Fantasy Roleplay

Did Mark Smylie ever complete Artesia?

I think there's one volume left or something. He takes his sweet time.

>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.

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.

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

It's simple, easily recognisable and has themes as old as civilisation.

Sci-fi tends to be more esoteric or experimental and therefore alienating.

>fantasy novels didn't dominate sci-fi before D&D

Sounds like Shadowrun to me

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.

> 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