Fixing the Fantasy of Fantasy Gaming

[Prak]

Alright, so there are things in fantasy gaming, specifically D&D, that either don't match up to stories, like dragons, or don't make any fucking sense when you look just plain physical traits, like centaurs.

Dragons in D&D, as has been said before around here, are fucking tiny in any campaign your chances of playing in are higher than those of being hit by lightning. They also have fucking spells. When the hell was the last time a fantasy story showed a dragon casting anything you or the characters would actually recognize as spells? Then the breath weapon. There are three classic things for dragons to spit at you in an actual fantasy story, graded in roughly the order of incidence that I'm aware of: fire, acid/poison, and cold. When did D&D dragons pick up the other shit? Alright, fine, lightning is technically skyfire, mythically speaking, so the main breath weapons of D&D dragons make a certain amount of sense (assuming you go with hollywood portrayal of acid and poison as essentially the same thing). But then there's shit like knock out gas, chlorine, crap like that.
So there are three main things to do with dragons, assuming you want them to be what they are in the stories that make you want to run:
1) Make them bigger, but keep them reasonable challenges. Honestly, low level characters would probably be perfectly happy facing something scaly that is somewhere between horse and elephant sized that breathes fire at them. Mid level characters are going to want to face something a good bit bigger, say elephant to blue whale sized. Once you're in the high levels, you might feel cheated if anything less than able to be a belt for the world is giving you shit and calling itself a dragon. So basically shift the fucks up a couple steps and you can probably be ok with some other changes we're making.
2)No fucking spells. Ok, sure, you can say "as the spell control weather" but don't give them caster levels. It'd be much better to give them spheres, focusing around spells that are either direct attacks, like fireball, buffs, like bull's strength, or special personal abilities, like speak with animals. But if we're gaming because we've all just read a bunch of classic fantasy, and the dragon rears up to wave it's hand and cast something I can actually identify as what my master taught me... yeah, it's not really matching why I'm playing is it?
3)Breath weapons should probably stick to the elements, if not the big ones like fire, lightning (fire from the sky to a pre-industrial society), and cold, with maybe the outside case of some poison or acid (or acidic poison). They should also have enough punch to basically be a death sentence to anyone who isn't in the "hero" tier (ie, people about 2, maybe 3 levels below your intrepid heros).

And then, Centaurs.
The D&D idea of centaurs as funny looking four legged tribal peoples is... weird. Let's look at it. You've got human length arms, and a horse sized ass. There are two very basic facts about this set up: 1, you ain't wiping your own ass (or anything else on that end of your body), and 2, therefore, you smell like, well, a horse. This means centaurs either have a society which is very comfortable about everyone else's body, as it's just a fact of life that your buddy is helping you in the bathroom, or they smell and are treated as filthy, unwanted beasts by anyone around who might trade with them (except other filthy, smelly people, like maybe orcs). There is one other possibility, one in which centaur society's main focus is time and labour saving devices that amount to large bidets. So basically you have one of three centaur societies:
1) A people who groom each other socially daily, if not more often. Washroom attendant has a very different job amongst these people, and an adventuring centaur is likely going to expect his companions to groom each other, or, if he knows what other cultures are like, possibly hire call girls or personal attendants to take the task for him.
2) A brutish and ostracized people who ally with goblins, gnolls, and orcs, as their lack of hygiene isn't out of place amongst these other peoples
3)Intelligent, but oddly focused individuals whom inexplicably, to their human companions, spend hundreds of gold on elaborate bathroom appliances, or it would be explicable, but no one quite wants to ask the centaur what's with all the large hoses and sticks and the time he spends in the bath each day.

Just things which occur to me as I look at other fantasy settings (Discworld, and Azeroth)

[Ancient History]

I'd be careful about how far you took this path of looking logically at fantasy. The last time I tried that, I had to write a section about why fucking a werewolf didn't impregnate an elf with a litter of puppies (chromosome mismatch, no breeding between species), and then I had to go back and write some more when somebody asked how many nipples a centaur has (six, where a horse normally has them; the tits are just for show).

[Ganbare Gincun]

This means centaurs either have a society which is very comfortable about everyone else's body, as it's just a fact of life that your buddy is helping you in the bathroom, or they smell and are treated as filthy, unwanted beasts by anyone around who might trade with them (except other filthy, smelly people, like maybe orcs).

