Fixing the Fantasy of Fantasy Gaming

[PhoneLobster]

I prefer fantasy with Elves based on tolkiens elves and Dwarves who all get racial abilities to make them look like Gimli and Dark Lord BBEG's that are basically just Sauron and magic swords and Dragon slaying and taking their treasure and by dragons
I mean the ones that look like Smaug.

What are we talking about, as far as I can tell from that sentence structure it must go something like...

Gimli Elf
Racial Ability : Looks Like Gimli

BBEG Elf
Racial Ability : Basically looks like Sauron

Magic Sword Elf
Racial Ability : Looks like a magic sword.

Dragon Slaying Elf
Racial Ability : Looks like the act of slaying a dragon (which looks like Smaug) and taking its treasure.

But jokes aside, that actually IS what you are talking about and if there is one thing TSR and WOTC have taught us it's that nine-thousand flavors of boring interchangeable elf really isn't all that nice.

We KNOW having pointy ears is not a good excuse for a stat modifier and a bonus finding secret doors. We know that having perky ears AND a strawberry flavoured colour scheme is not a good excuse for a racial swording or magicing bonus.

We know the sorts of bland racial abilities like elves get are all mechanically terrible for the game and ultimately lead race selection into the dead end of "that race you only take if you are a Bard, and the ONLY race you take if you are a Bard".

Dumping that mechanical shit out of here is good for the game and will in turn put the boot up the fantasy end of things where the 19 flavours of elf in your home setting don't get stat differentiation anymore and you don't get to write up ONE boring stereotype character per race and pretend that every green haired elf in the universe is Robin Fucking Hood. (Something which devalues Robin Hood, Green haired elves, and your entire setting universe).

Tolkien is awesome.

Tolkien is kinda crap actually, and was crap before it was even dated. Now it's crap AND dated AND done to death. If it weren't for those fucking (long, dull, mud colored, boring homo-erotic) movies it would be dead and burred by now and I'd be dancing happily on its grave.

War Flamingo's can suck my dick that shit is unmarketable.

On the one hand, that's what the elfin princess with the clothes made out of fairy dust and happy thoughts on the back of the Flamingo is for.

And on the other hand, sorry, NO, Flamingos ARE marketable. Moorcock you see is actually not that great a writer. Good enough to kick Tolkien in the ass, but a lot of Moorcocks work can be a bit dry and uninteresting (despite the kinky princesses and giant war flamingos).

The thing is, the princess, the flamingos, and the cover art DID in fact market his books incredibly successfully. Moorcock IS one of the key original works D&D style fantasy has derived much of its material from. Moorcock is pretty much the definitive author of the Pulp Fantasy Fiction era. And pulp fantasy fiction is by DEFINITION made out of marketable material, And indeed little else.

NO. It is because I play with OTHER PEOPLE. And when you want to talk your hot coworker into showing up for a game of DnD you had better be able to tap into themes they already know.

A few points.

Psychedelic pulp "alternative" fantasy IS marketable, so you CAN use it as a selling point. "Other people" have been widely observed to like it.

Sorry, your hot Co-worker probably does NOT have Tolkien fantasies you can play on. Name dropping Gimli at the gaming table will NOT get you into her pants. If getting in her pants was that easy then she would TOTALLY go for the laser knights on giant flamingos thing, and it has plenty of literary authority behind it too, you know if you both need the excuse of a famed and popular fantasy author for your gaming/pants adventures.

So I can end up railing girls I get to show up to games who want to live out their Xena fantasies

Xena would totally have ridden a war flamingo and kicked peoples asses with laser lances. Only her budget and S&M costume fetish stood in her way. That and the well known long standing blood feud between Māori stunt men and giant birds.

So really don't bring Xena into this, she is basically just a lame family friendly greco-S&M girl Elric anyway.

That shit would get me quantifiably less ass so FUCK THAT SHIT FOREVER.

Tolkien and mud covered peasants get you quantifiable amounts of ass? Really?

Am I living under a rock here and if so why isn't my kick ass rock and muddy underneath a rock lifestyle attracting all the mud covered peasant fans?

I mean fuck it, I AM a mud covered peasant. I mean I actually farm mud for a living, it's not getting me any quantifiable amounts of ass. WTF?

[Gnyahaha]

So uhhh...Tolkien gets you laid huh?

