Sweet Haul
Do you guys know the term “portal fantasy?” I only recently realized it was a genre with a proper name. Narnia might be the most famous example. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is another. So is Avatar if you turn your head and squint a bit. Whatever example you pick, the underlying premise is always the same: the protagonist moves between worlds, traveling by means of a convenient plot device (read: a portal).
Now I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I didn’t get into the wonderful world of TTRPGs because I love calculating THAC0. Sure the mechanics are captivating once you’ve played for a while, but it’s the basic fantasy of the hobby that pulled me in. This isn’t just a sword and sorcery themed version of Risk. This is a game where YOU are the hero of your own adventure! There’s a reason that they put that stuff on the cover. Underlying the game is the larger promise that you will find passage into another world. You’ll take the hero’s journey, cross the stream into Faerie, and maybe even make like Persephone and grab a pomegranate seed hall pass for the return trip.
The longer you play though, the harder it is to get that feeling. The sense of jamais-vu recedes, and you’re left to wonder why the magic has become mundane.
But then it happens. Pawing through the neglected corners of some manky second-hand store, poking out from the bottom of a milk crate filled to bursting with Queen’s Greatest Hits LPs, you see the the corner of a box. It might be bright red. It might be magenta. It might even (dare ye dream?) be white. But no matter what the color, it’s the sensation that really matters. There in your trembling hand lies Charlie’s golden ticket. Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Bastian’s grain of sand. It’s your passage back to the promised fantasy. In that moment, you are your character. You’ve found magic treasure hidden away in some lightless cavern, and all the old feelings of discovery come rushing back again.
There’s a reason that you see so many “Look what I found!” posts strewn across the internet, complete with unboxing videos and detail-obsessed photography. These aren’t gamers happy to have found a deal. They’re lost wanderers who, at long last, found their way back across the planes. They’ve made it back to the Land of Adventure, and that’s always worth celebrating.
So let’s hear it, guys. For today’s discussion, tell us about your best Salvation Army find. What long-lost book from yesteryear beckoned you from a garage sale table or swap meet bin? Share all your lost relics and recovered treasures down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
It’s not really a relic since it’s a DVD, but I found the very first episodes of Doctor Who at a convention. That was super cool for me.
I’m not much of a Whovian, but I seem to recall a bunch of seasons being lost forever. Is that the case?
Not entire seasons, but a bunch of episodes are gone. Here’s a decent overview if you’re curious: https://sfdebris.com/videos/doctorwho/dwwiped.php
Yeah, a lot of footage was lost in the early years. Most of it was the Second Doctor, I believe. They actually used the surviving audio, script, and some scraps of footage to remake the Second Doctor’s first episodes in an animated form. It was such a big deal since those episodes hadn’t been seen since first airing that they put it in theaters for a week or so.
When I became secretary of my Universities Roleplay Society, amoungst the piles of paperwork that I can only assume my predecessors (who were probably only doing the job because someone had to) ignored was a reference to a box held in the Student Union store. Most of the contents was fundamentally useless (obscure supplements for very specific settings – I did find one I was able to use for my Ravenloft campaign, but that was it), but right at the bottom we found a copy of the original Paranoia. Never was there a better game for a drunken university one-shot!
Nice! Did you recognize it for what it was straight away, or was it more of a “that looks interesting” sort of moment?
Fortunately quite a few members had been roleplayers since childhood, and recognised it from various magazines we had seem it in, so we knew the treasure we had.
I think Alice Through The Looking Glass is probably a more famous portal fantasy example than Narnia
You push up your glasses when you “um actually” me!
Also Peter Pan, Dante’s Inferno, and The Wizard of Oz. /glasses
“Portal fantasy” is a term that I very rarely hear. It feels a bit constrained in its definition, and I can only ever remember encountering it in “best of” lists, or academic accounts, rather than any sort of fan usage. There are several other related genres, though.
One that is well-recognized is the Japanese term, “isekai” (“another world”), which is its own massively-fed genre, with thousands of Japanese and Chinese web novels and light novels building on that idea. It’s defined in terms of the final effect (moving to another world) rather than the method of achieving that (ie: portals), which gives it a bit more leeway in how it is achieved, and what the ‘destination’ character can be like.
Another that has close connections to the basic idea is the “self insert” fanfiction (of wildly variable quality) — particularly when it involves a ROB (random omnipotent being) that moves you to the destination world.
Also, while verifying a couple things led me to come across reference to “Guardians of the Flame”, a series of novels about college students transported into their D&D characters in the game they had been playing, and which I hadn’t thought about in many years. From what I vaguely recall, the first novel was a lot of fun, although the later novels lost a fair bit of the magic that the series started with.
I think you’re focusing too hard on the word “portal.” I believe isekai fits within portal fantasy:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrappedInAnotherWorld?from=Main.PortalFantasy
… I think you missed the point.