2) A brutish and ostracized people who ally with goblins, gnolls, and orcs, as their lack of hygiene isn't out of place amongst these other peoples

Good job of stereotyping orcs, goblins, and gnolls there, Tolkien!

[Ganbare Gincun]

I'd be careful about how far you took this path of looking logically at fantasy. The last time I tried that, I had to write a section about why fucking a werewolf didn't impregnate an elf with a litter of puppies (chromosome mismatch, no breeding between species), and then I had to go back and write some more when somebody asked how many nipples a centaur has (six, where a horse normally has them; the tits are just for show).

Yeah, but as squicky as they may be, those are the kind of details that help engage players with the game world. I mean, sure, they didn't specifically need to know that the female Gnoll that they are talking with has a demi-penis, but that's a racial trait that they won't soon forget!

[quanta]

And then, Centaurs.
The D&D idea of centaurs as funny looking four legged tribal peoples is... weird. Let's look at it. You've got human length arms, and a horse sized ass. There are two very basic facts about this set up: 1, you ain't wiping your own ass (or anything else on that end of your body), and 2, therefore, you smell like, well, a horse. This means centaurs either have a society which is very comfortable about everyone else's body, as it's just a fact of life that your buddy is helping you in the bathroom, or they smell and are treated as filthy, unwanted beasts by anyone around who might trade with them (except other filthy, smelly people, like maybe orcs). There is one other possibility, one in which centaur society's main focus is time and labour saving devices that amount to large bidets. So basically you have one of three centaur societies:
1) A people who groom each other socially daily, if not more often. Washroom attendant has a very different job amongst these people, and an adventuring centaur is likely going to expect his companions to groom each other, or, if he knows what other cultures are like, possibly hire call girls or personal attendants to take the task for him.
2) A brutish and ostracized people who ally with goblins, gnolls, and orcs, as their lack of hygiene isn't out of place amongst these other peoples
3)Intelligent, but oddly focused individuals whom inexplicably, to their human companions, spend hundreds of gold on elaborate bathroom appliances, or it would be explicable, but no one quite wants to ask the centaur what's with all the large hoses and sticks and the time he spends in the bath each day.

Pfffttt... you overestimate the hygiene of the average human, much less the average human in slightly more primitive times when people shitted in a pot, and then dumped this pot onto the street below them. And you overestimate how poorly people react to the smell of horseshit. Centaurs could just coat themselves in perfume if smell is that big an issue. Or since the world is full of magic and alternate biologies, maybe their shit smells like roses and is sold as an aphrodisiac by shady herbalists in human civilization.

In the 19th century, there were predictions that the streets of major cities of the U.S. would be covered in feet of horse shit from all the carriages around (this was probably a bit of an inaccurate extrapolation... but still). I doubt if centaurs existed in small numbers that adding their shit to all the horseshit would be a big deal.

Also, having lived around horses, I'd like to throw out that they are actually among the better smelling animals.

[Prak]

This means centaurs either have a society which is very comfortable about everyone else's body, as it's just a fact of life that your buddy is helping you in the bathroom, or they smell and are treated as filthy, unwanted beasts by anyone around who might trade with them (except other filthy, smelly people, like maybe orcs).

2) A brutish and ostracized people who ally with goblins, gnolls, and orcs, as their lack of hygiene isn't out of place amongst these other peoples

Good job of stereotyping orcs, goblins, and gnolls there, Tolkien!

I was going with the usual stereotype. Granted, goblins are fairly upwardly mobile, but the other two races are generally seen as filth encrusted savages. Generally.

Also, having lived around horses, I'd like to throw out that they are actually among the better smelling animals.

The neighbours have a horse. While it's not as bad as say pigs, or chickens... there is certainly an aroma at certain times.

Yeah, I probably overestimated the centaur thing a bit, and honestly it could just come down to every arcane caster in the herd learning prestidigitation as their first spell, and then everyone in the herd has scrolls of it instead of prestidigitation. Dragons pretty much hold true though.

[PhoneLobster]

Screw the quibbles about dragons and centaurs and cap.