Guys, this is not about whether Moorcock would kick Tolkiens ass in a fight (because he tottally could). This is about fantasy elements in general.

We can revamp it, change it or reimagine it as much as we like but it all boils down to what the fuck we want from our fantasy gaming and literature. Some of us want to see flamingos and laser lances. Were proud of that, since its awesome and different. We run that in order to trip balls with our friends or women we want to do in our table and thats that.

If you want the standard Tolkienesque fantasy, thats awesome too. If it gets you laid, even better. Maybe you want [EDITED] elves that live 10000 years and win at everything forever and nigh-impotent evil overlords. And thats cool.

All in all, this thread should be about things we want to see in fantasy and exchanging ideas. This should be a thread that went like: Oh, I wanna see space exploration in fantasy or I dont like the way they handle this, lets all pitch in and propose sth more intelligent.

Instead, we are stuck here, talking about centaur hygiene (what the fuck is wrong with you?).

[Shazbot79]

I prefer fantasy that doesn't revolve around War Flamingo's. I prefer fantasy with Elves based on tolkiens elves and Dwarves who all get racial abilities to make them look like Gimli and Dark Lord BBEG's that are basically just Sauron and magic swords and Dragon slaying and taking their treasure and by dragons I mean the ones that look like Smaug.
Tolkien is awesome. Tolkien is great. War Flamingo's can suck my dick that shit is unmarketable. Or rather it's marketable in the same way that Pimp: The Slappening or whatever is marketable which means not enough to make me give a shit. And why does marketing matter to me? Is it because I am in charge of Hasbro and need to care about what sells to people? NO. It is because I play with OTHER PEOPLE. And when you want to talk your hot coworker into showing up for a game of DnD you had better be able to tap into themes they already know. Marketable themes. So I can end up railing girls I get to show up to games who want to live out their Xena fantasies or their Tolkien Elf fantasies but I CANT do it with fucking War Flamingo's. That shit would get me quantifiably less ass so FUCK THAT SHIT FOREVER.

Far be it from me to meddle in your personal affairs...but that hot co-worker? Perhaps it would behoove you to ask her out for drinks instead.

[Koumei]

Yeah, I don't see "Oh, hey Debbie, wanna' go play D&D?" as being a lead-in to sex. If that works, then I hang out with the wrong types of girl, clearly, as the best it can lead to is a game of D&D. Even the I hit it with my axe girls (strippers etc.) just... play D&D.

You should probably just ask... well I called her Debbie already in this, so ask Deb out. Maybe for a pint or a shag or something. Might work better. Or you could...

Hit on Deborah! (LIKE A BAWSS!)
Get rejected! (LIKE A BAWSS!)
Swallow sadness! (LIKE A BAWSS!)

[Shazbot79]

Yeah, I don't see "Oh, hey Debbie, wanna' go play D&D?" as being a lead-in to sex. If that works, then I hang out with the wrong types of girl, clearly, as the best it can lead to is a game of D&D. Even the I hit it with my axe girls (strippers etc.) just... play D&D.

You should probably just ask... well I called her Debbie already in this, so ask Deb out. Maybe for a pint or a shag or something. Might work better. Or you could...

Hit on Deborah! (LIKE A BAWSS!)
Get rejected! (LIKE A BAWSS!)
Swallow sadness! (LIKE A BAWSS!)

This one speaks the truth. My girlfriend is named Debbie. I did not meet her playing D&D...I met her the old fashioned way...holding her hostage in a basement until she developed stockholm syndrome.

[Kobajagrande]

This thread lacks Donaldson:

[Prak]

This thread lacks Donaldson:

funny enough, I just found my old, mostly unread copy of that the other night...

And gaming has totally gotten me tail before. Though, honestly, war flamingo and laser lance gaming would probably have worked just as well.

[Josh_Kablack]

Tolkien gets way too much credit for D&D influence, and Moorcock is not the only other direction to go in.

Equally important to the early stages of D&D are Robert E. Howard's stories of that mighty-thewed guy with a big sword (wink wink) and a different scantily clad woman each story.

But probably the biggest influence to how D&D actually turned out was Fritz Lieber's tales of a pair of buddies who get strung along by an eight-tittied wererat and a see-through cannibal girl, when they aren't recovering alien artifacts from high peaks, accidentally creating cursed pigslugs, or making buddies with German speaking sea-serpents.

