What is the absolute last thing you ever want to see in a fantasy setting...

Well surprise surprise, I hate children, too.

>Kender a homophone for Kinder which is German for child.

Fucking hilarious as this is, I figured that mentioning Kenders in this list is low hanging fruit. It's too obvious.
May as well have said "I don't want to see sub machine-guns in a fantasy setting."

>anachronistic progressive politics

Do you mind if they're not forced just accepted? Like if you have a gay player who wants to play a gay character, if it wasn't already specified what your world's view on homosexuality is, would you just make it a non-issue?

From my perspective, as long as the player in question isn't forcing their views on the world, I would attempt to accommodate the character same as I would try to help anyone else fit their character's backstory into the world. If they make it an issue and bring it up with "fuck you I'm going to play a heteroromanticallybisexual trans-atlantic seaboardkin francophile and my character is going to bring it up 24/7," then I don't see an issue with just not bringing up any social politics unless it drives the plot. If it is a point of contention that say women are oppressed in the society, then I'll fucking stick to that, but if it doesn't change anything else I just tend to assume it's whatever will make the most people happy at the table.

Personally speaking? The elves/dwarves/orcs trinity of stereotypical Tolkien-infused fantasy races. That kills my interest faster than anything else.

Time travel and Kenders

bikini armor

Races that resemble prepubescent girls that can live for hundreds if not thousands of years old. It's a relatively new thing, but it became real old real fast.

I HEARD YOU WERE TALKIN SHIT ABOUT AIRSHIPS?

but but muh sjws!

Oi. Crimson Skies is the best.

How about just don't take on Tolkien at all? Everyone and their papa already has. Tolkien has gotten really old. Ironically, there are much older stories and settings that barely anyone has really ripped off, so try and find some of those to take inspiration from. Or try taking inspiration from some new, wholly original thing you found, if such a thing exists.

of course, the shady vampire countess has to be 1000% h e t e r o s e x u a l or someone would get massively triggered

>SURPRISE! We're really on earth and it's post-apocalypse!
>Here's a future gun!

>surprise! we're really on a space colony!
>here's an ancient AI in an indestructible robot shell that's trying to erase 99% of humanity!

>there is everything we have today, except it is a cartoony steampunk appliance
>big fat leaderboard with levels in the middle of town
>characters aware of game mechanics
>fourth wall breaks
>political ideology preached as unfailable
>monogender race
>modern youth language
>nonsensical sexual dimorphism in a species(fashion models and cavetrog males etc.)
>cramming in absolutely everything
>ill defined universal adventurer guild, MMO questhub
>portals make any travel obsolete
>farming respawning monsters for loot/xp
>frequent timetravel
>infinite multiverse dimension hopping

>if you have a gay player who wants to play a gay character
That's not that weird, historically speaking.

You get into problems when you have Communism, or Socialized Medicine inserted into a medieval setting.

>>big fat leaderboard with levels in the middle of town
>>characters aware of game mechanics
>>monogender race
>>modern youth language
>>nonsensical sexual dimorphism in a species(fashion models and cavetrog males etc.)
>>cramming in absolutely everything
>>ill defined universal adventurer guild, MMO questhub
>>portals make any travel obsolete
>>farming respawning monsters for loot/xp

Have you been subjected to WOW the right?

pretty sure they were literally written as such initially so yeah

Kenders, but I suppose they're a cheap shot.
Widespread high quality contraception.
"Clap your hands if you believe".
Copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-Tolkien laziness.
Miscellaneous anachronisms.

CRIMSON SKIES WAS DEISELPUNK.

I'M TALKING ABOUT SWORD AND SORCERY HAVING FUCKING AIRSHIPS.

I mean, my personal preference is for the setting to do one of two things:

1) Create entirely new creatures/monsters/races, not based on any particular pre-existing fiction of myth

2) do what people like Bram Stoker or Tolkien did for their own iconic creations, namely go back to the old myths/legends which have lots of different versions/interpretations, and pick and choose from those myths to create something distinctly your own.

people rarely take straight from tolkien, they just take standard d&d shit which is tolkien as interpreted through a game of telephone

>he has a problem with airships

Indeed I have been, though I have no problem with MMO mechanics in principle. Though dredging the muck to find decent roleplayers with common sense was pain.

