D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[Emerikol]

I don't see RPGs as fiction writing. More like exploring a real-seeming imaginary world through the PCs.

Yeah I don't either but there may be a desire for it because it's a deep seated human desire. It's a thematic element that resonates. So the PCs defeating the villain if done right gives the players a lot of satisfaction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I don't either but there may be a desire for it because it's a deep seated human desire. It's a thematic element that resonates. So the PCs defeating the villain if done right gives the players a lot of satisfaction.

How the PCs perform against their enemies is IMO mostly up to them.

 

[Hussar]

I was born in the 70s and started reading in earnest in the late 80s, and I remember having plenty of fantasy books. It was only later when I actually read Lord of the Rings that I realized how derivitive many of the fantasy books I read actually were. It actually put me off fantasy. Seriously, I forget which book, but one of them featured a dwarf who was reading Lord of the Rings.

There were plenty because you had a choice of books from the past fifty or sixty years. Reprints of Conan and that sort of thing.

There is more original Fantasy (not counting media tie ins) published this year than was published in the entire 20th century.

People forget how minuscule the genre was. It wasn’t until the 80’s that you see the explosion of the genre. And that’s still absolutely dwarfed by how much there is now.

Name three fantasy live action tv shows you watched in the 90’s. I’ve watched three new ones this month.

 

[Parmandur]

There were plenty because you had a choice of books from the past fifty or sixty years. Reprints of Conan and that sort of thing.

There is more original Fantasy (not counting media tie ins) published this year than was published in the entire 20th century.

People forget how minuscule the genre was. It wasn’t until the 80’s that you see the explosion of the genre. And that’s still absolutely dwarfed by how much there is now.

Name three fantasy live action tv shows you watched in the 90’s. I’ve watched three new ones this month.

Yet, to the point, Tolkien is still dominant in sales. Per Brandon Sanderson on his chat podcast, he does the same numbers as Tolkien week to week on Bookscan with brand new, New York Times selling books.

 

[Voadam]

Name three fantasy live action tv shows you watched in the 90’s.

Hercules, Xena, Highlander.

 

[MGibster]

There were plenty because you had a choice of books from the past fifty or sixty years. Reprints of Conan and that sort of thing.

There is more original Fantasy (not counting media tie ins) published this year than was published in the entire 20th century.

I think we might be arguing two different points. I certainly don't doubt there are more fantasy works in produced today than there were forty years ago, but there were plenty of recent fantasy books for me to read in the late 80s and early 90s. I'm talking books that were published from 1970 or later.

Books by Roger Zelazny, Mercedes Lackey, Stephen Donaldson, Raymond Fiest, Robert Jordan, Marion Zimmerman Bradley (unfortunately), Terry Brooks, Robert Aspirin, Stephen King (Dark Tower series is fantasy), Glen Cook, Terry Prachett, David Eddings, and of course the various D&D novels plus all the terrible fantasy books I read by authors few people remember. As far as fantasy books are concerned, new material wasn't lacking in the 70s, 80s, or 90s.

 

[Parmandur]

I think we might be arguing two different points. I certainly don't doubt there are more fantasy works in produced today than there were forty years ago, but there were plenty of recent fantasy books for me to read in the late 80s and early 90s. I'm talking books that were published from 1970 or later.

Books by Roger Zelazny, Mercedes Lackey, Stephen Donaldson, Raymond Fiest, Robert Jordan, Marion Zimmerman Bradley (unfortunately), Terry Brooks, Robert Aspirin, Stephen King (Dark Tower series is fantasy), Glen Cook, Terry Prachett, David Eddings, and of course the various D&D novels plus all the terrible fantasy books I read by authors few people remember. As far as fantasy books are concerned, new material wasn't lacking in the 70s, 80s, or 90s.

And even moresp...even with a bounty of new options, Tolkien is still a major force with a continuously renewing audience.

And more than that, on topic, Tolkien was a pioneer of non-Humanocentric fantasy worlds.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Indeed, and it is wild that people think otherwise. It is thanks to Tolkien that we now commonly have non-humans in fantasy.

As usual, G.K. Chesterton has a wonderful quote for this exact situation:

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition." (Illustrated London News, April 19, 1924)

What once was a radical defiance of prevailing wisdom has become the prevailing wisdom, to be defended against any and all who might violate its sanctity. The hard humanocentrism of the past (which Gygax was much more in favor of, at least in his public-facing writings) has transitioned into medium or soft humanocentrism. The races Tolkien normalized for audiences around the world have become humanity-light, human-by-proxy. You'll note, for example, that there's still a fair amount of pushback against orcish and half-orcish characters, but not against half-elves--the former were monsters in Tolkien's work, while the latter were on the side of heroes (albeit few in number, IIRC only Elrond and his three children, primarily Arwen since we never see her brothers in the trilogy proper).

Tolkien was not a humanocentrist. But his banner has been taken up by that cause, not because it is meaningfully compatible (it isn't, not particularly), but because they can't deny its appeal. Instead, they treat it as the new line in the sand, never to be crossed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't see RPGs as fiction writing. More like exploring a real-seeming imaginary world through the PCs.

One of the most important uses, and impacts, of fiction is to inspire and to help us prepare for the choices we make in life.

Warriors fight with wooden sticks so they can be prepared to fight with sharpened steel. Fiction of all kinds--whether impromptu or prewritten by a specific author or authors--is the wooden practice-sword for facing life's trials.

 

[Emerikol]

How the PCs perform against their enemies is IMO mostly up to them.

I think we are talking past one another. Your response seems out of the blue to me. I'm not questioning PC autonomy or the possibility of failure. I just said that traditional thematic elements are universal and PCs enjoy defeating the bad guy as much as they like watching or reading about the bad guy falling.