[Gnyahaha]

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are also a must read if you want to touch up your fantasy style. If you really wanna trip balls though, theres nowhere to turn than China Mieville.

Also, Zelazny's Lord of the Light

[Kobajagrande]

This thread lacks Donaldson:

funny enough, I just found my old, mostly unread copy of that the other night...

Well then, time to read it, and see what fantasy really should be about!

[FatR]

The big problem with war flamingos and laser lances is that you add such shit, and then you usually end up with the world that makes no fucking sense at all, not in the least because you still want your heroes to run around with swords and quest for weird artifacts, just like Moorcock did. DnD already has quite enough of this. Making a high-magic setting that does not fall apart on serious examination, and does not entirely revolve around main characters and their quest, is difficult. Few if any fantasy writers managed to do this, so I'm not optimistic about the ability of RPG developers to do this.

[PhoneLobster]

Most if not ALL fantasy settings fall apart on "serious" examination. I mean fire breathing flying giant iguanas? Serious examination tells me that falls apart bikini clad dragon rider or not.

Moorcock's settings were about as stable and sensible as anyone's in that regard, I mean the world of Hawkmoon with the flamingos and all actually had a general theme and made moderate sense within that theme. Only it did it AND had giant flamingos and so forth.

Do NOT expect your fantasy worlds to "make sense" with "serious examination". That is largely impossible, contradictory and unnecessary. Serious consideration and Fantasy are at odds by definition. You should instead be aiming for some minimal amount of internal and thematic consistency.

Otherwise you just end up with idiots who remove large chunks of exciting exotica and erotica from your Fantasy and replacing it with mud and peasants because they think that doing so whole sale makes their setting stand up to more serious scrutiny, which it DOESN'T, it just ends up with more mud and peasants in it.

[Maj]

Make chargen a point-based choose-your-own-abilities kind of thing, with points given out being based upon the style of game (high magic, mud N peasants, etc).

Appearance is free. Pointy ears, thin, fat, beard, girl, boy, whatever.
Size has a cost.
"Racial" abilities have a cost.
Give them a list of random stuff like "can run through bushes without getting scratched" or whatever to choose from. Everyone picks two.
You get +2 to your favorite stat.

Have a list of premade races to choose from for the uninspired. But seriously, rather than basing the game on a certain author's genre, let people choose their own damned fantasy.

[Orion]

Actually, I just read Asshole Leper Hero: Volume 9 a couple weeks ago. It's pretty awesome.

And a viable compromise between "tolkienesque" and "awesome" for aesthetics.

[K]

People tend to focus on the early roots of fantasy instead of realizing that as a genre it has been evolving the whole time. I mean, most people claim that Terry Brooks is just a Tolkien clone, but he moved past that after his second book and continued a line of party-based fantasy that doesn't resemble Tolkien at all.

And a lot of authors did that and have been writing their own divergent fantasy since at least the 80s (and probably earlier, but my google-fu is weak this morning). Fantasy as a genre doesn't mean anything really which is why it's in the same section of the books store as the sci-fi. I mean, a book with espers and star-ships that run on warp drives is as magical as sorcerers and gates.

"High fantasy" gets written all the time. I mean, Jordan's Wheel of Time series has the main characters individually being able to fight armies and those books are wildly popular.

Most high fantasy is in fact indistinguishable from super hero stories and that is actually proof that the settings can be robust. I mean, Crisis on Infinite Earths is a DnD story as far as I can tell.... the costumes and tech is just window dressing.

That being said, I think most people are just not that imaginative and their brain goes off the rails when you present something new. I mean, most people play Rifts like DnD and never have anyone actually enter a Rift..... which seems contradictory to both the name and intent of the game. Wild fantasy where many setting elements are unknown to the players and PCs until they are presented to the party don't feel realistic to people simply because they are used to a world where everything is basically known and in a book or a convenient internet search away.

They actually feel insulted when you say "yes, I made up this monster." As a game, robust monster creation rules would solve that problem, but we have yet to see a game that does that with any proficiency. Robust social rules would make even a high fantasy setting makes sense to people, but we don't have games that even try that other than simple social tests.

So my point is: wild settings can be done with robust rules. And any fantasy gaming system has to be able to do high fantasy superheroes as well as shit-covered farmers chasing werewolves because these are both valid fantasy tropes, even within the same setting.

