MCDM officially announces their RPG

[Aldarc]

In literary, film, or other artistic traditions, does any genre rival fantasy's epic scope?
Horror is best as a single novel, short story, or low budget short film. Even epic sci-fi is closer to fantasy (Star Wars).
I guess there are some historic epics, but maybe we don't see as many successful games in other genres because we don't have appealing templates.
Just a thought.

Generalizations like these tend to attract a great wealth of counter-examples.

 

[Jer]

In literary, film, or other artistic traditions, does any genre rival fantasy's epic scope?
Horror is best as a single novel, short story, or low budget short film. Even epic sci-fi is closer to fantasy (Star Wars).
I guess there are some historic epics, but maybe we don't see as many successful games in other genres because we don't have appealing templates.
Just a thought.

I'd argue the opposite - D&D didn't try to mimic epic fantasy, it created its own genre of fantasy which has merged in with epic fantasy over time. A lot of modern epic fantasy owes a debt to D&D rather than the other way around due to how hard TSR pushed the genre books in the late 80s and early 90s. You don't get that with other genres really - except for maybe the urban fantasy genre which does seem to owe a debt to Vampre the Masquerade (I doubt we get, say, the Underworld movies without Vampire for example).

 

[Retreater]

Generalizations like these tend to attract a great wealth of counter-examples.

Bring 'em on. Worst case scenario is that I get lots of great recommendations.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I'd argue the opposite - D&D didn't try to mimic epic fantasy, it created its own genre of fantasy which has merged in with epic fantasy over time.

I agree with this. In fact, D&D was originally way more Lankhmar and Conan than it was Lord of the Rings. The reason people kept adventuring was to afford the ale and whores, to the point where they finally had enough and retired at name-level - thieves remained without a level cap because they weren't the settling down types

 

[Morrus]

I'd argue the opposite - D&D didn't try to mimic epic fantasy, it created its own genre of fantasy which has merged in with epic fantasy over time. A

While that was Gygax’s official line following the Tolkien dispute, the fact that D&D had hobbits, ents, elves, dwarves, and balrogs (by those names) which had to be removed, and a ranger which was literally Aragorn, kinda belies it.

 

[Retreater]

I agree with this. In fact, D&D was originally way more Lankhmar and Conan than it was Lord of the Rings. The reason people kept adventuring was to afford the ale and whores, to the point where they finally had enough and retired at name-level - thieves remained without a level cap because they weren't the settling down types

Right, but "originally" was only in its very early years, and it was quickly abandoned in actual practice.
That's like looking at the "Great Train Robbery" and thinking all movies are black & white and silent.

 

[Sacrosanct]

He says he's worried that it might not warrant enough players to justify it or not. Good lord Matt, you've got a half million followers, if you can't create an alternative to D&D that gets enough customers to warrant the cost of making it, how can any of the of the rest of us come remotely close?

 

[Retreater]

He says he's worried that it might not warrant enough players to justify it or not. Good lord Matt, you've got a half million followers, if you can't create an alternative to D&D that gets enough customers to warrant the cost of making it, how can any of the of the rest of us come remotely close?

He's probably got a pretty sizable overhead at MCDM studios.

 

[Morrus]

He says he's worried that it might not warrant enough players to justify it or not. Good lord Matt, you've got a half million followers, if you can't create an alternative to D&D that gets enough customers to warrant the cost of making it, how can any of the of the rest of us come remotely close?

We’re a 10th his size and we’re doing it just fine. He’ll be more than OK.

 

[The Shadow]

A lot of modern epic fantasy owes a debt to D&D rather than the other way around

Holy controversial assertions, Batman! Meaning no offense to D&D, but IME the more obviously a fantasy book owes a debt to it, the worse it tends to be. The game just plain has different priorities than a novel, and rightly so.