Like everything, if they can do it tastefully it's ok in my book, being gay? Sure, don't exepct to be treated well tough, no one respected gays in ancient times (The Aztecs downright impalled them). Women warriors? Why not. Armies of women or with great deals of them? Unless a very good reason, nope it cheapens the setting.

>Hating Nausicca and Miyazaki.
Faggot.

>Adventurers and heroes are really common.

Oddly enough that was something I added to my setting when world building and I ended up hating it in play. It felt like an opportunity to introduce neat NPCs but it just ended up making the party ignore any real threat. They just assumed the other adventurers would do it instead, and looking back I suppose there's no reason a more qualified adventurer wouldn't do it in their place.

Sky pirates are awesome.

IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE GLORY OF SKYPIRATES, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO LEAVE. YOU COULD LOOK AT TREASURE PLANET, WHICH WAS ALSO THE BOMB. WHILE IT WAS ALLEGEDLY SCI-FI, IT'S EASY TO SEE HOW IT COULD EASILY BE A HIGH FANTASY SETTING.

>don't exepct to be treated well tough
Depends on the time period. It was the norm in parts of Ancient Greece.

Homosex was pretty well accepted in parts of Asia too.

> What absolutely fucking grinds your gears in a world of swords and sorcery, dragons and dungeons and dick-ass thieves?

People who don't act like they're living in that kind of world.

>Communism
I'd make exception for actual communes of communists, as they showed up way before the medieval era. But a Communist nation? Hell no.

EDGE CHRONICLES IS GOOD YOU UNCULTURED SWINE

>Adventurers and heroes are really common.
This. If really breaks my immersion.
Historically the closest think I could think of would be tomb robbers or conquistadors.

What do you mean?

>It was the norm in parts of Ancient Greece.
Nope. Fucking a man in the ass isn't gay, and in fact was viewed as a display of masculinity. Being fucked in the ass, on the other hand, was most certainly gay, and was a sign of inferiority/femininity(?). Those being fucked in the ass were certainly viewed as something lesser, something undesirable.

>The Aztecs downright impalled them
So did the Greeks... In a good way.

No it wasn't dude. First homosex wasn't a respectable thing to do, but at least it didn't lower your stance if you were the one doing the dicking. Fellating or giving the ass? You were considered the lowest of the society because those things were done be slaves. Also people in those ages didn't have a concept of homosexuality, gender and all that bullshit, you could fuck a goat for all they cared, while you also fucked your wife and were a productive member of the society. They would laugh at you for your vices if they were known tough, and was a sure way to embarass your enemies to call them the butt giver like it happened with Caesar and the Bythunian king.

Why couldn't gay people being accepted be a thing in a fantasy world?

>various homosex posts

Maybe we should file this under "anachronistic notions of homosexuality" ?

Honestly, nothing.
I don't have issues with setting elements because ALL of them are inherently without substance or real meaning because they are purely fictional.
My issues are with lazy or poor writing and lazy or poor execution, not with the supposed "inherent" flaws in something that has no inherent flaws or upsides.

To be honest, nothing. But I will say that generic medieval european settings bore me quite a bit.

This, honestly.

homosexuality is degeneracy that would never have existed if someone had shot Karl Marx's mother before she gave birth to that demagoge.

>Those being fucked in the ass were certainly viewed as something lesser, something undesirable.
Not always. See: Sparta or the Sacred Band of Thebes

Also the character could be a top, and then the crisis is averted.

That's one too many buzzwords in a single post, friend. I think you're on the wrong board.

Thanks for your input, /Stormfront/

I would say that a lot of the examples given in this thread are an example of poor writing/execution.

>Not always. See: Sparta or the Sacred Band of Thebes
Those are definitely abnormal, most notably the Sacred Band.

Towns, villages, and cities with nonexistent governments

My fantasy setting has submachine guns.
But it isn't based on medieval Europe, so maybe it doesn't count.

What about Florence? I don't believe it had a single ruling body.

My issue is treating homosexuality in a fantasy culture the same way progressives treat it today. Gays are inevitably going to exist if a setting is honest, what bugs me is when people use the setting as an excuse to bash or straw-man their political opposition. "Me and my gay orc boyfriend are going to force the temple of Pelor to host our wedding because they're bigots!" for example.

No idea what you mean here

Speaking as:
Yes, I agree, that's one of the things that bothers me, the ideas of races or gays being treated in fantasy with strange marxist lenses that cause people to think modern american conceptions of gays would exist in fantasy land, or that orcs must be kindly oppressed proles

Relatively new? Fairie princess wants to speak with you.