Modern Fantasy has bigger issues.
1) Tolkien is DEAD. ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE TOLKIEN.
2) Drab is not the new Exotic. I am sick of stereotypical medieval peasant mud farmers farming mud in a world made of mud.
3) Many of the authors need to start taking more god damn LSD or something.
4) The girls are wearing unflattering excessively practical clothing (brown mud coloured medieval and generally crappy clothing). We will be all better off when the princesses start wearing string bikinis made out of diamonds and wishful thinking again. Trust me.

Much of our fantasy writing, art, and RPG settings has been descending into the drab boring dullness that is the grand post Tolkien Mud Garden we call an excuse for fantasy.

You know what, let's go back to Michael Moorcock. That guy painted big garish and different fantasy worlds.

If I recall correctly that was the guy who quite casually dropped god damn laser lance wielding knights on the backs of giant flying war flamingos into his stories. GOD DAMN WAR FLAMINGOS.

Those are the directions that D&D fantasy needs fixing in, I don't give a crap about the nonsensical nature of dragons or theories on social grooming in Centaur society.

What we desperately need is less mud farming peasants in gritty mud coloured Tolkien clone universes engaging in small scale conflicts we don't give a shit about and can barely percieve due to everything being coloured and stylistically themed like dull brown gray mud.

And more diamond armies of bikini princess riding war flamingos into LSD fueled laser battles.

Michael Moorcock. Fuck yeah.

PS Since it's in mind lately, Bioware in particular really needs to up the anti on the pin up princesses on war flamingos angle. Their shit is DULL.

Double PS this could be a real campaign you know, I even have slogans "What Your Fantasy Needs is Moorcock", "Put Some Moorcock Into Your Fantasy"... they practically write themselves...

[Gnyahaha]

And more diamond armies of bikini princess riding war flamingos into LSD fueled laser battles.

Michael Moorcock. Fuck yeah.

Double PS this could be a real campaign you know, I even have slogans "What Your Fantasy Needs is Moorcock", "Put Some Moorcock Into Your Fantasy"... they practically write themselves...

FUCK YEAH BROTHER!

Seriousoly dude, no hygiene talks. Don;t touch dragons, they are iconic. If you dont want them to breathe out chlorine, take that shit out of the equation.

You want DIFERRENT MOTHERFUCKER? YOU WANT CHANGE?

Fantasy has remained the main source of attraction as an rpg genre because it WORKS. Do not work around the damn things logically. Let me break it down for you:

-Adenturers are PSYCHOTIC ASSHOLES who kill stuff for its stuff. In our world, they might be war criminals, in their world, theyre rock stars

-Women (wenches) in fantasy clothe themselves scantily. No frontal nudity, tease those heroes. Give them sideboob, not frontal nip slips cause that just kills the imagination.

-Dragons stay as they are. Shut up about it.

-Centaurs and all the other half sth/half other beings are cool looking. Stop talking about hygiene. As long as you and your players shower often and brush your teeth, then NOBODY wants to consider an imaginary beings personal hygiene.

-You want to make fantasy different? Get laser-lances and helmets that shoot power rays and make everybody grow magic items from their bodies, make Goblinoids the secret masters of history and make your world part of a babushka of worlds extending forever upward. Use warforged and shit. GIANT FUCKING FLAMENGOS. Insectoid cultures. Nazi Elves. Hillbilly Elves. Hippie Gnomes and Sociopathic Halflings.

-Do not bother with splitting hairs with fantasy. Noones gonna bother making logical leaps. Noones gonna give a crap whether your world makes sense. We want nonsensical, black and white ball-tripping whenever we open a book or sit on the table.

-Seriously, never talk about fantasy beings hygiene. What the hells wrong with you?

-On a last note, read more moorcock and Zelazny. Ignore the borders between fantasy and scifi. Takee every damn idea you thought cool and translate it into fantasy aesthetics. You want mechs? make POWER GOLEMS. You want starships? make STRAJAMMERS. You want insane crazy ass beings roaming the countryside, popping into your world from dimension B4? MAKE DEMONAE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

We cool, bro?

[Josh_Kablack]

Double PS this could be a real campaign you know, I even have slogans "What Your Fantasy Needs is Moorcock", "Put Some Moorcock Into Your Fantasy"... they practically write themselves...

The problem there is that Michael Moorcock has forgotten to whom he has sold which licenses. So even with his permission, you can be sued for violating existing agreements / copyrights when you try to produce the Stormbringer CCG or other Melenbournean RPGs.

[Prak]

And more diamond armies of bikini princess riding war flamingos into LSD fueled laser battles.

