Mundane vs. Fantastical

[Remathilis]

I had another conversation with a friend (a life-long D&D player from 2e on, like myself) in which he innocently recalled one of his PCs being mauled to death by a bear.

I said to him; "A bear? Not a fiendish half-dragon dire bear?"

He restated it had been a typical black bear in the 2e Monster Manual.

That exchange got me thinking though...

A large amount of criticism is lobbed at 3e (and especially 4e) for removing the "mundane" from fantasy. This charge came in many forms: races (half-genies, half-angels, half-dragons), magic items (belt buckle of warding), monsters (thundertusk boars, half-fiendish vampiric blackguard minotaurs), armor (mithril chain shirts) and weapons (adamantine fullblades), not to mention the near constant drumbeat of class-based power expansion (from the lowly rogue gaining evasion to nearly every martial power in 4e).

It seems like a dude in chainmail and a sword fighting a bear and dying has become blase', and I guess in a world full of wizards lobbying fireballs at ice-breathing white dragons, it would. I mean, who really wants to play a game set in a fantastical world of vampires and ogres and druids only to be made a meal from a real-world animal? Who wants mundane real-world steel swords in a world where your mage buddy gets a wand of infused magical essence allowing him to shoot lightning from it? Besides, if the world was as infused with magic as the core rules seem to assume (with its large catalog of magical items, mythological beasts, and spells-a-plenty) why would it be a world where dudes in mundane chainmail die at the claws of normal bears?

Still, when one looks in the monster manual for "scorpions" and finds scorpions that deal lightning damage from their tail instead of large, poisonous "real" scorpions, something feels odd...

So has D&D drifted too far from mundane into fantastical? Is it a bad thing? Can a balance between truly magical and fantastical elements (warlocks, demons, potions of fire-breath) be struck with historical or mundane elements (grizzly bears, fighters, bec-de-corbins?) without one or the other suffering?

 

[The_Gneech]

It seems like a dude in chainmail and a sword fighting a bear and dying has become blase', and I guess in a world full of wizards lobbying fireballs at ice-breathing white dragons, it would. I mean, who really wants to play a game set in a fantastical world of vampires and ogres and druids only to be made a meal from a real-world animal? Who wants mundane real-world steel swords in a world where your mage buddy gets a wand of infused magical essence allowing him to shoot lightning from it? Besides, if the world was as infused with magic as the core rules seem to assume (with its large catalog of magical items, mythological beasts, and spells-a-plenty) why would it be a world where dudes in mundane chainmail die at the claws of normal bears?

Still, when one looks in the monster manual for "scorpions" and finds scorpions that deal lightning damage from their tail instead of large, poisonous "real" scorpions, something feels odd...

This is why the desire for "grim and gritty" or "low fantasy" (or whatever you want to call it) variations comes up again and again -- and why D&D is periodically referred to as a superhero game with a fantasy skin on it.

Speaking only for myself, I much prefer the guy in chainmail fighting a bear. My exact words on flipping through the 4E MM the first time: "Zombies with wings? What the heck is THAT about?" I love having magic and the supernatural spice up the background -- but like spice, too much of it and it becomes an irritant instead.

Somewhere in 2e I started to feel like D&D was dangerously skirting the realm of "over-the-top"-ness, but that could be mitigated by staying at lower levels. 4e, as far as I can tell, has blown all that away by having everybody and their brother full of superpowers from day one. I'm sure the WAR artwork (et al.) doesn't help, but whenever I look at or in a 4e book, I see neon lights and hear bad metal music turned up way too loud.

I prefer my fantasy turned up to around 8.5 or so, thanks. I don't want it turned up to 11.

-The Gneech

 

[Byronic]

I actually like seeing animals from real life in DnD, I even like how they can be a real threat. I was actually very dissapointed to see the lightning Scorpion and will probably change it to a poisonous one (although perhaps a bit larger) and perhaps make a level 1 swarm of scorpions to compensate.

I mean, I can swallow lightning Scorpions if there are more normal scorpions. then at least I could say that they are mutated by magic or some other unnatural origin. Things are scarier when they have unnatural or unholy origins. When Lightning Scorpions seem normal and every day they lose a lot.

 

[Greg K]

I mean, who really wants to play a game set in a fantastical world of vampires and ogres and druids only to be made a meal from a real-world animal?