For reference: The words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" don't show up in the English language until 1892, and they don't move outside one translation of a German wordgluingpile medicinewritingbook until around 1920.

The notion of a "homosexual" character in a fantasy setting is a really weird import of a notion that didn't even *exist* until recently. It's like wanting to play a "programmer" character. No can do, you should probably round that off to "scribe" or similar profession unless you get the GM to introduce Magical Computers, and likewise "homosexual" involves Magical Sexual Fashion. You should round it off to something else.

Very roughly summarizing three groups of views on something-like-homosexuals, societies of the past could be divided into:
-Norse, Aztecs, etc: IN THE BOG WITH YOU. ON THE STAKE WITH YOU. BURN THE SODOMITE.
-Greeks, Arabs, etc: Giving a dicking is awesome and manly, regardless of who or what you are dicking. Taking a dicking is pathetic and embarrassing. Having taken a dicking from your mentor when you were a child isn't so bad, though. Nobody knows or cares what the women get up to on their own time.
-Various nomads, tribals: Ehhhh the shaman/holy fool/spirit-speaker always gets up to weird stuff, last week he bit the head off a live chicken, yesterday he licked every square inch of the tent, today he stuck his penis up a man's ass, I dunno man, I don't question the shaman.

Wizard schools.

That had a lot to do with the flow of capital.

Thatched roof villages that produce rutabagas and see maybe one trader every two months don't have the context surrounding them that free cities have

So why is

>The baker likes to take in the ass, but he bakes good bread and doesn't diddle boys so I don't really care.

Totally unrealistic? Besides that not really being an historical cultural thing that I know of.

>abnormal
You could say that. But you'll not I said "Parts of Greece"

In my book, as long as their is a historical precedent, that I wouldn't say it's a major problem for a fantasy setting.

At the same time, a town of 20-30 families where everyone lives in thatched roof cottages probably isn't even gonna bother having a mayor. Maybe a town hall where the patriarchs or what have you gather to take about issues but not any central government.

>not wanting to see sub machine-guns in a fantasy setting

How else are we going to remove Kender?

I'm alright with those in a setting where magic is feared and dangerous.

A wizard school is sort of the wizards compromise in order not to be burned at the stake.

Precisely.

Yeah. Dragon Age had a decent justification for it, in that Wizards were basically 40k psykers and most people don't trust them to not be possessed by demons/go mad with power. So they all gather in one place to keep an eye on them.

>Maybe a town hall where the patriarchs or what have you gather to take about issues but not any central government.
Exactly. If the town is small enough, it probably just falls to a consensus of a group of patriarchs/elders.

There aren't a hole lot of town decisions that need to be made.

'Misunderstood' monsters being the norm. It's fine if you want to make Orks or Goblins an actual race that isn't universally evil if you present it as that beforehand, but trying to make every vampire or mindflayer the party meets 'secretly good' as a twist in order to be different or preach some moral lesson is dumb.

Have some monsters be monsters.

The greeks didn't penetrate the epheboi tough, it was considered a shaming act, alos not all the people than participated in the Epheboy had sex with they pupils. Plus the Greeks and Romans had diffrent kinds of love and people tend to translate friendly love with lusting love or even familial love,mudding the issue even further.

>Socialized Medicine

The Temple of [Fantasy God] is offering free healing and blessings for the sick to further cement its place as a member of the community and improve the conditions of the community. (Also as a prudent measure against the spread of plagues and keeping to populace fit for working, aside from the obvious thankfulness and devotion the church receives for its services, and the faith the god gets in return.)

I suppose that's much different than socialized medicine, but function can be preserved even if socio-politics is much different.

Exactly. I'm alright with it, if it's less about training wizards and more about policing wizards.

IT'S JUST SPELLJAMMER WHICH IS HIGH FANTASY.

Now I want a universally good race that everyone, themselves included, think is always chaotic evil. With every individual thinking that they (possibly their family line) are the exception and must hide it from the others at all costs.

>wanting a 19 year old zeppelin
who wants something this obsolete

Well, unless magic really is just a learned academic skill and not some talent thing.