Michael Moorcock. Fuck yeah.

Double PS this could be a real campaign you know, I even have slogans "What Your Fantasy Needs is Moorcock", "Put Some Moorcock Into Your Fantasy"... they practically write themselves...

FUCK YEAH BROTHER!

Seriousoly dude, no hygiene talks. Don;t touch dragons, they are iconic. If you dont want them to breathe out chlorine, take that shit out of the equation.

You want DIFERRENT MOTHERFUCKER? YOU WANT CHANGE?

Fantasy has remained the main source of attraction as an rpg genre because it WORKS. Do not work around the damn things logically. Let me break it down for you:

-Adenturers are PSYCHOTIC ASSHOLES who kill stuff for its stuff. In our world, they might be war criminals, in their world, theyre rock stars

-Women (wenches) in fantasy clothe themselves scantily. No frontal nudity, tease those heroes. Give them sideboob, not frontal nip slips cause that just kills the imagination.

-Dragons stay as they are. Shut up about it.

-Centaurs and all the other half sth/half other beings are cool looking. Stop talking about hygiene. As long as you and your players shower often and brush your teeth, then NOBODY wants to consider an imaginary beings personal hygiene.

-You want to make fantasy different? Get laser-lances and helmets that shoot power rays and make everybody grow magic items from their bodies, make Goblinoids the secret masters of history and make your world part of a babushka of worlds extending forever upward. Use warforged and shit. GIANT FUCKING FLAMENGOS. Insectoid cultures. Nazi Elves. Hillbilly Elves. Hippie Gnomes and Sociopathic Halflings.

-Do not bother with splitting hairs with fantasy. Noones gonna bother making logical leaps. Noones gonna give a crap whether your world makes sense. We want nonsensical, black and white ball-tripping whenever we open a book or sit on the table.

-Seriously, never talk about fantasy beings hygiene. What the hells wrong with you?

-On a last note, read more moorcock and Zelazny. Ignore the borders between fantasy and scifi. Takee every damn idea you thought cool and translate it into fantasy aesthetics. You want mechs? make POWER GOLEMS. You want starships? make STRAJAMMERS. You want insane crazy ass beings roaming the countryside, popping into your world from dimension B4? MAKE DEMONAE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

We cool, bro?

It's fairly clear that what you want is this:


meanwhile I want something more along the lines of this:


I find it interesting that you're telling me to not touch dragons when I'm trying to undo what D&D did to them and return them to their iconic roots.

[Gnyahaha]

First of all, SenZar was ridiculoyus awesome but unplayble and silly. Its the kind of game id run with my friends in super nerd mode and it has a certain 70s wrongbad quality that you cant find in other games.

Except for Rifts, that is.

Secondly, you claim to want discworld. In your first post, you nver mentioned anything like that. You talked about centaur and goblinoid hygiene and ranted about dragon types. Dragons are uber powerful and unfair because they are the flagship monsters for D&D and the developers made the mistake of making them awesomely powerful, which, I have to admit, backfired gloriously.

Dragons are not iconic in D&D. Theyre top of the line action miniatures in D&D. Theyre the cool new thing you bought for 40 bucks at your comic shop and brag about it for a week and look at it with starry eyes for the rest of your adult life.

You want iconic dragons? Okay then. Make the bad dragons red, the good dragons green and have them breathe only fire. Adjust their intelligence l4evels to what you consider viable according to your idea.

But for fucks sakes, stop telling me how Im all Synnibar and youre more of the Disxworld persuasion. Discworld makes no fucking sense, but appears logical and is a great read. However, even the novels come out and say ;yes were jolly silly; every once in a while and nobody makes an effort to revamp or change that, because thats the way it is.

Changing fantasy elements means changing fantasy. Im all for balls-tripping shit and super-nerd collision of disparate elements. What Im against though, is talking about fantasy being hygeine and making dragons that have a low challenge rating. Dragons shouldnt have a low challenge rating. They shouldnt have a challenge rating that is absolutely wrong though.

All in all, fantasy elements are okay, dont think them through logically, just take them as they come. Make as much change as you want, dont split hairs and dont mind the man-horse shit.

[CCarter]

First of all, SenZar was ridiculoyus awesome but unplayble and silly. Its the kind of game id run with my friends in super nerd mode and it has a certain 70s wrongbad quality that you cant find in other games.