And I believe that isekai and LitRPGs should be burned with the hottest fire imaginable. A LitRPG is a story where the characters are aware of their stats and can access their character sheets and the concept of “I need 5 more xp in underwater basket weaving” is a non-meta concept. I understand they are very popular in Russia and Europe as well as Japan at the moment, and many current Isekai also use the concept. In Manga, you spot them by titles like “I was reincarnated as a slime” or Spider, which are both somewhat popular titles right now. My partner is really into them.
In the end it’s my opinion, so if that’s your jam, you do you. Just pointing out the LitRPG thing since all Isekai are not LitRPGs.
I managed to rescue a copy of Sir MacHinery from a library book sale. That particular copy had been one of my mom’s favorites from her childhood, and now it’s safely ensconced in our bookshelf.
Huh. Not familiar with this one. Might have to check it out. The premise sounds like a blast.
It’s pretty awesome. Creatures and practitioners of magic in the Scottish back-country mistake a robot for a knight and elect him (and kinda-sorta-also his skeptical creator) as a champion against an ancient evil.
Plus, my mom really loved the book’s artwork.
See here
…just realized the premise is not too dissimilar from our group dropping a Warforged in standard fantasy D&D-land. Huh.
I aspire to be as badass as that cat one day.
Interesting. That is not quite the cover of the Red Box. I think that is the cover of the rules book instead.
I might be too much of a nerd that I noticed that almost instantly…
Clearly, Cleric has failed his Appraise check. Blinded by nostalgia, he’s fallen for a cheap forgery.
Anyway, several years ago I found some old AD&D core rulebools at a flea market back during the 3.5e era.
Slightly before that, but again solidly in the 3e-3.5e era, there was a bookstore down the seashore that always had new copies of many of the 1e/2e books
Most people go to the beach looking for seashells. Gamers look for “Kara-Tur” and “Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix III.”
Who cares about the past? Past is only important for the people who live it or the ones who think that know anything about it. Past is just like that distant land the other side of the portal, bright, marvelous, full of adventure and emotions and with a expire date once you get tired of it. No matter what there is good on it, finally anyone will get bored of that land and return to its home. That feeling you say is so great will vanish and the treasure will become once again a dust collector in some forgotten corner until once again some other person finds it, again and again until the pieces gone missing the books lost their pages and box vanish to never be seen again. All returning finally to the emotionless void of the oblivion together with that feeling and the memories of it 🙁
https://imgur.com/gallery/3sQgIuM/comment/83052389
Well sorry, but when i see a person who holds hopes, joy or ideals i need to crush them to dust, mix it together with the void when once the soul of that person was and drink it in a skull fill with the tears of despair once that man realizes that there is no true hope in the universe at all. And the revel on that awesome drink and feeling. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Just kidding 🙂
Don’t i roleplay a good Dark Eldar, or Abyssal Exalted? 😀
“Portal Fantasy” has been ruined by Weebs in the form of “Isekai”.
Meh. I suspect that John Carter will still be out there doing his thing on Mars long after Isekai runs out of steam.
Not all Isekai are inherently bad. A LOT are little more than superficial wish fulfillment no-work-necessary instant win buttons, but not all.
Konosuba, Re:Zero, and Ascension of a Bookworm are standouts in the genre, even Shield Hero is decent, though it carries similar baggage (“everyone else is wrong but meee”) primarily because they still require the characters to STRUGGLE, sometimes even suffer for their success. I’m okay with those.
I live in New Zealand, and am far away from any major cities. As such, the lack of gaming stores means that we mostly had to use pdfs, or make a quick trip to a gaming store whenever we found ourselves on a trip to a major city. About a year ago, though, I had started collecting magic, and while search for where to buy that I found a small collection of books at the back of a store; there wasn’t much, but this store had all of the latest D&D books, plus the core rulebooks.
This discovery of books from 2015+ isn’t much compared to the other stores, but for me, it was great.
Oof. Amazon is great for some things, but delivering a satisfying treasure hunt is not one of them. Mad sympathy, my Kiwi friend.
Edit: last sentence should read stories, not stores.
While I am not sure if this qualifies as a hidden gem, for one Christmas I asked for d&d books. At the time I was into 4E d&d, but also played 5e.
My dad got me d&d books, but not 4e or 5e. They were a 1e Fiend Folio and Advanced Player’s Handbook. I haven’t played 1e, ever, but I have grown fond of leafing through the pages of the Fiend Folio and seeing some of the horrendous monsters (Crab Men?!?).
Admittedly, the original art inspired several attempts to create my own rpg (all unsuccessful).
I had a couple of bestiaries lying around as a kid. There’s nothing that gets the imagination going quite like imaginary critters presented in encyclopedic format. It’s like the form of the book is suggesting that these things are real. For a kid that doesn’t get what the stats mean and just wants to look at cool art, it was friggin’ magical.
Space Jam is a portal fantasy, fight me. :V
yeah it is