[FatR]

Most if not ALL fantasy settings fall apart on "serious" examination. I mean fire breathing flying giant iguanas? Serious examination tells me that falls apart bikini clad dragon rider or not.

Then your examination is not serious. In fact, you're being intentionally dense by mixing presence of magic and consequences from magic/lack of it. And pretending that there are dragons in every fantasy books. And pretending that verissimilitude is a yes/no state.

Moorcock's settings were about as stable and sensible as anyone's in that regard, I mean the world of Hawkmoon with the flamingos and all actually had a general theme and made moderate sense within that theme.

No. For starters, why the fuck anyone would choose to use swords when you have lasers? Why the fuck anyone would fight by pseudomedieval style horse charges, when you have laser-carrying aircraft and field artillery? The world of Hawkmoon does not have a drop of internal consistency and makes no sense at all, trying to make up for this by the rule of cool (and the fact that the setting essentially serves only as hastily painted stage decorations for the quest also helps).

[Kobajagrande]

Actually, I just read Asshole Leper Hero: Volume 9 a couple weeks ago. It's pretty awesome.

Of course it is. It has Haruchai logic, it has Asshole Leper Hero show up and start solving problems one by one, hell, it even has him saying "there are more important things than saving the world" and being right.

Although, tbh, it kind of lacks Donaldson's style of building something up for ages and then delivering it in a single epic kickass sentence. So overall I don't think its among his best works, but its enjoyable nevertheless.

[PhoneLobster]

So wait. You demand a special waver allowing you to declare you still abide by common sense and realism for your rocket powered flying dinosaurs and "a wizard did it!" settings.

But then turn around and declare that technology shortages in a post apocalyptic dark age just don't make any sense to you?

Yeah. YOU are totally the guy who should be judging what fantasy elements are allowed into stories based on things like consistency and making sense.

[TheFlatline]

Tolkien gets way too much credit for D&D influence, and Moorcock is not the only other direction to go in.

Equally important to the early stages of D&D are Robert E. Howard's stories of that mighty-thewed guy with a big sword (wink wink) and a different scantily clad woman each story.

Funny how you mention Moorcock and shortly thereafter mention Conan. Elric was a specific and intentional anti-Conan fantasy series.

[Josh_Kablack]

Funny how you mention Moorcock and shortly thereafter mention Conan. Elric was a specific and intentional anti-Conan fantasy series.

Conan: Black Hair
Elric: White Hair

Conan: Starts out a barbarian, ends up a king with his son Conn an heir.
Elric: Starts out a king, has no heir, ends up impaled on his magic sword

Conan: Mighty-thewed
Elric: Physically Frail

Conan: Solves everything with a sword
Elric: Regrets that he has to solve everything with a sword.

Conan: Written by a guy who grew up in early 20th century Texas
Elric; Written by a guy who moved to Texas in the late 20th century

Conan: Represents the virility of the savage.
Elric: Comes from a decadent culture threatened by the rise of the human young kingdoms.


I just don't see it.

Despite the distinctions, those aren't actually opposites - they are two sides of the same coin.

Here, lemme pull the relevant bits offa wikipedia

In one interview, Moorcock states, "I am an anarchist and a pragmatist. My moral/philosophical postition is that of an anarchist."[8] Further, in describing how his writing relates to his own political philosophy, Moorcock says, "My books frequently deal with aristocratic heroes, gods and so forth. All of them end on a note which often states quite baldly that one should serve neither gods nor masters but become one’s own master."[9]

Multiple themes appear in Howard's works. Direct experience of the oil booms in early twentieth century Texas tainted Howard's view of civilization. The benefits of progress came with lawlessness and corruption.[205] One of the most common themes in Howard's writing is based on his view of history, a repeating patter of civilizations reaching their peak, becoming decadent, decaying and are then being conquered by another people. Many of his works are set in the period of decay or among the ruins the dead civilization leaves behind.[206]

So in both cases, we get a view that civilization is inherently corrupting and that strength comes from the noble savage - but each uses a different protagonist to express that view.

[TheFlatline]

\
No. For starters, why the fuck anyone would choose to use swords when you have lasers?

Frank Herbert came up with a rather elegant solution to this in Dune:

Everyone also has shields. When a lasgun hits a shield, you may melt each participant in the equation, or the shield may go nuclear, ensuring that the rest of the galaxy nukes whoever they believe responsible back to radioactive glass. There's just no real way to be sure. And that's the fun of it!

