Why does fantasy endure as the most popular genre in roleplaying games? Even in video games, space scifi usually comes up second.
Everytime I think I can't stand another thing that looks a bit too much like D&D or Conan, someone will release a Barbarians of Lemuria, or a Lamentations of the Flame Princess and revive the whole thing for me.
Wouldn't bother me much but I've found myself, all of a sudden, contemplating a medieval fantasy homebrew. Not because there aren't already dozens of really good fantasy games out there--just to make something with my own spin on the same kind of fantasy I've been interested in since about third grade.
Explain that!
Ryder Fisher
Legacy
Leo Howard
Because D&D came first and popularized roleplaying games. That's about it really.
Christian Flores
>just to make something with my own spin on the same kind of fantasy I've been interested in since about third grade.
Congrats; recognizing that "originality" is ultimately a silly thing to worry about due to how long humanity has been creating and imagining things and instead focusing on what you like and trying to do your own thing with it is the sign of maturity in a creative mindset. It's kinda like how as a teenager people are obsessed with their "individuality" and so end up doing what a whole bunch of people also end up doing for literally the exact same reason; it's just a silly thing kids worry about before they actually start to know shit about life.
The trick isn't being original; it's taking something everyone already knows and presenting it as interestingly as possible to revive the entertainment value for people who have seen the same thing a million times before. That's why all of those "totally original" special snowflake settings tend to fail; they don't actually make up for the lack of writing experience or talent and something can be the most "original" thing in the world and it can still be utter horseshit.
Jacob White
>checked
Who /Daradjan/ here?
Xavier Mitchell
This pantless team reminds me of Oglaf. Inspiring with shiny bare asses and all that.
Ryder Rodriguez
It offers a lot of individual agency and its concepts are easy to grasp, yet still offer a lot of depth.
Daniel Sullivan
That's something I've considered as well. It's sort of the whole appeal of fantasy in any medium I suppose.
Adam Walker
The Phoenix Court will rise again! Make the known world great again! ... I would post images, but my external hard-drive got un-formatted recently, so fuck it
Leo King
There isn't a "good" unlicensed Sci Fi setting, which do a lot of things right. If Dune had been at the forefront, there might have been. Instead Star Wars rip offs are rare. And Star Trek isn't about solo quest.
Also melee combat and dragons is romantic.
Andrew Smith
Did Mark Smylie ever complete Artesia?
Jason Bell
I think there's one volume left or something. He takes his sweet time.
Noah Bennett
>Why does fantasy endure as the most popular genre in roleplaying games? Even in video games, space scifi usually comes up second.
Because it's easy and basically anything goes, depending on your level of imagination SF, in comparison, requires a degree of coherency and science if you want to get taken seriously.
Easton Cook
He is still working on it, it's just that Mark's had other things happening that've gotten in the way - if memory serves me correctly, he's: started up his own company, started writing a book series set in the same one as his comics, and sold the company somewhere in there. I think; it's been a while since I checked everything out - ALTHOUGH, to get things back on track, he has got the story written out/knows how everything's going to wrap, it's just been a case of finding the time to get it done. I remember him saying at some point that he was considering hiring someone to do the art for him, actually, just to speed up the process and actually get the damn thing done
One volume and a bit.
Jackson Thomas
I think its because fantasy is tropey as hell and caries low expectations >orcs >elves >dwarves >magic Everything you need to make a fantasy game
Caleb Richardson
It's simple, easily recognisable and has themes as old as civilisation.
Sci-fi tends to be more esoteric or experimental and therefore alienating.
James Jackson
>fantasy novels didn't dominate sci-fi before D&D
Elijah Morris
Sounds like Shadowrun to me
Anthony Brooks
Everything is so tasteful in fantasy, so it can become similar to sugar. If you eat a lot of it in a short time span, at some point you become sick of it, then you take a 1-2 month break, and then once you forgot about it, you come across some image or anything related to fantasy, and it's like the best thing you ever tasted, and you go back in.
Robert Brown
> wish fulfillment > in-depth combat (no "oh you got shot once you're dead") > established themes (no "blank slate" you have to fill in) > diversity (not hugbox faggotry, just the fact that there are so many different settings you can do) > comfiness > usually black and white morality
Grayson Cooper
Hahaha...