As I've heard it, it was a power thing, so face-fucking is better than fucking someone's ass, because you're looking them in the eye as you fuck their mouth.
As women < men socially (ignoring class and free/unfree, though they both counted too), you had something along the lines of:
Face-fucking a man > Ass-fucking a man > Face-fucking a woman > Fucking a woman > Being fucked in the ass by a man > Being fucked in the face by a man > Being fucked in the face by a woman

Which would make eating out a slave woman about the lowest thing you can do, presumably.

also hence the first line of Catullus 16:
>Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
(I will sodomise and face-fuck you)
As one of the most obscene things you can say in Latin. The whole poem is like that, it's excellent

Usually it has to do with the cultures involved, some see a man taking it in the ass as being submissive, and thus not worthy of respect. What's unrealistic is the "I don't really care" part.
People cared, especially in the sedentary agrarian cultures where bakers existed. The kind of libertarian "It doesn't hurt me so I don't care" attitude is something that needs a great deal of explaining in a fantasy culture.

The parameters can be set that way, sure, and it can even be interesting, but it still requires some kind of explanation (at least to me)

Fair point, though depending on the setting they might have a lord or similar

>So why is _ totally unrealistic? Besides that not really being an historical cultural thing that I know of.

Well, partly is is realistic, but mixed reasons sorted more or less by length:
partly you just answered your own question,
partly what's unrealistic is this ass-fixation getting screen time,
partly this "labor robot" view of humans based on product quality is the unrealistic thing when people in the past tended to know much more about their fellow villagers and their lives,
and partly most cultures had a view that something (gods, demons, spirits, sorcerers, the north wind) would occasionally put ridiculous ideas into your head. If you acted on these ideas instead of summoning up the willpower to live normally you were a derp. If you went so far as to define your personal identity around such ideas, you were really herping the derp. Don't do that.

It makes about as much sense as feudalism.

Free healthcare/healing isn't the same thing as socialized medicine.

The existence of free clinics in the US doesn't mean that they've adopted socialized medicine.

>Widespread high quality contraception.
Define high-quality.

Are you telling me feudalism doesn't make complete sense?

>Sparta.
Xenophon denies that, from were do you get it?

Yes, because mostly everyone on the thread is a poor writer or a bad GM.
If you mean the concepts themselves?

No.
The concepts themselves are concepts. They have no meaning. No value. No reality that is definable by physical laws. I could take a shit and it would have more defined substance then every idea in D&D ever because it actually would exist and is clearly defined.

Ideas are not BAD, but many writers and GM's are shitty.

I've always found it amusing how this has somehow become the default, despite not being the case in 1st ed, 2nd ed, or the actual source material.

That would be acceptable in Greek and Rome, assuming the guy plowing him was of higher social standing. Taking it in the ass was seen as shameful because it was a sign of submission, but if the person is somebody the rules of society say you have to be submissive towards anyway, then it wouldn't be particularly shameful.

If he's taking it in the ass from somebody from lower standing, well, that was hardly a capital offense, but it would be seen as a weird and shameful thing. Some people might be outraged, while others might not really give a fuck. After all, when two people have sex, somebody always has to be the receiving party.

I think a modern equivalent would be if the baker wore a fursuit or some fetish gear while working. Some people would be outraged, while others would go "well, that's weird and kind of creepy, but it's not like he's hurting anybody so what the fuck do I care".

Time Travel ruins settings that aren't specifically about it

>pseudoscience explanations for how monsters or races like elves evolved
>evolution in general
>undead being living people infected by something and not actually reanimated corpses
>applying real world chemistry to alchemy
>monsters that are as smart as people but have no society and are functionally animals aside from talking while you kill them
>anything trying to explain how magic is really science

This more applies to literature n' vidya n' shit, but anachronistic politics. Bonus points if they're taking time away from the core plot to espouse their shit.

>Yes. I get it. The gays are people too. Yes, I know the commies are going to come for my Not!Oil. Yes, yes. I know that such-and-such surrendered their humanity for their political beliefs. It's all very fascinating. Can we get back to stopping that one guy who's maybe a couple of hours away from cracking the world open like giant fucking egg, please?

If it makes me rage "these people should have contracepted themselves out of existence". ("Widespread" is an important part of that.)

I mean, obviously medieval bumpkins would have superstitions and beliefs surrounding homosexuality, as much as they have beliefs surrounding every facet of ones life or things that are mildly unusual. Just, why do those preconceived notions have to be negative by default?

Realism.

No loot.