.R.R.Tolkien...

While far less often acknowledged than those of Robert Howard, Micheal Moorcock or J.R.R.Tolkien, Poul Anderson has undeniably influenced the history of roleplaying games, particularly through its influence on early D&D.

However, I've noticed that a couple of major running themes through his fantasy works never really made it, somehow: first is the use of historical settings rather than fantasy ones (or, as in the case of Tolkien and Howard, the assumption of stories taking place so far into the past they might as well be fantasy settings). The second is the conflict between Christianity and Paganism and the heavy reliance, compared to the others on this list, on traditional European folklore (as opposed to Tolkien's use of Norse mythology as a basis for a mostly imagined world or Howard and Moorcock's near entirely fictional, exotic ones).

How would modern RPGs have looked if, back in the day, those elements of Anderson's writing have been introduced into early D&D?

There was a big emphasis on historical settings back in the day, when the hobby was mostly wargamers with a bunch of lead infantry ranked up. I can't imagine a situation where it stays historical, rather than the current system of 'fictional worlds stolen from various eras'.

Why do you think so?

I for one would love an RPG system that's all centered around the idea of a world slowly becoming more and more monotheistic, while in the other world, the gods have begun searching across the supernatural worlds for that fucking cunt YHWH that has been stealing their believers.

While the Gods are gone looking for that Jewish desert demon to beat up, the trickster gods and embodiments of chaos have free reign to play with Earth.

Man, Poul Anderson was the shit back then. How come nobody remembers him?

The Boat of a Million Years is one of my favorite books.

So what would you actually play as, in that game? How would this big theological cosmic drama play out?

Pic sorta related; Scion does interfaith stuff pretty well, and explains what's going on with YHWH in a way that works even if it is totally blasphemous and heretical.

Not the same user, but fictional settings give a lot more freedom to both game designers and GMs to do what they want. You can just come up with whatever you think will be interesting/cool/fun without having to worry about historical accuracy.

As for the Christianity vs. Paganism theme, there's a good reason that RPGs mostly steer clear of Christianity. You don't want people getting offended because they believe in a different interpretation of the Bible than you're using. You also don't want to scare away non-Christians.

You can always try pulling an Ars Magica in that regard.

>Not the same user, but fictional settings give a lot more freedom to both game designers and GMs to do what they want.
this. the introduction of the mythical and ahistorical opens up narrative space.

Well, anyone into sci-fi or fantasy probably does remember him...

You might be interested in GURPS Banestorm. It's a fantasy world, not historical. But the humans are descended from people magically transported from earth about a 1000 years ago. Who of course brought along their real world cultures and religions.

>You don't want people getting offended because they believe in a different interpretation of the Bible than you're using. You also don't want to scare away non-Christians.
Faithless heathen detected.

He was also one of the first to do the Law vs Chaos thing, and I personally think his take on it was the best.

I'm not sure that Three Hearts and Three Lions is any less influential to D&D than LotR. The latter is just vastly more well-known.

I think the former is more influential.

This is kind of going on in my campaign. A group of assholes on the eastern half of the main continent have decided that gods are nothing but psionic parasites. Since the eastern half is kind of a shithole that got fucked to the point where the background magic levels are still noticeably lower than everywhere else, the natives agreed.

little do they know that all of this belief that's being taken away from the old pantheon is flowing towards a new, YHWH-like god. He hasn't been born yet, but if the PCs fuck up he will be. And it's going to be !!FUN!!

More like
>believing any interpretation of bible

Well well well, boys. Looks like we got ourselves a heretic.

Apostate, mister.

How about firewood?

To the extent that 3H&3L provided what would become the D&D Paladin and Gnome, while LotR is the source of D&D Elves, Havlin, the early version of the Ranger, a couple Demon types, and other things.
You can mix in the Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories and Conan for a number of D&D stereotypes as well.

See here www DOT geocities DOT ws/rgfdfaq/sources.html for many influences on D&D.

Three Hearts and Three Lions is clearly one of the biggest influences. Just do a search for Poul Anderson on that page. Alignment, the Paladin, many spells and items, and many monsters especially the Troll are straight out of 3H&3L. Even Dwarves and Elves are not purely Tolkien, but take some influence from 3H&3L and European folklore. Early D&D Elves being chaotic for example.

>Gnome
Wasn't it a dwarf?

I was thinking that YHWH just doesn't exist.

The idea being that the supernatural world and the historical world are connected, but not directly.

As the historical world goes through various philosophical movements ending in existentialism, absurdism and post-modernism, the Gods finally realise that no, the lack of believers hasn't diminished their power, only their relevance in the historical world. YHWH is merely an idea in the historical world, and their 2000 year long search in the supernatural world has given them nothing.

Some gods might finally find peace and quiet in this understanding of the worlds, of the separation between supernatural and historical. Some gods might be angry, frustrated, etc. Some might switch their portfolios, change from pantheon to pantheon, take on new names, begin new conflicts, etc. I dunno.

The idea interests me, but I'm mainly a scifi campaign guy so I'm not going to roll with it.

It's more about the depiction.

>and many monsters especially the Troll are straight out of 3H&3L

Very much so.

That's one instance when I'd have given up dear Anderson's influence. Trolls have been depicted in so many ways in real mythology, it's depressing that insomuch as just about every roleplaying game is concerned they always originate from this template rather than any other.

>tfw The Dark Eye is the only RPG out there that does anything close to the original folklore, and even they kinda straddle the line

You know something's weirdly fucked up with the genre when the freaking Monstergirl Encyclopedia handles trolls more faithfully to the source than just about any popular roleplaying game (even if they only do it for the fetish value).

Wait, what's the fetish there? Is there a fetish for getting turned to stone that I don't know about?

It's further down the text. Thought it'd be indecent to include in the pic. Blue board and all.

Look it up on the MGE.

Yes. Yes there is.

>handles trolls more faithfully to the source
Which source? Trolls in mythology can be anything from hulking monsters to small tricksters. The only real consensus is that they're humanoid and usually ugly.

I think you can limit it further to the only constant being they're humanoid... Give or take a few organs.

Trolls are a bit hard to define.

In any case, I do agree that of all the mythological depictions, regeneration for example is something that never appeared before Anderson. In that light, it is a bit funny that this is the one bit everyone seems to have fixated upon almost regardless of how they depict trolls.

Kinda like how burning up in sunlight has become one of the traits most strongly associated with vampires. Even though it wasn't a thing before the movie Nosferatu.

I don't remember which one it exactly was, but I recall Vincent Baker once made a tiny vampire game which remarkably didn't do that. Vampires lose their special powers in the sun, but otherwise are unharmed.