Except for Rifts, that is.

Assuming you meant "Synnibarr" above, not SenZar.
SenZar is standard fantasy, though slightly metalled up and more early 90s ish e.g. it has "G'rru" (werewolves) and "Golgothans" (Predators). Looks pretty playable generally though with some quirks like warriors casting spells faster than wizards, or some characters rolling d100 on opposed checks while others just roll d20. I've seen it described as "pre 3E, the tightest design in the field for killing things and taking their stuff" and that's probably not far wrong. I'd be very interested to see what the Den thinks of it, actually.

Also love Phone Lobster's rant.
Hygiene aside I think the main problem with centaurs is that they're L-shaped. I don't know how a female centaur is supposed to give birth to that, unless they're secretly egg layers or something.

[Shazbot79]

We cool, bro?

I hate people who refer to strangers as "bro"

[fectin]

We cool, bro?

I hate people who refer to strangers as "bro"

I hate eggplant.

[Judging__Eagle]

What if you make centaurs a lot smaller; medium sized; and much more flexible.

So that they can clean them selves with no problem.

Also, this nixes the problem of "centaurs can't stairs".

[Vnonymous]

Oh boy I can't wait to have the conversation about centaurs and stairs again.

[PhoneLobster]

Screw that stupid "horses aren't allowed inside because I say so!" argument, I just want to know if Giant War Flamingos are allowed inside.

[Josh_Kablack]

Nah, since the serial in 1988 centaurs have totally been able to hover.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Oh boy I can't wait to have the conversation about centaurs and stairs again.

I could totally have the conversation about centaurs and morality again. That was fun.

- - - - - - - - - -

I agree with Phonelobster and Gnyahaha in that I am far from interested in dwelling upon the excretory systems of critters in my universe as a world-building exercise when I could be doing far cooler and more entertaining stuff with my time.

At some point, I want to see something like this make at least a momentary appearance in one of my games: http://forums.datarealms.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=20070
Maybe an incredibly devastating Chaos-powered superweapon or something.

And consider Giant War Flamingos stolen for one of my upcoming games.

[quanta]

I hate eggplant.

Fuck you, eggplant is delicious.

[Koumei]

1) Tolkien is DEAD. ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE TOLKIEN.
2) Drab is not the new Exotic. I am sick of stereotypical medieval peasant mud farmers farming mud in a world made of mud.
3) Many of the authors need to start taking more god damn LSD or something.
4) The girls are wearing unflattering excessively practical clothing (brown mud coloured medieval and generally crappy clothing). We will be all better off when the princesses start wearing string bikinis made out of diamonds and wishful thinking again. Trust me.
...
You know what, let's go back to Michael Moorcock.
...
GOD DAMN WAR FLAMINGOS.
...
And more diamond armies of bikini princess riding war flamingos into LSD fueled laser battles.
...
Michael Moorcock. Fuck yeah.

I agree on every point, here.

[Prak]

Oh boy I can't wait to have the conversation about centaurs and stairs again.

I could totally have the conversation about centaurs and morality again. That was fun.

Ah, I missed that one. I think intentionally, towards the end...

I agree with Phonelobster and Gnyahaha in that I am far from interested in dwelling upon the excretory systems of critters in my universe as a world-building exercise when I could be doing far cooler and more entertaining stuff with my time.

It's not even, necessarily, about horse ass, except in the most technicaly of terms. Centaurs would have difficulty grooming themselves given the length of their arms vrs the length of their body. Just means they're filthy with matted hair, or assisted grooming is a major part of their society, or every community has prestidigitation casting public bathes.

[Gnyahaha]

Nah, since the serial in 1988 centaurs have totally been able to hover.

And since the umpteenth season of Xena, centaurs can make love to our women and make healthy centaur babies!

[Lokathor]

It's not even, necessarily, about horse ass, except in the most technicaly of terms. Centaurs would have difficulty grooming themselves given the length of their arms vrs the length of their body. Just means they're filthy with matted hair, or assisted grooming is a major part of their society, or every community has prestidigitation casting public bathes.

Maybe all their hair (other than the tail) is so short it can't mat up. Also, their poop is always dry and almost completely scentless, because centaurs with gooey-smelly poop were hunted down and eaten by Dire Wolves ages ago.

Done.

[Dean]

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.