Why does fantasy dominate RPGs?

[Dannyalcatraz]

All good points.

One I'll add: fantasy resonates more with our childhoods and cultures. How many of us were read betime tales of knights rescuing damsels from dragons, Prince's rousing cursed maidens from slumber, etc.? Camelot? Fairy tales & mythology are a part of how many of us were brought up, and have a cultural head-start of thousands of years.

Now, how many of us had parents who read to us of "First Contact"? Of exploring new planets? Rousing tales of rayguns and rockets* are the Johnny come latelys, culturally speaking.




* and there's the name of the game that will change it all! Rayguns & Rockets FTW!

 

[Morrus]

One I'll add: fantasy resonates more with our childhoods and cultures. How many of us were read betime tales of knights rescuing damsels from dragons, Prince's rousing cursed maidens from slumber, etc.? Camelot? Fairy tales & mythology are a part of how many of us were brought up, and have a cultural head-start of thousands of years.

But that's the thing. If that were the reason, surely fantasy would also dominate TV and movies? The question is why RPGs and TV/movies are reversed?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One of the things I learned about marketing: the best predictor of success in a given market is who entered into it first.

The oral & written genre fiction storytelling market is dominated by the intellectual descendants of myths and fairy tales- fantasy stories. And the first RPG followed that lead, becoming the defining game of that market.

But film & TV are not mere outgrowths of our written, oral or even theatrical storytelling. They are new market with their own rules. And they happened to come into existence just as sci if and westerns were exploding in popularity. Some of the earliest films were fantasy stories, but the early ones that got the most press and accolades were mostly westerns and sci-fi. The special effects that showed men going to the moon or mechanical women were more visually compelling than another guy in theatrical fangs.

 

[dbm]

I think the two things are separate and unrelated.

If you look at escapist fiction it either looks forward to a better time or back to a halcyonic age. For American TV, as already mentioned, looking back to simpler times gives you westerns, which were very common back in the early days of television (and film, for that matter). Looking forwards to a better time gives you sci-fi of different stripes. Neither gives you euro-centric fantasy. These media are mass market and designed for broad consumption, so they don't stretch the audience too far from their comfort zone. The rest of the English-speaking world inherits a chunk of this TV. The BBC would have historic and period dramas for mass consumption, but fantasy was probably looked down on at the time...

RPGs are a niche product from the very beginning, growing out of another niche hobby in terms of wargaming and (to a lesser extent) games like Braustein. The audience is probably exposed to a wider range of material, with the literary 500lb gorilla being Lord of the Rings, plus mass market material like Conan and Moorcock being more readily available. These things require much more imagination to appreciate; I would posit a correlation between enjoying media that needs imagination (books) with a pastime that requires imagination (RPGs), so you can assume a high level of literary exposure for most early adopters of RPGs.

There were sci-fi books, too, of course but I think the zeitgeist just tipped into fantasy rather than sci-fi like Lensman or similar. Too many hippies...

 

[Celebrim]

One of the things I learned about marketing: the best predictor of success in a given market is who entered into it first.

I'd believe that 'D&D was first' was the answer except...

I've several times tried to launch non-fantasy games and as a GM I can say that they are a lot harder to run or prepare, and I think they are also harder for a player to 'grok'. In fantasy, you've got a sword, you might have a list of spells, you have an foe that is a reified abstract evil (a vampire, an orc, etc.). It's pretty clear what sort of choices you need to make, and then layer on the complexity from there. In science fiction, things are much less clear cut, and the more clear cut you try to make them the more you end up just having fantasy wearing a costume.

I actually prefer to read Sci-Fi to fantasy, but if I start listing out Sci-Fi I love it becomes really clear why its hard to adapt to an RPG. And some stories are just really hard to game. I have spent some time running my kids in a Harry Potter themed universe, but writing/running a good Harry Potter story is a lot more challenging than writing/running a typical D&D adventure. JK Rawlings is showing she can do it, by writing the new movies, but if you can do what Rawlings can do then may I suggest you should just go with that marketable skill.

Or in other words, I think that we have it backwards. It's not that RPGs are dominated by fantasy because D&D was first. D&D is fantasy because fantasy was the easiest territory to mentally explore in that manner and so, lacking a lot of tools and prior experiences to draw on, it naturally fell into the easiest pathway. Adding magic to a medieval wargame was the easiest and most natural path to making a first RPG.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I agree, most fantasy comes with certain default setting connotations, inherited from both D&D and Tolkien. Arguably, sci-fi often requires more worldbuilding from the ground up. With the exception of licensed properties, like Star Wars, you have to do more groundwork with sci-fi. Like trying to explain the difference between Traveler and Star Frontiers to someone that’s never heard of either.

I'd believe that 'D&D was first' was the answer except...

I've several times tried to launch non-fantasy games and as a GM I can say that they are a lot harder to run or prepare, and I think they are also harder for a player to 'grok'.

 

[tomBitonti]

Science fiction seems to dominate movies and television, but that isn't to say that fantasy doesn't have a strong presence.

I don't think that science fiction dominates print: There is a healthy amount of both. And, the trend seems to be to less hard science and more fantasy elements. Certainly, monster fiction (vampire, werewolf, undead, &etc) has had a very big growth.

Science fiction role playing seems to have a smaller presence. That is curious, since the original D&D campaigns mixed in sci-fi elements. They just don't seem to stick very well. But the presence is hardly minimal.

We have to be careful: There is plenty of content that mixes tropes. The Force, in Star Wars, is a fantasy trope, even though Star Wars is more science fiction. Hasn't Star Wars been called Science Fantasy?

And what do we say about games like WH40K and WarMachine, which strongly mix fantasy and science fiction elements?

Also, from a technical point of view, a lot of what is labeled science fiction or fantasy is historical romance, with a thin layer of either science fiction elements or of fantasy elements added, but with those additions hardly intruding on the core story.

Thx!
TomB

 

[Moraine]

Sci-fi ranges from dystopian Cyberpunk to soap opera like Star Wars: it includes a lot of minor sub-genres. Medieval fantasy is far more limited (the key word is medieval, because urban fantasy grows plentiful). I also agree with the origin and budget poinjts.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

You can become a murderhobo with nothing holding you back. Kicking in the door, slaughtering all who oppose you, and loading up on their stuff is part of the charm. Not a lot of moral gray areas in most games I've been in. Especially when it comes to evil races. Fun action adventure with a real fantastical escape.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Science fiction seems to dominate movies and television, but that isn't to say that fantasy doesn't have a strong presence.

I don't think that science fiction dominates print: There is a healthy amount of both. And, the trend seems to be to less hard science and more fantasy elements. Certainly, monster fiction (vampire, werewolf, undead, &etc) has had a very big growth.

Science fiction role playing seems to have a smaller presence. That is curious, since the original D&D campaigns mixed in sci-fi elements. They just don't seem to stick very well. But the presence is hardly minimal.

We have to be careful: There is plenty of content that mixes tropes. The Force, in Star Wars, is a fantasy trope, even though Star Wars is more science fiction. Hasn't Star Wars been called Science Fantasy?

And what do we say about games like WH40K and WarMachine, which strongly mix fantasy and science fiction elements?

Also, from a technical point of view, a lot of what is labeled science fiction or fantasy is historical romance, with a thin layer of either science fiction elements or of fantasy elements added, but with those additions hardly intruding on the core story.

Thx!
TomB

Well the original SW was about a kid finding an old wizard to help him save the princess. That is pretty stock fantasy.