Saturday, July 10, 2010

I Just Now Realized I've Always Thought This Without Articulating It...

Old D&D = DC

New D&D = Marvel

25 comments:

Marc said...

Wow... Somehow, and weird enough, I already knew it :o

biopunk said...

I'd go with that.

Jonothan said...

What does that mean?

Anonymous said...

This.... this is going to take some time to absorb...

*goes and sits in the corner*

Snarls-at-Fleas said...

Hm. You are right. I've always liked Marvel and New D&D more.

James Maliszewski said...

That's actually a rather good analogy.

Jeff Rients said...

D&D Basic/Expert = Superfriends

mordicai said...

When you say DC I have to wonder what era we're talking here-- oh god, I'm over analyzing it-- but the High Fantasy of New DnD seems more Silver Age-- "Oh we just popped in to the Earth-2, I mean the Feywild..."-- whereas Old DnD's gritiness seems more in line with what I expect from Marvel.

Regardless, my campaign is Kirby.

Anonymous said...

I prefer Old D&D and Marvel. I must be confused.

Zak Sabbath said...

@marjasall
I expected about 300 comment saying roughly that

Adam said...

DC is a great big mess of ideas and tones and genres strung together by the thinnest threads of frayed continuity. It has much more in common with a sandbox full of toys than a world, so in that sense it reminds me of Zak's D&D.

Marvel? It's more accessible, and consequently often much more boring.

Chris Lowrance said...

Old D&D is killing off all it's non-white legacy characters, too?

I kid. I get what you mean here.

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna have to go with:

Old D&D = pre-CCA DC

AD&D 2nd Edition = CCA Marvel

New D&D = post-CCA Marvel

Looking at it this way, I suddenly have a framework for understanding the insidious appeal D&D 4e has for me.

Thanks, Zak.

Thak.

Delta said...

#2 of 300. No reason we can't be civil.

Bob Reed said...

Original D&D = EC

Tom said...

Wait...what's Image equivalent to? Storyteller? 3E? 4E?

Oooh and Dark Horse! Who's Dark Horse?

Zak Sabbath said...

@Tom
Image is obviously some kind of fantasy heartbreaker.

Dark Horse is a grab bag of vastly varying levels of quality kept afloat by licensed properties, so: Palladium? Mayfair? Chaosium?

Dungeon Beef said...

OD&D = Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

AD&D = Barry Windsor-Smith run on Conan

AD&D 2nd ed. = Valiant Comics

3.x D&D = Image Comics

4e D&D = Brand New Day Spidey

Adamantyr said...

OD&D = Archie Comics

I haven't kept up on comics for awhile... the only stuff I collect is Knights of the Dinner Table and Groo the Wanderer.

So where does Rolemaster fall into it?

thekelvingreen said...

I would have said that DC is equivalent to all those grunky arcane miniature and naval wargames which bequeathed their mechanics to D&D, early D&D is Marvel (they swiped half the art from Doctor Strange after all), and D&D3 is Image, and D&D4 is Tokyopop.

Zzarchov said...

OD&D I can see being DC , new D&D (being 1e and beyond) could be Marvel.

DC is ridiculous in their what we would call "unbalanced" while 1e and 2e trying to keep things in the same scale.

A 0e D&D party could be the superfriends with batman and superman togethor..

College Humour had a rather apt problem with that:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1884973

Part 2:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1906726

Tom said...

Now for the really hard part.
Given that your home game is part 1E (DC)/ and part 3.5E (Marvel), what comic/publisher best expresses it?

Or would it be the...interesting Marvel/DC crossover battle comics from a while back?

Delta said...

@kelvingreen: That's a good point, that the OD&D LBBs literally stole Marvel art for their graphic sensibility.

SirAllen said...

#3. Old D&D and Marvel. 4-eva

Capheind said...

I would go more

OD&D = Batman
4E = Xmen

but maybe that's just my opinion. My OD&D characters are just people with training, equipment, and some support staff.

4E is all about powers and abilities and larger than life epic heroes with elaborate pre-game story lines.