This is just a general comment on the tone and influences of the guild. Take these as rambling suggestions, not as gospel that you can't have influences besides these that don't fit this list (and of course you're invited to suggest yur own.)
Anyway tl;dr version? Chinese stuff.
A bit longer:
I'm of the opinion (as I've often opined) that when it comes to influences to draw on for Pandaren roleplay, you can't beat stuff about/from China. I am pretty flexible here - Chinese classic texts like Confucius' Analects or Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching or Sun Tzu's Art of War fit in right alongside the martial arts films of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
Of course, stuff about medieval China is particularly good. One major influence for me is Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the massive and sweeping Chinese epic with a cast of thousands and a sweep of decades, full of noble warriors, master strategists and elaborate political machinations and betrayals and pretty much everything you'd want for a damn good time. Other massive and pretty awesome Chinese epics - Outlaws of the Marsh in particular, but also Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West - are also really good.
That sound too much reading for you? Fine. Romance of the Three Kingdoms just got a movie you lazy sonofa...
Onto wuxia!
You can never, ever go wrong - when it comes to depicting our fantasy-version of pseudo-China - with a few nods to wuxia films (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, The House of Flying Daggers). What is wuxia? Shortest answer is it's Chinese fiction (books, TV and otherwise - mostly famously in the West as film though) set in the fictionalized Chinese past with an emphasis on martial arts going beyond the impossible with swords and stuff. It's good days, good days...
And when I say Chinese, it doesn't mean that it has to have been actually a Chinese product - foreign films about China (like The Last Emperor) and yes, American cartoons about China (or fantasyland pseudo-China) like Mulan or Avatar: The Last Airbender or foreign videogames like Jade Empire are also perfectly fine sources of inspiration for your RP.
...so where am I going with this? Uhhh. While I'm not going to burn you at the stake if you decide to run around stealing Japanese or Korean influences, that's not the preferred direction. Dynasty Warriors, sure (and it's based on ROTK, above), Final Fantasy.... not so much. It's not a hard and fast rule, just a general recommendation of skewing towards.
Feel free to post lists of stuff you think are good influences in this thread. I'll probably throw up more in time too, why not.
Anyway tl;dr version? Chinese stuff.
A bit longer:
I'm of the opinion (as I've often opined) that when it comes to influences to draw on for Pandaren roleplay, you can't beat stuff about/from China. I am pretty flexible here - Chinese classic texts like Confucius' Analects or Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching or Sun Tzu's Art of War fit in right alongside the martial arts films of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
Of course, stuff about medieval China is particularly good. One major influence for me is Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the massive and sweeping Chinese epic with a cast of thousands and a sweep of decades, full of noble warriors, master strategists and elaborate political machinations and betrayals and pretty much everything you'd want for a damn good time. Other massive and pretty awesome Chinese epics - Outlaws of the Marsh in particular, but also Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West - are also really good.
That sound too much reading for you? Fine. Romance of the Three Kingdoms just got a movie you lazy sonofa...
Onto wuxia!
You can never, ever go wrong - when it comes to depicting our fantasy-version of pseudo-China - with a few nods to wuxia films (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, The House of Flying Daggers). What is wuxia? Shortest answer is it's Chinese fiction (books, TV and otherwise - mostly famously in the West as film though) set in the fictionalized Chinese past with an emphasis on martial arts going beyond the impossible with swords and stuff. It's good days, good days...
And when I say Chinese, it doesn't mean that it has to have been actually a Chinese product - foreign films about China (like The Last Emperor) and yes, American cartoons about China (or fantasyland pseudo-China) like Mulan or Avatar: The Last Airbender or foreign videogames like Jade Empire are also perfectly fine sources of inspiration for your RP.
...so where am I going with this? Uhhh. While I'm not going to burn you at the stake if you decide to run around stealing Japanese or Korean influences, that's not the preferred direction. Dynasty Warriors, sure (and it's based on ROTK, above), Final Fantasy.... not so much. It's not a hard and fast rule, just a general recommendation of skewing towards.
Feel free to post lists of stuff you think are good influences in this thread. I'll probably throw up more in time too, why not.
Last edited by Kegg on Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:45 am; edited 1 time in total