Then again, the concept of the Dune universe in the early novels was one of stagnation and the decline of humanity, so having people use knives and swords made sense thematically.

[Prak]

I don't care whether dragons stand up to scientific scrutiny, I care about whether centaurs stand up to social and anthropological scrutiny. Dragons exist because of magic, that's fine. There's a method for centaurs to use the same excuse for why they don't smell like horse ass all the time, or spend all of said time cleaning, it's called prestidigitation. But that still has certain implications for their society.

Seriously, Discworld is written by an ex-nuclear physicist, so there's some thought to a world of magic and the science behind it. Hell, Prattchet seriously established the fact that light slows in a field of strong magic, so that his flat world can actually have timezones. His dragons come in two varieties, swamp, which are bound(ish) by science, and noble, which specifically break physics through living off of magic. While the swamp variety can eat just about anything, and distill flammable chemicals from consumed materials. Their insides are essentially organic alchemy labs, and can be rearranged with much stress on the dragon. Being the size of about a large eagle, the only way they really break from science is in the breath weapon. Noble dragons, on the other hand, are fucking ginormous, and "shouldn't be able to fly" and shouldn't be able to breath flame hot enough to melt iron. But the way they do that is by, essentially, being mago-synthetic. Like photosynthetic or chemosynthetic, but using magic and high born, unmarried women instead of three of sun, water, minerals, and chemicals. But, seriously, remember that stuff Frank was saying a while ago about using science to explain your worlds?

All I'm saying about dragons is that the D&D dragon is a completely different creature than what I've seen in the fantasy works I've read (with the possible exception of the dragon in Grunts, but it was more a set piece than an actual character...) and that centaurs' portrayal in D&D doesn't exactly make sense to me looking at the physiology. But D&D just wants a noble savage race and doesn't care how much sense it makes.

[Gnyahaha]

I honestly have a question:

When have you EVER used cantaurs? What is it about their phsyiology that makes you wonder about their tribal or social standing with other races? Why is it important?

Centaurs are nonsensical mythological half-and-half beings that should not make sense. Seidus fall into the same category, though sillier (I find seidus fucking hillarious btw). Lamias and all the other half-beings, like half-dragons etc.

Do you really need to break this down into science? If so, you can start at the foundation and move upward. For example: is negeative energy evil or is it anti-life? If evil, what purpose does it have at the greater scheme of things? If universal energy, how does it balance itself out? Is it heavier than positive energy, explaining why theres no life forms in the worlds core?

Then the elements. Is the weather a side effect of the fluctuation between elemental planes? Are they somehow connected to the formation of life in the world? Are they irrelevant?

You can go on about that to set up the basics. If you say gods-did-it-and made-it-up-as-they-went, then yeah centaurs work, cause the god of horses and god of man had spare parts lying around and the god of Lets do This put them together and it somehow works.

If you establish a pseudo-science and sth doesnt fit in, then let it go. For example, the elementals are construts and not living beings because they are composed wholly of a single element and thus cannot exist. Magic doesnt work as well as it shoul near the edge of the world or in high altitudes because of the thinness of magic fields in the area. Dragons are not really beings, but incarnate magic which allows them to be as ridiculously powerful as you make them etc.

All in all, make sure you know where your preferences lie. I like worlds that sound and look cool and dont care about scientific explanations except when I want to fluff up a knowledge check result. Nobody will notice sth not making sense unless its blatantly thrown into their faces and rubbed in really well. If you like worlds that have a certain science about them, then decide first how science-y you want them to be then we can all pitch in.

[Kot]

Meh. Just using plain logics and reference materials does fix the fantasy part. You know what the problem is? US has a view on middle ages, and early Renaissance taken from a ren faire with a pinch of Royo.
If you want a good example how can that be done right, try the Drakensang cRPG series. Characters dress like real people from the end of the Middle Ages, wear real armor, and use real weapons. No ff7 style swords, or platemail bikinis, no flying unicorn magic bombers, or dragon cavalry...
And guess what. Das Schwarze Auge (the Dark Eye) is a German fantasy system almost as old as DnD itself.

[Fuchs]

The trouble with that approach is that adding magic does change what would be "realistic", as does adding actual gods. It would not be logical if people in a magical world would think and dress exactly like people from the medieval age.