Any settings that strike out against the Fantasy Status Quo?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 2:39 am

[*] One of the real-life reasons that racism is bad (and the easiest way to shoot down racists) is because a lot of the precepts are just flat-out wrong. The genetic variation between human beings due to race is so small and so inconsequential that you can reject things like The Bell Curve with a high school biology class without even reading what's in the books.

However... this is not true in heroic fantasy. Even if the story doesn't go out of its way to fellate elves or even takes time out of their day to paint them as dicks (like Tales of Symphonia), the fact remains that they're smarter, live longer, and have access to elite superpowers. Like orcs are supposed to be happy living 60 years while elves should feel cheated reaching 300 years old. That's fucking fucked up that no story ever addresses this. One of the things that really pissed me off about Tales of Symphonia was Regal's (I hate this guy already but this made me really hate him) big speech about how it's wrong to exceed your natural lifespan when two of your party members will live to be 1000 years old. I mean, really... what the fuck? Why are the protagonists okay in this and many other stories with this? I think the only story where a character seriously challenges the unfairness is Order of the Stick and not only is that character a villain but he's also just protesting the cannon fodder status of his species--not the vast difference in quality of life between a goblin and an elf.

... this is turning out to be longer and more ranty than I want to. So I'll just whip through the others real fast.

[*] A lot of games, when doing a gods vs. mortal conflict, automatically sides with the gods as long as they're not 'evil' gods. One of my sore points with Jade Empire was the city being demonized for going against the 'natural cycle of life' or some shit.

[*] The whole 'science is bad' mentality a lot of games have. The only dark spot on the otherwise excellent Quest for Glory games were its demonization of scientists; scientists were portrayed as close-minded fools who worshipped their own dogma and magicians were portrayed as open-minded and studying the real world. Gag me with a spoon.

[*] The whole 'advancing beyond Arcadia' is bad. Even for games that specifically strike out against feudalism and slavery and exploitation, they only cut the heads of the flowers without pulling up the weeds. The reason why those evil things are allowed to take root is because life in a pre-industrial society is REALLY SHITTY and as much as we hate it those things are 'natural' because there aren't enough resources, even divided fairly, to allow people to rise above the status of dirt farmer. This is even if a story acknowledges that features of medieval live is shitty--a lot of settings will have monarchs and shit and present these things as good without a trace of awareness.

There's more than that but those are the big ones. While I've seen a lot of settings that strike out against one or two of them, I've never seen any fantasy settings that give the finger to all of them at once. The absolute closest I've seen is Final Fantasy X and it still sucks. Ugh.

So. Can anyone point me to anything good?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:02 am

Not specifically what you're asking for, nope.

Off the top of my head: Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" comes close. It's almost pro-science in that it deals with magic as a diminishing finite resource , wizards of different human cultures see each other as equals and the "PC group" makes a huge mistake by awakening a god. That's probably about as close as you're going to get.

Hieronymous Rex · Post by **Hieronymous Rex** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:16 am

Carcosa, a setting written for OD&D by Geoffrey McKinney. Take a look at this fan made supplement for an idea of the flavor.

-I'm not entirely sure what you meant by your first criteria, but the race system is: there are only humans. They all have the same stats. However, they have different colors of skin; not in the normal shades, but White (i.e. the color of milk), Orange, Ulfire (an ultraviolet color), and so on.

-The only gods in the setting are of the Lovecraftian variety.

-Science is... just as bewildering to the primitive people as anything else. The setting follows Clarke's 3rd Law.

-Not sure if it qualifies, but the setting is pre-medieval. The only government is local warlords. Note: McKinney has gone on record admitting that the biological system of the lacks the energy to be sustainable; this is because the world of Carcosa is very, very bleak.

CCarter · Post by **CCarter** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:05 am

I quite liked The Magic Goes Away. Carcosa from what I've heard apparently has lots of child sacrificing rituals or something and is dodgy?

