How Fantastical Do You Like Your Fantasy World?

[Argyle King]

I'm less concerned with the level of fantasy and more concerned about internal-consistency and in-world plausibility.

By default, I lean toward enjoying a grounded-ish experience somewhere on a venn diagram that includes Arthurian Fantasy, Conan, and low-level D&D.

However, I can and very much do enjoy weird fantasy. The current setting that I'm working on revolves around a city placed on the back of a gargantuan mushroom and resembles Fallout more than D&D.

For me it's more about how it fits together. If there are a lot of common magic items which can mimic contemporary real-world technology, I expect that the setting functions in a way that reflects that. A city in a setting with personalized-Sending Stones and horse-less carriages powered by magic should look more like a modern-day setting and less like a medieval setting.

Likewise, in a setting in which airships, dragon-riders, and flight is commonplace, I expect warfare between kingdoms to resemble WW2 dogfights moreso than battles during the Crusades.

It's weird to me when a setting introduces gonzo fantasy, but then NPCs seem clueless about how the world around them works and then also constructs adventures and challenges in a way that seem out of touch with how the in-game world functions.

 

[Autumnal]

I want the fantastic woven into the fabric of life. Fictional touchstones include Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories, Stephen Donaldson’s The Land, Gene Wolfe’s Urth, and the setting of Michael Swanwick’s amazing short story “The Edge of the World” (helpfully available online, link approved of by the author).

This last is set in the modern day on a flat earth, in a Middle Eastern-ish country in the edge. Companies pump industrial waste over the edge. When he made a state visit, Nixon said, “It is indeed a long way down.” There are spacecraft and satellites offering views from above and around. Monastic orders carve stairs and chambers into the side. And so on. That’s the kind of feeling I want.

In this case, much of the world is presumably not wildly different from reality…apart from geography, I guess, which would have consequences. Swanwick put his story where the weirdness is most fully maximized, and I’d do the same in a campaign.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

If the core species in the first Player's Handbook had been androids, vampires, and wombats, the Forgotten Realms would have been all about androids, vampires, and wombats.

Damn, now I want that setting.

 

[Autumnal]

I would be all over a vampires, robots, and wombats setting.

 

[Bae'zel]

Ah how about this: in session zero, I'd discuss with the players what sorts of things would be a suprise to their characters. What would be considered "mundane" vs. "unexpected and strange".

Street lamps fuelled by Fire elementals? Dinosaurs instead of horses and cattle? Insectoids, vampires and giant humanoid wombats walking in the streets?

In a high fantasy, none of that might be considered weird to the PCs. However, it would be practical to define WHAT WOULD be surprising in such a setting, so as to be able to create shock and awe and dramatic impact for the PCs.

Maybe they've never seen robots? Or Psionics are unheard of? Or perhaps Sorcery is usually limited and restricted by birthright of the nobility?

 

[Laurefindel]

I like it when things are relatable and « feels » like it could be real, or at least coherent with some base assumptions. With that in mind, you can go very very deep in fantasy but at least for the character in the story, their world makes some kind of sense.

I know I’m most comfortable around a low(ish) level of world-altering magic and humano-centric fantasy, but I also like to shake things up and go deep in fantasy themes.

I’m not attracted to gonzo fantasy and mixing too many genres.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I don't want the magical of fantastical to be placed into a game world just because it is cool. There need to be some thought to how it interacts. Magical and the fantastical should not be an answer but a resource in the game.

Personal taste, I like a world like Warhammer or The Witcher, there is magic, strange beast, some crazy tech (airships, portals, indoor toilets, etc.), landscapes and such.

 

[Puddles]

It’s a tricky one for me - definitely more fantastical than GoT, definitely less than Forgotten Realms. Mainly, I really dislike the “the baker is an elf, the candle maker a Dragonborn” of modern D&D. I want the cosmopolitan nature of the party to be the exception and for it to be the first time a commoner has typically seen any non-human race, and for them to be amazed by it. I prefer for settlements of even elves and dwarfs to be rare and hidden away, and for it to be only humans that forge nations and empires.

At the same time, I hate a village or town that is just a collection of houses around a river. I always want to give it something unusual, perhaps it is carved into the base of a cliff, or is built vertically, a series of water-mills all powered from a large waterfall, or built in the ruins of a much older civilisation, or is mining the ores in the bones of a colossal ancient dragon - give me something cool about each settlement please to make it unique.

 

[Bae'zel]

It’s a tricky one for me - definitely more fantastical than GoT, definitely less than Forgotten Realms. Mainly, I really dislike the “the baker is an elf, the candle maker a Dragonborn” of modern D&D. I want the cosmopolitan nature of the party to be the exception and for it to be the first time a commoner has typically seen any non-human race, and for them to be amazed by it. I prefer for settlements of even elves and dwarfs to be rare and hidden away, and for it to be only humans that forge nations and empires.

At the same time, I hate a village or town that is just a collection of houses around a river. I always want to give it something unusual, perhaps it is carved into the base of a cliff, or is built vertically, a series of water-mills all powered from a large waterfall, or built in the ruins of a much older civilisation, or is mining the ores in the bones of a colossal ancient dragon - give me something cool about each settlement please to make it unique.

I'm in the same boat: even in more "low fantasy" settings, for my own sake as a DM, I need to give a fantasy village some kind of unique trait (eg giant tree town, cliffside town, Giant stone head in the town square town etc...). Just so that I can better remember them.

 

[NN]

Id cautiously err on the side of unfantasticalness.

Once play is underway, id much rather turn up the fantastical dial than turn it down.