Myself and practically everybody I have played with.

Who wants mundane real-world steel swords in a world where your mage buddy gets a wand of infused magical essence allowing him to shoot lightning from it?

If it can be enchanted or I can find an enchanted sword, I do. And by enchanted, I don't mean casting fireballs, death rays, fire auras or frost auras.

Besides, if the world was as infused with magic as the core rules seem to assume (with its large catalog of magical items, mythological beasts, and spells-a-plenty) why would it be a world where dudes in mundane chainmail die at the claws of normal bears?

Not everyone plays in the default setting or assumes the default setting is full of a large catolog of magical items and mythological beasts. For many of us, those are options to placed as we see fit.

Still, when one looks in the monster manual for "scorpions" and finds scorpions that deal lightning damage from their tail instead of large, poisonous "real" scorpions, something feels odd...

Honestly, scorpions shooting lightning out of their tails makes me groan. Then again, I despised most of WOTC's new monsters created for 3e and the same is already true for 4e.
I'll take the giant poisonous scorpions everyday of the week and twice on Sundays.

So has D&D drifted too far from mundane into fantastical?

Imo, yes.

Is it a bad thing?

Again, imo, yes. The same for my friends based on what they have said.

Can a balance between truly magical and fantastical elements (warlocks, demons, potions of fire-breath) be struck with historical or mundane elements (grizzly bears, fighters, bec-de-corbins?) without one or the other suffering?

Yes. For example, choose and place your magical and fantastical elements with care. Maybe, aberrations , most magical beasts, etc. are unique creatures. Place most of them ahead of time in particular areas with legends surrounding them (e.g, think the Medusa, the kraken, and the Hydra from Greek Myth). Or maybe, they are something that nobody has seen until the characters encounter the wizard that created them.

Similarly, place thought into the non-human races of your setting. You don't have to allow everything. Nor, do you have to allow every possible PC race because WOTC printed it somewhere.

 

[Oni]

It's like if you had nothing to eat but cake. After a while it might still be enjoyable, but it loses its specialness. Contrasts is one of those things that can make something more enjoyable.

Also I think when you try to cram too much "awesome" into something it can turn silly, this is often a problem I have with the aesthetic of a lot of JRPG's for example.

 

[GlaziusF]

Giant poisonous scorpions are more fantastic than giant lightning-clawed poison-tailed scorpions. (Or if you've got kobolds inadvisably feeding them scraps from the hold of a ship that fell out of the Astral Sea, giant star-clawed mindcrush-tailed scorpions.)

Scorpions that eat thunder and crap lightning are obviously fantastic and can be any size at all. Normal Scorpions But Bigger just kinda violate the square-cube law and expect you to take it.

 

[mmadsen]

Also I think when you try to cram too much "awesome" into something it can turn silly.

It's a fine line between awesomizing and lasersharking.

 

[Tewligan]

Giant poisonous scorpions are more fantastic than giant lightning-clawed poison-tailed scorpions.

Wait - removing lightning from a giant poisonous scorpion makes it more fantastic?

 

[GlaziusF]

Wait - removing lightning from a giant poisonous scorpion makes it more fantastic?

Well, more unbelievable, how about?

Believability's kind of an uncanny valley thing, where realistic things like tiny scorpions are believable, and patently unrealistic things like giant scorpions that eat thunder et cetera are believable under their own weird logic, but something that's not unrealistic enough, like a giant poisonous scorpion that somehow has more potent venom but fills the same ecological niche and is presumably just as natural a creature as a regular-sized scorpion except it can't possibly exchange enough oxygen through its spiracles to not suffocate, just raises all kinds of uncomfortable questions.

 

[Mallus]

I don't really care how mundane or fantastical a campaign/setting/game system is. What concerns me is the quality of the presentation.

A man fighting a bear with a sword isn't inherently more interesting than a man fighting a bear that shoots lightning out of ass with a sword made of antimatter. Both can be done well, though the latter case might strain even my ability to dignify unadulterated wahoo.

For the record, my current campaign tends toward the "11" (more for fantastical perversity than for epic scale... Synnibar it ain't). My group recently compare it to the video for Muse's "Knights of Cydonia". They meant it as a compliment.