I'm not sure exactly if this is what you're looking for either, but The River of Dancing Gods fantasy series has a universe where the Status Quo exists as The Rules, as a massive collection of magically-enforced pronouncements that a huge bureaucracy continually adds and modifies - which the books basically present as being corrupt and annoying. The world itself is a standard medievalish world, but it doesn't really go out of its way to defend kingship as awesome or whatnot. Elves (or fairies) live forever unless you kill them, but this is if anything a bad deal for them since they don't have souls or afterlives.

The heroes do try to stop the villain from conquering the land and overturning the status quo, though. It doesn't particularly take a stance on the Science issue that I noticed, and the stance on religion is fairly typical (standard Creator deity who doesn't do much; hell/demons appear and are bad).

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:32 am

Malazan Book of the Fallen?
Probably not, why mention it?

While there are many more awesome races than humans, the humans use blackpowder on (one?) dragons...

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:52 am

The genetic variation between human beings due to race is so small and so inconsequential that you can reject things like The Bell Curve with a high school biology class without even reading what's in the books.

Rofl, as if The Bell Curve is racist.

theye1 · Post by **theye1** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:07 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
The genetic variation between human beings due to race is so small and so inconsequential that you can reject things like The Bell Curve with a high school biology class without even reading what's in the books.
Rofl, as if The Bell Curve is racist.

No, it just sourced it's material from racist Eugenicist and took money from White supremacists.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot · Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:42 am

theye1 wrote:
Psychic Robot wrote:
The genetic variation between human beings due to race is so small and so inconsequential that you can reject things like The Bell Curve with a high school biology class without even reading what's in the books.
Rofl, as if The Bell Curve is racist.
No, it just sourced it's material from racist Eugenicist and took money from White supremacists.

Don't bother. PR's just trolling, and with even less subtlety than usual.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:23 am

You see Lago, if an author gives a fuck about observing setting consistency and does his research in the first place, there is no fucking way for him to present the equivalent a transition from middle ages to early postmedieval societies - keeping in mind, that the plot of his story is very unlikely to cover more than a single human lifespan - as anything else than a Very Bad Thing, without handwaving away every negative (sharp rise of superstitions - witch hunts were brought to us by Renaissance, ideology-fueled wars with unprecedented atrocity levels, sharp drop in the quality of life for most of the population, sharp rise in oppression on almost every level of society, including resurrection of harsher-than-ever serfdom in half of region immediately impacted by economical changes, systematic plundering of the rest of the world by its most developed part) through magic or whatever.

So, even the author does care about his fantasy economics and is not perfectly fine to use handwaves for unpleasant aspects of medieval life, and is willing to do research for his setting, he might find himself unable to invent a plausible way to skip several centuries of growing misery at least to late 19th century-level, and preferably right to second half of 20th century-level. So he might not want to open this can of worms.

As to why people rarely write stories, where magical handwavium is used to improve life in the setting, well, I guess authors who are willing to seriously explore how Plot Device X can change the economics and the society are naturally drawn to harder half of sci-fi, rather than fantasy.

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 12:59 pm

Yeah, I'm not totally clear what-all you want with each of these, so I'm guessing.

Ars Magica?

* The only PC race is "human". There are faeries and goblins and things in the setting, but they're portrayed as supernatural creatures, rather than mundane "races".

* There is no significant divine intervention. It's an explicitly Christian setting, but you probably aren't a Christian, and even if you are it doesn't have to make much difference. God does not show up in the game, like, ever. Some versions do have "the power of God" as a force in the setting, but it's ... it's kind of just there, it permeates particularly holy places and objects and people and fucks up your magic, but it doesn't actually do much on its own, it's just another source of power. Many versions don't even have that.

* While the PCs are "wizards" they're wizards of a very particular scientific bent. You gain power by reading books and experimenting in your secret lab. You could make it a game about experimental SCIENCE! and you wouldn't need to change much of anything. Again, some versions have "True Reason" as an opposing force to magic, but it's not presented as a morally superior or inferior force, it's just something that's there and that fucks you up and that you don't understand because the game is from the perspective of wizards. In some ways, Reason is actually better than magic, because it's presented as able to invent really new things, while wizards are restricted to rearranging the blocks that already exist.

