D&D 5E Fantasy Styles

[I'm A Banana]

With this in mind where, then, would Terry Pratchett's Disc World series go? I only ask because I'm borrowing heavily from him for my next campaign.

One of the un-mentioned genres, mostly: Comic Fantasy.

Like how they define Dark Fantasy, it's a matter of tone and mood more than mechanics and dice. Embracing wacky die results, not shying away from puns, ridiculous characters, etc. It is lighthearted and doesn't take itself too seriously, but it might lampoon real events in a thinly veiled reference (ie, maybe you have a magical internet where wizards are illegally copying named spells like Bigby's Hand and the mage cartels that control access are not only litigious, they're also capable of fireballs and plane shifts). It requires a player base that's on board with doing something wacky.

 

[Authweight]

With this in mind where, then, would Terry Pratchett's Disc World series go? I only ask because I'm borrowing heavily from him for my next campaign.

That depends on which of the books you're talking about. The Rincewind novels are mostly a parody of sword and sorcery tropes. The stories that feature Sam Vimes usually fall into the mystery category. The witches are probably closest to heroic fantasy, but are harder to place. Thief of Time has certain Wuxia elements, The Truth and Going Postal both have some intrigue elements, although on a smaller scale than is normal for intrigue stuff. Everything involving Vetinari is about intrigue though.

If you really want a Pratchett "feel" to your game, I would deliberately grab tropes from all the styles and mix them up in unusual ways. That's sort of what Pratchett does on a pretty regular basis in discworld.

 

[aramis erak]

I have to admit I'm not familiar with Elric. Wikipedia cited it as an example of S&S, though.

I think my preferred style is primarily standard heroic fantasy with lashings of swords & sorcery and dark fantasy. Think Dragon Age.

Elric is both Epic and S&S. The conflicts that are going on are a literal war for the world... but at the same time, Elric's clearly an S&S type rat-bastard protagonist in a nasty world that may not be worth saving.

Dying Earth is a major mishmash, but (at least through the 3rd volume) not epic. It's mixed sci-fi/fantasy, dark and gritty world, knowledge by the protagonists that the world may end any day, and there's nought what they can do 'bout it...

And the John Carter of Mars books by ER Boroughs - epic S&S. Yeah, there is high tech and there are guns, but really, it's still fantasy S&S with high tech backdrops.

 

[AmerginLiath]

Regardless of some of the corner cases that one might find, what I really like about this sort of breakdown is the expectation of how WotC can now approach different campaign settings differently without really changing the ruleset. 2nd edition was great about the feeling of the world but often came up with odd new sub-rules, while 3.x often buried the feel of a world under the common ruleset (I can't speak too much on 4e, having only played a few games and not read the campaign books, but it seemed to be the case of trying to change the world to fit the mechanics, being explicit on a lot of things 3.x tried and failed to handwave).

Looking at the options of magic level, economics, alignment, divinity, etc. built directly into the more flexible chassis of 5e and laying out how the pillars fall into place on genres like this means that they can make settings feel both like themselves and 5e with minimal fuss (I also love how faction rules replace 90% of the old plethora of world-specific prestige classes). As a result, you aren't going to need lots of 'rules' in campaign books compared to previous editions – much of that crunch is going to be style instead – so we can get more world info* in products, not just maps and stats, but good fantasy anthropology!

(* For all those saying that we don't need more campaign books of old worlds, consider that the game is always bringing in new blood who don't have shelves of 2nd edition box sets. Even among older players, there's no guarantee of having older products: the first FR product I ever bought, even playing since 1987, was the 3.0 FRCS (still a gold standard in 'modern' campaign books, I say as the main whose old DLA fell apart from rampant over-reading as a youth!).)

 

[Psikerlord#]

Are these categories very useful (note I dont have DMG yet, just reading this thread).

Can't campaigns cross over these labels fairly easily - eg intrigue, mystery, heroic, S&S and dark fantasy could easily mesh together, depending on the adventure at hand. I kinda see epic as it's own thing, world spanning conflict, yeah ok. But then, that could be incorporated into the one campaign too, particularly towards the end...?

 

[Fralex]

Are these categories very useful (note I dont have DMG yet, just reading this thread).

Can't campaigns cross over these labels fairly easily - eg intrigue, mystery, heroic, S&S and dark fantasy could easily mesh together, depending on the adventure at hand. I kinda see epic as it's own thing, world spanning conflict, yeah ok. But then, that could be incorporated into the one campaign too, particularly towards the end...?

Sure, but now we've created terminology we can use to give someone a quick, general idea of what a particular setting or campaign is like. You can say stuff like, "so this one is sort of a dark fantasy mixed with intrigue in a wuxia-themed setting. Wanna join in?"

 

[I'm A Banana]

Are these categories very useful (note I dont have DMG yet, just reading this thread).

Can't campaigns cross over these labels fairly easily - eg intrigue, mystery, heroic, S&S and dark fantasy could easily mesh together, depending on the adventure at hand. I kinda see epic as it's own thing, world spanning conflict, yeah ok. But then, that could be incorporated into the one campaign too, particularly towards the end...?

They certainly aren't exclusive. Genres rarely are! But for certain adventures one aspect might come into focus more than another.

I personally like talking about emotional goals (since those are exclusive). So, like, if your group is looking for a good skin-crawling spook, you'll want to dial up the dark fantasy knob, but that dark fantasy knob could look like "The PC's solve the mystery of the dead townsfolk and it turns out to be a decadent noble wizard" in structure. The goal of the night more than to solve the mystery or slay the evil wizard would be to experience the creepy nature of the villain and experience the dread of discovering the depths of what he's done to people.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Yes fair enough answers Fralex and KM - it is a useful shorthand I suppose, for letting players know what vibe you're going for for that session, or an anticipated primary vibe for a campaign. And for players to indicate what sort of backdrop they prefer, or might be interested in exploring next session, etc

 

[AmerginLiath]

D&D has always basketed rules & options within categories – look at things like classes, races, ability scores, skills, feats, now backgrounds – so it makes sense to delineate a D&D model for 'subclasses' of fantasy campaign that elements can be ascribed to. In a certain analogical sense, consider the idea of looking to add distinctions to types of the original 'vanilla fighter' and coming up with the modern array of "martial" classes and subclasses. The same can be done with the dials of how campaign settings of Heroic Fantasy vs. Sword & Sorcery vs. Epic Fantasy. Hence, the same as a 'modern' fighter might have overlap of some abilities and role with a ranger or paladin but also be and feel very different, so the presence of the same components (monsters, some deities, etc) between Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc. can nonetheless be part of settings that feel and act very different while still using all the same D&D campaign toolkit (the same way that races or classes do for individual characters).

At least, that's my analogy.