No. Of the twenty-two books supposedly to be produced, he has finished three and a half.
He's on record saying that he will finish seven come hell or high water.
Jackson Carter
>twenty-two Mark really likes Tarot references
Jeremiah Thomas
It's physical, heroics come easy and the player can feel superior to the characters in the setting, both in terms of knowledge and morals.
Asher Phillips
No clue. I've been playing RPGs for over 10 years and have never played a traditional fantasy RPG. Can't stand the genre. I stick to sci-fi, cyberpunk, modern, and post-apoc games. Closest I've ever gotten was Low Life, but that's basically post-post-post-apoc with races derived from Twinkies, aliens, and poop. They do use swords and magic though.
Benjamin Rivera
It plays a pretty large role in the comics, and an even bigger part in the RPG.
Anthony Green
So which Major Arcana seventh book symbolizes? The Chariot? He wants to end the series on a high note?
Ryan Jones
For one its the most far removed from our world setting there is. That lends an element of uncovering the unknown even if you've played variations of it before.
Then you have freedom. This is the biggest one. In cyberpunk your roll is pretty much defined from the get go and you dont have other options because the in game powers wont allow it. The same is true for rouge trader and other 40k RPGs. You know your role and there isn't any wiggle room. In fact you will likely get BLAMED for doing anything but your role. Fantasy there is a whole world for you to muck around in at your will. There are no overarching powers that keep you to exactly what you are supposed to do. In fact most of the powers you run into are very local. You could fuck over one city and the next wont even know your names. Then by the time stuff like that could become a problem you are powerful enough to not care.
That brings me to my next point. Most fantasy games have a theme of having power or gaining it. You are or will be in charge and even if the individual adventure doesn't have those themes you as a player know you do. You grow out of this weak normal guy and into a dragon slaying badass. You are ABOVE most others. More scifi games lack that. There is an overarching power that could kill you dead. Rob a spaceport? The next already received news and blows your spaceship out of the sky. Start badmouthing someone in a bar? They just shot you. You rarely rise above the rest then when you do you still have to watch your back. Got all the best gear and the skills to use it? Opse you were tricked into going into the heart of a build rigged to explode. In fantasy it gets to the point where the dragon eats you whole and you just cut yourself out.
I'm not saying all scifi and fantasy games follow this just the general path of most of them do.
Chase Gray
My guess is that the first seven books form an "arc", wth each following set of seven likewise divided, and the last book as an epilogue.
The seventh Major Arcana in The Book of Dooms is The Hermit:
The seventh page of the Book of Dooms shows a cloaked and hooded man bearing a staff in his left hand and a lantern in his right. He is standing upon what appears to be a mountain peak, but rather than looking out upon the vistas before him, his gaze is instead cast down, intent upon the step before him. In some Books of Dooms, two serpents are entwined about his staff. Some interpret the figure as Daedekamani, foreshadowing the Path of the Dead that he would later walk as the first Guide of the Dead. Other Books of Dooms depict the figure as female, and identify her with Geteema.
The Path of the Hermit is for those who follow their own counsel and reject and refuse inherited wisdom. Hermits, wanderers, critical-thinkers, free thinkers, philosophers, proud individuals certain of themselves andn their own judgment, and iconoclasts of all sorts will find themselves walking the Path of the Hermit, usually alone.
Sebastian Gonzalez
The way I view it, fantasy settings have two advantages that are often (but not universally lacking) in sci-fi settings.
The first is that they're not as bound by plausibility, you can include basically anything in a fantasy setting provided it fits the tone.
The second is that governments in fantasy settings are much less well developed, there's no worry of a panopticon, and the map is full of open, unclaimed space (which unlike in a sci-fi setting, isn't mostly just uninhabitable rocks). So you can engage in a daring caper against the king, not worry about being on a dozen cameras and a mounting file of your biometric data, and then flee to the wilderness.
Connor Morales
Also, you don't need to know dick about science to do a fantasy setting. The shit that makes the world special can run on whatever notions you want. Personally I'm fond of stealing concepts from neo-Platonic philosophy.
Levi Walker
They didn't, actually fantasy golden Age was builded by sci-fi writers.