* I guess it might fail the last test, but there are wizards in the setting who are devoted to the ancient Greek ideals of democracy and all that good stuff, and are not portrayed as insane, stupid, or doomed.

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:12 pm

FVLMINATA, while it is technically fantasy, is probably not fantasy enough, since it's basically "What If the Roman Empire discovered gunpowder?" It subverts or ignores some of the tropes you discuss, but I think of historical fantasy as really a different field.

DYING EARTH doesn't really give a shit about your race, background, has no gods, and (unless you're playing Rhiallto-level) presents science and magic as equally confusing forces that you have no chance in hell of ever understanding but might possibly be able to exploit to your own benefit. It's a talky-heavy game that's kind of like a somewhat more mechanistic Baron Munchausen, except where Baron Munchausen is about the players bullshitting each other all night, it's about the characters bullshitting each other and any NPCs who come within earshot.

EVERWAY has all kinds of stuff in the game, doesn't distinguish among races at all except however individual players define their characters, and doesn't care what you do. The setting allows, and in fact encourages, you to visit all kinds of different societies and cultures and in game mechanical terms makes no judgment on whether being religious, mystical, mechanical, democratic, feudalistic, socialistic, whatever is "better".

I dunno. Any of that ring a bell?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:30 pm

There's plenty of good arguments against racism; genetics isn't one of them.
It's a rather poor argument for racism also, but that's beside the point.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:14 pm

Don't bother. PR's just trolling, and with even less subtlety than usual.

If you make an ignorant statement, I reserve the right to correct you. Isn't that what the Den is about or something?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:19 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Don't bother. PR's just trolling, and with even less subtlety than usual.
If you make an ignorant statement, I reserve the right to correct you. Isn't that what the Den is about or something?

I thought it was about mocking dog porn, and telling people to suck a barrel of cocks.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:49 pm

China Mieville's "Bas Lag" series. Full stop.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:02 pm

Like orcs are supposed to be happy living 60 years while elves should feel cheated reaching 300 years old. That's fucking fucked up that no story ever addresses this.

Why has no one made a game where you play as orcs, and kill elves for these underlying reasons?

If this game has been made, why has no one informed me of it. I would so play that game. (Heck, I'm tempted to write a D&D campaign expanding on the concept, if only I weren't so busy.)

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:04 pm

Um... Yeah not sure what you're going at here. I kind of dig the Garret PI series by Glen Cook. Everybody is fucking everybody in that setting, and so you get weird shit like half troll, 1/8th pixie, 1/4 ratmen (leading Garret to wonder in the book what kind of kinky fucked up fetish the person's parents had). Not just that, but since there's perpetual and everlasting war going on that everyone serves in, extra long lifespans really aren't an issue since it's likely you're going to get killed off.

There are a pantheon of gods, more than you can shake a stick at, and the main city, TunFaire, is crawling with cults and other religious movements. There's so many though, they they kind of become background noise and just don't matter any more (except in a few cases).

Science isn't considered bad, it's just that the rulers of the country they're in are all magic users, and stupidly powerful ones at that. However, one of the main characters in the setting, The Dead Man, is a master of logical deduction.

The setting is also kind of split between Renaissance levels of technology and an early industrial setting. With magic and metahumans thrown in. In a Chandler-esque series of stories/mysteries. It is a really entertaining, refreshing series, kind of a post-fantasy fantasy setting.

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:18 pm

Schwarzkopf wrote: Why has no one made a game where you play as orcs, and kill elves for these underlying reasons?

The good news is, someone has.. The bad news is, that someone is John Wick. Orks (his spelling) are noble savages, humans are brutal imperialists, elves are soul-sucking aliens, dwarves are ... I forget in what way dwaves are bad and wrong, but they are.

This being a John Wick game, the whole thing is ... suffused with characteristic Wick-itude. If you can get past that, there are some useful nuggets to be mined out of the game, setting-wise. I don't even remember what the mechanics are, much less whether they work or not.

sake · Post by **sake** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:21 pm

talozin wrote:
The good news is, someone has.. The bad news is, that someone is John Wick. Orks (his spelling) are noble savages, humans are brutal imperialists, elves are soul-sucking aliens, dwarves are ... I forget in what way dwaves are bad and wrong, but they are.

Sigh... Reversing the protagonists' color palette doesn't somehow just make it not be the same damn "The pretty pink people are the good guys and the ugly green/grey people are the baddies" tripe he thought he was subverting.

Honestly, I can't think a single sci fi/fantasy setting where a race actively rebels against their shitty genetic lot in life and it isn't treated as the worst, most unnatural and evil thing ever... Well, not counting insufferable transhumanism wank fodder type stuff.

Hieronymous Rex · Post by **Hieronymous Rex** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:00 pm

CCarter wrote:Carcosa from what I've heard apparently has lots of child sacrificing rituals or something and is dodgy?

A lot of righteous condemnation has thrown at the game, but actually it doesn't go any farther than the classic fantasy image of sorcerers carrying out human sacrifices to dark gods.

Rituals in the game are primarily about summoning, binding, and banishing undesirable entities, and the first 2 categories often involve human sacrifice. The most common special requirement for those sacrifices is the victims color (the setting insinuates that the humans of the world have been bred as color-coded spell components).

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:28 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:China Mieville's "Bas Lag" series. Full stop.

This.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:32 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:China Mieville's "Bas Lag" series. Full stop.

Isn't Bas Lag described as a shitty, screwed-up place?

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:33 pm

Yeah, but it at least attempts to not have the same old shitty, screwed-up fare. That's what you get when you mash D&D nerd with sociologist.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:01 am

Schwarzkopf wrote:
Like orcs are supposed to be happy living 60 years while elves should feel cheated reaching 300 years old. That's fucking fucked up that no story ever addresses this.
Why has no one made a game where you play as orcs, and kill elves for these underlying reasons?

If this game has been made, why has no one informed me of it. I would so play that game. (Heck, I'm tempted to write a D&D campaign expanding on the concept, if only I weren't so busy.)

It should definitely use Grunts as source material. Of course in Grunts orcs and elves actually wind up relatively uneasy bedmates (generally speaking, anyway, the ones who wind up literal bedmates seem quite happy). It helps that Grunts' basic conflict goes from The Dark Lord's Army vrs. The Light's, to The Orcs vrs. everyone, to The Orcs and everyone who wants orc weaponry (firearms) vrs. everyone that won't sign that deal, to Everyone vrs. Space Aliens who grow weapons from their bodies.

But yeah, totally read Grunts and write a setting for it, I'd play.

sake wrote:Honestly, I can't think a single sci fi/fantasy setting where a race actively rebels against their shitty genetic lot in life and it isn't treated as the worst, most unnatural and evil thing ever... Well, not counting insufferable transhumanism wank fodder type stuff.

Actually that's the entire premise of the first third of Grunts. Orcs get special weaponry that's supposed to win the war for The Dark Lord. Then the Dark Lord's forces lose that war, and the orcs are left in the lurch by, well, everyone, which doesn't sit well with the head orc so he basically says "well fuck you all, us evil nasty orcs are going to be evil and nasty to everyone until we're on top and all of you live lives slowly going down piss creek with paddles made of shit." Granted, the green people are still evil, but they're protagonists that sort of have an excuse for being pissed. Everything they do because they're pissed, including rape, they do because they enjoy it, but the pissed-ness is justified.
-------------

On a non-spoileriffic note, I've randomly started working up goblins based on evolutionary theory, working up from rat-like rodents.

...this is what you get when you take a D&D nerd and put him in an honors physical anthropology class.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:20 pm

What about this one?

http://www.greenronin.com/gallery.php?prodid=grr1001